That was a magnificent time. My grandeur  and  my first long pants were
universally recognized.
     Boys in the street shouted "squab!" at me, for the colour of the school
uniform  was dove-grey, and pupils of the Boys  School were called squabs. I
was proud to have joined the chosen.
     The sun shone  on my belly and was reflected in the brass buckle  of my
leather  belt, stamped with the black  letters of the  school.  The  raised,
shiny  metal buttons  of my  dove-grey shirt were like silver lady  bugs. On
that very  solemn and  frightening August day  I climbed  the  steps  of the
school in my new shoes (the left was a bit tight).
     I  was immediately engulfed by the subdued murmur of the corridor.  Out
there  in the August day, beyond the school doors,  were the  cottage in the
country, the chalk hills, the summer and freedom.
     A little old man wearing a tunic  with  a medal pinned on his chest was
coming towards me. He appeared grave and angry,  as everyone did to  me that
day. Recalling my mother's  instructions,  I clicked my heels and bowed low,
having first removed my cap.
     "Well, hello, hello," the old man said. "Hang your cap over there. I'll
bet you're in the first grade, aren't you? Over there, third to the left."
     Once again I bowed low and respectfully.
     "Go on, that's enough  bowing!"  he said and chuckled. Then  he  got  a
floor brush from a corner and went off to sweep the corridor.
     The boys in my class  were all huge and as hairless as I, who must have
been the smallest. Some giants in worn or faded school uniforms were walking
up and down. These were boys who had been left back. One of them crooked his
finger at me.
     "C'mon over and  sit by me.  The seat's  empty.  Whacher  name?  Mine's
Fuitin-gaich-Tpruntikovsky-Chimparchifarechesalov-Famin-Trepakovsky-Po-ko-leno-Sinemore-Perekhodyashchensky.
Say it!" I couldn't.
     "Never  mind. You'll  learn. D'you  chew oilcake?  No? Got anything  to
smoke? No? D'you know how the farmer sold his eggs at the market?"
     I had  never heard that story. The big fellow said I was  a ninny. Just
then a  lively, big-eared, dishevelled boy who had  also been left back came
over to our double desk. First  he sized me up. Then he sat down on the desk
and said:
     "Are you  the doctor's  son? You  are, aren't you? Doctor's riding on a
swine, with his sonny on behind! Whose  button is this?"  He had got hold of
one of the shiny buttons on my cuff.
     "Mine. Can't you see?"
     "Well, if it's yours,  you can  have it!"  he cried,  tore  it  off and
handed it t  "And whose  button is this?" he said, getting hold of  the next
one.
     I had learned my lesson and said I did not know.
     "You don't  know?" he  shouted. "That means it's not yours, is it?"  At
which  he tore off the second button and threw it down. The class burst into
laughter. I would have certainly lost all my buttons if the school inspector
had not entered a moment. Everyone  rose as one  man. I liked this  form  of
greeting.  The  inspector's sly and lively eyes scrutinized  us.  His  bushy
beard, combed and parted down the middle  like a swallow's tail, brushed the
various decorations on his tunic. He spoke in a kind and friendly voice.
     "Well now, you  shiny, brand-new boys!  Had your fill of  running wild?
Watch your step  now,  you rascals. 'Tention! Stepan Gavrya!  Pull  in  your
belly! Get it back  into your  satchel!  You're repeating the year,  but you
haven't even  learn  stand  straight, you oaf!  Want  to  be put down in the
Deportment Ledger? Look at the mane you've grown! Get a haircut!"
     Then  the  inspector  took  out a list and called  the roll. At this he
intentionally confused the names of the big boys who had been left back.
     "Shoefeld!"  he called  instead of Kufeld. "Varekukhonko!"  instead  of
Kukhovarenko.
     It was finally my turn.
     "Here!" I shouted at the top of my voice.
     The  inspector  raised an  eyebrow. "Look how small  he is, but what  a
voice! I can see now why they named you Leo. How old are you?"
     I  wanted  to  get  in.  right  with  the  big  boys  and  so  quipped,
"Nine-thirty!"
     He replied evenly: "You  know, Leo, king of  the beasts, you scoundrel,
that I'll make you stay after school, and that  will teach you  to be witty.
Wait  a minute cried, as if I  were about to  leave. "Wait!  Why  are  there
buttons on your cuff?  That's against regulations. There's no  need  to have
buttons where they're not  supposed to  be." He came up  to me  and took  my
sleeve,  pulled a pair of funny-looking  pincers from his pocket  and nipped
off the offending buttons.
     Now I was dressed strictly according to regulations.


