had never been properly
discussed,  it had  been  somehow  taken  for  granted.  People would  come,
wholesale  dealers  from the market, and buy  up the whole of it. All right.
But what if they didn't come and didn't buy it?
     Meanwhile,  the date for the  second payment on  the note  of hand  was
drawing near, and  two  postcards had come from abroad, with a reminder from
the old woman and a warning that if the payment was not  made punctually she
would at  once protest the  bill, close the agreement and let  the  farm  to
other tenants.
     This took all peace of mind from Vasily Petrovich and he began to  lose
his temper about trifles.
     Auntie  remained cheerful, she made various  plans and fastened a sheet
of  paper  to a  telegraph  post  by the  horse-tram terminus  announcing  a
comfortable cottage of two completely isolated  rooms to let in a delightful
spot on the steppe not far from  the  sea, with  an orchard and vineyard; it
could be  rented  either  for the season or  by the month. Full  service  if
required.
     These  two  separate rooms were  nothing more  nor less  than the  tiny
neglected hut roofed with shingles where Madame Vasyutinskaya's servants had
once lived. It stood  by itself, its windows facing the steppe, amid a thick
growth of  silvery wormwood; to Petya, who had explored the whole place,  it
was a wonderful, mysterious, and very romantic spot.
     However,  people who read the notice and  came to take  a look were not
impressed.  One and all  said the same thing, "You call it 'not far from the
sea'?"
     Gavrik came a number of times to study Latin. He liked the farm, but he
still  had  no  use   for  all  this  business  of  physical  toil  and  the
sweat-of-your-brow, he looked upon it as an eccentric whim.  He  did not say
so straight out,  however.  On the  contrary, he asked very  seriously about
watering, hoeing, crop  prospects  and  the  wholesale price of cherries. He
gave no advice, only shook his head in concern and sighed so sympathetically
that Petya even began to have qualms about the success of their venture.
     Gavrik said little about his work in the print-shop  and  life in  Near
Mills,  he seemed  reluctant to discuss it, but from the little he  did  say
Petya concluded that things were  not going very smoothly. After the big May
Day demonstration which he  had  hardly noticed in his absorption  in exams,
the police had got busy again, there had been house searches and some people
had been arrested; the police had been to the Chernoivanenkos', too, but had
found nothing and Terenty was not arrested.
     "In general, it's hard to work," said Gavrik, and Petya was in no doubt
about the sense in which he used the word "work."
     On  one of his  visits, as  though  continuing that topic, Gavrik  said
suddenly,  "About  renting  out  that  cottage of yours-it's  not such a bad
idea."
     "Yes, but nobody wants it," said Petya.
     "If you look properly you may find someone," Gavrik answered, as though
he had thought it all over.  "There  are people for  whom a place like  that
would be just the very  thing. Not everyone likes to take  a  room in  town,
where you have to hand in your  papers for registration the moment you  move
in. Get me?" he ended sternly, looking very straight at Petya.
     "I get you all right," Petya answered with a shrug.
     "Well then, remember," said Gavrik still  more sternly. "The point is,"
he went on more  gently, almost casually, "I know a widow with  a child,  an
assistant  doctor, she's from another town and she wants  a room where  it's
quiet.  Of  course,  we could fix  her up  in our shed,  but  in  Near Mills
conditions aren't all we want-you understand? Such a watch kept, it's no use
trying. The widow's  got all her. papers  in order, you've no need  to worry
about that."
     "I understand," said Petya.
     "Well,  I needn't explain any more, then.  Terenty told me to sound you
out about it. I've never  seen her myself. But I'm sure  she'll be all right
with you. A quiet place,  like a farm really,  neither town nor village, and
plenty of  summer cottages all round. Who'll  ever notice her? Couldn't find
anything better. Now the next question- what's the rent?"
     "I believe it's seventy rubles for the season."
     "Eh, lad, that's opening your mouth a bit too wide! You'll get  nothing
that way. Fifteen rubles a month's a good fair price. She can pay two months
in advance. But what's the sense of talking to you about it? I'll go to your
aunt."
     Gavrik did talk  to  Auntie and  soon convinced  her that it  would  be
better to have a real, concrete thirty rubles-which weren't to be  picked up
on  the ground- rather than an imaginary seventy. As for the  widow  and her
child, Gavrik said nothing about her but made it clear that he had specially
sought out a suitable tenant for them and was thus doing the Bachei family a
very good turn-although he made no actual promises.
     The  rain  did  not  come.  The  drought continued  and  the  heat  was
suffocating.


