ollegiate Counsellor" . . . "How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice". . . . "Ugh, what nonsense!" Petya read in Father's embarrassed face. "For shame!" Meanwhile, in the general excitement, the driver had lost the thong of his whip; this always happened on long journeys. He was now walking along the road and poking with the whip-handle among the grey, dust-coated wormwood. At last he found the thong. He tied it to the handle and pulled the knot with his teeth. "Damn their souls!" he exclaimed as he came up to the coach. "All they do is ride up and down the roads and scare people." "What do they want?" Father asked. "God only knows. Hunting after somebody, no doubt. Day before yesterday somebody set fire to landlord Balabanov's farm, about thirty versts from here. They say it was a runaway sailor from the Potemkin did it. And now they're looking for that runaway sailor high and low. They say he's taken to cover somewhere in the steppe hereabouts. What a business! Well, time to get going." With these words he climbed to his high box and took up the reins. The coach moved on. The morning was as fine as ever, but now everybody's mood was spoiled. In this wonderful world of the deep-blue sky with its wild droves of white-maned clouds, this world of lilac shadows running in waves from mound to mound over the steppe grasses, in which a horse's skull or a bullock's horns might be sighted at any moment, a world created, it would seem, for the sole purpose of man's joy and happiness- in this world, obviously, not all was well. Such were the thoughts of Father, the driver, and Petya. Pavlik, however, was occupied with thoughts of his own. His attentive brown eyes were fixed on a point beyond the window, and his round, cream-coloured little forehead, with the neat bang sticking out from under his hat, was knitted. "Daddy," he said suddenly, without taking his eyes from the window. "Daddy, what's the Tsar?" "What's the Tsar? I don't follow you." "Well, what is he?" "Hm. . . . A man." "No, not that. I know he's a man. Don't you see? I mean not a man, but what is he? Understand?" "No, I can't say that I do." "I mean, what is he?" "Ye Gods! What is he? Well, the crowned sovereign, if you like." "Crowned? What with?" Father gave Pavlik a severe look. "Wha-a-t?" "If he's crowned, then what with? Don't you see? What with?" "Stop talking nonsense!" Father said. He turned away angrily. 4 THE WATERING At about ten o'clock in the morning they stopped in a large half-Moldavian, half-Ukrainian village to water the horses. Father took Pavlik by the hand and went off to buy some cantaloupes. Petya remained near the horses. He wanted to see them being watered. The horses which had pulled the big lumbering coach were led by the driver to the well; it was the kind known as a "crane-well". The driver stuck his whip into his boot-top and took hold of the long pole that hung vertically and had a heavy oak bucket attached by a chain to the end. Moving one hand over the other up the pole, he lowered the bucket into the well. The sweep creaked. Its top end swung down, as if trying to peep into the well, while the other end, which had a large porous rock tied to it as a counterweight, glided upwards. Petya flattened himself against the edge of the well and looked down into it as if it were a telescope. The shaft was round, and its stone lining was covered with dark-brown velvety mould. It was very deep. In the cold darkness at the bottom there gleamed a tiny circle of water in which Petya saw his hat reflected with photographic distinctness. He shouted. The well filled with a resounding roar, the way a clay pitcher does. Down and down and down the bucket went. It became altogether tiny, but still it did not reach the water. Finally a faint splash sounded. The bucket sank into the water, gurgled, and then began to rise. Heavy drops slapped down into the water, making noises like caps exploding. The pole, polished by countless hands to the smoothness of glass, took a long time to rise. At last the wet chain appeared. The sweep creaked for the last time. The driver seized the heavy bucket with his strong hands and emptied it into the stone trough. But first he drank out of the bucket himself. Then Petya drank. That was the most thrilling moment in the whole procedure of watering the horses. The water was as transparent as could be, and as cold as ice. Petya dipped his nose and chin into it. The inside of the bucket was coated with a beard of green slime. The bucket and the slime had an almost weird fascination. There was something very, very old about them, something reminding him of the forest, of the Russian fairy-tale about the wooden mill, the Miller who was a sorcerer, the deep mill-pond, and the Frog Princess. Petya's forehead immediately