that they chose the badge, a beautiful thing of silver. It consisted of two thorny branches, crossed, with "O. 5 G.", the monogram of the Odessa Fifth Gymnasium, between them. The badge they chose was the largest and the cheapest. It cost fifteen kopeks. With an awl the clerk punched two holes in the stiff blue beaver-cloth band of the cap and attached the badge, bending back the brass tabs on the inside. At home the cap and badge caused a furore. Everyone wanted to handle it, but this Petya would not allow. They could look all they wanted, but hands off! Everyone-Father, Dunya, Pavlik-kept asking, "What did it cost?" As if that was what mattered! "A ruble forty-five, and fifteen kopeks for the badge," he said, fuming. "But that's nothing! You should have seen how I passed the exam!" Pavlik stared at the cap with envious eyes and snuffled, ready at any moment to burst into tears. Then Petya ran downstairs to the shop to show his cap to Nusya Kogan. But Nusya had again gone off to the bay on a visit. What luck! However, Nusya's father, the shopkeeper, nicknamed Izzy the Dizzy, showed great interest in the cap. He put on his spectacles and examined it a long time from all sides, saying ts-ts-ts all the while, until finally he came out with, "What did it cost?" After making the round of all his acquaintances in the house Petya went out into the field and showed his cap to the soldiers. They also asked how much it had cost. Now not even half the day was over, and there was no one else to show the cap to! Petya was in despair. All at once he caught sight of Gavrik walking past the fence of the maternity hospital. He ran to him, filling the air with shouts and waving his cap. But good God! What had happened to Gavrik? There were brown circles under his eyes-angry eyes in a thin, unwashed face. His shirt was in shreds. One ear was swollen and purplish-red. It was the first thing that struck the eye, and it looked so horrible and unreal that Petya felt frightened. "You should have seen me in the exam!" he wanted to shout but the words died on his lips. Instead he whispered, "Oh! You've been in a fight? Who gave you that ear?" Gavrik lowered his eyes and smiled grimly. "Let's see it," he said, stretching out his hand for the cap. "What did it cost?" Although the idea of anyone handling the cap was agonising, Petya (true, with a wrench of his heart) gave it to Gavrik. "But don't mess it up." "No fear." The boys sat down beside a bush near the rubbish-heap and proceeded to give the cap a thorough examination. Gavrik at once discovered that it had dozens of secrets and possibilities which had escaped Petya's notice. In the first place, it appeared that the thin steel hoop which stretched the top could be taken out. The hoop was pasted over with rust-stained paper, and once pulled out of the cap it had independent value. It would be the easiest thing in the world to break the hoop into a great number of little pieces of steel which, if no good for anything else, could be put on the rails in front of a suburban train-simply to see what would happen. In the second place, there was a black sateen lining with the inscription "Guralnik Bros." stamped in gold. All one had to do was rip open the edge, and then all kinds of things could be hidden inside where nobody would ever find them. In the third place, the black varnish on the leather peak could be made still more shiny by a good rubbing with the green pods of what was known among boys as the "varnish-tree". As to the badge, it immediately had to be bent back according to the fashion, and its branches clipped a bit. The boys set to work without losing a moment's time. They kept at it industriously until they had squeezed out all the enjoyment the cap was capable of giving. This distracted Gavrik for a time. But when the cap no longer resembled anything under the sun and had lost its attractions, Gavrik again grew glum. "Listen, Petya, fetch me some bread and a couple of lumps of sugar," he said suddenly, making his voice gruff. "I'll take it to Grandpa." "But why? Where is he?" "In the police station." Petya stared at his friend with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Gavrik smiled grimly and spat on the ground. "Come on, what are you gaping for? Wasn't that clear enough for you? What are you, a baby? They took Grandpa to the police station yesterday. I've got to bring him something to eat." Still Petya did not understand. He had heard that drunkards, brawlers, thieves and tramps were locked up in the police station. But Gavrik's Grandpa? That was more than he could grasp. Petya knew the old man very well, for he had often visited Gavrik at the beach. How many times had Grandpa taken him out together with Gavrik to catch bullheads! How many times had he treated Petya to his very