k lay for a  long time with wide-open, attentive  eyes-eyes now as
dark as olives-listening to the unfamiliar noises of the city flat.
     "Auntie,  what's making that  noise?" he finally said in  a  frightened
whisper.
     "Which noise?"
     "That snoring noise."
     "That's the water in the tap, my pet."
     "Is it blowing its nose?"
     "Yes. Now go to sleep."
     "What's making that whistle?"
     "That's a steam-engine."
     "Where?"
     "Have you really forgotten? At the station just opposite. Go to sleep."
     "Why is there music?"
     "Someone is playing the piano upstairs.  Don't you remember how  people
play the piano?"
     Pavlik was silent for a long time.
     One  might have thought him to be  asleep, except that  his  eyes shone
distinctly in the greenish glow of the  night lamp on the  chest of drawers.
They  were following with horror the long rays moving back and forth  across
the ceiling.
     "What's that, Auntie?"
     "Those  are the lanterns  of  droshkies passing  by outside. Close your
eyes."
     "And what's that?"
     A huge death's-head moth  fluttered with ominous  thumpings in a corner
near the ceiling.
     "That's a moth. Go to sleep."
     "Will it bite?"
     "No, it won't bite. Go to sleep."
     "I don't want to sleep. I'm afraid."
     "What  are  you  afraid of?  Stop imagining things. A big boy like you.
Tsk-tsk-tsk!"
     Pavlik took  a deep,  luxurious, quivering  breath and caught  Auntie's
hand in his two hot little hands. "Did you see the Gipsy?" he whispered.
     "No, I didn't."
     "Did you see the Wolf?"
     "No. Go to sleep."
     "Did you see the Chimney-Sweep?"
     "No, I didn't. You  can  go  to sleep  without  worrying about a single
thing."
     Again the boy  took a deep, luxurious  breath, turned over on his other
cheek, and cupped his palm under it.
     "Auntie," he mumbled, closing his eyes, "give me the dummy."
     "What? I thought you stopped using a dummy long ago."
     The "dummy" was the  special little clean handkerchief which Pavlik was
accustomed to sucking in bed and without which he could not fall asleep.
     "Dum-m-m-my. . ." the boy whimpered capriciously.
     But Auntie Tatyana did not give him the handkerchief. He was a  big boy
now. High time he stopped that.
     Thereupon Pavlik, continuing to whine, stuffed a corner  of  the pillow
into  his mouth and  got  it all  wet;  he  smiled lazily as his  eyes glued
together. Suddenly, with a flash of horror, he thought of his moneybox: what
if robbers had stolen it? But he had no energy left for worrying.
     He fell into a peaceful sleep.

        11
     GAVRIK

     That same day another boy, Gavrik-the one we mentioned while describing
the coast near Odessa- woke at dawn from the cold.
     He was  sleeping on the shore, near the boat, his head on a smooth  sea
stone and his face covered with his grandfather's old jacket. The jacket did
not reach to his feet.
     At night it was warm, but towards morning it turned cool. Gavrik's bare
feet  became chilled. In his sleep  he  pulled the jacket from his  head and
wound it round his feet. Then his head began to feel cold.
     He  started shivering but he  did  not  give in. He tried to fight  the
cold. He was unable to fall asleep again, however.
     Nothing for it but to get up!
     Reluctantly  Gavrik opened his eyes. He saw a glossy lemon sea and  the
glow of a murky cherry-coloured dawn in a cloudless grey sky. It  was  going
to be a  hot day. But  until the sun came up there was no  use even thinking
about warmth.  Of course, Gavrik could very well have slept in the hut, with
Grandpa.  There  it was warm and soft. But show me  the boy who will pass by
the delightful chance of sleeping on the seashore under the open sky!
     Every now  and then a wave laps the beach, so softly that it can barely
be heard. It breaks and then draws back, lazily dragging pebbles along  with
it.
     The next wave waits a while and  then it laps  the shore too, and again
pebbles are dragged back.
     The silvery-black sky  is strewn with August stars. The split sleeve of
the Milky Way hangs overhead like a vision of a river in the sky.
     The sky is reflected in the sea so fully, so richly, that, when you lie
on the warm pebbles with your head thrown back, you simply cannot tell which
is up and which is down; it's as though you are suspended in the middle of a
starry abyss.
     Shooting stars streak across the sky in all directions.
     In the weeds, crickets chirp. On the bluffs, far, far away, dogs bark.
     At first the stars seem to be standing still. But they aren't. When you
look at them  a long  time you  can  see the whole vault of the sky turning.
Some  of the  stars drop behind the villas. Others, new ones, come up out of
the sea.
     The breeze changes from warm to cool.
     The  sky grows whiter, more transparent. The sea  darkens. The  morning
star is reflected in its dark surface like a little moon.
     At  the villas,  the  cocks  crow  sleepily for the third time. Day  is
breaking.