        THE DEATH OF WARDEN


     Warden was fed  freshly cut hay instead of oats to save money, and fell
sick with a stomach disorder; for the fourth day he lay with distended belly
on his straw, too weak even to raise himself on his forefeet, let alone pull
the  water-cart. The German vet came from  Lustdorf, examined the  horse and
looked into his gaping mouth. To  Auntie's question whether he would be able
to  pull  the cart again, the  vet answered,  "That horse  has  done all his
pulling. Time to send him to the knacker's."
     The ovaries on the trees ceased to swell; they  looked as if they would
never grow any  bigger, but remain as they  were, the size of peas. And most
dreadful of all, some of them turned yellow and dropped off.
     The Bacheis continued earthing up trees from morning to night, although
they felt it was useless labour.
     "Auntie,  Daddy,  Petya, come  quick,  the Persians  are  here!"  cried
Pavlik, racing up  to them  under the  low boughs  of the trees,  waving his
straw hat.
     In  reality   these  were   not   Persians  at  all,  they   were   two
powerfully-built Jews  in dark-blue  belted  shirts hung to their  knees and
tall  sheepskin hats pulled  low over their brows-dealers who  bought  fruit
wholesale,  and were  called  Persians because in the old days Persians  had
done all this type of fruit-trading in Odessa.
     Petya  saw  two  men  standing by  the  dry  water  barrel  with  faces
expressionless as those of carved idols. He gazed at them as at the arbiters
of fate, with fear and hope. Even at the exams he had been less agitated.
     The whole Bachei family surrounded the Persians.
     One of them addressed Auntie.
     "Are you the  mistress  here?"  he asked in  a  low rumbling voice that
seemed to  issue from his stomach.  "We'll take a look  at  your crop, maybe
we'll buy it on the tree-if there's anything left of it."
     Without waiting for an answer, both Persians walked along the overgrown
paths, glancing carelessly  at the trees and now and  then stopping to touch
an ovary or feel the soil round the roots.
     The  Bacheis followed them  in silence, trying to guess their thoughts.
Although  the men's faces remained  expressionless, it  was  plain  that the
situation  was  really  bad. When they had  finished  their examination, the
Persians brought  their sheepskin hats  close together  and  whispered for a
moment.
     "They need water," said  one,  addressing Auntie;  they whispered again
and walked silently away.
     "Well?" asked  Auntie, following them  with tiny  steps  and overtaking
them at the gate.
     "They  need  water,"  the man repeated, halting, and after  a  moment's
thought he added, "fruit like that we wouldn't take even as a gift."
     "Come now,  you're  exaggerating," said Auntie  with a kind  of  forced
coquettishness, trying to turn it into a joke, "Let's be serious."
     "Well, we'll give you  twelve rubles for the whole crop as  it  stands,
take  it or  leave it,"  the  man answered and pushed his hat lower over his
brows.
     Auntie flushed with indignation. Such an  absurd sum  as  twelve rubles
was an insult. She could hardly believe her ears.
     "What's that? How much did you say?"
     "Twelve rubles," the man repeated roughly.
     "Vasily Petrovich,  you  hear  what they're  offering?"  cried  Auntie,
clasping her hands and forcing a laugh.
     "What's wrong with that?  It's a good price," said the Persian. "Better
take it  while you can get  it,  in another week you won't get five,  you'll
just have blistered your hands for nothing."
     "Boor!" said Auntie.
     "Sirs,  will you kindly  get out of here!" cried Vasily Petrovich,  and
his jaw shook. "Outside! Out, I say! Gavrila, put them out, throw them  out!
Robbers!" And Vasily Petrovich stamped his foot.
     "No  need for abuse," said the Persian quite  pacifically. "First learn
to look after your fruit, then it'll be time enough to shout."
     So the men left, not forgetting to shut the gate behind them.
     "Just think, the  impudence of it!"  Auntie kept repeating. She dropped
her spade and fanned herself with her handkerchief.
     "Now, don't you go getting upset about it, ma'am," said Gavrila.  "Just
take no  notice.  They only came to push  down the price. I know their sort.
But what they said  about  water, that's right. Our orchard has  to have it.
The trees  want  water. No  water, no crop. And  there you are, the horse is
down.  No  way to bring it. If  only  it would rain  now. Water-you can't do
without it."
     Scant comfort in that.
     They  tried to hire a horse from the  German settlers in  Lustdorf, but
nothing  came of it: first  the Germans named  an impossibly high price, and
then refused  point-blank,  saying they needed their  horses themselves. The
real  fact  was  that they  all  had their  own  orchards and the  ruin of a
competitor just suited them.
     "Amazing, how  unneighbourly  they are!"  cried Auntie  at dinner-time,
cracking her fingers, a thing she had never done before.