        NAPOLEONS AND THE DEPORTMENT LEDGER

     My name was soon entered in the Black Book.
     I was lacking several textbooks, and so Mamma, my brother and I set out
for them to the neighboring city of Saratov.
     School had started. The first page of my school  ledger had been filled
in, the first pages of the textbook  read,  and  a mass of new and important
information gleaned.  I felt very  learned.  The Cleopatra, a  small steamer
that  was taking us across to Saratov, was passing the familiar shoreline of
Osokorye Island, but I no longer regarded it merely as an island. It was now
"a tract of land completely surrounded by water".
     We  bought the books  I  needed  in  Saratov  and  then  stopped  by  a
photographer's  studio   to   have  our  pictures  taken.  The  photographer
immortalized the stiff  school cap and cockade  and my new  shoes.  Then  we
walked down  German Street. My cap crowned my  head like  a saint's halo. My
shoes creaked like an organ.
     We dropped in  at  Jean's Cafe and Confectionary. Mamma ordered  coffee
and pastries  called napoleons. It was cool and  dim inside, but I could see
myself  in my  new  shoes  and uniform  in  the  large mirror.  At the table
opposite was a thin, stiff-backed man. He was talking to a woman at his side
and looking over at our table. His eyes were as dead and dull as a fish's on
the  kitchen  table. I  stared hard at him.  The napoleon  got  stuck in  my
throat, just as Napoleon had in the snows  of Russia.  It was our principal,
Juvenal Stomolitsky.
     I jumped up. My  lips were  sticky from the pastry  and  from  fear.  I
bowed. I sat down. I got up again. The principal nodded and turned away.
     Soon we  rose to leave. At the door I  bowed again. The day was ruined.
The napoleon rumbled uneasily in my stomach.
     Our class  supervisor entered the classroom during the long recess  the
following day. He asked  for my ledger.  This is what he wrote  on the  page
devoted to "Conduct and Deportment":
     Pupils of secondary schools are forbidden to patronize cafes, even when
accompanied by their parents.
     Kuzmenko, another boy  who had been left back, read the entry and said:
"Good for you! You've started  out right. Congratulations!  Keep up the good
work."
     To tell the truth, I had been terrified, but his words cheered me up. I
shrugged and said: "I stuck my neck out that time. What the hell!"
     From then on we called confectionaries conductionaries.


        P. B. S.

     The Pokrovsk Boys High School was just like every other boys school. It
had cold tile floors that were kept clean  by being swept with damp sawdust.
There was a  long corridor and class-rooms leading off  it. The corridor was
filled by  the short incoming tides  of  recess  and drained  again  by  the
outgoing tides of the lessons.
     There was a school  bell. Its pealing had a double meaning. One, at the
end  of  a  lesson,  was  exciting  and  carefree. It pealed: "Ring! Fun and
da-ring!"
     The other sounded when recess was  over.  It announced the beginning of
another  lesson. It  was  a mean old  grouch:  "Br-rats!  I'll wr-ring  your
necks!"
     Lessons,  lessons  and  lessons.  There  was  the  class  ledger.   The
Deportment Ledger. "Leave the classroom!" "Go stand in the corner!"
     There were  prayers and  chapel.  Royal days. Tunics. The gold-stitched
silence  of  the  services.  Standing  at attention.  Boys fainting from the
closeness and from the strain of standing still for two hours in a row.
     The dove-grey overcoats. The  dove-grey boredom. I counted the  days by
the pages of  my  ledger. It  had  a column for the  schedule. A column  for
assignments. A column for marks.  Each week  ended with the signature of our
class supervisor. Sunday alone, the shortest day in the week, did not have a
space of  its own in my ledger. Every other day was strictly regimented. 18.
Pupils of secondary schools are forbidden to go outdoors  after  7 p.m. from
November 1st to March 1st. 20. Pupils are not allowed to attend the theatre,
cinematograph or other places of  amusement without  special permission from
the school inspector  in  each given instance. Pupils are strictly forbidden
to frequent confectionaries, cafes, restaurants, public gardens, etc.
     Note: The  above  places of amusement  in  Pokrovsk include  the Public
Gardens Market Square and the railroad stations.
     These  rules  were printed  on our school  cards, and  every breach  of
conduct that flaunted the  sacred rules meant a demerit.  They say all roads
lead  to Rome. At  the Boys School all roads  led  to the Deportment Ledger.
Every boy's name was entered in it at one time or another. There were simple
demerits:  boys  were   left  without   lunch;  there  were  reprimands  and
expulsions. It was a terrible book! A secret book. A Dove Book.
     There is a legend  about  a Dove Book which fell  from the  skies  many
centuries ago and which supposedly contained all the secrets of Creation. It
was a wonderful book,  something like a ledger  for the planets. None of the
wise men could read it all  and  understand it, for its secret meanings were
too deep for them. We boy regarded the Deportment Ledger as just such a Dove
Book,  for the authorities kept careful watch over its secrets.  None  of us
ever dreamed of reading the entries in it.


