adows of
the blossoming  white acacias and the notaries'  oval signboards with  their
black, two-headed eagles!
     When  all the copies were duly prepared and notarized,  it  turned  out
that there would have to be yet another inquiry.
     Time was passing and there were moments  when  Vasily Petrovich felt so
frustrated that he was ready to abandon the idea of going abroad. But Gavrik
saved the situation once more.
     "You're  green!" he  said  to Petya, shrugging his shoulders. "You're a
bunch of innocents. Tell your old man to grease their palms."
     "What, bribe them? Never!" Vasily Petrovich thundered when Petya passed
on his friend's advice. "I'll never sink that low!"
     But  in the  end, completely exasperated by red  tape, he did sink that
low. And behold, everything changed as  if by magic: a  certificate  of  his
loyalty  was  produced in  an instant, and  the hitherto unattainable travel
passport was delivered to the house.
     They had only to book their tickets and set out. Since they had decided
to travel on an Italian ship, there was something thrilling and foreign even
in  the  matter  of purchasing  the  tickets. In  Lloyd's  Travel Agency  on
Nikolayevsky  Boulevard, next door to the  Vorontsov Palace-that is,  in the
most fashionable part of the town-the prospective tourists were greeted with
such  reverence  and  politeness  that Petya  thought  his father  had  been
mistaken for someone else.
     A gentleman in a grey morning coat  with a large pearl tie-pin stuck in
a brilliantly coloured tie asked them to sit down in the deep leather chairs
which  stood  around  a  small  mahogany  table. The surface  of the  table,
polished to  a  high gloss, was  littered  with Lloyd's  narrow, illustrated
prospectuses in various  languages. There were photographs  of many-storeyed
hotels,  palm-trees, ancient ruins and  ocean liners.  Petya saw tiny  white
Remus and Romulus at  the  jagged tits of the  white  she-wolf,  St.  Mark's
winged lion, Vesuvius with an  umbrella-like Italian pine in the foreground,
Milan  Cathedral, as thin  and pointed as a fish-bone, and the leaning Tower
of Pisa; these symbols of Italian cities transported the boy into the realms
of foreign travel.
     Undoubtedly, the Travel Agency office belonged to that world  too, with
its flamboyant posters, price-lists, impressive rosewood filing cabinets and
counters, ship chronometers  instead  of ordinary clocks, models of ships in
glass cases, portraits  of the  King  and  Queen  of Italy, and  the gallant
gentleman in the  grey morning coat,  who chattered away in  broken  Russian
while selling Vasily Petrovich  the  pretty second-class tickets from Odessa
to Naples and patting Pavlik, whom he called "leetle signor turisto," on his
close-cropped head.
     From then on Petya felt that the journey had begun.
     When the tickets were handed  to them, together with a sheaf of  guides
and prospectuses, and when, in a high state of excitement, they emerged from
Lloyd's,  Petya regarded  Nikolayevsky Boulevard as the marine embankment of
some foreign city, and the familiar Richelieu monument with the iron bomb on
the  pedestal  as  one  of  the  "sights"  which  was  now to be  thoroughly
"inspected," not merely looked at. This feeling was  heightened by the ships
of every flag that lay at anchor in the bay far below the boulevard.
     The day of departure arrived.
     Their  ship  was  scheduled  to  sail  at  four  in  the afternoon.  At
one-thirty Dunyasha was sent  to hire two cabs. Auntie, in a mantilla and  a
little hat with daisies, was seeing them off. She  and a speechless, excited
Pavlik  climbed into one  cab;  Vasily Petrovich and Petya,  with the Alpine
rucksacks and the tartan travelling-bag packed so tight that it was ready to
burst, got into the other.
     A group  of idlers  stood around discussing  the event in  loud voices.
Dunyasha,  wearing her new calico dress,  wiped  her  tears  with her apron.
Vasily  Petrovich patted the pockets  of  his freshly-ironed silk jacket  to
make sure he had not forgotten anything, removed his black-banded straw hat,
crossed himself, and said with a show of nonchalance:
     "Well, let's be off!"
     The crowd parted, the cabs set off, and Dunyasha began to weep aloud.
     Petya's feeling that they were already abroad never left him. To get to
the port they had  to cross the city through the  rich business centre. Then
only did Petya realize how greatly Odessa had changed in the past few years.
The typical provincial  nature of this southern city had remained  unchanged
on the outskirts. There  one  could still  find the small  lime-stone houses
with  tiled  roofs,  the  walnut  and  mulberry  trees  in  the  yards,  the
bright-green booths of the soft-drinks vendors, Greek coffee-houses, tobacco
shops, and wine cellars  with a white lamp in the shape of a bunch of grapes
over the entrance.