began to ache from the ice water. But it was a hot day, and he knew that the ache would soon pass. He also knew for certain that about eight or ten buckets were needed to water the horses. That would take at least half an hour. Plenty of time for a stroll. He carefully picked his way through the mud near the trough-mud as black as boot-polish and indented with hog tracks. Then he followed a gutter across a meadow strewn with goose down. The gutter brought him to a bog overgrown with a tall forest of reeds, sedge and weeds. Here cool twilight reigned even when the sun was its highest and brightest. A rush of heady odours struck Petya's nostrils. The sharp odour of sedge mingled with the sweet and nutty smell of the headache shrubs, which actually did make your head ache. The shrubs were sharp-leafed and covered with blackish-green bolls with fleshy prickles and long smelly flowers that were remarkably delicate and remarkably white. Beside them grew nightshade, henbane, and the mysterious sleeping-grass. On the path sat a big frog, its eyes closed as though it were bewitched. Petya tried with all his might to keep from looking at the frog: he was afraid he might see a little golden crown on its head. For that matter, the whole place seemed bewitched, like the forests in fairy-tales. Surely somewhere nearby wandered the slender, large-eyed Alyonushka, weeping bitterly over her brother Ivanushka. . .. And if a little white lamb had suddenly run out from the thicket and bleated in a thin baby voice, Petya certainly would have been frightened out of his wits. The boy decided not to think about the little lamb. But the more he tried not to, the more he did. And the more he did, the more he was afraid to be alone in the black greenness of this bewitched place. He screwed up his eyes as tight as he could, to keep from crying out, and fled from the poisonous thicket. He did not stop running until he found himself at the backyard of a small farm. Behind the wattle fence, on the stakes of which hung a whole collection of clay pitchers, Petya saw a pleasant little garman, its small arena covered with wheat fresh from the fields. In the middle of it stood a girl of about eleven in a long gathered skirt, a short print blouse with puffed sleeves, and a kerchief that came down to her eyes. She stood there shielding her eyes against the sun with her elbow and shifting her bare feet as she drove round the circle, by a long rope, two horses harnessed one ahead of the other. Scattering the straw lightly with their hoofs, the horses pulled a ribbed stone roller over the thick layer of shining wheat. The roller bounced heavily but noiselessly. A wide board, bent upward in front like a ski, dragged behind the roller. Petya knew that the bottom of the board was fitted with a lot of sharp yellow flints which did an especially good job of knocking the grain out of the ears. The board slid along quickly. On it stood a lad of Petya's age, in a faded shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and a cap with the peak over one ear; he had a hard time keeping his balance, but he did it with a dashing air, as though he were sliding downhill standing up on a toboggan. At his feet a tiny fair-haired girl sat on her haunches, like a mouse; with both her hands she kept a convulsive grip on one of her brother's trouser-legs. Round the circle ran an old man, stirring the wheat with a wooden pitchfork and throwing it under the horses' feet. The circle kept spreading out, and an old woman was shaping it with a long paddle. A short distance away, near the rick, a woman with a face black from the sun and with arms as veined as a man's was labouring away at the handle of the winnower, as if it were a hurdy-gurdy. Red blades flashed in the round opening of the drum. The wind carried a shining cloud of chaff out of the winnowing machine. Like light, airy muslin it settled on the ground and on the tall weeds; it floated to the vegetable garden where a scarecrow in a torn cap-it was a nobleman's cap, with a red band-spread its rags over the dry leaves of ripe yellow-red steppe tomatoes. It was clear that the whole peasant family, with the exception of its head, was at work on this small garman. The head of the family, of course, was at the war in Manchuria, and quite likely at that very moment he was crouching in a field of kaoliang while the Japanese were firing shimose at him. The people here were poor, and their threshing was on a small scale, not at all like the rich, noisy, busy threshing Petya was accustomed to at the other farm. But he found this simple scene fascinating too. He would have liked very much, for one thing, to take a ride on the board with the flints, or, at least, to turn the handle of the winnower. At any other time he surely would