silent for a while. Then the girl
said, "What grade are you in?"
     "The first."
     "So am I." She beamed.
     We were silent again.
     "One of the girls in my class can wiggle her  ears.  We all  envy her,"
she said.
     "That's nothing! There's a  fellow in my class who can spit and hit the
ceiling. He's this big! He can lay  you flat with his right hand tied behind
his back. And if he hits a desk top with his fist he can crack it. Only they
won't let him do it. Otherwise, he sure as anything would."
     We were silent again. An organ-grinder began playing a mournful song. I
looked around the yard in search of a  topic for conversation. The house was
sailing through  the sky.  A large kite with a rag tail  shot over the roof,
dipped, straightened and tugged away as it soared higher still.
     "My buckle will  never get yellow," I said to my own surprise, "because
it's nickel-plated. If you want to, you can touch it."  I  unbuckled my belt
and  held it  out  to  her. The girl  touched the  buckle politely. I became
bolder, took  off my school cap and showed her where my first and last names
had been written in  indelible ink  inside the hatband to make sure it would
not get lost. The girl read my name.
     "My name's Taya. My  full name is Taisia Opilova. What do they call you
short? Lenny?"
     "No, Lelya. Glad to know you."
     "Lelya? That's a girl's name!"
     "It is not. Lola is."
     We thus became acquainted.


        THE FIRST SCHWAMBRANIAN GIRL

     From then on T, a free  son of Schwambrania, climbed down the roof into
lilac  valley  each  day.  Taya  Opilova  was" fated  to become  the  Eve of
Schwabrania. Oska was dead set  against it. He said he wouldn't  take a girl
into the game for all the  pastries in the world. True enough, there had not
been a single girl Schwambrania until  then. I tried to make  him understand
that  in  any  s  respecting book  fair maidens  were always  kidnapped  and
rescued,  and that r they could  be  kidnapped and rescued  in Schwambrania,
too. Besides, I ha wonderful name for the first Schwambranian girl: Countess
Cascara Sagrada, daughter of Count  Cascara Barbe.  I had  borrowed the name
from a back cove  Niva and recalled that it had been described as  "mild and
gentle".  Oska  fin  had  to  agree,  and so,  little  by  little,  I  began
introducing Cascara, meaning  Taya the customs and ways of  Schwambrania. At
first she couldn't understand what was all about, but then gradually came to
know  the  history and geography of Big Tooth  Continent. She was  sworn  to
secrecy.
     I finally conquered her heart when I put on my cardboard epaulettes and
said  I was  going off to war with Piliguinia and  would  bring  her  back a
trophy.
     I returned from my Piliguinian  campaign the following day and galloped
along the roof, carrying my trophies: two cream-filled pastries. One for her
and one me. Oska had had a bite of mine.
     I jumped off the wall and froze in my  tracks. A strange boy dressed in
uniform of the Cadet School was walking up and down in the garden with Taya.
He was much  older and taller than I.  He  had real shoulder straps, a  real
bayonet in a holster, and was terribly stuck-up.
     "Ah!" he said at the sight of me. "Is this your Schwambroman?"
     Taya had told him all about it.
     "Look here, you civilian boy,"  the  cadet said in a very superior tone
of voice.
     "How could you have given a young lady such a disgusting name? You know
what Cascara Sagrada is?  It's,  pardon the expression, constipation  pills.
You filthy civvy! Anybody can tell you're a doctor's sonny-boy."
     This was the last straw.
     "Once a cadet  always a cad!"  I shouted and scrambled up  the roof.  I
threw half of the pastry at the  cadet and  then ate the other pastry  and a
half.
     I stretched out on the roof. I was very upset by what had happened. The
starling on  duty was whistling overhead.  I sailed  away  to  Schwambrania,
proud and lonely, and the day,  like  a great ship, sailed into evening. The
sunset raised its red oars, and shadows as  pointed as the tips of an anchor
fell upon the yard.
     "To hell with everything!" I said.
     But this did not apply to Schwambrania.

        THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES


        THE THEATRE OF MILITARY OPERATIONS

     A battle  was raging in the house. Brother was set against brother. The
disposition  of warring forces  was  as follows: Schwambrania was in  Papa's
consulting office and Piliguinia was in the dining-room. The parlour was the
battle-field. The stockade for prisoners of war was in the dark foyer.
     Naturally,  as  the  elder  brother,  I  was  a  Schwambranian.  I  was
advancing, protected by the armchair and a clump of potted rubber plants and
rhododendrons. My brother Oska  had  dug in behind the Piliguinian threshold
of the dining-room. He was shouting:
     "Bang! Zing! Zing! I shot you dead twice,  but you  keep on crawling. I
say fins!"
     "No,  not fins! It's  called a truce!  And anyway, you didn't shoot  me
dead, you just grazed me through."
     Klavdia,  a girl from next door, was pining away in the foyer, that  is
the stockade. She had been  invited  over especially to be a prisoner-of-war
and was, in turn, a Schwambranian or a Piliguinian Army nurse.
     "Will you let me  out of  prisoner-of-war soon?" she  said timidly, for
she had become very bored sitting around in the dark doing nothing.
     "Not yet!" I  shouted.  "Our glorious forces have completed  an orderly
retreat to  pre-established  positions  under the  overwhelming pressure  of
enemy forces." I had borrowed  the sentence  from  the newspapers. The daily
frontline  dispatches were  full of fine-sounding,  vague  expressions which
were  used to  conceal various military setbacks, losses, defeats and routs,
and all together they went under the grand heading of news from the "theatre
of military operations".
     The  glossy  pictures  in  Niva  portrayed  fine, well  groomed  troops
ceremoniously  carrying  on a  picturesque  war.  The  generals'  impressive
shoulders  bore  gilded clusters  of  epaulettes.  Their tunics  heaved with
galaxies  of glittering  medals. The brave Cossack hero Kuzma  Kriuchkov was
shown  accomplishing his  great  feat over  and  over again  on pictures  in
calendars,  on  cigarette boxes, post cards and  candy boxes.  He was  shown
defeating a troop, a squadron, a whole regiment  of Germans, and always with
a lock of hair curling out from under  his rakishly tilted cap.  Each school
service ended  with a  special  prayer for  the  truly Christian  troops. We
schoolboys wore patriotic tricoloured scarfs as we  sold little Allied flags
in the streets, putting the coppers in collection boxes and proudly saluting
the trim officers.
     The  war  eclipsed  everything.  "Louder  the  victory  march!  We  are
victorious, and the enemy is on the run!" There were notices and manifestoes
everywhere. "The original has been signed by His Imperial Majesty." The war,
that  great,  beautiful,  magnificent  war,  had  captured  our  minds,  our
conversation, our dreams, our games.
     The only game we played was war.
     The truce had ended.  My troops were battling at the approaches  to the
foyer. Annushka, who was a neutral, suddenly  appeared on the  battle-field,
demanding  that Klavdia be  released  immediately,  because  her  mother was
waiting for her in the kitchen.
     We all said  "fins", which meant  a  truce,  and ran  to  the  kitchen.
Klavdia mother,  who was our neighbour's  cook, always  had a puffy, swollen
face.  She  was seated  at  the kitchen table. A grey envelope  was lying in
front  of her. She  greeted  us and picked it  up  gingerly, saying, "It's a
letter from your brother, Klavdia." He voice sounded strangely anxious. "Ask
the young man to read it to us. Dear Lon I hope he's all right."
     I saw the sacred postmark: "From the Army in the Field". I accepted the
envelope solemnly.  My fingertips  filled with  awe and excitement. It was a
letter  from over  there! A letter  from the front lines! "March  along,  my
friends, to war, hussar bold and daring!"
     I began reading in a bright, excited voice: "Dear Mother, I'm not going
to send this  letter myself, because I was badly  wounded, and  my right arm
was amputate above the elbow...."
     I was thunderstruck, I could not continue. Klavdia's mother screamed. H
dishevelled head fell upon the  table top  and she  sobbed loudly. I  wanted
very much to  console  her somehow, and  myself,  too,  for I felt  that the
reputation of t war had been badly damaged by this close  scrape with  gore,
and so I said hesitantly:
     "He'll probably be decorated for this. Maybe he'll get  a silver medal.
May he'll even get a St. George Cross."
     Somehow, I felt I had not said the right thing.


        A VIEW OF THE WAR FROM THE WINDOW

     A  dull algebra  lesson was in progress. Our math teacher was sick, and
his classes had been taken over temporarily by the  dullest of  all possible
excise tax clerks  w was dodging the draft. His name was Gennady Alexeyevich
Samlykov, and soon nicknamed him Old Nag.
     Soldiers of the  214th Regiment were drilling on the square outside the
school. Their marching  songs  and the shouted commands  of  their  officers
drifted through  the open windows, confusing the  algebraic  formulas. "Hey,
Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Madrid and Oporto!" they sang. "Line up! Count off!"
     "Curly,  curly,   curly  ringlets,  little  Curlylocks,  you're  mine!"
"Hup-two-three-four!  Left!  Keep your line straight!" "Come when the  bugle
calls, brave men to battle!" "Watch your  feet! Where the hell  d'you  think
you are? Stand up straight!"
     "Yes, Sir!"
     "Charge!"
     "Ra-aa-aaay!"
     This  loud, rending  "hooray"  burst forth from their gaping mouths and
straining throats in a hoarse, salivery roar. Their bayonets sunk  into  the
dummy. Twisted strands of straw burst from the torn sack of a belly.
     "Who's  that  looking  out  the   window?  Repeat  what  I  just  said,
Martynenko."
     Huge  Martynenko, alias  Hefty,  tore  his  eyes  from the  window  and
lumbered to his feet.
     "Well,  what  did I  just say?" Old Nag  persisted. "So you don't know?
Well, what is the squared sum of two cathetuses?"
     "It's ... uh...." Hefty mumbled  and  suddenly winked  at  us and said:
"It's right face ... count off ... plus doubled ranks."
     We all burst out laughing.
     "You get an T for that! Go stand by the wall!"
     "Yes, Sir!" Hefty  snapped and  did a military turn at the wall. We all
grinned. Our penpoints screeched.
     "Leave the room immediately, Martynenko!"
     "Parade step ... eyes on the lectern ... down the hall... march!" Hefty
rasped.
     "This  is  abominable!" Old Nag shouted as he jumped to his feet. "I'll
put your name down in the Ledger! You'll be left after school!"
     "Curly locks, curly locks...." a snatch of song drifted  in through the
window. "What the  hell do  you  think  you're  doing?  You're to  stand  at
attention with a full pack for three hours.... Curly locks, curly locks...."