     The  spirit  of European  capitalism reigned in  the town centre. There
were  black glass  signs  with  impressive gold lettering in  every European
language  at  the  entrance  to  the  banks  and company offices. There were
highly-priced luxury goods in the windows of  the English  and French shops.
Linotypes  clattered  and  rotary  presses  whirred  in  the  semi-basements
occupied  by newspaper  print-shops. As they  were crossing Greek Street the
drivers  pulled up  in  terror  to give  way  to  a  new and shiny  electric
tram-car,  emitting   cascades   of  sparks.  This  was  the   city's  first
tramway-line,  built by a Belgian company, connecting  the  centre  with the
Industry and Trade Fair that had just opened on wasteland near Alexandrovsky
Park.
     At  the  corner  of  Langeron  and Yekaterininskaya  streets,  directly
opposite the huge  Fankoni Cafe where  stockbrokers and grain  merchants  in
Panama  hats  sat  at  marble-topped  tables  set out right on the pavement,
Paris-style, under awnings and surrounded by potted laurel trees, the cab in
which Auntie  and  Pavlik  were  travelling  was  all but  overturned  by  a
bright-red  automobile driven by the  heir  to  the  famous Ptashnikov Bros,
firm,  a grotesquely bloated  young man in a  tiny  yachting cap, who looked
amazingly like a prize Yorkshire pig.
     The spirit  of  "European  capitalism" disappeared when they began  the
downhill  ride  to  the port and passed  the dives, doss-houses, second-hand
shops, and the dead-end lanes where tramps and down-and-outs, pale-faced and
ragged,  were  playing cards or sleeping on the  bare ground.  However,  the
spirit reappeared when they  approached the warehouses, commercial agencies,
the  stacks of crates and  sacks that  were  like a  city, with streets  and
alleys, and, finally, the ships of many nations and companies.
     The embarkation officer told the drivers where their ship, the Palermo,
was being  loaded, and they headed for the wharf. They  stopped  opposite  a
large  ship  gaily  flying  the  Italian  flag,  and  the  boys   were  most
disappointed to find that she had only one funnel.
     As might have been expected, they arrived  far too early and had nearly
an hour and a half till sailing time. Loading was in full swing. The arms of
powerful  steam  winches  swung  to  and  fro,  lowering bunches of  barrels
strapped together  and  crates that must have  weighed a ton into the  hold.
Passengers were not allowed on board as yet-not that any were in sight, with
the exception of a group of turbaned Turks or Persians, deck passengers, who
were sitting silently and sullenly on their rug-wrapped belongings.


        THE LETTER


     Suddenly Petya saw Gavrik coming towards him, swinging a spray of white
acacia. Petya could hardly believe his eyes. Had he come to see them off? It
was not at all like Gavrik to do a thing like that.
     "What made you come here?"  Petya  asked. "I've come  to see  you off,"
Gavrik answered and the nonchalant gesture as he handed Petya the acacia was
magnificent.
     "Are you crazy?"  Petya felt very embarrassed. "No," Gavrik said. "What
is it then?"
     "I'm your pupil,  you're  my teacher. And Terenty says that  we  should
respect our teachers. Isn't that  right?" There was a quizzical  twinkle  in
Gavrik's smiling eyes. "Stop fooling."
     "I'm not fooling," Gavrik said. And taking Petya by the arm, he said in
a very serious voice, "I want a word with you. Let's take a walk."
     They strolled  down  the pier, through the flocks of  lazy pigeons that
kept pecking away at kernels  of maize. At the end of the pier they sat down
on a huge anchor. Gavrik looked around, and when he had made sure that there
was  no  one within earshot,  he  said,  as  if  continuing  an  interrupted
conversation:
     "Look here.  I'll  give you  a letter, which you must stow away safely.
When  you reach a foreign country, stamp it and drop it in a letter-box. But
not in Turkey, because  they  belong to  the  same gang. Post it in Italy or
Switzerland, or, best of all, France. Will you do this for us?"
     Petya stared at Gavrik in amazement, wondering whether he was joking or
serious. However,  he had such a serious look about him that  there could be
no doubt.
     "Of course I'll do it," Petya said and shrugged.
     "Where will you get the money for the stamp?" Gavrik queried.
     "Don't worry. We'll be writing to Auntie all the time. That'll  be easy
enough."
     "I can give you the twenty kopeks for the stamp, maybe you can exchange
it there for their kind of money."
     Petya smiled.
     "Listen, none of that," Gavrik said severely. "And remember, it's  very
important... er  ... well." He wanted  to say "Party business," but did not.
He tried to think of an appropriate word,  but could not, and could only wag
an ink-stained finger significantly in front of Petya's nose.
     "I understand," Petya nodded solemnly.
     "It's  a personal request  from Terenty," Gavrik said after  a moment's
silence, as if to explain the importance of the matter. "Do you get me?"