     How can anybody sleep under a roof on a night like that!
     Gavrik rose, stretched himself with relish, rolled up his trousers and,
yawning, walked into the water up to his ankles.
     Had he  lost his mind? His  feet  were blue from the  cold, and here he
stepped into the  sea,  the  very  sight of which was enough to give one the
shivers.
     But  the  boy  knew what  he was  doing. The  water  only  looked cold.
Actually  it was very warm, much warmer than the air.  He was simply warming
his feet.
     Then he washed  himself and blew  his  nose into the sea so loudly that
several big-headed fry sleeping peacefully near the shore scattered to right
and left and slithered away into deep water.
     Yawning and squinting against the rising sun. Gavrik took up the hem of
his shirt and  dried his face-a  mottled little face with  a lilac-pink nose
which was peeling like a new potato.
     "Urrmph,   urrmph,  urrmph,"  he  grunted,  exactly  like  a  grown-up.
Unhurriedly he made the sign of the cross over his mouth, in which two front
teeth were still missing, picked up the jacket, and started up the hill with
the rolling gait of an Odessa fisherman.
     He pushed his way through a thick growth  of  weeds. They sprinkled his
wet feet and his trousers with the yellow dust of their pollen.
     The hut stood about  thirty paces from the beach  on a hill of red clay
spotted with glistening crystals of shale.
     It was actually  nothing but a  shanty crudely knocked together out  of
various  old pieces  of wood-parts  of  painted  planks  from boats,  boxes,
plywood, and masts.
     The roof was flat and made of clay, and weeds and tomatoes grew on it.
     Grandma, when  she was still  alive, always used to whitewash  the  hut
twice a year, at Easter and Our Saviour's Day, in order somehow to hide  its
poverty from people. But then  Grandma died, and for three years now  no one
had whitewashed  the  hut. Its walls  had  peeled and  turned dark. Here and
there,  though,  there were still faint traces of whitewash in the old wood.
They constantly reminded  Gavrik of Grandma and  of  her  life, a life  less
lasting even than whitewash.
     Gavrik was an orphan. His  father  he did not  remember at all.  Of his
mother  he had  a hazy memory:  a steaming trough, red hands,  a Kiev signet
ring on a smooth swollen finger, and a mass of soap bubbles with rainbows in
them flying round the metal combs in her hair.
     Grandpa  was already  up. He was walking through the  tiny  weed-grown,
refuse-strewn  vegetable   patch,   where   a  few  late   pumpkin   flowers
gleamed-large orange-coloured fleshy and hairy  flowers with a sweet  liquid
at the bottom of their transparent cups.
     Grandpa was gathering tomatoes in his shirt; the shirt had been  washed
so often that it  had lost  all colour, but now,  in the glow of the  rising
sun, it was a delicate pink.
     Between the turned-up shirt and the baggy trousers there showed a strip
of lean brown stomach with the black dimple of the navel.
     Very few tomatoes  were left in the patch. They had eaten nearly all of
them. Grandpa managed  to find  eight  little  yellowish  ones. That was all
there were.
     The old  man  walked  along  with  his  grey head  bent and  his  chin,
smooth-shaven like a soldier's, against his chest. He turned aside the weeds
with his bare feet, hoping to find something there. But he found nothing.
     A pullet with a piece of rag round  her leg ran  after Grandpa, pecking
occasionally  at the ground  and  making  the little umbrellas of  fennel up
above tremble.  Grandfather and grandson did  not  greet each other or  wish
each  other good  morning. But that did not mean they had quarrelled. On the
contrary, they were great friends.
     It was simply that the  new  morning promised nothing but hard work and
cares. There was no use deceiving each other with empty wishes.
     "We've eaten  them all;  there's  none left," Grandpa muttered,  as  if
continuing a conversation left off the day before. "Just  think of it. Eight
tomatoes-call that food? It's a joke!"
     Gavrik put his hand to his eyes and looked at the sun. "Are we going?"
     "We'll have to," said Grandpa. He came out of the vegetable patch.
     They went into the hut and slowly drank some water from a bucket neatly
covered with a clean board.
     The  old  man gave a  grunt,  and Gavrik grunted too.  The  grandfather
tightened his belt another notch, and the grandson did likewise.
     Grandpa  took  a chunk of yesterday's bread from the shelf and tied it,
together with the tomatoes, in a cotton kerchief with black polka dots.
     Then, with a small flat keg of  water under his  arm,  he walked out of
the hut and hung a padlock on the door.
     This was  an unnecessary precaution. In  the  first  place,  there  was
nothing to steal, and in the second place, who would stoop so low  as to rob
paupers?
     Gavrik took the oars from the roof and heaved them  up on his small but
sturdy shoulder.
     A busy day  lay  ahead  of grandfather and grandson. Two days before, a
storm had raged.  The waves had  torn the line.  The fish were keeping away.