        SQUABS

     Unfledged doves are  called squabs. We were called  squabs,  because of
our dove grey school uniforms. Our school's Deportment Ledger, its Dove Book
had the  lives  of three  hundred  squabs  recorded  in  it.  Three  hundred
unfledged doves trapped in a cage.
     The town of Pokrovsk was once a settlement. It was a rich settlement, a
grain-selling   centre  of   Russia.   Huge,   five-storey   granaries  with
turret-roofs lined the bank of the Volga here. Tens  of millions of  bushels
of wheat were stored in this granary row. Clouds of pigeons blotted  out the
sun. The grain was loaded on barges. Small tugboats guided the barges out of
the bay, just as a boy-guide leads a blind man.
     Ukrainian  tillers lived  in Pokrovsk, as well as rich farmers,  German
colonists, boatmen,  stevedores, workers of the lumber mills, the  bone-meal
factory and  a small  number  of Russian  peasants.  In  summer they  became
bronzed by the steppe  sun, they drove camels, gathered on the water  meadow
on holidays which usually ended in endless fights along the river bank. They
raced  their boats against Saratov boats. In winter they  drank heavily, had
weddings and danced on Breshka Street. They  ate  sunflower seeds. The  rich
farmers met in council. Then, if ever  the question of a new school, a paved
road or some similar undertaking was  raised,  they would shout it down with
their usual "resolution" of: "No need for it!"
     Slush and mud were ankle-deep  on  the streets. Such  was  the state of
affairs in Pokrovsk, just seven kilometres from the city of Saratov.
     And  then the overgrown  sons of the wild  and  carefree steppes, these
huge, bold  savages from the farms, were forcibly driven into the classrooms
of Pokrovsk Boys School, had their  hair cropped  close, their names entered
in the Ledger and their bodies stuffed into the school uniform.
     It is difficult, it is all but impossible to  describe the things  that
went on in that school. There  were constant fights. Boys fought singly, and
one  class fought  another. Bottoms of  long  school coats were ripped  off.
Knuckles were cracked against enemy  jaws. Among the weapons  used were  ice
skates, school satchels, lead weights. Skulls were cracked. The seniors (Oh,
those ruling classes!) would take two small boys by the legs and batter each
other with our swinging heads. True,  there were some first-year boys so big
they drove the fear of God into the meanest seniors.
     I was rarely  hit, since I was  so  little they were afraid they  might
kill  me. Still and all, I was accidentally knocked unconscious two or three
times.
     They had their own special game of soccer that was played on empty lots
with old telegraph poles or stone  posts that were  lying on the ground. The
object of the game was to roll  a pole across the lot into the other  team's
field,  using their feet alone. As often as not, a pole would roll over some
fallen players, mangling and crushing them.
     During classes they  cribbed  and prompted  each other outrageously and
with  great imagination, inventing the most  complex and outlandish devices.
Desks, floorboards, blackboards and  lecterns  were all rigged.  There was a
special  delivery  service and a  telegraph. During written tests  they even
managed to get the answers from the senior classes.
     Some boys, to spite the teachers, would  hunch over and thus be sent to
stand  in a corner  "to  straighten  up",  where  they  persisted  to  cause
themselves great discomfort by standing  hunchbacked, although at home these
were strong boys with excellent postures.
     The boys chewed  oilcakes  in class, played  cards, fenced with knives,
traded  lea weights,  and read the  adventures of  Nat Pinkerton. There were
some  lessons during which half  of the pupils were  being punished and were
lined  up along  the walls, while  another  quarter  was out smoking in  the
washroom or else banished from the classroom. But a  few heads bobbed  above
the desks.
     The boys ignited phosphorus in order to produce  a mighty stench.  That
meant the room had to be aired, which left no time for the lesson.
     A squeegee would be  tacked under the teacher's lectern,  and when  the
string was jerked the toy would squeak. The teacher would rush  up and down,
but still squeaked. He would search the desks, and still it squeaked.
     "Stand up, all of you! And stay there!"
     Every boy would be on his feet, but still, the toy Went on squeaking.
     The  inspector would  be  summoned.  Still,  it went  on squeaking. The
pupils  would be  made to sit at their desks  for  two hours and would  miss
their lunch.
     Still, it went on squeaking-
     The boys stole things at the market, they fought the town boys on every
corner  they  beat up  policemen. They  poured  every sort of mess into  the
inkwells  of those  teachers whom  they disliked. During  lessons they would
slowly  vibrate a split  penpoint that had been stuck into  a desk,  and the
screeching sound it produce would set your teeth on edge.