     "Yes," Petya answered.
     Gavrik looked  around  once more and took the letter out of his pocket.
It was wrapped in newspaper to keep it from getting soiled.
     "Where can I hide it?"
     "Right here."
     Gavrik  took off Petya's sailor's cap  and pushed the letter  carefully
under the lining at the place where one of the seams had not been stitched.
     Petya was just about to say that Uncle Fedya had done  a  pretty sloppy
job on the cap, but at that moment a long shrill whistle drowned out all the
sounds of the  port for fully a minute. Then, abruptly, it stopped, as if it
had flown across the city and disappeared into the steppe beyond. The second
blow was a brief one, like a  period  at the end of  la long sentence. Petya
saw  the passengers  going  up the gangway. Gavrik  clapped Petya's  cap  on
again, adjusted the ribbons and the two ran towards the ship.
     "There's just  one  more thing," Gavrik  said hurriedly as  they  raced
along, "if they discover the letter,  say  you found it, but the best thing,
if you have time, would be to tear it up and get rid of it, although there's
nothing very special in it. So don't be soared."
     "I know, I know," Petya answered in a jumpy voice.
     "Petya!" Vasily Petrovich, Pavlik and Auntie were shouting together, in
varying  stages of despair, as they fussed around the  Alpine  rucksacks and
travelling-bag.
     "You dreadful child!" Father was boiling. "You'll be the death of me!"
     "Where  have you  been? What a thing to  do! To  disappear  just as the
first whistle was blowing!" Auntie was saying  excitedly, addressing herself
to Petya and the other passengers, who were arriving in crowds.
     "We nearly left without you!" Pavlik bellowed at the top of his lungs.
     A sailor picked up  their things. They followed him up the gangway over
the mysterious gap between the side  of the ship and the  harbour wall where
far below the green water glistened dully and a small transparent  jellyfish
bobbed on the surface. The  captain's mate, an Italian,  took their tickets,
and a Russian coastguard officer took Vasily Petrovich's passport. Petya was
positive that the officer eyed his sailor's cap with obvious suspicion.
     They went down a steep ladder into the bowels of the ship, each of them
tripping  over the high copper coaming, Electric lights burned dimly  in the
day-time darkness of the corridors, and when walking on the coconut mats and
cork  flooring they were conscious that the  ship, which was still moored to
the pier, had a fairly strong list.
     A  middle-aged  Italian  stewardess  unlocked the door  and  the sailor
dumped their bags  in the small cabin. The  sea was dazzlingly reflected  on
the porthole side of the very low creamy-white ceiling.
     While they were putting their things in the luggage nets,  bumping into
one  another  in  the  process,  the  siren  blew   a  second  blast-a  long
one-followed by two short ones.
     When,  at long last, after getting lost in the  maze  of  corridors and
stumbling painfully over  the high coamings, they found  their way up to one
of the decks,  the  steam winches were no longer  rattling, the long arms of
the  cranes were  motionless,  and  the only  sound  breaking in  the  sunny
stillness was the hiss of escaping steam.
     Auntie and Gavrik were  part of the small crowd gathered on the pier to
see  the  ship  off. When Gavrik  spotted  Petya, he  shook his fist at  him
stealthily and winked.  Petya knew exactly  what he meant. He fixed his  cap
casually and shouted:
     "Don't forget your Latin revision!"
     "I know it!" Gavrik shouted back, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Hie,
haec, hoc! How's that?"
     "Correct!"
     "There you are!"
     "Don't forget: I'll question you on the whole course when I get back!"
     Then  came  that  disconcerting  pause  that always precedes the  third
whistle, when neither those on board nor those on  the pier know what to say
or  do. Auntie  was  rummaging in her  bag for her handkerchief  in order to
start waving it at any moment. Gavrik kept his eyes on Petya's cap.
     "You might as well go,  there's no  sense  standing about here," Vasily
Petrovich said to Auntie as he leaned over the rail.
     "What? What did you say?" Auntie asked, holding her hand to her ear.
     "I said you might as well go home!" Vasily Petrovich shouted.
     But Auntie shook her head so vigorously that it would seem her one duty
in life was to stay there to the very end.
     "Duckie dear," she shouted to Pavlik  through her tears, "it'll be cold
at sea. You had better go put on your coat."
     Pavlik  winced  and  walked  away independently, so  that  none  of the
passengers would think  he was  "duckie dear."  "Duckie  dear, put  on  your
woollen stockings!" There was no stopping Auntie now.
     Pavlik had to assume a very  casual expression again, to show that none
of this had anything to do  with him, although  to tell the truth his  heart
was heavy at the prospect of parting with Auntie.