They had had no catch. And there was not a kopek left.
     Yesterday the sea  had calmed  down  and they had set the line for  the
night.
     Today they had to pull it out, get the fish to market in time, bait the
line, and in the evening  set it again without fail, so  as not to  miss the
good weather.
     They dragged the boat across  the pebbly beach and  carefully pushed it
into the sea.
     Gavrik,  standing  knee-deep  in   the  water,  put  the  fish   tank-a
boat-shaped box  with small  holes in it-in  the stern  and gave  the boat a
strong push. He ran along with it a few paces and then stretched himself out
prone  on  its  side;  he dangled his  feet  above  the  sliding water,  and
glistening drops fell from them.
     Only after the boat had moved out about  five yards did he crawl in and
sit down at the oar next to Grandpa.
     Each worked one  oar. That was  easy, and besides it was fun to see who
could outpull the other.  But they  both  wore indifferent frowns  on  their
faces and merely grunted from time to time.
     Gavrik felt a pleasant glow in the palms of his hands. When his oar was
in the transparent green of the sea it seemed broken. The narrow blade moved
tautly through the water, sending back little eddies.
     The  boat  went ahead in spurts, swerving  now to the right, now to the
left. First the grandfather leaned on his oar, and then the grandson.
     "Oo-oof!" grunted Grandpa, pulling with all his strength.
     The boat veered sharply to the left.
     Gavrik gave a louder "Oo-oof!" and the boat veered to the right.
     The grandfather braced a bare foot with a  gnarled  big toe against the
thwart and took short sharp  strokes. The  grandson did not  let  himself be
outdone. He braced both feet and bit his lip.
     "Bet you can't outpull me, Grandpa," Gavrik said through set teeth, the
sweat pouring from him.
     Grandpa grunted. He was breathing heavily.
     "Bet I can. "
     "Not on your life."
     "We'll see." 'We'll see."
     But though Grandpa  leaned on his oar as hard as he could, nothing came
of it. He wasn't the man he used  to be! Besides, his grandson had grown  to
be quite a  fellow. He was small, true enough, but as stubborn as they came!
Not afraid to challenge his own grandfather!
     Grandpa  gave  angry  frowns as he  glanced  sidewise  from  under  his
grizzled brows at the boy beside him.  But his old watery eyes twinkled with
merriment and wonder.
     And so, neither outdoing the  other, they  rowed  to the  place about a
mile from shore  where the faded little flags of their  line were bobbing up
and down on corks amid the waves.
     By this time the sea was covered with fishing boats out for the catch.
     The blue beauty Nadya and Vera, a new boat, passed  by under full sail,
her flat notched bottom rearing one-third out of the water and slapping down
hard against the waves.
     Sprawled carelessly in the stern,  with a black sunflower seed stuck to
his lip, lay Fedya, a fisherman from Maly Fontan whom Gavrik knew well.
     From  under the oilcloth peak of  his navy-blue cap with  anchor-design
buttons  there  lazily  looked  out  a  pair  of  fine, languid  eyes almost
completely covered by a spray-darkened forelock.
     Fedya lay with the weight of his back against the sharply turned tiller
and did not even deign a glance at Grandpa's pathetic little boat.
     But when Fedya's brother Vasya, who was wearing a short-sleeved striped
jersey, caught sight of Gavrik  he stopped unwinding the fishing  line  and,
shielding his eyes  against the  sun with his hand, cried out, "Ahoy, Gavrik
old man! Don't give in! Hold on to the water and you'll never drown!"
     The Nadya  and Vera sped by,  dousing  grandfather and grandson  with a
fountain of spray.
     Of course, no offence had been meant. It was a friendly practical joke.
Still, Grandpa pretended he had not heard a word; in his  heart of hearts he
was hurt.
     For  there was a time when  Grandpa, too, had  owned  an excellent boat
with  a  new, strong sail.  He used to fish for mackerel. And what  catches!
There were days  when Grandma, rest her  soul, took two or  three hundred to
market.
     But now his  life  was over. All he had left was a  pauper's hut on the
shore and an old boat without a sail.
     The  sail had gone to pay the doctors during Grandma's illness. But all
for nothing: she had died anyway. Now  he would never be able to get a  sail
like that again.
     And  what  kind  of  fishing  was  this without a sail? It was  a joke!
Catching bullheads with a line. Ah, me!
     Gavrik guessed what Grandpa  was thinking  about,  but gave no sign. On
the contrary,  to divert  the  old  man  from his bitter thoughts  he busied
himself with the line. He began pulling up the first flag.
     The  grandfather at  once crawled over  the  seat to his grandson,  and
together they started to pull in the wet end of the line.
     Soon they came to the  hooks. But they found few bullheads on them, and
small ones at that.