special, fragrant, smoky tea, always apologising, "But there's no sugar!" How many times had he made a sinker for Petya and shown him how to attach it to his fishing line! What funny Ukrainian proverbs he knew-proverbs to fit every possible occasion-how many stories about the Turkish war, how many soldiers' jokes! He would sit there with his legs crossed under him like a Turk, mending his nets with a wooden needle especially whittled for that purpose, and tell stories without end. The boys would laugh so hard their insides ached. He would tell the story of the soldier who boiled his axe, and of the bombardier who went to heaven, and of the orderly who so cleverly tricked his drunken officer. Never in his life had Petya known such a delightful host, one who was always glad to tell a story but who could listen to others with pleasure too. When Petya let his imagination run wild and, waving his arms, told such a tall story that a person's ears began to tingle, Grandpa never turned a hair. He would sit there, nodding gravely, and remark, "All quite possible. Might very easily have happened." And a man like that had been locked up! It was unbelievable! "But why? What for?" "Because." Gavrik gave a deep, grown-up sigh. He was silent for a while. Then he quickly leaned close to his friend. "Listen," he whispered mysteriously. He proceeded to tell Petya what had happened the night before. To be sure, he did not tell the whole story. He said not a .word about the sailor or Terenti. The way he told it, three strange men who were running away from the police had come into their hut at night to hide. The rest of the story was the truth. "Then that snake grabbed me by the ear, and I'll say he twisted it!" "Oh, I'd have given it to him! I'd have shown him!" Petya shouted, his eyes flashing. "I'd have given him a good lesson!" "Oh, shut up!" Gavrik said glumly. He took a firm grip on the peak of Petya's cap and yanked it down over his face so that his ears jutted out. This accomplished, Gavrik went on with his story. Petya listened in horror. "But who were they?" he asked when Gavrik had finished. "Robbers?" " 'Course not. I told you they were just ordinary men. Committee men." "What kind you say?" "Might as well talk to a post as tell you something! Committee men, I tell you. From the Committee." Gavrik leaned still closer and said in a whisper that brought a smell of onions to Petya's nostrils: "The ones who make strikes. From the Party. See?" "But why did the policemen beat Grandpa and lock him up?" Gavrik smiled scornfully. "Because he hid them, stupid! Where are your brains? They'd have taken me too only they can't because I'm a kid. You know what you get for hiding somebody? It's terrible! But-" Gavrik glanced round and said in a whisper so low that Petya could hardly make it out: "But you wait and see-he won't stay there more than a week. Soon they'll go through the whole city raiding the police stations. They'll throw every single one of those snakes into the Black Sea. May I never see a happy day in all my life! By the true and holy Cross!" Gavrik again spat on the ground. "Well, how about it?" he said in a businesslike tone. Petya raced home. Two minutes later he returned with six lumps of sugar in his pocket and half of a wheaten loaf inside his sailor blouse. "That'll do," Gavrik said, counting the lumps and weighing the bread in his hand. "Coming to the police station with me?" The police station, it goes without saying, was definitely out of bounds, near though it was. As luck would have it, Petya was suddenly filled with such a desire to go to the police station that to describe it would be impossible. Again there was a fierce struggle with his conscience, a struggle that lasted all the way to the police station. Conscience finally won out, but too late, for the boys were already there. When Petya was with Gavrik, things and conceptions always lost their usual aspect and revealed no end of qualities that previously had been hidden from him. Near Mills was transformed from a sad abode of widows and orphans into a workers' settlement with purple irises in the front gardens; a policeman became a snake; a cap turned out to have a steel hoop in it. And now the police station. What had it been in Petya's mind up until now? A big government building on the corner of Richelieu and Novorybnaya streets, opposite the St. Panteleimon Church. Many was the time he had ridden past it on the horse-tram. The most important part of that building was its tall square tower with the little fireman up at the top. Day and night the fireman, in a sheepskin coat, walked round the mast on the small balcony, gazing out over the city. Every time Petya looked at the mast, which had a crossbar, it reminded him of a pair of scales or a trapeze. There were always several