     The blast  of the third whistle shattered the air over the ship. With a
feeling  of relief  the crowd on 'board  and the crowd on the  pier began to
wave  handkerchiefs,  hats,  and  umbrellas. However,  they  were  a  little
premature, the ship still remained at her berth.
     The captain's mate, the coastguard officer and a group of soldiers with
green  shoulder-straps appeared  on deck again. The  officer began to return
the   passengers'   passports.   Just  then   Petya  noticed   a   strangely
familiar-looking  man  standing  behind  the  officer.  He  was  la   shabby
individual in a straw hat and there was something sad and dog-like about his
eyes. As he slowly scrutinized the passengers he raised a dark  pince-nez to
his  fleshy  nose.  At  that  moment  Petya  recognized  Moustache-the  same
moustached  sleuth  who had  chased seaman Zhukov all over the decks  of the
Turgenev five years before.
     At that moment  the  sleuth looked at Petya, and their eyes met.  There
was no way of  telling whether he had  recognized  the  boy or not,  but  he
immediately turned round to the officer and whispered something in his ear.
     Petya felt a chill run  down his spine. The officer, holding a stack of
passports in his hand as he walked over to Vasily Petrovich  and jerking his
chin at Petya, barked:
     "Your son?"
     "Yes."
     "Then kindly remove the St.  George ribbon from his cap. If you do not,
I will be forced to escort you ashore and  take up  the matter of your son's
unauthorized wearing  of military uniform. It's against  the law at home and
even more so abroad."
     "Petya, take the ribbon off this minute!"
     "Here's your passport. I'll see to  the ribbon. You can claim it in the
commandant's office when you return."
     Gavrik, watching from the  pier, saw  the officer and soldiers surround
Petya. Petya removed his cap.
     "Run! Petya, run!" he yelled land made a frantic dash  for the gangway,
but  he  immediately realized  his  mistake  when he  saw  that Petya merely
removed the ribbon and gave it to the officer, after which he put his cap on
his head again as if nothing had happened.
     Gavrik looked round anxiously, but no one had paid any attention to his
yelling. They were all busy waving good-bye.
     The officer  handed out  the  passports,  saluted  and walked  down the
gangway, followed by his soldiers and Moustache. A brisk command was shouted
in  Italian, and the gangway was  pulled up. Italian sailors in blue jerseys
ran along the side, nimbly taking in the mooring-lines; there was  a  jerky,
insistent  ringing  of the  engine-room telegraph,  the red  blades  of  the
propeller revolved, churning up  the water beneath the  gold lettering which
spelled:  Palermo.  The deck straightened itself, the  ship  shuddered,  and
Petya saw the  pier, its  structures, the  stacks of goods, and the crowd of
waving people  move now forward, now backward, and then,  in some mysterious
way, turn  up  now  at  one  rail, now  at  the other,  only  much  smaller.
Everything on shore began to recede and diminish,  as if carried away by the
wide stream of foamy green water seething beneath the stern.
     Petya  could  hardly distinguish Gavrik and Auntie, who was waving  her
umbrella. The panorama of the city began to rise slowly from behind the port
structures.  There  was Nikolayevsky  Boulevard, the  white  columns of  the
Vorontsov  Palace rising on  the cliff,  the City Hall, and the  tiny Duc de
Richelieu pointing his outstretched arm away to the horizon.


        ON BOARD


     They passed the breakwater  and saw its other side,  the one that faced
the open sea.  A multitude of fishermen with  long  bamboo fishing-rods were
darting through the spray and foam of the breaking waves.
     They  could see  Langeron,  Alexandrovsky Park and the remains  of  its
famous  arched  wall and next to it the  Industry and Trade Fair. This was a
township  of fancy pavilions,  the  most  prominent of  which  were the huge
three-storey  wooden  samovar of the Caravan Tea Company and the gold-tipped
black champagne bottle of the Rederer Company.
     A  symphony  orchestra was  playing  at  the Fair, and the  breeze that
billowed the hundreds of coloured flags and pennants on the white flagstaffs
brought  to Petya's ears  snatches of violin crescendos, gently muted by the
distance.
     Petya remained on deck, fascinated by  the  sight of the ship  entering
the open sea. His only  regret was that  his St. George ribbon had been left
behind  in the officer's pocket. The wind  was getting  stronger, it whipped
the Italian flag at the stern, and Petya  thought wistfully of the long ends
of his St. George ribbon which might have been streaming in the wind.
     The fresh sea breeze was already ruffling his blouse. It  caught at its
collar, it billowed it out on his  back and puffed out the wide sleeves that
were  fastened  tightly at the wrists. Perhaps it was even nicer to  have  a
ciap without a ribbon, for now, by a slight stretch of imagination, it could
be taken for the beret of the Boy Captain, the hero  of Jules Verne's famous
book, with the .added advantage that there was la letter under its lining.