        THE PRINCIPAL

     Juvenal  Stomolitsky,  the  principal, was  tall, thin,  unbending  and
careful! pressed. His eyes were round, heavy-lidded and leaden. That was why
he had bee nicknamed Fish-Eye.
     Fish-Eye  was a protege of Kasso, the  Minister of  Education  who  was
loathed  by  all. Fish-Eye  valued drilling,  absolute  quiet and discipline
above all  else. As classes  ended each  day he would  take  up  his station
outside the  cloakroom. We were to pass by him in review after we had put on
our  caps and coats. We had to stop as w approached, remove our  caps by the
visor (and only by the visor!) and bow low.
     Once, when I was in a hurry to get  home, I grasped the hatband instead
of the visor when I doffed my cap.
     "Stop!" the  principal  commanded. "Go back and return again. You  must
learn to greet me properly."
     He  never shouted. His voice was as dull and colourless as an empty tin
can. When angry  he would say:  "Abominable boy!" This was his most terrible
reprimand   and  always  meant  a  poor   mark  for  deportment  and   other
unpleasantneses in the future.
     No matter whether he appeared in a classroom  or in the Teacher's Room,
conversation would  immediately  die  down.  Everyone  would rise.  A  tense
silence followed. The  atmosphere  would  become  so stifling  you felt  you
wanted to open a window and shout.
     Fish-Eye liked to enter a classroom unexpectedly. The pupils would jump
to  their feet with a great rattling of desk tops. The teacher would  become
red  in the  face,  stumble in  the  middle of  a word and look just like  a
schoolboy who was caught smoking.
     The principal would sit down by  the lectern, making sure that each boy
called on would bow to him first  and then to the teacher. Once the district
inspector, a little  grey-haired  old man with  a large  star on  his chest,
visited the school.  The principal escorted him to one of the classrooms and
motioned with his eyes to a boy who  was being  called upon to recite to bow
first to the district inspector, then to him and, finally, to the teacher.
     The  following notations,  thanks to old  Fish-Eye, were to be found in
the Black Book:

     Andrei Glukhin was seen by  the principal wearing  his coat thrown over
his  shoulders. He is to be left  after school for four hours. Stepan Gavrya
... was seen  in town by  the principal wearing a shirt  with an embroidered
collar.  Six  hours after school. Nikolai  Avdotenko  was absent from school
without permission on October 13th and 14th. To be left in  class for twelve
hours (on two successive holidays).

     (Nikolai Avdotenko's aunt died on October 13th. He had been living with
her family.)
     The district inspector was pleased  with the way the principal  ran the
school.  "I'm very  pleathed, thir," he  lisped. "Thith  ith  an exthemplary
thchool."


     THE TEACHERS' ROOM

     The Teachers' Room was at the end  of the corridor, to the right of the
principal's office.  Continents and oceans  were rolled  up  and stuck  away
behind  a bookcase in a  corner.  The  huge  round eyeglasses of the earth's
hemisphere gazed down from a wall.  The glass door of the bookcase reflected
His Majesty, by the Grace of God, a blue  ribbon, a carefully-groomed beard,
an arrow-straight part and rows of decorations, the Tsar of all Russia. (The
actual portrait of the tsar hung  opposite).' The Black Book was kept in the
bookcase.  On top of the bookcase a lop-sided  squirrel offered its shedding
tail as a moustache for a  goddess. The  goddess was old and made of plaster
of  Paris. Her name was Venus. Whenever  the  bookcase door was  opened  the
goddess  swayed  gently  and  seemed about to  sneeze.  And the bookcase was
opened whenever someone reached for the Deportment Ledger. Caesar Karpovich,
the  school supervisor, was the  keeper of the key to  the bookcase. We  had
nicknamed him Seize'em and he was the butt of all our pranks. He had a glass
eye, something he tried very hard to conceal. However, the moment  he turned
it on us, we made faces at him and thumbed our noses.
     New  boys who had  not yet discovered  he had a  glass  eye admired the
courage of the pranksters. Seize'em was  the author of  at least half of all
the entries in the Deportment Ledger,  for he  was responsible for the boys'
behaviour, both in school and out.
     He would  ambush  us on Breshka  Street, which was strictly off-limits.
Seize'em  stalked  the  streets after seven p.m.  in  search  of boys  still
outdoors. He would come calling to see if an absent boy was  really sick. He
would lie in wait  for boys outside the  Dawn Cinema. He spent his days  and
nights busily tracking  down culprits  to provide fuel for the Ledger. Still
and all, the boys managed  to trick  him  brazenly. Once,  for instance,  he
waylaid  a  group  of sixth-grade boys inside  the Dawn Cinema.  They locked
themselves  in one of the boxes. Seize'em went for a policeman, and together
they tried to force the door of the box. As the film flickered on the screen
the boys tore down the drapes of their box, knotted them and slide  down the
drape-rope into the orchestra. First to appear on the screen were a  pair of
dangling legs. Then the boys fell into the laps of the audience. There was a
general commotion, during which they escaped through an emergency exit.
     Wisps  of cigarette smoke drifted about in  the Teachers' Room, snaking
around the globes  and stuffed birds. There was  a table beside the bookcase
where the class ledgers were kept, witnesses of the good, bad or indifferent
progress of every boy in the  school. The school  inspector  usually  leafed
through them during recess.