     Gavrik  took the  big-headed  little  fishes  firmly by  their slippery
gills, deftly pulled  the hooks out  of  their rapacious jaws and threw them
into the tank, which had been lowered into the sea.
     But barely three  hooks  out  of ten  had a  real  catch. On the others
dangled small fry or crabs.
     "They don't go for shrimps," Grandpa muttered sadly. "Just think of it.
Nothing but small fry. Meat's the bait to use. They'd go for meat all right.
But  how  to get meat when  it's eleven kopeks a pound at the market! It's a
joke!"
     Suddenly a tremendous hulk pouring forth brown smoke bore down on them.
Two slanting  shadows  flew  over the waves. The  sea  burst  into frightful
noise.  A steamer passed by close to the boat, her red float-boards  working
busily.
     The boat was thrown up, then let down, then thrown up again.
     The  flags  of   the  line   bobbed   frantically,  almost   under  the
paddle-wheels.  A  little  closer  and  they  would  have  been ground  into
splinters.
     "Hi  there, on  the  Turgenev!"  Grandpa  shouted in an  unrecognisable
voice, spreading  out his arms as though trying to  stop  a galloping horse.
"Gone blind? Can't you see the line? Filthy pigs!"
     But the steamer had already passed by.
     She was noisily drawing away-with her tricolour flag at the stern, with
her  life-belts  and  life-boats,  with  her passengers, with her columns of
brown anthracite smoke- leaving behind  a broad, snow-white, lacy pattern on
the clear dark-green water.
     That meant it was seven o'clock in the morning.
     The Turgenev  served the fishermen as a  clock. At eight in the evening
she would pass on her way back to Odessa from Akkerman.
     To get the bullheads to market in time they would have to hurry.
     Grandfather and grandson made a hasty breakfast of tomatoes  and  bread
washed down with water  from the keg, which by now had turned warm and taken
on an oaky flavour. Then they quickly went back to their work on the line.

        12
     "CALL THAT A HORSE?"

     At about nine o'clock  Gavrik was on his way to town, with the tank  of
bullheads on his  shoulder. He could have put them  in a basket, of  course,
but the tank made a better impression. It showed that  he was carrying live,
absolutely fresh fish straight out of the sea.
     Grandpa remained at home to mend the line.
     Although Gavrik was only nine, Grandpa had  no  qualms about entrusting
him with such an important mission as the sale of the fish. He relied on his
grandson fully. The lad had a head on his shoulders. He was not a baby.
     Whom else could the old man depend upon if not his own grandson?
     Gavrik was fully aware of the importance and responsibility of his job,
and it was with a businesslike and preoccupied air that he tramped along the
hot  path among  the  strong-smelling bushes, leaving in the  dust  distinct
imprints of his small feet with all their ten toes.
     His air of concentration and importance  as much as said:  "You may  do
what you like-swim in the  sea, lounge about on the sand, ride a bicycle, or
drink soda water at the stand. Me, I'm  a fisherman,  and my job is to catch
bullheads and sell them at the market. Nothing else concerns me."
     As  he passed the beach house, where over the cashier's  window  hung a
spotted black board  with the  figure "76°" chalked on  it,  Gavrik  gave  a
scornful  and disgusted smile at what he saw: a chubby white-bodied man with
a handkerchief on  his bald head had stopped up his nose  and ears with  his
fingers and was  ducking himself in the clayey water near the shore, staying
close to the safety-rope, which was covered with a slimy green beard.
     There  were two ways of getting to the top  of the bluff: by  the  long
sloping  path  that  had  three  turns  in  it,  or  by  the  steep,  almost
perpendicular wooden stairway with rotting steps.
     Gavrik, it goes without saying, chose the stairway.
     Compressing  his  lips, he ran  quickly  to  the very top without  once
pausing for breath.
     A   dusty  but  shady  lane  brought  him   past  the  "Warm  Sea-Baths
Establishment" to the Military School.
     There he was practically in town.
     In  the  shade  of the dappled plane trees of French Boulevard an  open
horse-tram was lumbering along  towards Arcadia. The sunny side  of the tram
was  covered   with  an  awning.   A  sheaf  of  bamboo  fishing-rods,  with
red-and-blue floats,  jutted out from the rear  platform. Three  lively  old
mares clicked their  hoofs along the  fine gravel. The brakes screeched  and
moaned at the turns.
     But what really drew the boy's attention was the kvass stand.
     It was a big box-like  affair with a double-sloping roof that rested on
two posts. The outside was painted green and the inside  white-thick,  shiny
oil paint.
     As to the kvass man,  he was so  extraordinarily  elegant  and handsome
that every time Gavrik passed by that corner he stopped to marvel and envy.
     Gavrik never gave much thought to  what he  would be when  he grew  up.
There wasn't any particular choice. But if he did have a choice, it would be
a kvass man, of course.
     All the Odessa kvass vendors were as spruce and handsome as a  picture.
