m, and it'll be piggish of
you besides. Kolya. P.S. Excuse the messy writing."
     Each  day  there was "dancing till  dawn".  We made sure  during  these
evening parties  that none of the boys  from  the "B"  class danced with our
girls. Anyone found guilty of  this crime was dragged off to one of the dark
and empty classrooms. After a brief  and prejudiced questioning, the culprit
was  beaten. Naturally,  his  friends  panted for revenge. Soon  these daily
massacres in the deserted classrooms  took on such  a scope that the seniors
had to post armed monitors  at the doors. Their  rifles were a leftover from
the home guards. Sometimes, the monitors would  fire into the darkness, just
in case. The dancing couples soon got used to the sound of shooting.
     Hefty, who had taken part in the looting of the wine shop, had set up a
small wine cellar in the classroom  stove.  Madame  Hippo  was never one  to
refuse a drink. She was a  plump, overgrown  young lady who intimidated both
the boys and the girls. She  whipped a boy who had insulted her with his own
belt, right  there on the lectern in front of everybody. As for me, she once
knocked me down on  to the tile floor so hard it  took at least five minutes
for me to feel I was still alive, although not quite at that.
     Stepan Atlantis looked  glum. Whenever he met any  of  the other  boys'
parents they would say: "Well?  Are you satisfied now?  Are  you  having the
time of your life at school? It's a disgrace, that's what it is. How can you
even call it a school?"
     Stepan tried  to  call the wild farm boys to order. He was supported by
the Juniors and some of his friends, but no one listened to us.
     "When are we going to start studying again?" we said unhappily.
     "There's no time for studying now. This isn't the old regime. We've had
enough!" Hefty replied.
     "You're stupid.  Now at last  we can  really  learn  something," Kostya
Beetle protested.
     "It's  fellows like you Junior Bolsheviks that need some book-learning.
We old boys'll manage as it is. We know all we need to know."
     That day Count Chatelains Urodenal and  Jack,  the  Sailor's  Companion
also got into a learned argument. War was declared.


        A SWELLHEAD

     We were  given lump sugar and hot  tea  during the  long recess. We had
never known such luxuries in the old school.
     Now  each of us received  a  large mug  of  carrot-tea and two lumps of
sugar. There was  no sugar in the stores in Pokrovsk  at the time, so that I
would have my tea in  school without sugar and  take the two precious  lumps
home. My faithful Oska would be waiting for me. He always greeted me  in the
same way:
     "I've got news for you!" he'd say and go  on  to inform me of the day's
events in Schwambrania.
     I would give him the sugar, and we would admire  the snow-white, porous
cubes. We put them away in a  little box that contained the sugar  stores of
Schwambrania. It was not to be touched. It was intended for some future gala
events. On Sundays  we each had a  lump at the dinner given by the President
of Schwambrania. Our sugar stores  kept growing. We  made  great plans as we
discussed the thickness of the future layers of sugar. The sweet geometry of
those daydreams brought about a wonderful flow of saliva.
     Once, however, our sugar was the cause of bloodshed.
     I was chosen to be in charge of handing out the sugar in my class. This
was not  only  a sweet  job,  but an honorary  one.  No one ever  doubted my
honesty.
     "Huh, you're the commissar  of food," the boys  said. "Don't  you think
you're a big cheese."
     Hefty, who was a brash and enterprising fellow, once suggested a tricky
deal. It had to do with the left-over sugar intended for pupils who happened
to be absent. Hefty suggested that I hold back the extra portions instead of
returning them to the school office and then share them with him. Naturally,
this  tempting  deal   held  promise  of  a  great  windfall  of  sugar  for
Schwambrania.  If  this had  happened in our old school, I  would never have
hesitated and  would  have  considered  it  my  sacred duty to  outsmart the
authorities. Now, however,  boys  we had elected were on the  Council.  They
trusted  me. They had chosen  me  for the  job of distributing the  sugar. I
couldn't betray them.
     And  so I refused, and my staunchness and honesty  took my breath away.
Hefty  got  even with me that very day. As I was handing out  the  sugar,  I
dropped several lumps. I bent under the desk to retrieve them. At  that very
moment  Hefty  grabbed my  collar  and shoved my  head  down. I  cracked  my
forehead against the  edge of the bench and  was soon sporting a huge  bump.
Besides, the cut was bleeding. Two of  the  lumps of sugar turned pink.  The
girls stared  at my forehead with pity and told me  to put a wet compress on
it, but I went on handing out the sugar, trying not to get any blood on  the
other lumps. I took the two pink ones for myself.  Taya Opilova gave  me her
handkerchief. Then, feeling bloody and exhilarated, I  went down the hall to
the room next to the  Teachers' Room. There  was a bit of red bunting tacked
to the door. The room was full of smoke, noise and rifles.
     "Comrades!" I  said,  addressing the  smoke and  the  noise.  "See? I'm
bleeding because of our sugar rations, and anyway, fellows, I've  long since
accepted your platform. Please put me down as a sympathizer."
     The noise lessened and the smoke  increased. Someone said:  "Your  papa
will put you in the corner for sympathizing, and he'll  make you take castor
oil to  be sure you  stop sympathizing. He's  a  doctor and he knows what to
prescribe."
     The smoke hid my disappointment.
     Nevertheless, I showed  off the  bump on my  forehead proudly  all week
long, just as if it were a decoration.