ominous-looking black balls hanging from it, and their number showed in which section of the city there was a fire. The city was so big that there was certain to be a fire somewhere. At the foot of the tower stood the headquarters of the Odessa fire brigade. It consisted of a row of huge wrought -iron gates. To the blare of bugles, teams of four wild dapple-greys would fly through the gates one after the other, their snow-white manes and tails streaming. The red fire-engines, sinister and yet somehow toy-like, sped down the street accompanied by the steady jangle of the bell. They left behind them in the air orange tongues of flame from the torches, whose light was reflected in the firemen's brass helmets. The spectre of misfortune would rise to haunt the careless city. Apart from that, the police station was in no way remarkable in Petya's eyes. But the minute Gavrik came near, it turned about, as though by the touch of a magic wand, and showed the barred windows of a prison looking out into an alley. The police station, it appeared, was simply a prison. "Wait here," said Gavrik. He ran across the damp pavement and slipped through the gate unnoticed by the policeman. Here, too, it appeared, Gavrik knew his way about. Petya remained alone in a small crowd opposite the police station. The people were relatives, and they were talking across the street with the men in the jail. Petya had never thought so many people could be sitting in the jail. There were at least a hundred of them. But they were hardly "sitting". Some stood on the windowsills, clinging to the bars of the open windows; others looked out from behind them, waving their hands; still others jumped up and down trying to see the street over the heads and the shoulders. To Petya's amazement there were neither thieves nor drunkards nor tramps among them. Just the opposite: plain, ordinary and quite respectable people, like those to be seen every day near the station, in Langeron, in Alexandrovsky Park, or riding in the horse-tram. There were even a few university students. One of them stood out especially because of the black Caucasian felt cloak he wore over a white tunic with gold buttons. Cupping his hands close to his haggard cheeks, he shouted to someone in the crowd in a deafening, guttural voice: "Tell the association that last night Comrades Lordkipanidze, Krasikov, and Burevoi were summoned from their cells and told to take their belongings with them. Lordkipanidze, Krasikov, and Burevoi! Last night! Organise a public protest! Regards to the comrades!" From another window a man who reminded Petya of Terenti, in a jacket and a Russian blouse with the collar unfastened, shouted: "Tell Seryozha to go to the office and collect my pay!" Other voices rang out, interrupting one another: "Don't trust Afanasyev! Do you hear? Don't trust Afanasyev!" "Kolka's in the Bulvarny jail!" "In a box behind the wardrobe at Pavel Ivanich's!" "Wednesday at the latest!" The relatives shouted too, raising packages and children over their heads. One of the women held up a girl with earrings just like Motya's. "Don't worry about us!" she cried. "People are helping us out! We have enough to eat! See how healthy our Verochka looks." Now and then the policeman approached the crowd, gripping the scabbard of his sword with both hands. "Ladies and gentlemen, you are asked not to stand opposite the windows and not to talk to the prisoners." His words would immediately be followed by deafening cat-calls, unbelievable swearing and roars from the windows. Water-melon rinds, corn-cobs and cucumbers would fly at the policeman. "You snake!" "Gendarme!" "Go and fight the Japs!" With his sword under his arm the policeman would stroll unhurriedly back to the gate, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. No, things in the world were definitely not going as smoothly as they might seem at first glance! Gavrik returned downcast and angry. "Did you see Grandpa?" Gavrik did not reply. The boys walked away. Near the railway station Gavrik halted. "They beat him every day," he said in a hollow voice, wiping his eyes with his ragged sleeve. "See you later." He turned away. "Where are you going?" "To Near Mills." Petya made his way home across Kulikovo Field. The wind whipped up clouds of dry and dreary dust. The boy's heart was so heavy that even the flattened cartridge-case he found on the way brought him no joy. 30 THE PREPARATORY CLASS Autumn came. Petya was now attending the Gymnasium. The school uniform had transformed him from a tall, sunburned, long-legged boy in lisle stockings into a small, crop-haired, lop-eared preparatory class pupil-in Gymnasium slang, a "greenie". The long trousers and uniform jacket, bought for thirty-six rubles at Landesman's Clothing Establishment, were baggy and highly