And this one especially. He was the dead spit of Vanka Klyuchnik."
     Yes, that was it. With his high merchant's cap of fine navy-blue serge,
his blond curls, and his shiny high boots. And the shirt! Lord, a shirt like
that was fit to be worn only on Easter Sunday: bright-red, with sleeves like
balloons,  and  long-all  the  way to the knees,  with  a hundred blue glass
buttons!
     Over  the shirt  he  wore  a black waistcoat with a  silver watch-chain
fastened in a buttonhole with a little silver rod.
     One  look at  that flaming shirt was enough to make anybody pant  for a
drink of cold kvass.
     And the way he worked! Quickly, deftly, smoothly.
     "Give us a glass, laddie," a customer would say.
     "Which would  you like?  The  sour or the sweet? The sweet's a  kopek a
mug, and the sour's two for a kopek."
     "I'll have the sour."
     "Coming right up."
     In the twinkling of  an  eye one  hand  lifted  the  round cover of the
locker by the ring and dipped into the deep icy darkness for a bottle, while
the other wiped the white counter with a rag-it was dry anyway-rinsed a huge
mug  with a thick false  bottom  in a  pail of water, smartly turned the mug
over and set it down with a bang in front of the customer.
     The small corkscrew bit into the cork. The bottle, pressed between  the
boots, exploded. Out of its neck rose long ringlets of brown foam.
     The  handsome  fellow  turned  the bottle over  into  the  mug, filling
one-quarter with lemon-yellow kvass and three-quarters with foam.
     The  customer eagerly blew off the foam  and then drank  and  drank and
drank. Meanwhile Vanka Klyuchnik wiped the counter with a flourish and swept
the  wet  kopek  with the  eagle on it into a tin  box  which once had  held
Krakhmalnikov Bros, lozenges.
     There was a man! That was the life!
     Naturally, Gavrik was dying for a drink  of kvass, but he had no money.
Perhaps on  the way  back, although  that  was doubtful. The fact  was  that
though there  were  about two  hundred  bullheads in  the tank,  Grandpa was
heavily  in  debt to the fishwife with whom they dealt.  The week before, he
had borrowed three  rubles from her for corks and hooks for the line and had
returned only one ruble forty-five. That  left the debt at more than a ruble
and a half-a huge sum.
     If the fishwife agreed not to  hold back all the money everything would
be fine. But what if she kept all of it? In that case they would be lucky to
have enough to buy meat for bait and bread, let alone kvass.
     Gavrik spat,  exactly the way grown-up fishermen do  when burdened with
cares.
     He shifted  the tank to the  other shoulder  and  continued on his way,
carrying with him in  his mind's eye the handsome picture of Vanka Klyuchnik
and the fragrant coolness of the sour kvass he had not drunk.
     From here  on stretched  real  city streets, with tall  houses,  shops,
warehouses, gateways.
     Everything lay  in the mottled shade of acacias whose leaves shone like
long green grapes.
     A closed  wagon  clattered  down the street. The  patches of shade sped
downwards along the  horses in their high  German collars, along the driver,
and along the white sides with the sign: "Artificial-Ice Plant."
     Cooks carrying baskets walked by. The shade slipped across them too.
     Dogs with tongues hanging  out ran up to the water tins attached to the
trunks  of trees.  With  their tails curled up into a loop, they lapped  the
warm water, extremely pleased with the Odessa city council for seeing  to it
that they did not go mad from thirst.
     All this was familiar, humdrum.
     But here was something to marvel at-a little cart with a pony harnessed
to it. Gavrik had never  seen such a little horse in all his life. It was no
bigger than a calf but otherwise exactly like a real horse.
     A  tan, fat-bellied little  thing  with a chocolate-coloured mane and a
small but bushy  tail, in a straw hat with holes for  the ears,  with shaggy
eyelashes raised,  it  stood  quietly and modestly, like  a well-bred little
girl, in the shade of the acacias at the entrance to a house.
     A group of children had gathered round it.
     Gavrik walked over  and stood for a  long time  in silence. He did  not
know how  to react to this phenomenon. There was no doubt about it: he liked
the little horse, but at the same time it irritated him.
     He inspected it from all sides. Yes, it  was a horse: hoofs,  forelock,
teeth. But how disgustingly small!
     "Call that a horse?" he said with scorn, wrinkling his nose.
     "It's  not  a  horse, it's not a horse," chanted a little girl with two
pigtails, squatting  in glee and clapping  her hands. "It's  not a horse  at
all. It's only a pony."
     "It  is a horse,"  Gavrik said gloomily. The very  next instant  he was
annoyed and ashamed at  having let himself  be drawn into  conversation with
such a beribboned little creature.
     "It's a pony, it's a pony!"
     "From  the  circus,"  Gavrik  remarked  in a  hoarse  bass,  as  though
addressing no one in particular. "An ordinary one from the circus."