have asked the boy to take him along on the board, but the pity of it was that he had to hurry. He went back. Petya was never to forget the simple, touching details of that picture of peasant labour: the glint of the new straw; the neatly whitewashed back wall of the clay hut, and beside it the rag dolls and the little dried gourds called tarakutski, the only toys of peasant children; and on the ridge of the reed roof, a stork standing on one leg next to his large and carelessly built nest. Especially clear was the picture he carried away of the stork, with its tight-fitting little jacket and pique vest, its red walking stick of a leg (the other leg was bent under and not to be seen at all), and the long red beak that made a wooden click, like a night watchman's rattle. In front of a cottage with a blue notice board reading "Volost Administration", three saddled cavalry horses were hitched to the porch posts. A soldier in dusty boots, with a sword between his knees, sat on the steps in the shade smoking a cigarette made of coarse tobacco rolled in newspaper. "I say there, what are you doing here?" Petya asked him. The soldier lazily surveyed the city boy from head to foot and ejected a long stream of yellow spittle through his teeth. "Hunting down a sailor," he said indifferently. What kind of mysterious and terrible man is this sailor who is hiding somewhere in the steppe nearby, who sets fire to farms and whom soldiers are hunting? Petya wondered as he walked down the hot, deserted street back to the well. What if that dreadful highwayman attacked coaches? Naturally, Petya did not mention his fears to Father and Pavlik. Why make them worry? But he himself, naturally, would keep a lookout. And to be on the safe side he shoved his collections farther back under the seat. As soon as the coach started up the hill he glued his face to the window and anxiously scanned the roadside, expecting to see the highwayman pop out at every turn. He was firmly resolved to stick to his post all the way to town, come what may. Meanwhile Father and Pavlik, obviously unaware of the danger, occupied themselves with the cantaloupes. In a pillow-case of plain linen that was faded from numerous launderings and had a little bouquet of flowers embroidered in each corner, lay ten cantaloupes, bought at a kopeck each. Father took out a firm greyish-green one covered with a close network of lines, and saying, "Well, now we shall try these famous cantaloupes", neatly sliced it lengthwise and opened it like a book. A wonderful fragrance filled the coach. He cut round the soft insides with his penknife and flipped them out the window. Then he divided the cantaloupe into thin, appetising slices. "Looks quite toothsome," he remarked as he laid out the slices on a clean handkerchief. Pavlik, who had been fidgeting impatiently all the while, pounced on the biggest slice with both hands and sank into it up to his ears. He ate with gurgling sounds of delight; cloudy drops of juice hung from his chin. Father, on the other hand, put a small slice into his mouth, tried it, closed his eyes, and said, "Indeed an excellent cantaloupe." "Yum-yum," Pavlik confirmed. Here Petya, behind whose back all these unendurable things had been taking place, could hold out no longer. Forgetting the danger, he threw himself upon the cantaloupe. 5 THE RUNAWAY About ten miles from Akkerman the vineyards began. The cantaloupe had been eaten long ago and the rind thrown out of the window. The trip was growing tedious. It would soon be midday. The fresh morning breeze, which had served as a reminder that autumn really was in the offing, had subsided completely. The sun beat down as in the middle of July; its rays were somehow even hotter, drier, broader. Sand lay nearly all of two feet deep in the road, and the horses laboured to pull the heavy coach through it. The small front wheels sank in the sand up to the hub. The large rear wheels wobbled along slowly, crunching the blue seashells in the sand. A choking cloud of dust as fine as flour enveloped the travellers. Their eyebrows and eye-lashes turned grey. The dust gritted between their teeth. Pavlik goggled his mirror-like, light-chocolate eyes and sneezed desperately. The driver turned into a miller. All about them the vineyards stretched endlessly. The earth, dry and grey from dust, was covered with the gnarled plaits of old vines standing in strict chessboard pattern. They looked as if they were twisted by rheumatism. Had not Nature bethought herself to decorate them with those wonderful leaves of antique design they might have looked ugly, repulsive even. In the rays of the midday sun the leaves, with their jagged edges, their raised patternwork of curving veins and their turquoise spots of copper sulphate, looked like fresh