     "What's  to  be  done, what's  to  be done,"  mumbled Vasily Petrovich,
bending a little too low over his plate. "Homo homini lupus est, which means
'Man's a  wolf  to  man'.... If you  remember, I told  you at the time  this
stupid idea of trading  in fruit would end badly." His ears turned  red as a
cock's comb.
     He had said  it would end badly-he could well have said it would end in
complete ruin. It was clear without words. Auntie turned  pale with the pain
of hearing  these cruel,  unjust words. Her eyes filled with  tears  and her
lips trembled.
     "Vasily  Petrovich,  aren't  you  ashamed,"  she said imploringly,  her
fingers at her temples.
     "Why should I be  ashamed? It's all your fantastic idea ...  your crazy
idea...."
     Vasily  Petrovich could  no  longer stop,  he had  lost all control  of
himself. He jumped up and suddenly saw Pavlik apparently holding his nose so
as not  to  giggle; actually the boy was biting his fingers  desperately  to
keep himself from crying.
     "What!" yelled Vasily Petrovich  in  a voice not his own. "You have the
impudence to laugh! I'll  teach you  to respect your father! Stand  up,  you
rascal, when your father speaks to you!"
     "Dad-Daddy!" sobbed  Pavlik,  and clapped his hands  over  his face  in
terror.
     But Vasily Petrovich was beyond understanding. He  picked  up his plate
of soup  and smashed it down  on  the floor.  Then  he twisted his arm round
awkwardly, gave Pavlik a buffet on the back of the neck and rushed out  into
the  orchard,  slamming  the door  behind him  with  such violence  that the
coloured glass at the top fell in shattered fragments.
     "I  can't live  in this madhouse any longer!" Petya  suddenly screamed.
"Damn you! I'm going to Near Mills and I'm not coming back!" He ran into his
room to put his things together.
     Altogether,  it was a shameful, degrading scene. One might have thought
they had all lost their senses, gone mad as dogs do in the heat.
     The heat certainly was dreadful-close, exhausting,  dry, burning-enough
to  drive anybody mad.  The pale sky  seemed to have a  dull, scorching veil
drawn over it. Waves of heat came from the steppe as they come from the open
door of an  oven. Hot winds carried clouds of dust. The acacias rustled with
a dry, papery sound and the grass was grey. The strip of  sea on the horizon
looked brown, speckled with greyish-white foam; and whenever the roar of the
wind died down one could hear the sound of waves-dry and monotonous like the
distant rattle of pebbles thrown on to some huge sieve.
     The  dusty  shadows  of  trees  flickered on the walls and ceilings  of
rooms. A terrible day.... Not  only Petya but  Vasily Petrovich, Auntie  and
even Pavlik were ready to collect their belongings and run away-anywhere, to
get  away from the sight of  one another and the mutual sense of injury. But
of course nobody did run away, they only wandered aimlessly about in the hot
rooms  and along  the  rustling paths. They felt  fettered  to this wretched
place which had at first looked like heaven on earth.
     Towards evening a figure appeared in  the orchard-a short, stout man in
a tall sheepskin hat, but brown this time instead of black. This was another
Persian, a real one  this time, with long eastern moustaches  and languorous
eyes. He went quickly round the orchard  leaning ion a short stick, and then
stood beside the kitchen  waiting  for  somebody  to  come out.  As  no  one
appeared,  however, he went to the  house and rapped on the window  with his
stick.
     When Auntie  peeped out, he  said, "Hi, Mistress!"  and  pointed at the
orchard with a yellow hand adorned with dirty nails. "I'll buy your crop for
five rubles. Better take it or you'll be sorry later."
     "Ruffian!" cried  Auntie in a  dreadful voice. "Gavrila, what  are  you
about? Throw him out!"
     But the  real Persian did  not wait for Gavrila,  he ran off with small
limping steps and disappeared in an instant.
     Then came the third postcard from Madame  Vasyutinskaya, reminding them
of the date for the next payment.
     Nobody wanted  any  supper  that  day,  and for a long  time  the  four
soup-plates  of yoghurt sprinkled with sugar stood untouched on the table on
the veranda.
     In  the middle of  the  night a dreadful,  inhuman,  bloodcurdling  cry
awakened everybody. What could it be? Outside the windows the black outlines
of the fruit trees swayed as in fever. Then the cry was repeated, still more
dreadful,  with  a kind of  screaming, sobbing  laugh  in  it. Somebody came
running along the path, waving a lantern. Then there was  a battering on the
glazed  door  that shook  the  house. Gavrila  stood on the step, waving his
lantern.
     "Come quick, ma'am, Warden's dying," he cried in a frightened voice.
     Petya  flung something on  and raced to the stable, trembling from head
to foot. Auntie, Vasily Petrovich, Dunyasha and Pavlik, barefoot and wrapped
in a blanket, stood huddled round the door.