     "It's not from the circus,  it's not from the circus! It's a pony,  and
it's delivering Nobel paraffin. See the tins?"
     Yes, in the cart stood shiny paraffin tins.
     This  came as  a  complete surprise to Gavrik. Paraffin,  as  everybody
knew, was bought in a shop in one's own bottle at a kopek a quart.
     But for it to be delivered  to homes in a  cart, and a cart  drawn by a
fancy pony-that was a bit too much!
     "It's a plain horse!" Gavrik retorted angrily as he walked away.
     "It's a pony! It's  a pony! It's a pony!" the little girl  called after
him like a parrot, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
     "You're a pony  yourself,"  thought Gavrik. But unfortunately he had no
time for a real argument.
     After skirting  the  public  garden, through whose iron fence  came the
hot, dry fragrance of myrtle and thuja with  its tart little cones, the  boy
stopped, threw  back his head and stared for a rather long time at the clock
on the railway station.
     He had learned to tell time  only recently, and now he could not pass a
clock without stopping to reckon.
     He  still counted on his fingers  those strange little  sticks of Roman
numerals which were so unlike the usual figures  in arithmetic. He knew only
that the  top figure was twelve and that it was from there you had  to start
counting.
     He set  the fish tank down at  his feet. His  lips began to move. "One,
two,  three,  four,"  he  whispered, crinkling his forehead  and bending his
fingers back firmly.
     The small hand pointed to nine and the big one to six.
     "Nine and a half," the boy said with a sigh of satisfaction, wiping the
sweat from his nose with the tail of his shirt.
     That was what it looked like, but it would do no harm to check.
     "What time is it?"
     A gentleman in  a pongee jacket and  a  tropical  helmet  put  a golden
pince-nez to  his Roman nose, tilted his short grey beard, threw a glance at
the clock, and said quickly, "Nine-thirty."
     Gavrik was dumbfounded.
     "But doesn't it say nine and a half?"
     "That means it's nine-thirty," the man said sternly, without looking at
the boy. Then he climbed into a cab and drove off, holding his ivory-handled
walking stick between his knees.
     Gavrik  stood there for a while, his mouth with its missing teeth open,
trying to decide whether the gentleman had been making fun of him or whether
it was really so.
     Finally he raised the tank to his shoulder, hitched up his trousers and
continued on  his  way, turning  his  head  from side  to  side  and smiling
mistrustfully.
     So nine and a half  was the same as nine-thirty! Queer. Very queer.  At
any rate, it wouldn't hurt to ask someone who knew.

        13
     MADAM STOROZHENKO

     "Lobsters! Lobsters! Lobsters! Lobsters!"
     "Flat-fish! Flat-fish! Flat-fish!"
     "Live mackerel! Mackerel! Mackerel!"
     "Mullet! Mullet!"
     "Middies! Middies! Middies! Middies! Middies!"
     "Bullheads! Bullheads! Bullheads!"
     The loudest and shrillest  voices of all the  market women  belonged to
the fishwives: Fish Row was famous for that.
     You had to have the calm courage of Odessa housewives and cooks to walk
at a leisurely pace along that lane of tables, baskets and  vats piled  with
fish and lobsters and other shellfish.
     Under sheds and huge canvas sun-shades  the quivering,  gleaming riches
of the Black Sea lay spread out for all to behold.
     What a variety of shapes, colours and sizes!
     Nature  had done all she could to safeguard her wonderful creations and
protect them from destruction, to  make them as unnoticeable as  possible to
the human eye. She had camouflaged them in all the tints of the sea.
     Take that noble and expensive fish, the  mackerel, queen  of  the Black
Sea. Her taut body, as straight and smooth as a spindle, was coloured in the
most delicate moire shades ranging from sky-blue to deep-blue.
     This, Gavrik knew, was the colour of the sea  far from  shore, and just
where shoals of mackerel usually passed.
     A crafty creature, the mackerel!
     Although Gavrik saw mackerel every  day and could  spot  a shoal half a
mile away, he never failed to marvel at how beautiful and clever they were.
     Or take bullheads. Their haunt was the rocks near  the shore,  and also
the  sandy  bottom.  That  was  why they  were  brownish like  the rocks  or
yellowish like the sand.
     Just think of it!
     Then there were the big  flat-fish, which preferred the slimy bottom of
quiet   little  bays.   The  striking  thing   about  these  fish   was  the
greenish-black colour of their thick skin, covered with flat bony bumps like
seashells.  Flat-fish  had  both  their eyes  on the  upper  side,  and they
reminded you  of the charcoal drawings  children make  on fences:  a head in
profile, but with two eyes.
     True,  flat-fish  had  wax-coloured bellies, like a  sucking-pig's, but
they never showed them; they always lay at the bottom, hugging the sand.
     The boy marvelled at the craftiness of the flat-fish too.