greenery. The young shoots of the vines wound sharply round the tall stakes, while the old ones were bent under the weight of clusters of grapes. It took a keen eye, though, to spot the clusters hidden among the leaves. A person without any experience might pass through several acres without noticing a single one, yet every vine was hung with them, and they cried out, "Why, here we are, you strange creature, bushels and bushels of us, all about you! Pick us and eat, simpleton that you are!" Then, all of a sudden, the simpleton would notice a cluster under his very nose, then another, then a third-until, as if by magic, the entire vineyard glowed with them. Petya was an expert in these matters. His eye caught the clusters at once. More, he could even tell the different varieties as they drove past. And there were a great many varieties. The large light-green Chaus had cloudy pits visible through their thick skin and hung in long triangular clusters weighing two or three pounds. The experienced eye would never confuse them with, say, the Ladies' Fingers, which were also light-green but longer and shinier. The tender medicinal Shashla might appear to be the twin of the Pink Muscatel, yet what a world of a difference between them! The round Shashla grapes, pressed so tightly together in their graceful little clusters that they lost their shape and almost became cubes, brightly reflected the sun in their honey-pink bubbles. The Pink Muscatels, however, were covered with a dull purplish film and did not reflect the sun. All of them-the blue-black Isabella, the Chaus, the Shashla and the Muscatel-were so wonderfully ripe and beautiful that even the critical butterflies alighted on them as if they were flowers, and the feelers of the butterflies intertwined with the green tendrils of the vines. From time to time a straw hut could be seen among the vines. Beside it, in the lacy blue shade of an apple tree or apricot tree, always stood a tub of copper sulphate. Petya gazed with longing at those cosy little straw huts. Well did he know the delight of sitting on the hot dry straw inside such a hut, in the sultry after-dinner shade. The oppressive, motionless air would be filled with the aroma of savoury and fennel. Pods of chick-peas would be drying with a faint crackle. It was wonderful! What bliss! The grape-vines would tremble and ripple in the glassy waves of heat. And over it all would stretch the dusty, pale-blue sky of the steppe, a sky nearly drained of colour by the heat. How wonderful! Suddenly something so extraordinary happened, and with such breath-taking swiftness, that it was difficult to say what came first and what after. At any rate, first a shot rang out. Not the familiar hollow shot from a fowling-piece which you so often heard in vineyards and inspired no fears. No. This was the ominous and terrifying crack of an army rifle. At that same instant a mounted policeman holding a carbine appeared in the road. He raised his carbine again and aimed into the depths of the vineyard. But then he changed his mind, lowered the carbine across his saddle, spurred the horse, and, leaning forward, jumped over the roadside ditch and the high embankment right into the vineyard. He slapped down his cap and galloped straight ahead, trampling the vines. Soon he was lost from sight. The coach continued on its way. For a time not a soul was to be seen. All of a sudden there was a stirring in the bushes on the embankment behind them. A figure jumped into the ditch and then clambered out into the road. Veiled in a thick cloud of dust, the figure raced after the coach. The driver, on his high seat, was probably the first to notice that figure. But instead of pulling on the brakes he stood up and waved the whip furiously over his head. The horses broke into a gallop. But the stranger had already jumped on the footboard. He opened the rear door and looked in. His breath came in painful gasps. He was a stocky man with a young face pale from fright and brown eyes filled with what seemed either merriment or deadly fear. A shiny new cap with a button on it, the kind of cap workmen wore on holidays, sat awkwardly on his large, round, close-cropped head. Yet under his tight jacket could be seen an embroidered shirt such as farmhands wore, so that he seemed to be a farm labourer too. However, his thick trousers of pilot-cloth, which were velvety with dust, were neither a workman's nor a farm labourer's. One of the trouser-legs had pulled up, showing the rust-coloured top of a rough, double-seamed navy boot. "The sailor!" The instant this terrifying thought flashed through Petya's mind he clearly saw, to his horror, a blue anchor tattooed on the back of the hand clenched round the door-knob. The stranger was obviously just as embarrassed by his sudden