        RESPIRATION-34

     And the children in schools
     wept for him.
     "One Thousand and One
     Nights"
     The 35th night

     That morning I left for school earlier than I usually did, for I had to
stop by at the Education  Department  and  pick  up the  sugar for my class.
There  was a  large  silent  crowd  on  Breshka  Street  where  the  morning
newspapers were posted on a wall outside a shop. I could not see the  middle
of the  sheet over the  heads of  the others.  All I could make out were the
margins and the pale,  greenish newsprint  with the  name  of the newspaper:
"Izvestiya".
     I read the  headline: "Battles Rage on All Fronts." At  closer range  I
read part of a  usual  dispatch: "...Our troops are still  advancing  in the
Urals and have taken several towns.  Our  forces  have retreated to Yelabuga
Pier on the Kama. American troops have landed in Archangelsk. The workers of
Archangelsk refuse to  support the rule of the Conciliators.  The insurgents
continue their struggle in the Ukraine."
     On the bottom of the page,  below someone's elbow, I made out the small
type of yesterday's paper:
     "The food  section  of  the Moscow  Council of Workers'  and  Soldiers'
Deputies brings the following to the attention of all inhabitants of Moscow.
Tomorrow,  August 30, no  bread  ration cards  of  the  general type will be
honoured. One-quarter of a pound of bread  will be  issued to holders of the
stub of the additional bread  ration card and of children's cards for ages 2
to 12, coupon No. 13...."
     The crowd was strangely silent. I could not understand what was  wrong.
Then  the Czech, Kardac,  the Austrian prisoner-of-war, and  two Red  Guards
made their way through the crowd to the newspaper. Kardac was very pale. One
of his puttees had got loose and was trailing along the ground.
     "Read it out loud," he said.
     Someone read the following:

     August 30, 1918. 10:40 p.m.

        ATTENTION, CITIZENS!

     Several hours  ago there was a  heinous attempt to  assassinate Comrade
Lenin.... We  call for  calm  and  organization.  All should remain at their
posts. Close your ranks!
     (Signed) Y. Sverdlov,
     Chairman, All-Russia Central Executive Committee.

     Kardac was stunned. He  stared unbelievingly into the  mouth of the man
who was reading. Then he struck his fist against his cheek and moaned.
     "One bullet entering under the left  shoulder blade..." the voice  went
on reading and stumbled.
     "So,"  Hefty said calmly and  tore off a corner  of  the paper  to roll
himself a cigarette. Kardac rushed at  him, grabbed him by the shoulders and
began shaking him. "I'll roll you  up so tight you'll  shrivel!" he shouted.
The Red Guards  shouldered their way over.  Hefty broke free. He walked away
without once looking back.
     I dashed off to school.
     Lenin  was  wounded!  Lenin!  The  most important  man. The man who had
undertaken  to  destroy  all  the  lists of  world-wide injustice  had  been
wounded!
     The school building buzzed like a beehive.
     The  Juniors and  some  of  our  boys  were lying on the floor  in  our
classroom. They had borrowed an anatomical chart from the Teachers' Room and
spread it out. Stabbing  at it  with our pencils, we tried to decide whether
the wounds were dangerous or not. Kostya Beetle was sitting on his desk with
his chin propped  on  o hand and his penknife in the other.  "What if he ...
dies?" Kostya said in a d voice. Then he carved the name  "LENIN" on the top
of his desk.  Mokeich, c janitor and the keeper of all school property, came
in just then. He looked Kostya severely and  opened his mouth  to  scold him
for  spoiling  the desk, which now  belonged to the people, but then sighed,
stood there silently for a while a finally left.
     Heavy steps sounded on the stairs. The Seniors stopped outside the door
with 1 red bunting to stack their rifles. Forsunov and  Stepan Atlantis, two
members oft Council, entered  our  classroom  during the long recess. Stepan
was just back from Saratov with the latest news.
     "Comrade  Lenin's  condition..."  Forsunov  read  the  dispatch  aloud,
"condition ... according to the evening bulletins has improved considerably.
I temperature is 37.6, pulse-88, respiration-34."
     "Listen," Atlantis said  to me, "we want to ask you for a  favour. Your
old ma a doctor. Call him up  and ask him  what he thinks about Comrade Lent
chances."
     Several minutes later I was pressing the  receiver  to  my ear.  It was
still  warm  from  someone  having  used  the  telephone  before me.  I  was
surrounded by respectful crowd.
     "Is this the hospital? May I speak to the doctor, please.... Papa? This
is me. The boys here and the Council asked me  to  ask you ... about Comrade
Lenin. His respiration's thirty-four. Is that dangerous?"
     Papa  replied  in  his usual doctor's  voice, "It's too  early  to  say
anything definitive yet, but it's  very serious. However, there is still  no
reason to fear a fatal o come."
     "Thank him for us," Stepan whispered.
     That  day  we  learned a  new  song  in  our singing  class.  It had  a
fine-sounding 1 difficult name: "The Internationale".
     Back home Oska greeted me as always, "I've got news for you!"
     "I  know,"  I said,  interrupting. "Everybody  knows. Papa  said he may
well."
     That was the first evening we did not play Schwambrania.


        THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF A NEW BOY

     I learned my ABCs
     from signboards.
     by snatches.
     Wading through pages
     of tin and iron.
     Mayakovsky

     Oska was enrolled in school. Oska was now a full-fledged schoolboy.
     Kocherygin, a house  painter and artist  who  was  temporarily  put  in
charge  of  the primary  grades,  wrote the following on Oska's application:
"He's lacking  in age, but he's accepted, on account of being bright. He can
read fine print."
     When Mamma came home she sounded truly surprised as she called Oska and
said, "They've accepted  you! What a shame that the boys don't wear uniforms
any more." Mamma was very proud of him.
     "Just think how much sugar we'll have now!" Oska said  dreamily.  "I'll
be getting sugar, too."
     I lectured  to him in brief  on "The New Boy, His Rights and Duties, or
How not to Get Beaten".
     Oska wore  my  old school cap on his first day. The cap revolved freely
on his head.
     "Why'd you put that on?" the temporary principal asked, peering down to
get a look at him under the visor.
     "That's my uniform."
     "I still think you're much too little to be starting in school."
     "I guess  you think you're  big, don't you?" Oska said, having confused
the main points of my lecture as to what to say to whom.
     However, he shut up just in time.
     "That's no way to  talk. After all, you're a doctor's son. Is that  the
way they bring up their children?"
     "I'm sorry. I got mixed up. I  wanted to say good  things come in small
packages."
     "Can you  really read  small print?"  Kocherygin  inquired.  There  was
undisguised respect in his voice.
     "Yes. And  I can read  big print  from across the street,  and all  the
street signs, and I know a lot of them by heart."
     "The street signs,  you  say?" The former  sign-painter warmed  to  him
completely.
     "You really mean it? By heart? All right, tell  me what's on  the signs
on the corner of Khorolsky and Breshka streets."
     Oska  was  silent for a  moment.  Then  he rattled  off the  following:
"Ararat  fruit  shop fruits wines  P.  Batrayev stovemaker chimneys swept no
loitering."
     "I did the signs," the temporary principal said modestly.
     "You have a very good handwriting." Oska was a very polite boy.
     "What's the new sign on the Stock Exchange?"
     "The 'Stock Exchange' part is crossed out and it doesn't count. It says
'Freedom House' now."
     "Right. Run along, sonny. You've been enrolled."
     "A new boy, a new  boy!"  the children  chanted  when Oska entered  the
class
     "Better  than  an  old  boy!"  Oska  replied  hurriedly,  recalling  my
instructions.
     The children were astounded.
     He was spared a beating.


        THE TEACHER IN A MASK

     Richard  Sinyagin,  a wrestler known  as the Steel  Mask  and  a former
stevedore was our gym teacher. At the time an  International wrestling match
was being  held in the  Saratov Circus. Richard  Sinyagin went to Saratov to
participate in the match.  The  referee, one Benedetto, presented him to the
audience as  "The Mystery  wrestler. The Steel Mask". Soon  after  playbills
informed the public that there would be "a decisive bout to the end, with no
time limit,  no break between rounds". The contestants were the  Steel  Mask
and  the  Mask  of  Death.  Naturally,  all  this was pure hocus-pocus.  The
wrestlers puffed and grunted conscientiously  K the  forty minutes  they had
previously agreed upon, after which the Steel Mask threw himself expertly to
the  mut. When  the audience's palms had begun to stir from clapping and the
noise finally died down, the referee wrung his hands gingerly and announced:
"Alas!  The Mask  of Death has  won in forty-five  minutes  in  fair combat.
Richard Sinyagin, Champion of the World and of Pokrovsk, is the Steel Mask."
     In school the next day Sinyagin tried his  best  to convince us that he
had  be< thrown unfairly. The boys did not hide their disapproval.  Then, in
order to pro his strength, Sinyagin let about eight boys  climb all over him
like monkeys  on  tree. Then he lifted a desk, with Madame Hippo and  two of
her  friends seated  on  the attached  bench.  He  raised the desk  and  its
inhabitants and set it on another desk. "There," he said.
     At this, the lesson ended.