        THE INSPECTOR

     The boys  almost liked Inspector Nikolai Romashov. He was a well-built,
handsome  man  who wore  his hair in a short brush cut. His  dark eyes  were
often narrowed, and he had a sharp tongue that was often rude.
     He,  too,  followed his own  educational  methods.  If, for instance, a
given class had committed some collective crime or did not wish to hand over
an offender, Romashov  would appear after  lessons,  entering the  classroom
slowly and facing the boys, all of  whom  would stand  stiffly at attention.
Then, raising his head high, he would survey them. It seemed  that his beard
swept over the tops of our heads.
     "Where's the monitor?"  he  would say in  a chillingly calm  voice. "Go
over and shut the door. So."
     The monitor would  shut the door tightly.  The  boys, hungry  and tired
after five hours of study, would stand at attention. Romashov would continue
his inspection  of the class through his beard.  He  would then take a  book
from his pocket,  sit down at  the  lectern and become engrossed in  it. The
boys stood at attention. For ten minutes. For half an hour.
     After  about an hour's reading,  the inspector would  suddenly put  his
book aside  and begin  his harangue  in  a  soft  but  resounding  baritone,
speaking calmly throughout:
     "Well?  What  have you to say  for yourselves,  muttonheads? Addlepated
hooligans. Dimwitted pigeon fanciers! What a brainless collection  of dolts!
Morons! I'll have you publicly castigated in front of the whole  school, you
numskulls! Pigheaded  charlatans! Nitwits! Whose stupid head is that? Ah, is
that you, Gavrya? I mean you, too, by the way. Why are  you turning your mug
away? You're the top-ranking dunce here! Well? I'll  bet you feel ashamed of
yourselves, you louts. Scoundrels! Idiots! I'll see you get what's coming to
you, you blackguards. Here you are, left  after school. And  there's  dinner
waiting at  home. Hot soup. Roast beef. I can smell  the savoury  sauce." At
this  the inspector  would  sniff  loudly and smack his  lips. "Ha!  Hungry,
aren't you? I'll bet you are.  And  you're sure to get your backsides tanned
when you get  home. Your fathers will  see to that. I'll send a  note along,
telling your dads to let down your pants and give you a good whacking in the
rear   deportment  ledger.  There's  nothing  to  laugh  at,  you  lummoxes!
Rattlebrained whelps! Left after school! For shame!"
     After  carrying on  in this vein  for  about an hour, he  would finally
dismiss the class, but one at a time, with long intervals in between. We all
felt faint by then.


        LAMBS AND BILLY GOATS

     Romashov had  divided all the  boys into two groups: the lambs and  the
hilly goats. That, too, was how he introduced the pupils of a class to a new
teacher.
     "Be seated, idlers! Here, you see, are the lambs, the crammers, the 'A'
students,  the goody-goodies. And  here are the  'F'  and  'D' students, the
left-backs,   the    dinner-missers,   the   blabbermouths,   loafers    and
back-benchers. Aleferenko! Shove your  belly  into your satchel! Look  at it
hanging over your belt!"
     The  inspector was in  charge of seating the class. Thus,  he  had  the
wildest, laziest and  worst pupils  in the front rows. The farther back  and
closer  to the windows, the better the marks a boy had. However, a very warm
relationship based  on prompting and cribbing existed all along the diagonal
line between the far  left "A"  comer of  the class and the front right  "D"
corner.


        THE TALE OF THE AFON RECRUIT

     The Black Book contained eight  incomprehensible  entries.  These eight
mysteriously  similar  notations  all  bore  the  same  date. The  following
paragraph was repeated eight times:

     "(Name) of the ... grade has been severely reprimanded for the last and
final  time for outrageous hooliganism. His deportment  mark for the term is
"C" ("C-"). He is to be punished by twenty hours of compulsory schoolwork on
successive  holidays.  His  parents  have been  notified.  (Signed)... Class
supervisor. (Signed) Inspector...."

     These eight entries refer to a scandalous and tragic event which in its
time had the entire town up in arms. However, no  one  knew the end  of  the
story or the names of the real participants in the events.  There is  not  a
word in  the Black Book  about Bloodhound Kozodav, the Afon  Recruit  or the
Tavern,  that  third-rate  joint run  by Madame  Kolenkorovna. Mokeich,  the
now-departed  school janitor, divulged the sector  of the Black Book to  me.
Here it is.