     Gavrila's  lantern  shed an ominous  light inside the stable.  He could
hear the deep,  vibrating groans of the dying horse. They  stood  petrified,
helpless, unable to think of any way to stave off this catastrophe.
     Just before  dawn the horse gave one last  dreadful scream vibrant with
pain  and terror,  and  then  fell silent for ever. In  the morning  a  cart
arrived  and he  was taken out  somewhere far away on the steppe-huge, bony,
black,  with bared teeth and long outstretched legs ending in cracked  hoofs
and shining, worn iron shoes.


        THE WIDOW WITH A CHILD


     They were all so crushed by this disaster that nobody did any work  all
day. The  death of Warden was not only a bad omen, it  was the final blow to
all  their  hopes, it  meant  inevitable ruin for the  family. Utter despair
reigned.
     After dinner the wind died down  somewhat but the sultry heat was worse
than ever. Not a cloud could be  seen in the pale, dusty-looking sky. A band
of  lilac  lay  along  the  horizon,  a   deceptive  reflection  of  distant
thunderstorms  that constantly  gathered  but never  broke. This was not the
first time there  had  been  a promise  of  storm, but  it  had always  been
followed by disappointment, either  the cloud had melted  away imperceptibly
in the scorching air or it had passed by  and broken somewhere  out  to sea,
with a useless rolling of thunder echoing over the steppe.
     Today it  was the same. The storm broke far away. Nobody was surprised,
they  had already  lost all hope of rain, although that was  the only chance
left for the crop. Petya was  weary after a sleepless night; he did not know
what to do with  himself  and wandered out on  the steppe, roaming aimlessly
until a  big circuit brought  him to the sea.  He  climbed down  the  cliff,
clutching at roots and boulders, and finally sat down on the hot pebbles.
     The water  was  still heaving after the storm  of the previous day, but
the waves, heavy with seaweed,  no longer beat angrily against the beach but
rolled smoothly up it, leaving stranded jelly-fish and dead sea-horses.
     It  was a wild, deserted strip of  coast,  and  Petya, who  had all day
longed to  be alone, felt easier there, lapped in a quiet melancholy. It was
a long  time since  he had bathed and now he  undressed quickly  and slipped
with pleasure into the warm, foamy water.
     There was a  special,  inexplicable delight in this bathe which he took
quite alone. First he  swam along the  shore for a little way among slippery
rocks washed by the sea and covered with  brown weeds, then he turned out to
sea. As usual,  he swam on  his  side, kicking  his legs  like  a  frog  and
flinging one hand forward in a broad  overarm swing.  He pushed his shoulder
through the waves, trying to raise  that splash which  made him feel  he was
cutting swiftly  through the water although in reality his speed was nothing
wonderful.  He was  very pleased with  himself. He  particularly  liked that
shoulder which  pushed  through  the  water-brown, smooth  as  silk under  a
gleaming wet film that reflected the sunshine.
     The time had long  passed when  he had been afraid to  go far  from the
shore. He would strike out boldly for the open sea and then turn over on his
back, let  the waves rock him, and  stare  up  at  the sky until he  had the
feeling  that he was looking down  at it, hanging, void of weight, in space.
The whole world  vanished, he  forgot  everything  but  himself,  alone  and
all-powerful.
     Now too, he  swam out about a  mile, turned  over... and gasped  at the
change that had taken place around him. The sky overhead was still clear and
the  sea shone with a  hot, blinding  glare, but it had a hard glitter, like
the glitter of anthracite.
     Petya looked  back to  the shore. Over the narrow  strip of cliff, over
the  steppe  hung  something  huge,  black,  surging  and-most  terrible  of
all-quite  silent.  Before  Petya  had  time  to  realize that  this  was  a
thundercloud it  rolled up  to the sun,  which was  blindingly white like  a
magnesium  flare, and  swallowed  it  up in  an  instant, extinguishing  all
colours from the world so that everything became a leaden grey.
     Petya swam back as fast as he could, and anyway he could, trying to get
ashore before  the storm burst. Far away on the steppe, under the slaty sky,
he could see whirling dust-devils chasing one another.  And when  he climbed
up the beach and turned to look at the sea, the place where he had only just
been was already a seething mass of foam whipped by a squall, with sea-gulls
flying wildly over.
     Petya barely managed to catch his  trousers and shirt as they fled with
the  wind along the beach. While he was climbing the cliff everything turned
as dark as late evening. He raced at  top  speed to  the horse-tram terminus
where rails were being laid for electric trams and concrete poured for a new
building. Just as  he got there lightning flashed, there was a great bang of
thunder and  in the  hush  that  followed  he  could  hear  the roar  of the
approaching downpour.