uncomfortable. The coarse collar chafed his tender neck accustomed to the freedom of a sailor blouse. Even the belt, a real Gymnasium belt with a German silver buckle, which had come after the cap in Petya's dreams, fell short of expectations. It kept creeping up towards his armpits, the buckle slipped to one side, and the free end dangled like a tongue. The belt did not give his figure the manliness on which he had so strongly counted. It was nothing more than a constant source of humiliation, calling forth rude laughter from the grown-ups. On the other hand, a joy as great as it was unexpected came during the buying of the copybooks, textbooks and writing materials. What a difference between the quiet, serious book shop and the light-minded, silly shops in Richelieu Street or the Arcade! It was probably an even more serious shop than the chemist's. At any rate, it was much more intellectual. The sign alone, a narrow, modest sign which said EDUCATION was enough to inspire the deepest respect. It was on a dark autumn evening that Petya's father took him to the "Education" shop. They entered a drowsy realm of book-backs which in the light of the gas jets had a greenish tinge and a sort of university flavour. On top of them stood the painted heads of members of the four human races: the Red, the Yellow, the Black, and the White. The first three heads conformed exactly to the races they were supposed to represent. The Indian was as red as could be. The Chinese as yellow as a lemon. The Negro blacker than pitch. The only one not entirely true to his name was the specimen of the "master race": he was not white but a delicate pink, with a long blond beard. Petya stared enchanted at the blue globes with their brass meridians, the black star charts, and the terrifying, startlingly bright anatomical charts. All the wisdom of .the universe was concentrated in this shop, and it seemed to penetrate into the very pores of the customer. Petya, for one, felt remarkably well educated as he came home in the horse-tram, although they had spent no more than ten minutes in the shop and had bought five little books in all, the thickest costing only forty-two kopeks. They had also bought a real satchel of calf-leather with the fur on the outside and a small lunch basket. Then they had chosen a wonderful pencil-case with a transfer picture on its sliding lacquered top. The top fit so tightly that when it was opened it squeaked like a wooden peasant toybox. Petya put a great deal of care and taste into filling all the sections of the case with the proper articles, making a point of it that none remained empty. All kinds of nibs went into the case: blue nibs with three holes in them, "Cossodo", "Rondo", "No. 86", "Pushkin" nibs with the curly head of the famous poet on them, and many others. Then there was an india-rubber with an elephant drawn on it, a crayon, two pencils, one for writing and the other for drawing, a penknife with a mother-of-pear] handle, an expensive penholder (it cost 20 kopeks), and coloured pasting tabs, drawing pins, pins and pictures. And all these small, elegant implements of study were so absolutely new, so shiny, and smelled so delightfully! The whole evening Petya industriously covered his books and copybooks with special blue paper, pasting down the edges with tabs. He pasted lacy pictures in the corners of his blotters; glossy bouquets and angels firmy held silk ribbons in place. On all the copybooks he neatly printed: This Copybook Is the Property of P. BATCHEI Preparatory Class Pupil, 0. 5 G. He could hardly wait for morning to come. It was still almost dark and the lamp was burning at home when the boy ran off to the Gymnasium equipped from head to foot as if off to the wars. Now not a single department of learning would be able to withstand Petya's onslaught! Three weeks of incredible patience, both at home and at the Gymnasium, went into improving his scholastic equipment. Time and again he repasted his pictures, replaced the covers on his textbooks and changed the nibs in his pencil-case, striving for the height of beauty and perfection. And when Auntie Tatyana remarked, "Hadn't you better do your lessons?" Petya would groan in despair, "Oh, Auntie Tatyana, don't talk such nonsense! How can I study when nothing is properly ready?" In a word, things were going splendidly. There was only one cloud to darken the joy of learning: not once had Petya been called upon to recite, and there was not a single mark in his report-book. Nearly all the boys in the class had been marked, but not Petya. Each Saturday he sorrowfully brought home his unmarked report-book, sumptuously wrapped in pink paper, pasted over with gold and silver stars and seals, and decorated with coloured book-marks. But then came the Saturday when Petya dashed