intrusion as were the passengers themselves. At sight of the dumbfounded gentleman in pince-nez and the two frightened children, he moved his lips soundlessly; he seemed to be trying to say hello, or else to apologise. But all that came of his efforts was a twisted, confused smile. Finally he waved his hand and was about to jump from the footboard to the road, but a mounted detail suddenly appeared ahead. He peered cautiously round the corner of the coach, and when he caught sight of the soldiers in a cloud of dust he quickly jumped inside, slamming the door after him. He looked at the passengers with pleading eyes. Then, without saying a word, he dropped to all fours. To Petya's horror, he crawled under the seat where the collections were hidden. Petya looked in despair at Father. But Father sat absolutely motionless; his face was impassive and somewhat pale, and his beard jutted forward determinedly. His hands were folded on his stomach; he was twirling his thumbs. His entire appearance said: Nothing has happened. You must not ask any questions. You must sit in your places and continue travelling as before. Petya, and little Pavlik too, understood Father at once. Mum's the word! Under the circumstances that was the simplest and best policy. As to the driver, he was no problem at all. He was so busy whipping on the horses that he never even glanced back. In a word, it was a most curious but unanimous conspiracy of silence. The mounted detail rode up to the coach. Soldiers' faces looked in at the window. But the sailor was already far back under the seat. He was completely out of sight. The soldiers obviously found nothing suspicious in that peaceful coach with the children and the egg-plants. They rode on without stopping. For not less than half an hour after that all were silent. The sailor lay under the seat without stirring. Tranquillity reigned. Finally a string of little houses amidst green acacia trees came into view ahead. The outskirts of the town. Father was the first to break the silence. "Well, well, we've almost reached Akkerman," he remarked as if to himself, yet in a deliberately loud voice, as he stood gazing nonchalantly out the window. "It's already in sight. How frightfully hot it is! And not a soul in the road." Petya saw through his father's manoeuvre at once. "We're almost there!" he shouted. "We're almost there!" He took Pavlik by the shoulders and pushed him to the window. "Look, Pavlik," he cried with feigned excitement, "look at that beautiful bird in the sky!" "Where?" Pavlik asked with curiosity, sticking out his tongue. "Goodness gracious, what a stupid thing you are! Why, there it is." "I don't see it." "You must be blind." At that moment there was a rustle behind them, followed by the banging of the door. Petya quickly turned round. But everything was the same as before-only now there was no boot sticking out from under the seat. Petya looked in alarm under the seat to see if his collections were safe. They were. Everything was in order. At the window, Pavlik was still moving his head this way and that, looking for the bird, "Where's the bird?" he asked querulously, twisting his little mouth. "Show me the bird. Pe-e-et-ya, where's the bird?" "Stop whining," Petya said in the tone of a grown-up. "The bird's gone. It flew away. Don't bother me." Pavlik gave a deep sigh: he saw that he had been tricked. He looked under the seat, but to his amazement no one was there. "Daddy," he said finally, in a shaking voice, "where's the man? Where's he gone to?" "Stop chattering," Father said sternly. Pavlik fell into a sad silence, puzzling over the mysterious disappearance of the bird and the no less mysterious disappearance of the man. The wheels began to clatter over cobblestones. The coach drove into a shady street lined with acacias. The grey wobbly trunks of telephone poles flashed by, and roofs of red tile and blue-painted iron; for a minute the dull water of the estuary appeared in the distance. An ice-cream man in a raspberry-coloured shirt walked by in the shade, carrying his tub on his head. Judging by the sun, it was already past one o'clock. The Turgenev was to sail at two. Father told the driver to go directly to the wharf without stopping at a hotel. At the wharf, the steamer had just let out a very long and deep hoot. 6 THE TURGENEV Even in the early years of this century the Turgenev was considered quite out of date. With her gather long but narrow hull, her two paddle-wheels-their red float-boards could be seen through the slits of the round paddle-box-and her two funnels she looked more like a big launch than a small steamer. To Petya, however, the Turgenev was always one of the miracles of shipbuilding, and the trip between Odessa and Akkerman seemed no less than