     It was  almost  as  if  fate  had  decided to make  this  an even  more
memorable  day for Petya and it  presented  him  with  another unforgettable
impression.
     "Look, look! He's flying!" Pavlik shouted.
     "Who's flying? Where?"
     "There, it's Utochkin!"
     It  had  completely slipped  Petya's mind  that  this  was  the day  of
Utochkin's  long-awaited  flight  from Odessa  to  Dofinovka.  The  fearless
aviator had  been waiting for good flying weather to take off from  the Fair
grounds in his Farman, fly eleven miles straight across the bay, and land in
Dofinovka. It was not every boy that had the luck to see this spectacle, not
from the shore, but from the sea.
     Petya and the passengers who  poured out of their cabins saw Utochkin's
plane flying  low  over  the  water. It  had  just  taken  off and  was  now
approaching  the  ship. It flew so close to the stern  that the rays  of the
setting  sun caught at  the  clearly visible  bicycle wheels  of  the flying
machine, the  copper fuel tank, and the bent figure of the pilot,  his  feet
dangling as he sat between the semi-transparent yellow wings.
     As he came abreast of the ship the daredevil aviator doffed his leather
helmet and waved.
     "Hurrah!" Petya  yelled  and was ready  to pull his  cap  off  too, but
suddenly remembering the letter, clapped it on tighter instead.
     "Hurrah!" the passengers shouted as they  waved frantically. The flying
machine was getting smaller as it headed towards Dofinovka, a stream of blue
petrol smoke trailing in its wake.
     Up till then Petya's travels had consisted of  two visits to Grandma at
Yekaterinoslav  and their yearly  trips  to  Budaki, on the  sea-shore  near
Akkerman, where they  spent their summer holidays. They made the journey  to
Yekaterinoslav  by train, and travelled to Akkerman by  sea on the Turgenev,
which  they considered the latest thing in technical wonders. Now  they were
sailing  from  Odessa  to  Naples on  an ocean liner. To tell the truth, the
Palermo wasn't that at  all.  But, since she had made  several transatlantic
voyages, Petya, by a  slight stretch of  imagination, convinced  himself and
tried  hard  to convince the  others that  the  Palermo was really an  ocean
liner.
     The journey was to take two weeks, which seemed quite  a long  time for
such a swift ship  as  the prospectuses  and  advertisements would  have one
believe she was.
     The  point was that when the signer in the grey morning  coat sold  the
steamship tickets  to Vasily Petrovich he  innocently failed to mention that
the Palermo was not exactly a passenger ship,  but was, rather,  a freighter
that took on passengers,  and  that  it  was  to make fairly long calls at a
number of  ports. They  discovered this  in  Constantinople-the first of the
long  stops,  but  the  trip  to Constantinople  was  pleasant,  brief,  and
comfortable.
     Petya was captivated by the  wonders of life on board ship. Everything,
every  detail of its ultra-modern, technical efficiency,  combined with  the
romantic flavour of  the old sailing ships, fascinated him. The steady, even
throbbing of the powerful engines merged with the fresh, lively sound of the
waves as they surged past  the iron sides in an unending stream.  The strong
wind, full of  the  smell of the open sea, whistled through the  shrouds; it
billowed  out the canvas  sleeves  of the ventilator casings, bringing forth
hot and cold draughts from the engine-room and the hold.
     There  was a mingling of all the  smells:  the warm', soothing smell of
the  polished  mahogany  tables  in  the  lounges  and  the smell of painted
bulkheads;  the  aromas  of  the restaurant  and the  smell  of  hot  steel,
lubricating oil and dry steam; the resinous-woody smell of the  mats and the
fresh smell of pine-water sprayed in the distant white-tiled  rooms with hot
and  cold running water. There  were the heavy swaying copper candle-holders
with glass-covered candles, and the elegant, frosted  globes of the electric
lights;  the steel gang-ways,  the grates of the  engine-room and the double
oaken stairway with the  polished  carved banisters  and  graceful balusters
leading to the saloon.
     Petya explored every nook and cranny of the ship the very first day. He
peeped into mysterious cubby-holes  and into the depths of the coal bunkers,
where dim  electric lights  burned day  and  night, trembling in their  wire
casings like trapped mice.
     The practically upright  ladders below decks with  their slippery steel
rungs led the  boy to grimier and less  pleasant regions. Black  oily  water
oozed underfoot,  and he  became  queasy  from  the  deafening  booming  and
crashing of the engines, the continuous motion of the propeller shaft  as it
revolved  in  its  oily bed,  and the  heavy  air  of the  hold.  Engineers,
greasers, and stokers lived and worked in the depths of the ship. Every  now
and then the iron door of the stokehole flew  open and Petya felt a blast of
intense heat.  Then he saw the stokers moving swiftly against the background
of  the flaming inferno,  using their  long crow-bars  en  the caked red-hot
coal.  Petya  saw  their black,  sweat-drenched faces  bathed in the crimson
light  and  was terrified at the thought of remaining  in such  an appalling
place even for five minutes.