into the dining-room, his coat still on, his face aglow. He waved his handsome report-book in the air, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Auntie Tatyana! Pavlik! Dunya! Come quick! I've got marks! Oh, what a pity Daddy's still at school!" Triumphantly he tossed his report-book on the table and then stepped away in modest pride, so as not to interfere with their contemplation of his marks. "Well, well!" exclaimed Auntie, running into the dining-room with a dress-pattern in her hand. "Let's see your marks." She picked up the report-book and quickly scanned it. "Religion-Poor; Russian-Poor; arithmetic-Unsatisfactory; attention-Satisfactory; diligence-Fair," she read in surprise. She shook her head reproachfully. "I don't see what you're so happy about. Nothing but Poors here." Petya stamped his foot in annoyance. "I knew it!" he cried, fairly weeping from resentment. "Why can't you understand, Auntie Tatyana? The important thing is that there are marks! Marks, don't you see? But you simply don't want to understand! It's always that way!" Petya angrily snatched up his treasured report-book and ran outside to show his marks to the boys. With this ended the first stage of Petya's studies-the festive period. It was followed by cheerless, humdrum days of cramming. Gavrik stopped coming to see him, and Petya, busy with his Gymnasium studies, almost forgot his existence. For a time, Gavrik, too, forgot Petya's existence. He was living at Near Mills now, with Terenti. Grandpa was still in prison. He was kept part of the time in the Alexandrovsky jail and the other part in the Secret Police Department, to which he was often driven at night by carriage. It was evident that the old man knew how to hold his tongue, for the police were not disturbing Terenti. Exactly where the sailor was Gavrik did not know, and he did not think it necessary to ask Terenti. Certain signs, however, led him to conclude that the sailor was in safe hiding somewhere in the vicinity. For were there not nooks and corners aplenty in Near Mills where a man might lie low, might vanish as in thin air? And were there not numbers of men who were lying low for the time being in the Near Mills district? But Gavrik made it a rule never to stick his nose into other people's affairs. Besides, he had enough troubles of his own. Terenti's family was having a hard time making ends meet. The railway workers were on strike almost all the time. Terenti made a little money by doing odd locksmith's jobs at home, but there were not many of those jobs and, besides, a good deal of his time was taken up by urgent matters which were only hinted at in the family circle. Terenti did not seem to belong to himself. Men would come for him in the middle of the night, and without saying a word he would dress and go off, sometimes for days. People were always arriving at the house. The teakettle had to be put on for them and gruel prepared. There were always muddy tracks in the passage those autumn days; the room was filled with clouds of cheap tobacco smoke. Gavrik's conscience would not allow him to be a burden on his brother, who had a family to provide for, and so he had to make his own living. After all, he wasn't a child! Besides, he had to have food to take to Grandpa in jail. Fishing, of course, was out of the question without Grandpa. Then, too, the weather had turned bad, with storms blowing every other day. Gavrik went down to the beach, hauled the boat over to a neighbour's, and hung the padlock on the door of the hut. From morning to night he now wandered about the city in Terenti's old boots, looking for ways of earning his daily bread. Begging would of course have been the easiest way out. But Gavrik was ready to die rather than stretch out a hand for alms. The very thought of it made his fisherman's blood boil. No! He was accustomed to earning his bread by working. He carried cooks' baskets home from the market for two kopeks. He helped the loaders at the Odessa Goods Station. He would run to the spirits shop to get vodka for coachmen who, under penalty of a fine, were not allowed to leave their horses. When he was hungry and unable to find work of any kind, he would go to the cemetery chapel and wait for a burial, in order to receive in his cap a handful of kolevo, that funeral dish of cooked rice sprinkled with powdered sugar and decorated with lilac-coloured sweets. The distribution of kolevo at funeral was an old custom, and the cemetery beggars took advantage of it. Some of them even grew fat on it. But since kolevo was eaten not only by the beggars but by all who attended the funeral, Gavrik did not feel it beneath him to take advantage of so convenient a custom. The more so since the sweets he came by could be taken to Terenti's children as gifts-and without gifts