        THE FIRST BELL

     There were  no electric bells  in the  city  about  eighteen years ago.
Instead,  there  were  wire  handles  on  the  porches,  somewhat  like  the
pull-chains  of old-fashioned  toilets. And  you pulled the handle  when you
rang. Then  a new  doctor arrived in Pokrovsk. They said he was  very much a
man for  modern  technology  and scientific  development. Indeed, the doctor
subscribed to Niva, a  literary magazine, and had battery-run electric bells
installed  in  his  apartment.  A little  white bell-button appeared on  the
outside door beneath the doctor's card. The patients would press the button,
at  which a  loud-voiced  bell  would  suddenly come to  life in the  foyer.
Everybody  agreed this  was  wonderful. The doctor  soon  had a  flourishing
practice,  and  it  became the height  of  fashion  in Pokrovsk  to  have an
electric bell  on one's front porch. Five years later  there  was  hardly  a
house  with  a  porch  that  did  not  have  a  bell-button. The  bells  had
variously-pitched voices. Some buzzed, others tinkled,  still others rasped,
and  there were those that  simply rang.  Some bells had instruction notices
tacked up beside the buttons, such as: "Please don't bang  on the  door. Put
your finger on the pip for to ring the bell."
     The people of Pokrovsk were proud of their cultured ringing. They spoke
of their  doorbells with love and interest. When meeting in the street, they
would inquire after the health of a doorbell.
     "Hello,  Pyotr! How are you?  And  how's the  new  arrival? Did the man
install it yet?"
     "Yes, thanks. What a beauty! Come on over and hear  it ring. It's got a
voice like a canary."
     When  matchmakers praised a girl's  dowry  they would say: "She'll have
her own wing of a house with a 'lectric bell on the porch."
     Mlynar, the richest man  in town, had seven  different bells installed,
one  for each  day  of  the week.  The bell with the liveliest sound was for
Sundays. The gloomiest-ever bells jangled on fast-days.
     The Afon Recruit would be  sent for whenever  a bell went out of order.
The Recruit doctored old bells, installed new ones and was reputed to be the
best  "bell man"  in town.  His  fame was widespread,  and his place  in the
annals  of Pokrovsk was as  honourable as that of  Lake Sapsayevo, still the
best swamp in the area, or Lazar, the best of the cabbies, who is still hale
and hearty, or the granary fire, surely the best of all fires.


        THE TAVERN

     The Afon  Recruit  lived at the  market  place, by the meat  rows  that
smelled of fresh  blood. He  lived in  the Tavern, as its inhabitants called
their  filthy,  comfortless hovel. A large pit  near the Tavern was  forever
filled  with  foul-smelling puddles,  and  stray  dogs would scrounge around
there, dragging out long ropes of  intestines  or messes of entrails, all of
which  swarmed  with  blue-bottle  flies.  The  market's  hardware  section,
resounding with hammering and clanging, was a short way off.
     The Afon Recruit lived in the Tavern. No one knew  where  he  was from,
how he had got his nickname or of what nationality he was. But everyone knew
him. He was strong, as swarthy as a roasted nut, thin, wiry, and as agile as
a pennant  in the wind. He had a huge round earring in his  left  ear, and a
long black moustache sprang from under his hooked nose. The  left tip of his
moustache pointed  skyward, while the right pointed down, which fact made it
resemble a  washbasin  faucet.  His pearly  teeth were forever flashing in a
smile.  His hands were forever busy, doing  some piece of work or other. And
his hands  were of a  kind  called "golden hands"  in Russian.  He  could do
anything. He  was a mechanic, a barber, a magician,  a watchmaker-you simply
had to name it.
     He was the most respected man in the Tavern. Everyone followed his lead
and liked him. No one could remember ever having seen him angry. Even when a
heated argument  led to ugly  knives, the Afon Recruit's  smile flashed more
brightly than the blades. He  would materialize between  the  fighters as if
from thin air to shove them apart. Then, flying onto one of the bunks like a
dervish, he would shout:
     "Attenshun,  pu-leeze! Presenting the ver-ry  latest hocus-pocus magic:
black, white, striped and polka-dotted! Ladies, gents and esquires! Entendez
a sec! Voulez vous have a look! Stupendous! A-mazing! Alley-oop!"
     Tiny boxes and balls would come pouring out of his pocket to be juggled
over his head. His  hat spun on a cane which he balanced on  the  tip of his
nose as he lit cigarettes inside his  coat sleeves.  A woman's voice issured
from  his innards,  and  it was singing. Meanwhile, his torn sole  gaped and
said "Merci". The quarrel was forgotten instantly.
     Dunka Kolenkorovna, a half-wit, was the mistress of  the Tavern. Kostya
Gonchar, the town fool, was her favorite lodger. He was absolutely harmless,
for his  great joy in life  was adorning his person with anything  bright or
shiny. He  went  about town in his rags hung with pictures cut out of  Niva,
the  tops  of tea tins,  ads for various brands of cigarettes, empty lozenge
tins,  beads, paper  flowers,  playing  cards, bits  of harness  and  broken
teaspoons. The townsfolk  were indulgent and  gave him whatever  bright  and
useless odds and ends they had. To this very day whenever anyone in Pokrovsk
is dressed too gaudily someone will say:
     "Look at him! He's dolled up like Kostya Gonchar!"
     Bloodhound Kozodav,  the  policeman  whose beat  was the  market place,
liked to drop  in at the Tavern.  Kozodav possessed everything  an exemplary
policeman  needed: a pair of fierce moustaches, a badge, a whistle, a sword,
a deep, gruff  voice, a blue-red lump of a  nose, a medal,  and  braided red
shoulder  straps, the envy of  Kostya Gonchar. Bloodhound Kozodav would drop
in  at the Tavern to have a drink  on  the house, play a game  of cards, and
have a heart-to-heart talk with Joseph Pikus, the sage travelling salesman.
     The other inhabitants of  the Tavern were Levonti Abramkin, a nightman,
Hersta, a German organ-grinder, his parrot that had been trained to pick out
"lucky" fortune cards, Chi Sun-cha, a tubercular Chinaman, and Shebarsha and
Krivopatrya, two bosom friends and petty thieves.