        FIRST GUN, ACHOO!

     Cr-rack!  went  something  inside  the  wood-burning  stove behind  the
blackboard. Cr-rack!  Bang-bang!  One of the boys, knowing Old Nag's fear of
guns and shooting,  had  put some  cartridges  inside the  tiled stove.  The
teacher blanched  as  acrid fumes seeped into  the room. He  ran behind  the
blackboard,  stepping on what seemed to be  a  crumpled  piece of paper. The
boys held their breath. Bang! The paper exploded, making Old Nag jump a yard
off the floor. No sooner had the sole of his other shoe come down again than
it caused another explosion. The boys, convulsed with silent laughter, began
sliding off their seats to disappear under their  desks. The enraged teacher
turned  to face  the class  and  saw no one.  Not a soul. We shook  from the
laughter under our desks.
     "Scoundrels!" Old  Nag screamed.  "I'll put you  all down!" He  tiptoed
cautiously  towards  the  lectern.  The soles of his  shoes were smoking. He
picked up  his  snuff box,  a true friend  in hard times,  but since he  had
unwisely left it  on the windowsill in the corridor for  a moment before the
lesson had begun,  we had long since added  a pinch of gun-powder and pepper
to it.
     Old Nag's quivering nostrils drew in the fiendish mixture. For a moment
he  just stood  there.  His mouth was  wide  open and  his eyes seemed to be
popping out of his head. Then a terrible, earth-shattering sneeze shook  his
body.
     Once again the classroom  became inhabited. Our laughter made our desks
shake. Then Hefty raised his hand and said, "Second gun! Fire!"
     "Ah-ah-choo!" the unfortunate Old Nag compiled.
     "Third gun...."
     "Pshoo! Ah!"
     The door opened unexpectedly. We rose, as the principal entered. He had
been attracted  by  the sound  of the shooting, our ribald laughter  and the
teacher's hysterical sneezing.
     "What's  going on here?" His voice was steely as he took  in  Old Nag's
crimson face and the angelic countenances of the rows of boys.
     "They.... Oh! Ah!" Old Nag attempted to speak. "Pshoo! Ah!"
     At this  point the monitor  decided to  intercede. "He  just  keeps  on
sneezing, Sir!"
     "I haven't asked you for an explanation!" The truth of the matter began
to  dawn  on  him.  "Insufferable  wretches!  Come  to  my  office,  Gennady
Alexeyevich."
     Old Nag stumbled along after the principal, sneezing all the way.
     He did not return to the classroom.
     We had got rid of Old Nag for good.


        THE CLASS COMMANDER AND THE COMPANY SUPERVISOR

     "There's a smell of  gunpowder  in the air!" the grown-ups  were saying
and shaking their heads.
     The smell  of  gunpowder snaked  through the  classrooms,  making  them
inflammable. Every  desk became a powder magazine, an arsenal and storeroom.
Each and every day there were new entries in the Deportment Ledger.

     "The  school inspector has taken  from Vitaly Talianov,  a fourth-grade
pupil  who  attempted  to run off to war and was apprehended at the  pier, a
Smith and Wesson revolver  and  bullets, and a tea kettle  he stole from the
ragman, who has identified it. His parents have been notified.
     Nikolai Shcherbinin, a second-grade  pupil, was found to have concealed
in his  desk:  one officer's  shoulder strap, a  sword knot,  a  package  of
gunpowder and a hollow metal tube of unknown purpose. His satchel contained:
a piece of a bayonet, a toy revolver, one spur, a soldier's tobacco pouch, a
cockade,  a  beanshooter  and a hand grenade (discharged). He  has been left
after school twice for three hours each time.
     "Terenti  Marshutin, a  fifth-grade pupil,  fired  off  a home-made gun
during the lesson, breaking a window  and fouling the air. He insists it was
an accident. He has been expelled for a week."