     He hurried away, slipping on the steel floor mats, holding on to greasy
steel  handrails,  and running up  and down  ladders in his eagerness to get
away from that forbidding world. But  it was not so easy. Stunned by the din
and  jangle of  engines throbbing  somewhere  close, Petya  found himself in
places such as he had never dreamed existed.
     He knew there  were deck passengers as well  as first-and  second-class
ones, but  he  discovered  that  there was another category,  the  so-called
"steerage" passengers, who  were  not even allowed  on  the lowest deck, the
place usually  reserved for cattle. They occupied wooden bunks in the depths
of one of the half-filled holds.
     Petya  saw  heaps  of dirty  oriental  rags  on  which several  Turkish
families were sitting and lying, prostrated by  the rolling and  pitching of
the ship,  the stale air,  the semi-darkness, and the  noise of the engines.
They  were  migrating   somewhere   together  with  their  children,  copper
coffee-pots  and  large  wicker  crates  filled with  chickens.  With  great
difficulty Petya made his way to the top  deck,  to the fresh sea air, where
it took him quite a while to recover.
     The  first- and  second-class  passengers lived according to a strictly
prescribed  routine:  at 8 a.m. the middle-aged stewardess in a starched cap
entered their cabin,  said,  "Buon giorno," and set a tray with  coffee  and
rolls on the little table; at noon and again at 6 p.m. a waiter with a white
napkin  tucked  under his  arm  would glide noiselessly  down the  corridor,
knocking at every cabin door and rattling oft" in a truly commedia dell'arte
manner, stressing his r's. "Pr-rego,  signor-ri, mangiar-r-re!" which meant,
"Dinner is being served."
     First-class passengers had the additional privilege of five o'clock tea
and a late supper. But the  Bachei family, belonging to that golden mean  of
society that usually travelled second-class, failed to qualify.
     The first and  second classes had separate dining-rooms. The first mate
presided at the second-class table d'hote. The captain, who was inaccessible
to  ordinary mortals  and therefore  shrouded  in  mystery,  presided in the
first-class dining-room.  Even  Pavlik, who  was such a  pusher, saw him not
more than two or three times during the whole trip.
     The first mate, on the other hand, was la jovial fellow and, judging by
his shiny  purple-pink Roman nose, a drunkard as well. He was  the  life and
soul of the company.  He  pinched Pavlik gently under the table, calling him
"little Russky," he  was attentive in passing  the ladies cheese and filling
the  gentlemen's  wineglasses,  and  his snow-white,  stiffly starched tunic
rustled  pleasantly  as  he  turned  now  left,  now  right,  bestowing  his
open-hearted smiles all round.
     For dinner there were real Italian macaroni with tomato sauce, a second
course  of roast meat and fagioli,  which turned  out  to be beans, and  for
dessert,   Messina  oranges  with  twigs   and  leaves  attached,   wrinkled
purple-green figs,  and fresh almonds that did not necessitate a nutcracker,
but were  easily cut with a table knife right through the  thick green outer
husk and the  still soft  inner shell. Being  served  by  a  waiter somewhat
embarrassed  them. He would hold the platter to the left of them,  balancing
it  on his  finger-tips, and they  had  to help themselves. From a sense  of
modesty they always took much less than they would have liked to.
     Vasily Petrovich was shocked  and  furious  when he found out that wine
went with the dinner-one bottle for three passengers. True, it was very weak
and  rather sour  Italian wine, and the passengers mixed it with  water half
and half, but, none the  less, Vasily Petrovich was outraged. The first time
he saw a large bottle without any label  placed before his setting he was so
indignant that  his beard shook,  and he felt like shouting, "Take this brew
away!" but he controlled himself in time and simply moved the bottle away.
     Later, however, when  he  tasted it, he  realized  that  the  steamship
company  had  no  intention  of making  drunkards out  of  its  second-class
passengers by serving them strong, expensive  wines, and so allowed the boys
to colour their  drinking-water  with a few drops, in order not to waste  it
completely, as it had been included in the price of the tickets.
     This daily water-colouring was  the high  light of the  dinner-hour for
Petya and Pavlik.
     Ice-cold  water was poured into  a  large  goblet from a  heavy,  misty
decanter that  had become frosted in the ship's refrigerator;  then a  small
amount of wine was added to the water.
     The wine did not mix with the  water  immediately. It swirled around in
threads  and  then  spread out, making  the  water  a bright  ruby-red,  and
throwing a pink swaying star-like reflection on the starched table-cloth.