     There was  also the mullet, a humpbacked little red-and-black fish with
big scales that looked blood-stained.
     Large pink seashells exactly like  them glittered at the bottom  of the
clearest bays.
     As  to silversides, these  swarmed  at the surface of the  sea near the
shore, where they  could  not be  told apart from the  silvery Hashes of the
morning sun.
     Yes,  Nature was crafty. But man, Gavrik knew, was  craftier. He placed
his nets, he cast his invisible fishing lines, he flashed his spoon-bait and
flies-and then these  fish, which  you could never notice in the sea, showed
all the splendour of their magic colours in the baskets and on the stalls of
the marketplace.
     Money for good tackle-that was the main thing!
     Looking for his  fishwife, the boy walked  past baskets  swarming  with
light-green lobsters.  They made  a rustling sound as they  reached  upwards
with nippers spread apart convulsively, like scissors.
     The silversides were glistening heaps of silver coins.
     Under  their wet netting the springy shrimps  made a clicking noise and
shot out salt in all directions.
     Shiny scales stuck to the boy's bare feet. His heels slid on fish guts.
     Scrawny  market  cats, their  eyes  insane,  with  pupils  narrowed  to
vertical  slits,  crept along  the ground in search of prey,  ears flattened
back and shoulder-blades jutting up rapaciously.
     Housewives  carrying  string  bags with  carrots  sticking out  of them
weighed thick slices of flat-fish in their hands.
     The sun was burning hot. The fish were dying.
     The market-woman Gavrik was looking for  sat on a child's bench under a
canvas sun-shade big enough for a giant, surrounded by baskets of fish.
     The  huge woman was dressed, despite the heat, in a winter  jacket with
puffed sleeves, and she had a sand-coloured shawl wrapped crosswise over her
bosom; across one shoulder hung a heavy money-bag.
     Gavrik stopped respectfully at a  distance  to wait until  she finished
bargaining with a customer.
     He  knew  very well that he and  Grandpa were completely dependent upon
this  woman,  and that  meant  he had  to be  as  polite  and  unassuming as
possible. If he had worn a hat he would have removed it. But he wore no hat,
and so he did the best he  could: he set the fish tank gently on the ground,
let  his arms hang at his  sides, and looked down at his bare shuffling feet
with their grey suede socks of dust reaching to the ankles.
     The customer was buying only two  dozen bullheads  but  the  bargaining
went on a frightfully long time.
     She walked away  ten times, and ten times she  came back. Ten times the
fishwife  picked up  the  brass pans of her  balance all  covered with  fish
scales, and ten times she threw them back into the basket of flat-fish.
     The fishwife gesticulated rapidly with her fleshy hands in their  black
knitted  mitts, not forgetting to hold her  little finger out at an  elegant
angle.
     She  ran her sleeve across  her  shiny purplish-red face with its black
moustache and grey ringlets  of hair  on the chin. She nervously  pushed big
iron hairpins back into place in her greasy jet-black hair.
     "Just  look  at  them,  madam,"  she cried hoarsely.  "You  won't  find
bullheads like these  anywhere else.  I  tell you, these bullheads are worth
their weight in gold!"
     "They're tiny," the  customer said, walking away in disdain. "Not  even
worth frying."
     "Come back,  madam! You say they're not worth frying? Where'll you find
bigger  ones?  Maybe from the Jews! Then go to 'em! You know  me. I'd  never
palm off small fry on a steady customer!"
     "Ten  kopeks a  dozen for these bullheads? Never! Not a kopek more than
eight."
     "Two dozen for nineteen."
     "For that money I'd rather go somewhere else and buy salmon."
     "My last  price is eighteen, madam. Take it or leave it. Where are  you
going, madam?"
     At  last the  deal  took  place. The  fishwife  gave  the  customer the
bullheads and threw the coins into her moneybag.
     Gavrik waited patiently until the fishwife took notice of him. She knew
he was there, but she pretended for a long time not to see him.
     Such was the custom of the market-place.  If you needed  money, you had
to wait. Nothing terrible about it. A person wouldn't die if he stood  there
a while.
     "Fresh fish!  Live  bullheads!  Flat-fish!  Flat-fish!  Flatfish!"  The
fishwife  paused  for  breath  and then suddenly  said, without  looking  at
Gavrik, "Well, show it here!"
     The boy opened the fish tank and moved it over to her.
     "Bullheads," he said respectfully.
     She dipped her paw into the tank and pulled some out with  a  practised
hand. She gave them a quick glance and then stared at Gavrik, her round eyes
as blue-black as Isabella grapes.
     "Well? Where's the bullheads?"
     Gavrik was silent.
     "Where's the bullheads, I ask you?"
     The boy sadly shifted his feet and gave a modest  smile, trying to turn
the unpleasant conversation into a joke.
     "Why, there they are, ma'am. You're holding them. Can't you see?"