     The boys rattled when they walked, for the pockets of each were full of
cartridge shells. We collected them on the firing range beyond the cemetery.
The  wind played tick-tack-toe  among the graves.  The  rabbit-ears  of  the
windmills  protruded from  behind the hill. An Army camp  languished on  the
small plain.  The 214th Infantry  Regiment was displaced in  wooden barracks
there. The wind carried the smell of cabbage soup, cheap tobacco, boots, and
other glorious aromas of the army's rear guard.
     The pupils of the  Pokrovsk Boys  School and the privates of the  214th
Infantry Regiment had established firm  business ties and were carrying on a
brisk trade. We  passed our sandwiches, cucumbers, apples  and various other
civilian dainties through the barbed-wire fence  of the  camp, and in return
received such  coveted items  of  army  life as  empty  magazines,  buckles,
cockades and torn shoulder straps. Officer's shoulder straps were especially
prized.  Sidor  Dolbanov,  an N.C.O.,  traded me a tar-specked  lieutenant's
shoulder  strap for two ham sandwiches, a piece of chocolate and five  of my
father's Triumph cigarettes.
     "I'm giving you  this real cheap," he said during the transaction. "I'm
only doing  it because you're  a  friend  of mine.  The way  I see  it,  you
schoolboys  are  doing your hitch just like us. They make  you wear uniforms
and drill, too. Right?"
     Sidor Dolbanov was a great one  for discoursing  on  education. "Except
that military science  takes  a lot of brains, so's you can't compare it  to
your schooling," he  philosophised  as he wolfed down  our sandwiches. "Yes,
sir, this isn't 'rithmetic or algebra, or any such like. You tell me this if
you're so smart: how many men are there in a regiment?"
     "We  didn't study that yet," I said, feeling very  embarrassed and  not
knowing the answer.
     "That's  what  I mean. What  about your  class commander, boys? Is he a
mean old bitch?"
     "He's very strict. He'll make you stand by the wall, put your name down
in the Black Book or keep you hours after school for nothing at all."
     "What a louse! Which makes him just like our company commander."
     "Do you have a company supervisor, too?"
     "No, he's  no supervisor,  he's  a  bitch of a commander. He's  hell on
wheels, that's him,  Lieutenant Gennady Alexeyevich Samlykov."" "Old Nag!" I
gasped.


        SOLDIER BOYS

     The older  boys of. our school  were strolling down Breshka Street with
some junior lieutenants. Although it  was against school rules, an exception
had been made for  our  glorious  Army officers. Soldiers saluted  them. The
older schoolgirls who  helped roll bandages made eyes at them. We were green
with envy.
     One day the school inspector entered our classroom during a lesson. His
beard looked kindly and reverential,
     "The first contingent of wounded from the front lines has just arrived.
We are  going  to welcome them. You there, in  the back rows! I'm talking to
you! Tutin! I'll leave you after  school for an hour, you dummox!  Now, as I
was saying, the entire school will go out  to welcome our glorious  soldiers
who ... ah ... have suffered so, defending the tsar and the Christian faith.
In a word, line up in pairs! And I want  you to behave properly outside, you
cutthroats, savages, jailbirds! Anyone who doesn't will be sorry he was ever
born."
     The streets were crowded and ablaze with tricoloured flags. The wounded
were being transported,  one man  to  a vehicle, in the decked-out carriages
belonging to the town's wealthy citizens, with an aristocratic lady from the
local philanthropic society  dressed  as  an Army nurse supporting  him. The
procession resembled a wedding train. Policemen saluted it.
     The wounded were put up in  a new dispensary housed in a former primary
school. The flustered ladies were in charge there. A gala concert was to  be
held in one of the  large wards. The  wounded  men,  freshly-shaven, washed,
perfumed,  surrounded by  pillows  and boxes  of  candy, sat in  embarrassed
silence, listening to the  bombastic speeches  of the town fathers. Some  of
the men were holding crutches that had been adorned with bows.
     Shvetsov,  a   fourth-grade  boy,  recited  a  poem  entitled  "Belgian
children". Six  second-grade boys were lined up behind him to  accompany his
recital with various tableaux. The Zemstvo inspector's daughter played  "The
Skylark"  by  Glinka   on  the  piano.  The  wounded  fidgeted   and  seemed
uncomfortable.  The last to  perform was the  town druggist, an amateur poet
and  tenor. Then  a tall young blond soldier  rose from  one of the cots and
cleared his throat shyly.
     "Speech! Speech!" everyone shouted, applauding loudly.
     When the noise  finally  died  down, the  soldier  said, "I'd  like  to
say.... Doctor, Sir,  and  ladies and gentlemen, and nurses,  and  everybody
else. Uh, we're very grateful to you for all this,  for everything, but we'd
rather,  I mean, we've been travelling for three days and three nights,  and
we haven't had any sleep, and that's what we really need."


        THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES

     Soldiers were being flogged in the barracks. One officer called another
an  Armenian  mug  at  the  Officer's Club, and  the insulted  man shot  the
offender point-blank, killing him on the spot. By now the wounded were being
brought in any which way and dumped wherever there was available space.
     Then  our   forces  took  Peremyshl.  A  crowd  of  shopkeepers,  shady
characters from  the suburbs  and a few officials walked through the streets
with  a portrait of the  tsar like an icon at  the head of the  column. They
infected the air with howling tricoloured flutterings and the sour stench of
raw liquor. It was quite as if some celebration  were being warmed up over a
spirit burner.
     Once  again the  school  inspector  went  from classroom  to  classroom
carrying his solemn, parted, victorious beard as majestically as  if it were
a gonfalon.
     We  poured  out  onto  the porch  of  the school building to greet  the
demonstrators and,  at  a  signal  from the principal, we cheered. There was
something  disgusting about  the bellowing crowd of demonstrators. It seemed
that they needed but  a little push to start rioting and killing. We felt as
if a  mindless, suffocating,  insurmountable force was  engulfing us. It was
like  being on the bottom of a pile during  a free-for-all, squashed under a
great, crushing, suffocating weight, unable to expand your lungs to cry out.
     However, it all ended without incident,  not counting a call that night
to my father, to save the  life  of  a  "patriot" who had got  drunk on wood
alcohol.
     The  demonstration  made an  indelible impression  on  Oska, that great
confuser of things, imitator  and day-dreamer, who always managed  to find a
new meaning  for  each object, seeing in  each  its second  soul. His  great
passion at  the time was an old toilet seat. First,  he stuck a samovar pipe
through the hole and  made believe it was a Maxim machine-gun. Then  he  put
the toilet seat on his hobby horse, and it served as a yoke. Though this was
not exactly in the  best of taste,  still,  it was permissible. However, the
day after the  demonstration Oska organized a Schwambranian demonstration in
the yard, and this one was truly blasphemous. Klavdia had attached someone's
long drawers  with  ties  at  the  ankles  to a  floor  brush to serve as  a
gonfalon.  Oska  carried the ill-fated  toilet seat,  which now served  as a
frame for the portrait of the tsar, Nicholas  II, Ruler of all Russia, which
he had cut out of a magazine.
     The  indignant  janitor  handed  the  demonstrators  over  to  Papa and
threatened to inform the police, but was quickly pacified by a tip.
     "Children are very sensitive to the spirit of the times," the grown-ups
said meaningfully.
     The spirit of the times, an offensive spirit, seeped into everything.


        WE RECEIVE MILITARY TRAINING

     That winter the boys of  our school  and the girls of the  Girls School
were  all taken to the Army camp to be shown a  mock battle.  It was a cold,
snowy day.
     A  colonel  explained the battle  to the ladies  of  the  philanthropic
society. The ladies warmed their hands in their muffs and oh-ed  and  ah-ed,
and  whenever  a  shot  was  fired they clapped their  hands to  their ears.
However, the battle was very unimpressive and certainly did not resemble the
battle scenes pictured in Niva. Black shapes were crawling across the field.
Fires dotted  the scene, blending to produce a smokescreen. Then other fires
were lit. We were told these were signal fires.
     From a  distance  the  cross-firing,  as it  advanced  along the lines,
sounded like a pennant flapping  in the wind. The stench of the trenches was
overpowering.
     "They're attacking," the colonel said.
     The   dark  shapes   were   running   and   shouting   "Hooray!"   very
matter-of-factly.
     "The battle is over," the colonel said.
     "Which side won?" the spectators inquired, having understood nothing.
     The colonel was silent for a moment and then said: "That side." Then he
looked  up  and warned everyone:  "The  bomb-thrower  is about  to  go  into
action."
     Indeed, it did and very loudly at that. The  ladies  became frightened,
the cabbies'  horses bolted, and the cabbies cursed in  the direction of the
sky.
     The battle was over.
     The company that had taken part in  the action passed in formation, led
by  a  sly-looking  junior lieutenant.  When  they  came  abreast of us  the
soldiers burst  into  a  dirty  song  with  a  practiced air,  some  of them
whistling shrilly and straining their cold throats.
     The  girls  exchanged glances.  The  boys roared. One  of the  teachers
cleared  his  throat.  The  fat headmistress  of  the  Girls  School  became
indignant.
     "Lieutenant!" the colonel shouted. "What's going on? Stop the singing."
     Bringing up the rear, stumbling in  boots that were much too  large and
becoming entangled  in  the long  flaps of his great-coat was a small,  puny
soldier. He tried  to keep  in step,  hopping  and skipping  to keep up, but
still fell behind. The boys recognized him. He was the father of  one of the
poor boys.
     "Hey, look  at that dopey soldier! His  son's in the third grade. There
he is!"
     Everyone laughed.  The little man picked up the flaps of  his greatcoat
and set off at a trot as  he  tried to  catch up with his  company. His head
bobbed at the end of his long neck. His son stood on the  sidelines, staring
at the ground. His face was covered with red blotches.
     Oska was waiting for me impatiently when I  got  home, for he wanted to
hear all about the battle.
     "Was there a lot of shooting?"
     "I never knew war wasn't one bit nice at all," I replied.