        ISTANBUL


     The biggest impression of those first days  was  the  sight of the open
sea. For a day and two nights, between Odessa and the Bosporus, there was no
land  in  sight.  The  ship  was making  good speed,  yet it  seemed  to  be
motionless in the centre of a blue circle.
     At noon, when the sun was directly overhead, Petya could not figure out
which way they were heading.
     There was something entrancing about this seeming immobility, about the
empty horizon and the triumph  of the  two blue elements-sea and sky-between
which Petya's whole existence seemed to be suspended.
     At dawn  of the. second day  he  was awakened by the sound  .of running
feet overhead. The  ship's bell was ringing,  the engines had stopped and in
the  unusual  stillness he  could  hear  the clear  gurgling  sound of water
lapping at the ship's side. He looked out the porthole and through the early
morning  mist saw a  steep green bank. There  was a little lighthouse  and a
barrack with a tiled roof on the bank.
     Petya threw on his clothes and ran up on deck. A Turkish pilot in a red
fez was  standing next  to the captain, and the  ship inched slowly into the
green lane of the Zoospores. The lane widened and narrowed like a meandering
river. At  times the bank would  be  so  close that Petya  thought he  could
stretch his arm and touch the leaning white tombstones chaotically scattered
among  the cypresses  in the Moslem  cemetery,  the  poppy-red flag with the
crescent in the middle that waved over the custom-house, or the turf-covered
earthwork of the shore batteries.
     This  was Turkey-they were now abroad, in a foreign country,  and Petya
suddenly  felt a sharp pang of longing for  his  homeland, and,  at the same
time, a  burning  curiosity.  The homesickness remained with  him  until  he
returned to Russia.
     The sun was now  quite high, and by  the time  they reached the  Golden
Horn  and dropped  anchor  in  the  roads  of  Constantinople Bay  the  warm
reflections  of  the water  sparkled  and gleamed  all  over  the  ship-from
water-line to mast-top.
     From then on the Bachei family was possessed by a madness common to all
inexperienced tourists. They felt that  every minute was precious and wanted
to set out immediately to see all the  sights  of this  most wonderful city,
the panorama of which was so close  that they could see the  ant-like coming
and  going of crowds of people, the cupolas of the  broad, tall  mosques and
the spires of the minarets.
     They  decided  to  forego  breakfast  and  waited  impatiently  for   a
shrewd-looking Turkish official, who had been given several silver piastres,
to scribble something in  Father's passport;  the  scribble turned out to be
the Sign of Osman. The moment  the Bacheis went down the gangway,  they were
pounced  upon  by  artful boatmen. Finally,  they  flopped  on to the velvet
cushions of a wherry and, for two lire, were rowed ashore.
     Everything that happened afterwards  merged for Petya  into a sensation
of  an endless, scorching,  tiring day -  the deafening babble of the  truly
Eastern bazaars,  the equally Eastern  deathly quiet  of  the huge  deserted
courts around the mosques and the stony museum-like iciness inside. At every
step they parted with a steady stream  of lire, piastres,  paras, and copper
medjidies, coins which delighted the boys with their inscriptions in Turkish
and the strange Sign of Osman.
     In  Turkey the Bachei family  first  came in contact with that terrible
phenomena known as  guides,  and guides pursued them for  the  remainder  of
their trip.  There were  Greek  guides,  Italian guides, and  Swiss  guides.
Despite  specific  national  traits,  they all had something in common: they
stuck like  leeches.  But  the  Constantinople guides  left the  others  far
behind.
     The minute the Bacheis set foot on the pavements of Constantinople they
were besieged  by guides. The scene with the rival boatmen was repeated. The
guides  battled for their prey; it was a real  free-for-all and massacre, to
which no one paid the slightest heed.
     The guides poured torrents of filth on each other in every language and
dialect of  the Levant; they  tore  at each other's starched  dickeys, swung
their sticks with contorted faces,  elbowed  each  other, turned  round  and
kicked out like mules.
     In the end the Bacheis were claimed by an impressive-looking  guide who
had vanquished his opponents  with the help of a policeman friend. He wore a
morning coat that had faded badly  under the arms, striped  trousers, and  a
red fez.  His wildly-dilated  nostrils  and  coal-black  janissary moustache
expressed  a determination  to conquer  or to die;  however,  in every other
aspect  his face, and  especially  his frightened  baggy eyes,  wreathed  in
smiles,  bespoke a desire immediately to  show the tourists all there was to
see in Constantinople:  Pera, Galata, Yildiz Kiosk, the  Fountain of Snakes,
the Seven-Towered  Palace, the  ancient water-line, the catacombs,  the wild
dogs,  the  famous  St.  Sophia  Mosque, Sultan  Ahmed's  Mosque, Suleiman's
Mosque,  Osman's  Mosque, Selim's Mosque, Bayezid's Mosque, and  all the two
hundred and twenty-seven other large  and six hundred and sixty-four smaller
mosques in the city-in other words, he was at their complete disposal.