a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. A second-class ticket cost a goodly sum: one ruble and ten kopeks. Two tickets were bought. Pavlik travelled free. Still, travelling by steamer was much cheaper, and much pleasanter, besides, than bouncing along in the dust for thirty miles in an Ovidiopol carriage. This was a rattling vehicle with a Jewish driver in a tattered gaberdine belted swaggeringly with a coachman's red girdle; a despondent-looking fellow with red hair and with eyes always pink and ailing, who tested the five-ruble piece with his teeth. He would drag the very heart out of his passengers by stopping every two miles to feed oats to his decrepit nags. No sooner had they settled themselves in a second-class cabin than Pavlik, worn out by the heat and the drive, became drowsy. He had to be put to bed at once on the black oilcloth bunk; the bunk was burning hot from the sun beating through the rectangular windows. The windows were framed in highly polished brass, true, but they spoiled the fun all the same. Everyone knew that a ship was supposed to have round portholes which were screwed down when a storm blew up. In this respect the third-class quarters in the bow of the ship were much better, for they had real portholes, even though instead of soft bunks there were only plain wooden plank-benches, like in the horse-trams. Travelling third class, however, was looked upon as "improper", in just the same degree as travelling first class was "exorbitant". By social standing, it was to the middle category of passengers, to the second class, that the family of the Odessa schoolmaster Batchei belonged. That was as pleasant and convenient in some cases as it was inconvenient and humiliating in others. It all depended upon which class their acquaintances were travelling in. For that reason Mr. Batchei, so as to avoid unnecessary indignities, made it a point never to depart from the summer resort in the company of wealthy neighbours. The tomato and grape season was then at its height. The loading went on and on tediously. Several times Petya stepped out on deck to see whether they would ever be ready to cast off. Each time it seemed to him that no progress was being made. The stevedores were following one another up the gangway in an endless file, carrying crates and baskets on their shoulders, and still the cargo on the wharf did not diminish. The boy walked over to the mate, who was in charge of the loading, and hovered about beside him. He went to the hatchway and looked down it to see how wine barrels were carefully lowered into the hold on chains, three or four at a time, tied together. Every now and then he went so far as to brush his elbow against the mate. "Accidentally on purpose", to attract attention to himself. "Don't get in the way, my lad," the mate said, annoyed but indifferent. Petya took no offence. The main thing was to strike up a conversation by hook or by crook. "I say there, tell me please, are we starting soon?" "We are." "How soon?" "As soon as we're loaded we'll start." "But when will we be loaded?" "When we start." Petya gave a loud laugh, to flatter the mate. "But tell me really-when?" "Get out of the way, I said!" Petya walked off with a lively, independent air, as though no unpleasantness had occurred between them; it was simply that they had chatted and then parted. He rested his chin on the rail and again looked at the wharf. Now he was bored to death by it. Besides the Turgenev, a great many barges were being loaded. The whole wharf was crowded with wagons of wheat. The wheat made a dry, silken rustle as it flowed down the wooden chutes into the square hatchways of the holds. A fierce white sun reigned with merciless monotony over that dusty square which had not the slightest trace of beauty or poetry. Everything, absolutely everything, seemed dreary and ugly. Those wonderful tomatoes which had such a warm and delicious gleam in the shade of wilted leaves in the vegetable gardens now lay packed in thousands of crates all alike. Those tender-tender grapes, each cluster of which, in the vineyard, seemed a work of art, had been squeezed greedily into coarse willow baskets and hastily sewn round with sacking; and on each basket there was a label besmeared with paste. The wheat that had been grown and harvested with such labour-the large amber wheat fragrant with all the odours of the hot fields-lay there on a dirty tarpaulin, and men in boots walked over it. Among the sacks, crates and barrels strode an Akkerman policeman in a white uniform jacket, with an orange revolver-cord round his sunburned neck and a long sword at his side. The motionless river heat, the dust, and the sluggish but never-ending noise of the tedious loading made Petya sleepy. On an off-chance, he went up to the mate again to find