        A DAPPLED GREY

     The year was drawing to a close. It was vacation time. On December  31,
1916,  our  parents  went  to  a New  Year's  party. Before  leaving.  Mamma
explained to us at length that "New Year's is not a children's party at all,
and you must go to bed at the usual time".
     Oska  tooted a sailing signal and sailed off  to Schwambrania  for  the
night. Meanwhile, my  friend and classmate Grisha Fedorov came to visit  me.
We cracked nuts and played lotto  for a while. Then, having nothing  else to
do, we went fishing in Papa's fishbowl. Finally,  we got bored of this, too,
turned off the light,  sat down by the window and,  after  warming  the pane
with our breath, made little  holes on the  frozen glass and looked out into
the street.
     The  moon was shining, and dull  blue shadows lay across the  snow. The
air was full of powdery, brilliant glitter. The street seemed magnificent.
     "Let's go for a walk," Grisha said.
     However, it was against school rules to be seen out on the street after
seven  o'clock  in December.  Our supervisor Seize'em would go  out  hunting
schoolboys each night, stomping up and down the streets to find them.
     I immediately imagined Seize'em pouncing on us from behind some corner,
his gold eagle-crested buttons glittering as he shouted:
     "Silence! What's your name? Stand up straight!"
     Such an encounter was  nothing to look forward to. It meant a poor mark
for deportment and  being left behind  in an empty  classroom for four hours
after  school. Perhaps there would even be something else  in store as a New
Year's surprise. Seize'em was a great one for such things.
     "Don't worry,  he's probably  at some New Year's party himself," Grisha
said.
     "He's probably stuffing himself someplace."
     It didn't take much coaxing for me to give in. We put on our  overcoats
and dashed out.
     The town's small hotel  and  the  Vesuvius Restaurant were both located
not  far  from our house. That evening  the Vesuvius seemed to be  erupting.
Streams of  light poured  forth from  the  windows, while the earth trembled
from the dancing within.
     At the  hitching  post  outside the hotel we saw an elegant high sleigh
with a  velvet seat  and  a fox-lined lap rug.  The runners  were of figured
iron. A  large dappled  grey horse  was  harnessed to  the  curved lacquered
shafts. It was Gambit, the famous pacer and the best trotter in town. We had
no trouble recognizing both the horse and the carriage, for they belonged to
Karl Zwanzig, a very wealthy man.


        "WHOA" IN GERMAN

     At that moment I had a wild idea.
     "You  know  what, Grisha?" I said, turning  cold  at my  own  boldness.
"Let's go for a ride. Zwanzig won't be ready to leave for a long time. We'll
just ride as far as there and around the church, and back again. I  know how
to drive."
     I didn't have to say it twice, A minute later  we had unhitched Gambit,
climbed  up onto the high velvet  seat and wrapped the furry rug around  our
legs,
     I  picked up the firm, heavy reins,  clicked my tongue as cabbies  did,
cleared my throat and said in a deep voice: "Giddiyap! Go on, boy!"
     Gambit  turned, rolled  a  large eye  at me  and  looked  away. I  even
imagined he had shrugged contemptuously, if horses did such things.
     "I bet he only understands German," Grisha said. Then he shouted: "Hey!
Fortnaus!"
     This made no impression on  Gambit, either. Finally, I smacked him hard
with the twisted reins. The very same second I was  thrown  back. If not for
Grisha, who caught me by  the  belt,  I would have sailed right  out of  the
sleigh. Gambit surged forward and was off. He hadn't bolted. He was trotting
swiftly as he always did, with  me  grasping the  reins  tightly  as we sped
along  the deserted street. What a shame that none of our friends were there
to see us!
     "Let's call  for Atlantis. He  lives right around that corner. We still
have plenty of time," I said and tugged at the left rein. Gambit  turned the
corner obediently. There was Atlantis' house.
     "Hey, there! Whoa!"
     But Gambit did not  stop. No matter how hard I pulled at the reins, the
pacer paid no attention to me. He kept on trotting swiftly.  Atlantis' house
was soon left far behind.
     "Let's not call  for him, Grisha.  He's  not  much fun. Let's  call for
Labanda  instead. He lives over there." I had wound the reins around my hand
in advance and now braced my feet against the front board.
     But Gambit did not stop outside Labanda's house either. I was beginning
to worry.
     "Listen, Grisha, do you know what to do to make him stop?"
     "Whoa! Stop!" he shouted as loudly as he could. We pulled on  the reins
together.
     However, the powerful pacer paid no  attention to our shouts or  to the
pull  of the reins. He kept trotting faster and faster, racing us along  the
dark streets.
     "He doesn't understand Russian!" Grisha said in a scared voice. "And we
don't know what  'whoa' is in German. Nobody ever taught us  that. You know,
he'll just keep on going. We can't stop him."
     "We don't want to ride any more! Stop!" we both shouted.
     But Gambit kept on stubbornly.