     Petya ran on to the road,  and as though some gate  had opened, a sharp
scent of wet hemp struck him, followed by a solid wall of rain.
     In an instant the road became a river. The lightning flashes showed him
the foaming torrent that swirled  round his  legs. His feet  'slipped. There
was no sense trying to get  home through  that. Up to the knees  in water he
made  his  way back  to the tram-shelter,  crossing  himself every time  the
lightning flashed close by with an almost  simultaneous clap of thunder.  It
was  only as he slipped down into a deep gutter that Petya suddenly realized
this  was  the thunderstorm, the downpour, for which the whole Bachei family
had waited so desperately. It was not ordinary water, it was the water which
would soak the orchard, fill the empty cistern and save them from ruin.
     "Hurrah!"  shouted Petya  and ran  through  the storm to  the farm,  no
longer afraid of anything.
     He slipped and fell several times on the way, flopping  full length  in
the mud, but  now this warm  mud felt  wonderful.  When  he reached home the
sunset showed dimly through a  break in the main-clouds and the storm rolled
away out to sea where  lightning flashed convulsively and thunder snarled on
a dark-blue horizon. But  Petya had hardly time to race along  the paths and
admire the muddy water filling the hollows round the trees, to plant a happy
kiss on  his father's wet beard, to give Pavlik a friendly buffet and shout,
"Grand,  Auntie,  isn't it?" before the storm came back,  more  violent than
ever.
     Several  times  after that it circled over the sea and returned  again.
The rain  continued  all  through the night, sometimes pouring in  torrents,
sometimes stealthily quiet, barely  audible, while under the trees thousands
of tiny  streams glittered in  the lightning  flashes  which  illumined  the
orchard with all its distant, mysterious corners.
     The whole night Gavrila, a sack over his head,  ran round the house and
over the roof fixing  up the pipes that collected the water and poured it in
rapid torrents  into the cistern.  And to the noise of the  filling  cistern
Petya fell into a deep, happy sleep.
     It was late when he awakened. A rosy sun shone like a jewel through the
warm  mist,  and the wet  garden  was full  of bird-song. Auntie  looked  in
through the open window.
     "Get up, lazy-bones!" she called gaily.  "While you've been asleep, our
tenants have come!"
     "The widow with a child?" asked Petya yawning.
     "The very same," Auntie answered with the mischievous smile that showed
her spirits were excellent. "There's tea ready, come along."
     Of course, Petya wanted to see  the  widow and child, so he  hurried to
the veranda.
     He halted, thunderstruck.
     Sitting at  the  table  between  Vasily  Petrovich  and Pavlik,  calmly
drinking  tea, were  that same  lady  and  that  same girl he  had  seen the
previous year at the station in Naples.
     He  gave his head a shake as  though a cinder  had  flown  into his eye
again.
     "Ah,  here's  our Petya,  let me introduce him,"  said  Auntie with her
society smile.
     Petya almost burst out with "We know each other already," but something
held him back. Blushing, he went round the table, clicked his heels politely
and waited for the lady to extend her hand first, as a well-bred boy should.
After clasping the  cool, slender  fingers of the mother, Petya looked  with
secret hope at  the  daughter,  asking  with  his  eyes whether she  did not
remember him.
     But the girl only looked surprised at Petya's queer expression and held
out  her  little  hand  indifferently,  saying,  "Marina."  That  was  quite
unexpected,  for in  accordance with  character  portrayal  by  Pushkin  and
Goncharov, Petya had  always thought of  her as Tanya or  Vera.  And now she
turned out to be  Marina.  Petya eyed her with frank reproach, as though she
had deceived him.
     She  looked  just  the same as she  had  in Naples, with the same short
summer  coat, the same black hair-ribbon and  the  same  little jutting chin
that  gave  her  pretty  face  with  its  rather high cheek-bones  a  lofty,
unapproachable expression.  Her  hazel  eyes  were cold and  disapproving as
though asking, "What do you want of me?"
     "Frailty, thy  name is  woman," thought Petya  bitterly, and then  with
still  greater bitterness realized that she had not  forgotten him, she  had
never even noticed him.
     Petya felt insulted, his pride had suffered a blow.
     "In that case, all is over between us," he said with his eyes, and with
a cold, indifferent shrug he turned and went to his place.
     "Stop making faces," said Auntie.
     "I'm  not making faces," Petya answered, and straightaway stuffed  soft
bread in his tea to make a "pudding." The way of making it was this: you put
pieces of soft bread in  a half-filled glass  of tea,  then  when  the bread
swelled  you turned the glass upside down on the saucer, producing something
which by  a  great  stretch  of imagination  resembled a pudding.  This  was
considered bad manners in the Bachei family, so Vasily Petrovich  gave Petya
a  very  stern look through his  glasses and tapped the table with his index
finger.