out if they would start soon, and again he received the answer that when they were loaded they would start, and they would be loaded when they started. Yawning, and reflecting sleepily that everything in the world was obviously merchandise-the tomatoes were merchandise, the barges were merchandise, the houses on the earthen shore were merchandise, the lemon-yellow ricks next to those houses were merchandise, and quite likely the stevedores were merchandise too-Petya staggered to the cabin and lay down beside Pavlik. He fell asleep before he knew it, and when he woke up he found they were already moving. The cabin had in some strange way changed its position. It had become much lighter. Across the ceiling ran a mirror-like reflection of rippling water. The engine was working. The busy flutter of the paddle-wheels could be heard. Petya had missed the most thrilling moment of the departure-missed the third blast of the siren, the captain's command, the raising of the gangway, the casting-off. . . . What made it all the more horrible was that neither Father nor Pavlik was in the cabin. That meant they had seen it all. "Why didn't you wake me?" Petya cried out. He felt as if he had been robbed in his sleep. As he rushed out of the cabin to the deck he gave his leg a frightful bang against the sharp brass threshold. But he paid no attention to such a trifle. "Drat them! Drat them!" Petya need not have been so excited, however. The boat had indeed cast off, but it had not yet set a straight course; it was only turning about. That meant the most interesting events were still to come. There would be "slow ahead", and "dead slow ahead", and "stop", and "go astern", and "dead astern", and a host of other fascinating things which the boy knew to perfection. The wharf moved back, grew smaller, circled about. The boat was suddenly full of passengers, all crowding together at the same side. They were still waving their handkerchiefs and hats, with as much frenzy as if they were bound for the end of the world, while as a matter of fact they were travelling a distance of exactly thirty miles as the crow flies. But such were the traditions of sea travel, and such the hot temperament of Southerners. Most of them were third-class passengers and deck passengers from the lower foredeck, near the hold. They were not allowed on the upper deck, which was reserved exclusively for the "clean" public of the first and second classes. Petya caught sight of Father and Pavlik on the top deck. They were waving their hats excitedly. Also on deck were the captain and the entire crew- the mate and two barefoot deck-hands. The only members of the whole crew who were doing anything really nautical were the captain and one of the hands. The mate and the other hand were selling tickets. With their coloured little paper rolls and a green wire cash-box of the kind usually seen in bakeries, they were making the round of the passengers who had not had time to buy tickets on shore. The captain gave his commands striding back and forth across the deck between the bridges on either side. Meanwhile, right before the admiring eyes of the passengers, the deck-hand looked into the big brass pot of a compass and turned the steering-wheel, helping it along now and then with his bare foot. The steering-wheel creaked incredibly and the rudder chains clanged as they crept backwards and forwards along the side, ready at any moment to tear away the trains of careless ladies. The boat was backing and slowly turning. "Starboard helm!" cried the captain to the helmsman. He had the hoarse, mustardy voice of a glutton and a bully. He paid not the slightest attention to the passengers who had gathered in a deferential knot at the compass. "Starboard helm! More! A little more! Another trifle more! Good! Steady!" The captain went across to the starboard bridge, opened the speaking tube, and pressed the pedal. In the depths of the boat a bell ting-a-linged. The passengers lifted their eyebrows respectfully and exchanged silent glances. They understood: the captain had just signalled to the engine-room. What should he do? Run to the bridge to watch the captain call down into the speaking tube, or remain near the helmsman and the compass? Petya was ready to tear himself in two. The speaking tube won. He seized Pavlik by the hand and dragged him to the bridge. "Look, Pavlik, look!" he shouted excitedly, not without the secret hope of astonishing two pretty little girls by his knowledge of things nautical. "He's going to say 'Go ahead' into the speaking tube." "Slow astern!" said the captain into the speaking tube. Down below, the bell immediately ting-a-linged. That meant the command had been heard. 