        HORSE WORDS

     I  tried  to  recall  everything  I knew about talking  to  horses  and
everything I had ever read about it.
     "Whoa! Stop, boy! Come on, dove!"
     But,  as  ill luck would have it, I kept  thinking  of  expressions the
likes of which could  only  be found  in some saga, things such as: "0,  you
wolf's repast, 0, you sack of grass" or, worse  still, expressions to make a
horse go faster: "Git up!... Let's see some life in you!... Here we go!"
     Having used up my vocabulary of horse  words, I tried some camel words.
"Tratrr, tratrr... chok, chok!" I shouted, imitating the camel drivers.
     But Gambit did not understand camel talk.
     "Tsob-tsobeh, tsob-tsobeh!"  I croaked, recalling the Ukrainian ox-cart
drivers.
     That didn't help either.
     The bell on Trinity Church began to strike One, two, three times.... It
struck twelve times.
     That meant we had ridden into the New Year. Were we just going to go on
driving down the streets like that for  the rest of our natural lives?  When
would the confounded horse stop?
     The  moon shone down  on us mysteriously.  The  stillness  of the empty
streets, where  one year had just ended  and another had  just begun, seeked
menacing. Were we doomed to riding in this sleigh forever?
     I had become panic-stricken.
     Suddenly, two rows of highly-polished  brass  buttons  glinted  in  the
moonlight,  appearing  from around  a  corner.  It was Seize'em. Gambit  was
racing straight at him.
     I dropped the reins in terror.
     "Silence!  What's  all the noise  about? What's your name? Stand still,
stupid!" Seize'em shrilled.
     Then a miracle happened.
     Gambit froze in his tracks.


        HAPPY NEW YEAR!

     We tumbled out  of  the  sleigh,  raced around  the  horse and, drawing
abreast  of the  supervisor,  tipped  our caps politely, grasping the patent
leather visors with our fingertips to bare our unruly heads  as we bowed low
to Seize'em, saying:  "Good evening, Seize ... Caesar Karpovich!" in unison.
"Happy New Year, Caesar Karpovich!"
     Seize'em drew his pince-nez slowly from a case which he took out of his
pocket and settled the lenses on the bridge of his nose.
     "Aha!" he beamed. "Two friends.  I recognize you! Lovely,  just lovely!
Excellent! Magnificent!  Now we'll just write both your names down." At this
he  took his famous notebook from the  inner pocket of  his overcoat. "We'll
write down both names. First one, then the other, and  they'll both  be left
after school as soon as  vacation ends. Four hours each, and no dinner. Four
hours for one, and four hours for the other. Happy New Year, children!"
     Then Seize'em stared  at the sleigh.  "One moment, boys. Have  you Herr
Zwanzig's permission to take his sleigh? Hm?"
     We interrupted each  other in our haste to assure him that Herr Zwanzig
had actually asked us to take Gambit for a run to warm him up a bit.
     "Excellent," he  murmured. "We'll  all  go back  together now  and  see
whether you are telling the truth or not. Come."
     The very notion of finding ourselves  in the fiendish sleigh  again was
so terrible that we suggested he ride  alone, promising to walk along beside
him.
     The unsuspecting supervisor clambered up onto the high  seat. He tucked
the luxurious fur rug around his legs, picked up the  reins, yanked them and
clicked his  tongue.  When this had no effect, he let the reins fall lightly
on Gambit's bad that  very moment we were tossed  aside. Clumps of snow flew
into our faces. When  we had brushed the  snow from our eyes  and shaken the
snow  off our clothes the  careening sleigh  was just disappearing  around a
bend, with our unfortunate supervisor hanging on for dear life and bellowing
something unintelligible.
     Meanwhile, Herr Karl Zwanzig, Gambit's owner, came pounding arc another
corner.  His  coat was unbuttoned and his  tie was askew. He was roaring the
top of his voice: "Help! Morder! Poleez! Shtop dem!"
     We could hear a police whistle in the distance.
     We never tried to find out how it all ended. Seize'em never said a word
of the night's adventure when we returned to school after our vacation.
     Thus did the New Year begin. It was now 1917.