     "I shall send you away!"
     "Please, don't think he  doesn't  know how  to behave,  he's just shy,"
said  Auntie,  addressing  the  mother  but  with  a   sly  glance  at   the
daughter-which made Petya snort and start messing the "pudding"  up with his
teaspoon.
     Marina's  mother,  however,   was  disinclined   to  keep   the  polite
conversation going.  She evidently  found  no  pleasure  in this  ceremonial
tea-drinking with strangers, people who happened to be letting her rooms but
who otherwise did not interest her in the least.
     She was a brunette with a  small,  jutting chin  like her daughter's, a
dark shadow on her upper lip, a shabby widow's bonnet and wary eyes.
     "About the rent," she said, continuing the talk which Petya's  entrance
had interrupted. "I was told that it's fifteen rubles a month. That suits me
very  well  and I'd like to pay two months  in  advance, thirty rubles." She
opened a black bag like the ones midwives carry and took out some notes. "We
shan't  want board, we've a kerosene stove and  we'll  manage for ourselves.
Here is the money, exactly thirty rubles."
     "Oh, that's quite all right,"  mumbled Auntie, flushing and embarrassed
as  she always was when money  was discussed.  "You don't need to give it me
now  ...  later would do.... Well,  merci, then." She pushed the money which
had a slight hospital smell carelessly under the sugar-bowl.
     Marina's mother put  her  hand  in  her  bag again  as  though  seeking
something  else (her papers, thought Petya), but evidently changed her mind,
took her hand out and snapped the bag to with a decisive click.
     "And now if you don't mind, I'd like to go to our rooms," she said.
     Refusing assistance,  mother and daughter picked up their belongings-an
oilcloth satchel,  a  kerosene  stove  wrapped in newspaper,  a  bag  and an
umbrella-and crossed the garden to the cottage, leaving deep imprints on the
wet paths.
     "A  rather strange woman," observed  Vasily Petrovich. "But  after all,
what's that got to do with us?"
     "In any case,  she seems quite cultured," said Auntie with a sigh, took
the money out from under  the  sugar-bowl and  slipped it into the pocket of
her smart apron.
     For a little while  the weather cleared, and the garden sparkled in the
hot sunshine. But hardly had the Bacheis picked up their spades and gone out
to start work when the clouds gathered again and the  rain recommenced,  but
this  time a warm, gentle rain, just the kind needed to ensure  a good crop.
It went on  with short breaks for a whole week, and in that week  the garden
was literally transformed.
     The ovaries swelled before  their eyes, promising  excellent fruit. The
trees seemed to be thick  with cherries-still green, it is true, but getting
ready to change colour. With all this a spirit of gaiety, hope and affection
reigned among the Bacheis, and nobody noticed the change in Petya.


        THE SECRET NOTE


     For  some  time  the  boy  had been  in  a  constant  state of  subdued
excitement. A tense half-smile kept flitting over  his face. He did not know
what to do with himself, especially as all the trees were already earthed up
and  well watered  by  the rain,  so  that there was  no  work  to keep  him
occupied.  Petya's  heart  and mind were  concentrated  on  one aim -to  see
Marina. Simple  enough, one might think. She was  living  right beside  him.
They had been introduced. They could see each other a dozen times a day. But
it was not like that at all.
     The Pavlovskayas (that  was their  name) never left their rooms,  never
appeared in the garden. Evidently they avoided society-or to put it plainly,
they were in  hiding. Petya understood that well enough, but it made matters
no easier for him.
     For a whole week he saw Marina  only  once, and that was at a distance.
She was returning from  the terminus, waist-deep in wheat, holding up a  big
black umbrella and carrying a tin can-evidently for kerosene.
     Petya raced home, put on his cape  and started walking up  and down  by
the gate with a most  casual,  indifferent  air. But Marina  took  the  path
through  the fields  and  Petya only  caught a  glimpse  of her  closing the
umbrella and disappearing into the cottage.
     Petya roamed about  the orchard a long time  in the  rain, choosing the
parts  that  gave  him a  view of the cottage, but the girl did  not  appear
again.
     Late that  evening,  when darkness fell, Petya-holding his  breath  and
inwardly despising himself-crept up to the cottage  and crouched down in the
thick wormwood  that  showered him  from  head  to foot  with  the  aromatic
rain-water from its leaves.
     One  of the windows was dark but the  other was  pale with candlelight.
Looking  in, Petya saw Marina's bent head and her moving hand as  she  wrote
earnestly;  the  light  gave her  fingers the  faintly  transparent  look of
porcelain. Behind her  the large shadow of  Madame  Pavlovskaya moved up and
down  the  whitewashed  wall raising and lowing  an  open book-from which he
could conclude that Marina was writing dictation.