        THE DEVIL AND THE BABES

     In the evenings  boys from our school would sneak into the Tavern. Here
they could  enjoy oilcakes, relax in pleasant company, forget for an hour or
two the  strictly regulated  life  of the  school  and  play  cards  without
worrying about Seize'em pouncing on them.  Here no one ever  asked you  what
your term  mark  for  Russian  grammar  was  or whether you  had  done  your
homework. We were always welcome. The inhabitants of the Tavern joined us in
berating the school rules and  regulations, and many  were quite prepared to
beat up the Latin teacher for giving a boy an  undeserved "F". Chi  Sun-cha,
who was always so reserved, would get all worked up.
     "Why so bad Latin teacher?"  he would say as he cut out coloured  paper
festoons. "Boy good. Why he get 'F'?"
     We would bring the men books we thought were good, the latest news, our
school  lunches  and  junk  for Kostya  Gonchar.  In  exchange  we  received
invaluable information in such varied fields as  the art  of jimmying locks,
forging signatures, and the Odessa version of ju-jitsu.
     The Afon Recruit was a great one for discussing  a book he had read and
always drew us into these discussions. In the beginning, the other  men made
fun  of him, saying that the  devil had taken on a bunch of babes, but  soon
nearly  every other inhabitant of the Tavern was  taking part in our  heated
debates. To  top it all, Vasya  Gorbyl, one  of the "babes", gave  Shebarsha
such a beating that we were  all treated with special respect from  that day
on. At first, our reading was limited to adventure  stories. Thus, we sailed
80,000 Leagues Under the Sea, found Captain Grant's Children and nearly lost
our  own  heads  over  the  Headless Horseman.  Then  Stepan  Gavrya,  alias
Atlantis, brought  some banned  political  books to  the Tavern.  The Tavern
inhabitants listened to the story of the Paris Commune with bated breath.
     We schoolboys were pledged to secrecy about these visits to the Tavern.
     Many of  our  fellow classmates had no idea where the  so-called  Hefty
Gang hung out after school. Whenever Bloodhound Kozodav put in an unexpected
appearance  at the  Tavern the banned books were  whisked  out of sight  and
Bloodhound was  offered a drink. He would soon  be  in a benevolent mood and
would whisper confidentially:
     "Lissen, boys, don't  poke  your noses  out for 'nother half-hour. That
Seize'em's sniffing around Breshka Street. I'll give you a sign soon's all's
clear."


     'TWAS IN THE GARDEN....

     In September the  leaves began to fall  and the grass  turned yellow in
the Public Gardens, which somehow resembled  the worn fur  collar  of an old
winter coat.
     In September the boys of our school picked a fight with the town boys.
     Vanya Makhas, a fifth-grade boy,  was out walking with  a girl from the
Girls School. Some  boys  from Berezhnaya  Street who were sitting on one of
the park benches began baiting him.
     "Hey, sonny! Don't you pick your girls from our street."
     Makhas  escorted the  girl to the fountain and said:  "Pardon me.  I'll
only be a minute. I'll be back in  a sec." Then  he returned  to the  bench,
went up to the  fellow and struck him, knocking him against  the wire fence.
The next moment the fight had turned into a free-for-all. The boys fought in
silence, for  there were teachers sitting on the benches of  the next  walk.
The town boys knew this, too, and felt it unfair to shout and thus put their
enemies at a disadvantage.
     Some  park watchmen  who  were passing  broke  up  the  fight, and  the
appearance of Seize'em on the scene put a stop to the slaughter.
     That  was  when  the town fathers  asked the  principal  to include the
Public Gardens  in  the  list  of  off-limits  places  for  schoolboys.  The
principal was only too pleased to comply. Thus, the boys of  our school were
deprived of their  last  recreation spot.  They  tried to  protest,  but the
Parents' Committee upheld the principal's ruling.