        THE LEDGER FOR FEBRUARY


        ALL ABOUT THE ROUND GLOBE, IMPORTANT NEWS AND A SMALL SEA

     Mamma and Papa  had  just  gone  visiting. The  front door slammed. The
draught made the doors  fly open  all  through the house.  We heard Annushka
turn the  light off in the parlour. Then she went back to the kitchen. There
was an eeriness in the  quiet that settled on the house.  The  clock  in the
dining room ticked loudly. The  wind  rattled the windows. I sat down at the
table and pretended to be doing homework. Oska was drawing steamships. There
were very many of them, each had  smoke pouring from its stacks.  I took his
red-and-blue  pencil  and be colouring the pronouns in my Latin book, making
all the vowels red and all consonants blue. Suddenly Oska said,
     "How do people know that the Earth is round?"
     I knew the answer to that question, because it was on the first page of
geography book, and I went into a long explanation about a ship sailing far.
away  until it disappeared completely beyond the horizon. Since you couldn't
sit any longer, it meant the Earth was round.
     My explanation did not satisfy him.
     "Maybe the ship sank? Huh? Maybe it just sank."
     "Don't bother  me. Can't you see I'm  doing  my  homework?" I continued
colouring the pronouns.
     All was silence again.
     "I know how people know the Earth's round."
     "I'm glad you do."
     "Well, I do! It's because the globe is round. There!"
     "You're a round-headed ninny, that's what."
     Oska pouted. Trouble was brewing. Just then  the  telephone rang in our
fat consulting room. We raced to be  the first  to get there. The office was
dark, deserted  and  scary. I  turned  on  the light. The  room  immediately
changed its appear;
     like a  developed  negative. The  windows had been light,  but now they
became dark. The  panes had  been  black,  and  now  they  were  white. Most
important, however, office no longer frightened us. I picked up the receiver
and spoke in Papa's sc voice:
     "Hello?"
     It  was our  favourite Uncle  Lyosha, phoning  from Saratov. He had not
been us in ages.  Mamma had told us that he had gone very far away, but Oska
had eavesdropped and  learned that, strangely, he had been put in prison for
against the tsar and the war. Now he had  apparently been released. That was
news!
     "When are you coming to see us?" we shouted into the phone.
     "I will soon," he replied, and I could hear  him chuckle.  "I  want you
Mamma and Papa that I phoned and said there's been a revolution in R There's
a Provisional Government now. The tsar's abdicated. Repeat what I he said to
me, and he sounded excited.
     "How did it happen?" I shouted.
     "You're too little to understand."
     "No, I'm not! Not if you tell me. I'm in the third grade."
     And so our uncle, speaking from Saratov on the other side of the Volga,
went on  hurriedly  to  explain the  meaning  of the  war,  the  revolution,
equality and fraternity to me.
     "Are you all through speaking?" a voice interrupted. "Your time is up."
     Click!  We  were disconnected. I  stood  there,  feeling  as if  I  had
suddenly become about three years older, feeling that  I  was about to burst
from excitement.
     I glanced at  Oska.  He seemed terribly  embarrassed.  "Shame  on  you!
What's the use of you knowing the Earth's round?"
     "I held in all the time you were talking. It was an accident."
     I ran to the kitchen. Annushka had a visitor. He  was a wounded soldier
she  knew,  a man who always looked  sullen.  There was a  small silver  St.
George Cross on his chest. I shouted excitedly:
     "Annushka! First of all, there's been a revolution, and freedom, and no
more  tsar! And, secondly,  Oska wet  his pants.  Find him another  pair." I
related everything my uncle had just told me. Then Annushka's soldier-friend
stood up. His  left arm was in a sling. He embraced me with his right arm. I
was stunned. He squeezed me hard as he said:
     "That's the best piece of news you could have brought us! I  can't even
believe it."  Then he  shook his  big fist at someone outside the window and
added, "You'll get what's coming to you now! Our time's come!"
     I  looked at the  window,  but  saw no  one. Meanwhile, the soldier was
saying,
     "Pardon  me,  young man,  but  this is  the best  news I've ever heard.
Why.... Good Lord.... Thanks a  million!" He sounded as if there was a  lump
in his throat.


        A DIRECT LINE

     I went  to the dining-room, got  up on a chair and knocked on the brass
cover of the  stove's air duct.  It served as a direct line to Anna and Vera
Zhivilsky who lived  upstairs and whose  stove was directly above ours. If I
knocked on the cover of our duct  they could hear  me. I  could  hear Anna's
voice in the duct.
     "Hello!"
     "Hello, Anna!  I have some great news!  There's been a  revolution, and
there's a soldier here right now."
     "You don't know what I have! Guess."
     "Has there been another revolution someplace?"
     "No! My  godmother gave  me a set  of doll  dishes, and it  even  has a
creamer."
     I slammed down the receiver... that is, I slammed  the  brass lid shut.
No, they would never understand.  I put on my  fur hat and  coat quickly and
ran to my  friend  next door.  My  Latin homework would have to be done some
other time.


     SEIZE'EM CHASES THE MOON, OR WHAT THE LEDGER SAID OF THIS

     There was a smell of spring in the air. The sky was studded with  stars
that  glittered like the buttons  on the school inspector's tunic.  I dashed
d