Gavrik did not feel it proper to return home for the night. Sometimes Terenti asked him to take a parcel to an address that had to be learned by heart and could under no circumstances be put down on paper. Gavrik liked these errands very much, for they clearly had some connection with the affairs that kept Terenti so busy. The parcel, usually a roll of papers, Gavrik would thrust deep down in his pocket and then press flat so that it did not show. He knew that if he was caught he was to say he had found it. After finding the person for whom it was intended he had to be sure to say at first, "How do you do? Sophia Ivanovna sends you her regards." The person would reply, "How is Sophia Ivanovna's health?" Only then could he hand over the parcel. Very often the person, after taking the parcel, would give him a whole ten-kopek piece "for tram fare". How much terror and fun there was in those errands! Finally, Gavrik earned money by playing "lugs", a game that had recently come into fashion not only among children but among adults as well. Lugs was the name given to the buttons from uniforms worn by government employees, with the links bent in. In broad outline, the game went as follows: the players put their lugs on the ground, wrong side up, and then, one after the other, threw their king-lug at them, the object being to make the lugs turn right side up. Every time a player managed to turn over a lug it became his. Lugs was neither more difficult nor more interesting than any other street game, but it had a devilish attraction all its own: the lugs cost money. They could always be bought and sold, and they were quoted at definite rates on the street exchange. Gavrik played a brilliant game of lugs. His throw was firm and accurate, and his eye was keen. He soon became famous as a champion player. His pouch was always filled with superior, expensive lugs. When affairs took an especially bad turn he would sell a part of his supply. But his pouch never remained empty. The very next day he would win even more lugs than he had sold. What to others was an amusement thus became, for Gavrik, a profitable trade. There was no other way out. One had to make a living somehow. 31 THE BOX ON THE GUN CARRIAGE Big events were approaching. Seemingly at a snail's pace, but actually with the terrifying speed of an express train. How well did Gavrik, a resident of Near Mills, know that feeling of awaiting the flying express train! . . .The train is still far away, neither to be seen nor heard, but the steady tinkling of the signal bell at the Odessa Goods Station announced its approach. The line is clear. The arm of the semaphore is raised. The rails are shiny and immobile. There is not a sound. But everyone now knows that the train is coming and that no power on earth can stop it. At the crossing, the barrier slowly drops. The boys scramble up on the station fence. A flock of birds takes off from the trees in alarm and circles above the water tower. From up there they can probably see the train already. Out of the distance comes the faint sound of a pointsman's horn. And now into the silence there trickles the faintest of noises. No, not a noise but rather its presentiment, a delicate quivering of the rails as they fill with inaudible sound. There is this quivering, then a sound, and then a noise. Now the train can clearly be heard: it is slowly breathing out steam, and each breath is louder than the one before it. All the same, it is hard to believe that the express will be flying past in another minute. But then suddenly, unexpectedly, the engine, enveloped in a cloud of steam, comes into sight ahead. It seems to be standing still at the end of the avenue of green trees. Yes, it must have stopped. But if so, why is it growing so enormously bigger with each instant? However, now there is no longer time to answer the question. Belching steam sidewise, the express flies past in a dizzying whirlwind of wheels, windows, doors, steps, couplings, buffers. . . . Gavrik, who spent his days roaming through the city, could not but be aware of the approach of events. They were still somewhere on the way-halfway between St. Petersburg and Odessa, perhaps-but into the silence of expectation there was already trickling the sound of irresistible movement, not so much heard as sensed. Swaying on their new crutches, the wounded, their faces overgrown with beards, hobbled along the streets. They wore shaggy Manchurian fur caps and the St. George Cross was pinned to the army coats slung over their shoulders. Factory workers who arrived from Central Russia brought rumours of a general strike. In the crowds near the police stations there was talk of violence. In the crowds near the university and the women's college there was talk of freedom. In the crowds near the Ghen factory