     This sobered Petya a little, it even brought a scornful smile.
     At that moment the girl's  hand  halted  in  indecision.  Marina sought
counsel on the ceiling. Petya could see her jutting chin,  frowning brow and
narrowed  eyes; on  one of them she  had a  sty  coming.  As  she  gazed  in
puzzlement at the  ceiling she  licked her lips once  or  twice, and  such a
sudden  wave of emotion shook Petya that  he shut his eyes. No, never in all
his  life had  he loved  anyone as  he  loved this dark-haired girl with the
independent, jutting chin and the sty coming on her eye.
     He had loved her for a  long time, a year  already. But before this she
had  been  a dream, a phantasy.  He  had  almost  ceased to  believe  in her
existence.-He had  forgotten her to  such an extent that  sometimes he could
not even picture  her. It had  not really  been love, only  a premonition of
love,  mingled with the blizzard in  the mountains,  the  black swans  round
Rousseau's island,  the sulphurous smoke  of Vesuvius, the  vague  imaginary
picture  of Paris, the magic words  "Longjumeau" and  "Marie Rose"-in short,
everything which  a  year before had captured  his imagination and wrung his
heart.
     Now   it  was  an  ordinary,  everyday  love,   alluring  in  its  very
accessibility. Marina  was no  longer loftily unapproachable,  there  was no
more  mystery about her. Just an  ordinary girl, not even especially pretty,
with a sty  on her eye, writing dictation. Tomorrow she would  go  out for a
walk in the garden and he would go up and talk to her. They would talk for a
long time and then they would never part again.
     Petya  went home to bed and fell asleep in the blissful certainty  that
on the morrow a new, delightful life  was going to begin. He could  even see
himself  as  Yevgeny  Onegin  and her  as  Tatyana, anticipating  the secret
rendezvous  at which he would at first "instruct the lady  of his heart" and
then say he'd been joking and take her arm.
     But nothing of the kind happened.
     Marina still did not  appear, and  Petya reproached  her inwardly, even
called her a fair deceiver, as though she had made him some promise. Then he
resolved to chastise her by indifference, to take no more notice of her. For
a whole day he kept his eyes away from their windows.  Of course it was very
cruel, but it had to  be done. Let her  realize what he was capable of if he
were deceived. She had only herself to blame.
     The  next day Petya  decided to let  wrath  give  way to kindness, for,
after all, he loved her. Again he began eyeing the cottage from afar. But it
was all no good, she did not appear.
     After that he so far lost the mastery over himself as to risk going  up
quite close a number  of times. He noticed that a  new path had been  beaten
from the door, leading out into the  steppe. Aha,  so that was why she never
appeared in the garden! She preferred wandering over the steppe. And what if
that narrow  path were nothing other than a hint, an  invitation to a secret
rendezvous?  Heavens above,  how had  he failed to understand!  Why,  it was
clear  as  daylight!  So  he  began  roaming  about  the   steppe,  glancing
impatiently at the cottage. At any moment she would see him and come out. He
would be tender, but firm.
     The only fly in the ointment was that the weather had turned hot again,
too hot for his cape.
     But  alas!-she  still  stayed   inside.  It   seemed  as  if  she  were
deliberately mocking him.
     "You wait,"  thought Petya.  "Your kerosene will come to  an end,  then
we'll see!"
     As though  to taunt him, the  weather  was  wonderful. The  lilacs were
over, but white acacia and jasmine were in full bloom,  filling the air with
their sweet, languorous fragrance. At night the added scent of night violets
and flowering tobacco made the air still more intoxicating, their pale stars
vaguely visible in the twilight on the luxuriant flower-beds in front of the
house.
     In the evening a great golden moon rose over the  sea, and by  midnight
it hung over the steppe, bathing everything in a warm, jasmine light.
     Could anything be more romantic? And all of it wasted!
     Weary of  idleness  and  love, Petya could  neither  sleep  nor eat. He
became thin and haggard and his eyes had a restless glitter.
     "What's the matter, fallen in love?"  asked Auntie, looking at him with
curiosity.
     Petya wanted to wither her with a glance, but all he managed was such a
pitiful travesty of a smile that she shrugged her shoulders.
     The end of it all was that Petya decided  to write a diary. He found an
old  exercise book, tore  out some  pages with algebra  problems and  wrote,
"Love has come to me...." He had expected it would be perfectly easy to fill
the whole book with a detailed description of his emotions, which he felt to
be so extraordinary and so vast. But try as he would, he could find -nothing
more to add, such was the surging confusion of his mind.
     Then he turned desperately to the last resort-to write her a letter and
appoint a rendezvous.