     He bundled them into a gleaming phaeton drawn by two horses,  jumped on
the step, looked round wildly, and told the driver not to spare the whip.
     They were all in by evening, so much so  that Pavlik fell asleep in the
boat on the way back to the ship and had to be carried up the gangway.
     Vasily Petrovich was aghast at the day's expenditure, not counting  the
fact that the breakfast and lunch due them on the ship had gone to waste. He
decided not to have a guide next day, an intention that was furthered by the
fact that that night the Palermo was taken  from the outer  roads to a berth
to take on cargo along with a dozen other ships.
     There could tie no chance  of the  guide finding them in the monotonous
chaos  of the crowded pier. They  slept like  logs  in the  small overheated
cabin, oblivious to the clatter of the winches and the  swift flashes of the
multicoloured harbour lights that filtered in through the porthole.
     They  awoke  to a  dazzling  morning sun  and  the  magic  panorama  of
Istanbul. Vasily Petrovich and the boys hastened  down the gangway. This was
their last day ashore and they had to get as much out of it as they possibly
could.
     The first person they saw as  they stepped down on  the  pier was their
guide of the day before. He waved his bamboo cane over his head in greeting.
The phaeton  and the copper-faced, docile Macedonian on the  coach-box  were
nearby.
     It  was  the day before all  over again, with  the  added attraction of
being taken through the bazaars and the curio shops of the guide's friends.
     Souvenir-buying turned out  to be just as ruinous an undertaking as the
guided  tour. But the Bacheis, hypnotized by their impressions,  had reached
that  stage of  tourist fever  when people  shed  all will-power  and,  with
something akin  to the  lunatic's  loss of  reason, submit  to their guide's
every whim.
     They bought stacks of crudely-coloured postcards of the places they had
just seen; they parted  with  piastres  and lire  for cypress rosaries,  for
glass balls  with coloured spirals, for  tropical shells,  for paper-knives,
and for exactly the same kind of aluminium pen-nibs that were on sale at the
Fair in Odessa.
     At  the  Greek Monastery monks palmed off on them a  yellow wooden box.
Through the huge  magnifying glass on  the lid they were supposed  to  see a
view of Athos. The box cost six piastres.
     They came to their senses only in the European quarter of the city when
they  found themselves amid  the  sumptuous  stores, restaurants, banks, and
embassies set in the luxuriant  dark verdure of southern  gardens. The guide
inveigled  them  into  a  friend's  camera shop to  buy  Kodaks, and then he
suggested dining at an exclusive French restaurant.
     At this  stage  Vasily Petrovich came  to,  rebelled, and  fleeing from
luxury  and  extravagance,  went  to  the  other  extreme  by   heading  for
Constantinople's slums, where they saw human misery at its lowest.
     The slums shook Petya to the depths of his soul, and not even the visit
to Scutari on the Asiatic shore could immediately restore his equilibrium.
     The motor boat raced across the Bosporus, cleaving the green water with
its prow, leaving two  diverging glistening furrows in its wake. Hundreds of
wherries  were reflected  in the  waters  of the  still,  lake-like  strait.
Turkish merchants,  officials with brief cases,  and  officers travelling to
and from Scutari, sat on velvet cushions under the light canopies.
     Wet oars glittered all over the bay  as they caught the sun's rays. The
smell of thyme  and savoury was borne  to them  from  the Asiatic shore. But
Petya could  not erase the memory  of the foul-smelling slums and the swarms
of green flies buzzing around the festering sores of the beggars.
     The moment  they  moored  in Scutari the guide rushed  on  with renewed
energy,  determined  not to  miss  a  single  one of the  sights.  Alas, our
travellers were quite spent.
     There was a bazaar  nearby and they  made for a stand with cool drinks.
The lemonade with a  strange flavour of anise drops was heavenly. They drank
pink ice-water and ate coloured ice-cream. Then they turned to the wonderful
variety of Eastern sweets.
     Vasily Petrovich was always opposed to giving children too many sweets,
since  they  were bad for teeth and  appetite.  But this  time  he could not
resist the temptation of trying the  baklava that was swimming  in honey, or
the salted pistachio  nuts whose bony shells had burst at the tips, like the
fingers of a kid glove, so that the green kernels peeped through.
     The  sweets made them thirsty, and the cool drinks  made them  eat more
sweets. The incident of  Grandma's jam was still fresh in Petya's memory and
he moderated his intake  accordingly. But Pavlik  was insatiable. He ate and
ate. And when Father flatly refused to  buy any more, Pavlik dived  into the
crowd  and emerged a