7 THE PHOTOGRAPH Akkerman had disappeared from sight, and so had the ruins of the old Turkish fortress, yet the steamer was still running down the enormously broad estuary of the Dniester. There seemed no end to the ugly, coffee-coloured river, over which the sun had poured a leaden film. The water was so muddy that the boat's shadow seemed to be lying on clay. The passengers felt as though the trip had not yet really begun. They were all sick of the estuary and were waiting for the sea. Finally, after about an hour and a half, the steamer neared the mouth of the estuary. Petya glued himself to the rail; he did not want to miss even the slightest detail of the great moment. The water became noticeably lighter, although it still was fairly muddy. The waves now were broader and higher. The buoys marking the channel jutted out of the water like red sticks, and their pointed mushroom caps rocked unsteadily to and fro. At times a buoy floated so close to the ship's side that Petya could clearly see the iron cage in the centre of the mushroom where a lantern was placed at night. The Turgenev overtook several black fishing boats and two small boats with taut dark sails. The boats, lifted and then dropped by the steamer's wave, began to rock. Off the hot sandy Cape of Karolino-Bugaz, with its border-post barracks and mast, a broad fairway marked by two lines of buoys led out into the open sea. Now the captain himself looked at the compass every minute or so and indicated the course to the helmsman. This was clearly no trifling matter. The water became still lighter. Now it was obviously diluted by the pure blue of the sea. "Half-speed!" the captain called into the speaking tube. Ahead of them, sharply divided from the yellow estuary, lay the shaggy blue-black sea. "Slow!" From the sea came a fresh wind. "Dead slow!" The engine almost stopped breathing. The float-boards barely slapped the water. The flat shore stretched so near that wading across to it seemed the easiest thing in the world. The small, dazzling white lighthouse at the border post; the high mast with its gay garlands of naval flags stiffened by the wind; the gunboat sitting low among the reeds; the small figures of the border guards washing their linen in the crystal shallow water-all these moved noiselessly past the ship, their sunlit details as clear and distinct as transfer pictures. The nearness of the sea made the world clean and fresh again, as if all the dust had suddenly been blown away from the ship and her passengers. A change came over the crates and baskets, too. What had been insufferably dull merchandise gradually turned into cargo, and as the ship approached the sea it began to creak, as real cargo should. "Half-speed!" The border post lay astern; it shifted about and drifted into the distance. The ship was surrounded by deep water, clear and dark-green. The moment she entered it she started to roll; the wind whipped spray on the deck. "Full speed!" Murky clouds of soot poured out of the hoarsely spluttering funnels. A slanting shadow settled across the awning at the stern. Apparently that old lady, the engine, was not finding it so easy to battle the strong waves of the open sea. She began to breathe hard. The ancient plating creaked rhythmically. The anchor under the bowsprit bowed to the waves. The wind had already managed to carry off a straw hat; it floated away, rocking in the broad foamy wake. Four blind Jews in blue spectacles climbed the ladder to the upper deck in single file, holding down their bowler hats. They seated themselves on a bench and then went at it with their fiddles. "The Hills of Manchuria" march, played in a sickeningly false key, mingled with the heavy sighs of the engine. Up the same ladder ran one of the ship's two stewards, the tails of his dress coat waving in the wind; he wore white cotton gloves that were comparatively clean. As he ran he bore along, with the skill of a juggler, a tray with a fizzing bottle of lemonade. That was how they entered the sea. Petya had already inspected the whole ship. He had discovered that there were no suitable children aboard, hardly anyone with whom a pleasant acquaintance might be struck up. At first, true, the two girls for whom he so unsuccessfully showed off his nautical knowledge had looked promising. But not for long. To begin with, the girls were travelling first class, and by speaking French with their governess they gave him to understand right off that they had nothing in common with a boy from the second class. Then, the minute they reached the sea one of the girls became sea-sick; and-as Petya had seen through the open door-she now lay on a velvet divan in the unattainable splendour of a first-class cabin; moreover, she lay there sucking a lemon, which was downright disgusting. And lastly, though she was undoubtedly beautiful and elegantly turned-out (she wore a short