     Of  course,  there  was nothing so very  extraordinary  about that. But
Petya's condition had reached the stage where the object of one's love seems
a  being of a  loftier sphere, an ideal  far above ordinary human relations,
even though  she does go to buy kerosene with an umbrella over her head,  or
even writes dictation.
     However, there was nothing else left to do.
     For love-letters  it was common to use what were called "secret notes,"
very popular in the "flying post," game played at parties.  These were small
pieces of coloured paper with perforated glued edges, which could be doubled
and sealed, serving as notepaper and envelope. To open them one tore off the
perforated part. They came under the same category as confetti, serpentines,
silken masks and other ball-room trifles. These were  the proper medium  for
tender messages. But Petya had none, and  there was nowhere to buy them. The
best he could do was to fold a sheet of paper torn from an exercise book and
himself make pin-holes along its loose edges.
     This  took some effort,  but to write  the note itself was still worse.
Petya wrote five rough copies before he achieved the following:
     "Marina!! I must speak to you about  something very important. Come out
to the steppe tomorrow at exactly eight in  the evening. I do not sign this,
for I  hope  you can guess the sender." Petya  heavily  underlined the words
"something very important," secretly relying on feminine curiosity.
     He went into the orchard  and scratched some resin from a cherry  tree.
With  considerable satisfaction  he chewed it  soft, stuck the note together
with it and wrote on the outside, "To Marina. Personal and private."
     Petya slipped  the note into  his pocket and went straight  off to look
for  Pavlik. He found  him in the stable. And  found him playing  cards with
Gavrila. At  the  moment of Petya's appearance he was kneeling  with  raised
hand, preparing to slam down the ace of hearts  with all the force  of which
he was capable on a rubbed,  worn  knave that  lay on  the ground beside the
pack, surrounded by crawling insects and piles of small coins.
     Pavlik's  face  was  filled  with  reckless  excitement,  but  Gavrila,
kneeling opposite,  looked downcast, and drops  of sweat ran  down  his long
freckled nose.
     "Aha," thought Petya, "so this is  how my fine brother  spends the day,
this is what idleness can lead to!"
     "Pavlik, come here!" he said sternly.
     Pavlik jumped as though stung, and with a quick, agile movement twisted
round and sat on the pack, looking at his brother with innocent brown eyes.
     "Come here!" Petya repeated with increased sternness.
     "Now don't take it wrong, young master," said Gavrila, forcing a laugh.
"We're not gambling,  we're just fooling about to pass the time, like. May I
die here on the spot if we're not!"
     "Tell-tale-tit!" chanted Pavlik, just in case, inconspicuously scraping
out the money from under him.
     Petya, however, only frowned and shrugged his shoulders.
     "That's not what I'm after," he said. "Come here."
     He led Pavlik away into the bushes, halted with legs astride and bent a
stern look on him.
     "It's  this-"  He stopped,  at a loss for a  moment.  "I want you to do
something for me ... or rather, not to do something, to go on an errand."
     "I know, I know," said Pavlik quickly.
     "What do you know?" asked Petya, frowning.
     "I know what you want. You want me to take  a note to  that  new  girl.
Isn't that it?"
     "How did you guess?" cried the startled Petya.
     "Huh!" Pavlik answered scornfully. "D'you  think  I can't see the silly
way you're going on? But you needn't try to get me to take your notes 'cause
I won't!"
     "Oh yes, you will," said Petya menacingly.
     "Think you're somebody, don't you!" said Pavlik  boldly, but retreating
a step to be on the safe side.
     "You will go!" Petya hissed obstinately.
     "No I won't."
     "Yes you will!"
     "No I won't, and you  can stop ordering me about, too. I'm not a kid to
run after girls with  your notes. Go there and  have Madame Pavlovskaya pull
my ears, eh? I'm not such a fool!"
     "So you won't go, won't you?" asked Petya with an ominous smile.
     "No I won't!"
     "All right, so much the worse for you!"
     "And what'll happen?"
     "Simply that I'll go right away and tell Father you're gambling."
     "And I'll go right  away and  tell everyone you're in love with the new
girl and you're writing her sloppy notes and you sit in  the weeds under her
window and stop her learning her lessons and everybody'll laugh at you. Aha,
got you!"
     "You little worm," said Petya.
     "You're another."
     "All the same, you'd better hold your tongue," said Petya dully.
     "I'll hold mine if you hold yours."
     With  those  words Pavlik strutted back  to the  stable  where Gavrila,
bored with nothing to do, was lying en the ground shuffling the cards.
     No hope there.
     That night Petya again crept  to the cottage and sat among the wormwood
for  a long time, plucking up courage to  toss the note  in through the open
window. This time  the whole house  was dark, evidently  b