there was talk of an armed uprising. On a day in late September a big white ship steamed into the harbour carrying the body of General Kondratenko, who had been killed at Port Arthur. For almost a year the huge box, containing a leaden coffin and weighing nearly a ton, had travelled foreign lands and seas before it finally reached its homeland. In the port it was placed on a gun carriage and driven along the broad avenues of Odessa to the railway station. Gavrik watched the sombre procession. The pale September sun fell on the funeral vestments of the priests, on the cavalry, the police in white gloves, the crepe ribbons on the street gas lamps. Torch-bearers in black three-cornered hats edged with silver carried glass lanterns on poles, and the pale flames of the candles could scarcely be seen in the daylight. Army bands played uninterruptedly but with painful slowness, their music mingling with the chanting of the cathedral choir. Harmonious but so insufferably high as to be almost shrill, the melancholy children's voices floated up tremulously to the arches of wilted acacia trees. Pale sunshine filtered through the lilac clouds of incense. Slowly-oh, so slowly!-the gun carriage, and the huge black box covered with wreaths and ribbons high on top of it, moved down the middle of Pushkin Street between lines of soldiers towards the railway station. As the procession came level with the garden in front of the station a university student sprang up on the iron fence. Waving above his shaggy head a faded student cap with a band that had once been blue, he shouted: "Comrades!" In that vast silent crowd his voice seemed weak, scarcely audible. But the word he had shouted-"Comrades"-was so incredible, so unfamiliar, so challenging that it was heard by all, and every single head turned in the direction of the little figure clinging to the massive fence. "Comrades! Remember Port Arthur! Remember Tsushima! Remember the bloodshed of January the 9th. The Tsar and his underlings have brought Russia to unbelievable shame, to unprecedented ruin and poverty! But the great Russian people carry on and will continue to carry on! Down with the autocracy!" Policemen had already laid hands on the student but he clung to the fence and, waving his cap, shouted quickly, frenziedly, determined to finish his speech: "Down with the autocracy! Long live liberty! Long live the re-" Gavrik saw him dragged down and led away. The tolling of bells floated over the city. The hoofs of the cavalry horses clattered on the pavement. General Kondratenko's coffin was placed in a funeral carriage of the St. Petersburg train. The bands crashed into their final notes. "Pre-sent a-a-arms!" The train pulled out. Slowly the funeral carriage sailed past the fence of gleaming bayonets held at attention, carrying the black box with the cross on the lid past the Odessa Goods Station, past the suburbs sprinkled with motionless crowds, past the silent stations and flag-stations-moving across the whole of Russia, northwards to St. Petersburg. Together with this train of sorrow, the spectre of the lost war moved across Russia. During those few days it seemed to Petya as if there had been a death in the house. Everyone walked about softly. No one spoke much. A crumpled handkerchief lay on Auntie Tatyana's toilet table. Immediately after dinner Father silently put a green shade over the lamp and sat correcting copybooks until late at night, every now and then dropping his pince-nez and polishing the lenses with the lining of his jacket. Petya became a quiet lad. Instead of the circles and cones of his homework he sketched in his drawing-book the Battle of Turenchen and the sharp-nosed cruiser Retvizan surrounded by fountains of water from exploding Japanese mines. Pavlik alone was irrepressible. He would harness Kudlatka to a chair turned upside down and, blowing furiously on a painted tin horn, drag "Kondratenko's funeral" up and down the passage. As he was getting ready for bed one night, Petya heard the voices of Father and Auntie Tatyana from the dining-room. "Life is unbearable, simply unbearable!" Auntie Tatyana was saying through her nose, as though she had a cold, although Petya knew very well she didn't. He paused to listen. "It's literally impossible to breathe!" Auntie Tatyana went on, tears in her voice. "Really, don't you feel it, Vasili Petrovich? In their place I'd be ashamed to look people in the face. But they-my God!