     WE'RE CHALLENGING YOU

     That very day a secret emergency meeting was held at the  Tavern. Hefty
and Atlantis were the only two boys present.
     Atlantis was  boiling mad. "It's  against the  law! There's no place we
can  go anyway, and  now this! I don't give a damn for  this whole town  any
more."
     "You  know  what I'd suggest?"  Joseph said. "Why don't  you  send  the
district supervisor a telegram with a  paid reply?  You shouldn't be silent.
Why, it's a regular ghetto for schoolboys.  You can't  go here, you can't go
there. So where can you go?"
     "Alley-oop!  To hell with the telegram!" the Recruit interrupted.  "No.
This calls for some hard thinking. La!"
     "Bash  their  heads  in  and  be  done  with  it!" Krivopatrya  shouted
cheerfully from his  upper bunk. He was  lying  with his head  and shoulders
over the side, spitting intently, trying to send the spittle through a  ring
he had made of his fingers.
     "That's no  good. We've got to make  them  all suffer. Tar  and feather
them. They're all to blame.  The  Town Council and the Parents' Committee. A
bunch of rotten pigs. And we  have to be sure we don't get caught. Otherwise
they'll  expel  us.  It'll  take  a lot of  brains to  think  of something,"
Atlantis said.
     "The boys'll  all  stick together. Once we get started  they won't know
what hit them," Hefty added.
     A silence fell. The plotters were lost in thought. Water  dripped  from
the roof.
     Suddenly Joseph jumped to his feet, smacked himself on the forehead and
exclaimed: "Eureka! Eureka, which, in Greek, means 'I have the answer'! This
head has come up with an amazing idea. What?"
     "For God's sake! What is it?"
     "What's all  this noise and commotion? Where do you think you  are,  at
school or in a respectable tavern?"
     "Are you going to tell us or not? What're you waiting for?"
     "Shh! Quiet,  please! My  idea is a fix of an idea. It has nothing  but
good sides  for all of us, and not a single bad side. Now listen, everybody.
What is the exception of my conception? I mean, what is the conception of my
exceptional idea? Now, this is what you do...." At this Joseph began cutting
the air, using his thin fingers like a pair of scissors. He went on  cutting
the air for several minutes, then looked around  at each of  us in turn. His
eyes shone as he spoke in a momentous whisper:
     "The doorbells...."


        THE MANIFESTO

     Hefty chose eight fine boys  from different grades for the bell-cutting
campaign. First, the following manifesto was drawn up:
     "Boys!  The  Public  Gardens  are  now off-limits.  (Be  sure  nobody's
watching you read this!) Our enemies are Fish-Eye, the Town Council and  the
Parents. Which means the whole town's against us. And that  means  we've got
to get even, and make sure they never forget it. This town will never forget
what we're going to do to them. In this place  everybody's proud as peacocks
of their doorbells. Fellows! We of the Committee of  War and  Vengeance have
decided  to cut off all the  doorbells in Pokrovsk. Each  of us, on The Day,
will  cut off the doorbell outside his  house. Our parents are on Fish-Eye's
side.
     "The Committee of  War and  Vengeance will appoint local boys to do the
job  in  the  houses where  there  aren't any Boys School fellows. It'll  be
another  St.  Bartholomew's Night for doorbells! Boys! Don't  spare a single
bell!  We've  been  driven  to  this.  We've  been  deprived  of   our  last
recreational vestige.
     "The Committee of War and Vengeance has appointed the following boys to
be  in  charge  of their  class. Obey their orders! In view of the danger of
expulsion, we're using their nicknames.
     "1st grade-Marusya
     "2nd grade-Honeycomb
     "3rd grade-Atlantis
     "4th grade-Donder-Bong
     "5th grade-Meatball
     "6th grade-Satrap (The Ghost of Hamlet's Father)
     "7th grade-Fishnet (I inhabit)
     "8th grade-King of the Jews
     "The man in charge-Hefty
     "The doorbells will be handed over to the monitors. They will pass them
on to the  Committee  that will hand them over of a cripple,  who will trade
them  for gunpowder, bullets, pop-guns,  etc. The  day of  St. Bartholomew's
Night  will be  announced by the  monitors. The  signal  to begin is a white
triangle, pasted to the windowpane.
     "Don't break the big bell in the Teachers' Room or they might guess who
did it. If anybody rats, he'll get a bell stuffed down his throat! Down with
the doorbells!
     "One for all!
     "All for one!
     "Long live War and Vengeance!
     "Sign this and pass it on, but not to Lizarsky or Dimwit.
     "Cmte. for W. & V. 1915"

     Copies of  the manifesto began circulating throughout the  school, read
to the whispering of prompting during classes, amidst the jostling commotion
of recess and the stale  cigarette smoke  of the washrooms. There  were  two
hundred and sixty-eight  coats hanging on pegs in the cloakroom. Two hundred
and sixty-six signatures appeared  under  the manifestoes.  The