     "Where's the bullheads?" the fishwife suddenly screamed, turning red as
a beet with rage. "Where are they?  Where? Show me. I don't see  'em.  D'you
mean to say what  I'm holding  in my  hand? These  ain't  bullheads -they're
lice! Anything here  worth  frying? Not a  thing! All  you ever bring  me is
small fry! Take your small fry to the Jews!"
     Gavrik was silent.
     He couldn't call them big bullheads, of course, but still they  weren't
as tiny as the screaming  fishwife made them out to be. However, he was  not
in a position to argue.
     When  the   fishwife  finished  shouting  she  coolly  transferred  the
bullheads from the tank to her basket, deftly counting them off by tens.
     Her  hands moved  so quickly  that Gavrik  was unable to keep count. He
felt she was cheating him. But there was no way  of checking, for there were
other bullheads in her basket.
     Who could tell which was which?
     Gavrik was struck with horror. He broke into a sweat from excitement.
     "To make it a round number, two hundred and fifty," said  the fishwife,
covering the basket with  a  strip of sacking. "Take you tank, and good-bye.
Tell  your  grandfather  he  still  owes  me  eighty kopeks. Tell him not to
forget. And tell him not to send me any more teenies-I won't take 'em!"
     The boy  was  dumbfounded. He tried to  say  something  but his  throat
contracted.
     The  fishwife was  not  paying  him  the  slightest  attention. She was
calling her wares again.
     "Flat-fish, flat-fish, flat-fish! Bullheads, bullheads, bullheads!"
     "Madam  Storozhenko,"  the  boy  finally  managed to  get  out,  "Madam
Storozhenko. . . ."
     She turned her head impatiently. "You still here? Well?"
     "Madam Storozhenko, how much are you paying me for a hundred?"
     "Thirty kopeks a hundred, seventy-five for the lot. You owed me a ruble
fifty-five and now you owe  me eighty kopeks. Tell that to your grandfather.
Good-bye."
     "Thirty kopeks a hundred!"
     Gavrik was so hurt and so angry he wanted to shout, to punch her in the
nose with all  his might, so that  blood flowed  from it.  Yes, so that  the
blood flowed. Or to bite her.
     But  instead he  gave  a quick, fawning  smile. "Madam Storozhenko," he
muttered, almost in tears, "but you always used to pay us forty-five."
     "You're lucky you're getting thirty for such trash. Now be off!"
     "But Madam Storozhenko, you're getting eighty for 'em. . . ."
     "Clear out and stop pestering me! It's my fish and  I set my own price.
I don't take no orders from you. Flatfish! Flat-fish! Flat-fish!"
     Gavrik looked at  Madam Storozhenko. She sat on her child's bench-huge,
unapproachable, stony.
     He could have told her  that Grandpa and he had no  money  at all, that
they  absolutely  had  to  buy bread,  and meat for bait, and that all  they
needed was fifteen or twenty kopeks. But was it worth humbling himself?
     The pride of fisherfolk spoke up in the boy.
     With his sleeve he wiped away the tears that  were  stinging his peeled
nose, blew  his nose into  the dust with two fingers, raised the  light fish
tank to his shoulder and walked off with  his rolling gait of the Black  Sea
fisherman.
     As he walked along he wondered where he could get some meat and bread.


        14
     "LOWER RANKS"

     Although,  as we have seen, Gavrik had a life of toil  and cares, quite
like  a grown-up, we must not forget that he was, after  all, only a  boy of
nine.
     He had friends with whom he  liked to play, run, scrap, catch sparrows,
shoot with catapults and do everything else all Odessa boys of poor families
did.
     He  belonged  to the category known as "street urchins",  and this gave
him a wide acquaintance.
     Nobody prevented him from  going into  any  courtyard or playing in any
street.
     He was as free as a bird. The whole city was his.
     Even the  freest bird, however, has  its favourite haunts, and Gavrik's
were the seaside streets in the  Otrada  and Maly Fontan districts. There he
was  an  unchallenged  king  among  the  boys,  who  envied  and admired his
independent life.
     Gavrik had many friends, but only one real chum, Petya.
     The simplest thing  would be to go and see  Petya  and put their  heads
together about bread and meat.
     Naturally, Petya  didn't have any  money,  especially  a  big  sum like
fifteen kopeks. There was no  use even thinking about  that. But Petya could
take a chunk of meat from the kitchen and some bread from the cupboard.
     Gavrik had been inside Petya's house once, as his guest last Christmas,
and he knew  very well that they had a  cupboard piled with bread  and  that
nobody gave it any notice. It would be no bother at all to bring out as much
as half a loaf. Those people didn't pay any attention to things like bread.
     But the trouble was he didn't know whether Petya had come back from the
country. He ought to  be back by now, of  course.  Several  times during the
summer Gavrik had gone to Petya's yard