-they act as if everything were as it should be. I was walking down the French Boulevard and I couldn't believe my eyes. A gorgeous turnout: dapple-grey trotters, a landau driven by a soldier wearing white gloves. All glitter and dazzle. In the carriage sat two ladies in white nurses' caps with red crosses, in velvet and sable cloaks, with diamonds this size on their fingers, and lorgnettes, and painted eyebrows, and eyes shining from belladonna. Opposite them were two elegant adjutants, their swords like mirrors, and with cigarette holders between their glistening white teeth. And oh how gay and merry! Now, who do you think they were? Madam Caulbars and her daughter driving out to Arcadia with their admirers, while all Russia is literally drenched in blood and tears! What do you say to that? Just think of it-diamonds that size! And where did they get them? They stole and robbed, and stuffed their pockets! Ugh, how I hate all that-forgive my frankness-all that scum! While three-quarters of the country are starving; while entire districts are dying out. I can't stand it any longer! I haven't the strength! Can't you see?" Petya heard passionate sobbing. "Calm yourself, Tatyana Ivanovna. But what can we do? What can we do?" "How should I know? Protest, demand, shout, go into the streets-" "I beg you-I understand-but tell me, what can we do?" "What can we do?" Auntie Tatyana exclaimed suddenly in a high, clear voice. "Everything! If we only want to and aren't afraid. We can tell the scoundrel to his face that he is a scoundrel, the thief that he is a thief, the coward that he is a coward. But instead we stay at home and keep silent. My God, my God, it's horrible to think of what unfortunate Russia has come to! Stupid generals, stupid ministers, a stupid Tsar." "Please, Tatyana Ivanovna, the children will hear!" "Splendid! Let them know the kind of country they live in. They'll thank us for it later. Let them know that their Tsar is a fool and a drunkard, who's been beaten over the head with a bamboo cane, besides. A degenerate! And the finest men in the country, the most honest, the most educated, the cleverest, are rotting in prison, in penal servitude-" Father tiptoed into the nursery to see if the boys were asleep. Petya closed his eyes and breathed deeply and evenly. Father bent over him, kissed him on the cheek with trembling lips, and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door tight behind him. But the voices filtered in from the dining-room for a long time. Petya could not fall asleep. Back and forth across the ceiling moved bars of light from the street. Hoofs clattered. The windows rattled faintly. It seemed to the boy that the glittering landau of Madam Caulbars, the woman who had stolen so much money and so many diamonds from the treasury (the treasury was a wrought-iron box on wheels), was driving back and forth beneath the window. 32 FOG That evening, many things Petya had never before suspected were revealed to him. Before, there had been certain conceptions so well known and so indisputable that there was never any reason to think about them. For example, Russia. It had always been perfectly clear and indisputable that Russia was the best, the strongest, and the most beautiful country in the world. How, otherwise, could one explain the fact that they lived in Russia? Or Father. Father was the cleverest, the kindest, the most manly, and the most educated person in the world. Or the Tsar. The Tsar was the Tsar. It went without saying that the Tsar was the wisest, the richest, and the most powerful man in the world. How, otherwise, could one explain the fact that Russia belonged to him and not to some other tsar or king, say the French king? And then, of course, there was God. About him absolutely nothing had to be said because everything was so clear. But now? It suddenly turned out that Russia was unfortunate, that besides Father there were others who were the finest men in the country and were rotting in penal servitude, that the Tsar was a fool and a drunkard and, besides, had been beaten over the head with a bamboo cane. On top of all that, the ministers were stupid, the generals were stupid, and it turned out that Russia had not defeated Japan-although up until now there had not been the slightest doubt that it had-but just the opposite. But the main thing was that it was Father and Auntie Tatyana who had been talking about all this. Lately, though, Petya had begun to suspect a thing or two himself. Decent, sober folk were put in jail. The police had even locked up a wonderful old man like Gavrik's grandfather, and were beating him, what's more. The sailor had jumped off the ship. Soldiers had stopped the coach. There were guards posted at the port. The trestle bridge had burnt down. A battleship had shelled the city. No, it was quite obvious that life was not at all the gay, pleasant, carefree thing it had been just the very shortest while ago. Petya was dying to ask Auntie Tatyana who had beaten the Tsar over the head with a bamboo cane, and why. Especially, why with a bamboo cane? But he already understood that there were things better not spoken of, that