        THE WORLD IS A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH

     We  boys always respected  strong men.  Now  we  worshipped  them.  The
staring  game  was completely  forgotten,  and  wrestling  became  king.  It
squashed us in "decisive, no time limit" bouts, contorted us and threw us in
standing  backheels and  armlocks, battering us from  wall  to  wall  in the
classrooms and  down  the long corridors,  bruising our  backs  on the  tile
floors, with Hefty Martynenko the one exception, for his back never  touched
the floor. Hefty was the champion of champions, the unchallenged champion of
the school and the vicinity.
     Naturally, all this had a definite influence on the affairs of state in
Schwambrania. We  had  always imagined the world to  be divided  in  two. At
first, there were "desirable and undesirable acquaintances". Then there were
seafarers   and  landlubbers,  the  good  and  the  bad.  After  my  fateful
conversation with  Stepan Atlantis, I came to  realize that "good" and "bad"
were  no  longer  sufficient for  judging  things. We  now discovered a  new
division among  people, and  this was to be yet  another of our errors.  The
world and the Schwambranians were now divided into strong men and weaklings.
From  that day  on the  lives of the  Schwambranians  were spent  in endless
championship matches and contests. One Pafnuti Synecdoche became Champion of
Schwambrania, his might eclipsing even that of Jack, the Sailor's Companion,
the man who threw Chatelains Urodenal.
     Oska became  obsessed with  wrestling. He was the smallest child in his
class. Any  boy could throw  him, even with one arm tied behind his back, as
the saying goes. However, once he got home he made up for his  wounded pride
by wrestling  the chairs and pillows. He had  table-tournaments between  his
two hands,  with  each one squeezing and wringing the other until  the right
hand finally  threw the left,  knocking  it silly.  Oska's most constant and
serious opponent was the sofa  bolster. Quite often Oska  would be  found on
the floor of  the nursery with his arms  flung out and the bolster on top of
him, supposedly having thrown him.
     "That's against the rules!" Oska would shout. "He  tripped me  and then
got me in a nelson!"
     The bolster won the return  match as well,  but  was punished by  being
taken out in the yard and beaten with a rug beater.
     Then Oska arranged a bout between Kolya  Anfisov of the  primary school
and Grisha Fyodorov, the second strongest boy in my class. The bout was held
in  our yard on a Sunday, with  all the  preparations  having  been made the
previous day. The mat was drawn on the ground with a piece of chalk, and the
inside  of the  circle  was swept and sprinkled  with  sand.  When the  fans
crowded round the next day, Oska took out a toy whistle and I said:
     "We will now see, I mean witness, a wrestling match between two  strong
men.
     Presenting Anfisov (Primary  School) and  Fyodorov (Secondary  School).
This  is going  to be a bout without  breaks, an honest fight, with  no time
limit or monkey-business, to the bitter end. Let's have  a fanfare. Maestro!
Whistle again,  Oska!  We  all know  a foul when we see  one.  Jury,  I mean
judges, take your seats by the barrel."
     Oska, Hefty and  Filipich, the janitor, went over  to the bench  by the
barrel. I called the first round.
     The champions shook hands and danced away from  each other. Anfisov was
tall and bony. Fyodorov was small and stocky, and resembled a Shetland pony.
They stalked  each other for several  seconds, then suddenly Anfisov grabbed
Fyodorov, pinning his arms to his body.
     The audience froze. Even the wind in the yard died down.
     "Leggo o'his arms!" Filipich yelled.
     "Let go!" the older boys shouted.
     "That's fair!" the younger boys cried.
     I  whistled. Oska  tooted.  The  jury  squabbled, and  during  all this
commotion Anfisov threw Fyodorov.
     "Hooray! It's all fair and square!" the younger boys shouted.
     "You can get  a hand  through! It doesn't  count!" the big boys yelled,
but no  matter how  I tried,  I couldn't  squeeze my  hand  under Fyodorov's
shoulder-blades,  for they were  pressed hard to the ground. Shame burned us
as a brand. Fyodorov rose sheepishly and shook the dust off his clothes.
     "Why don't you lie down again? Take a rest," Hefty jeered.
     The future stretched ahead like a graveyard.
     The  runts were jubilant. Hefty  finally lunged at them, slamming their
champion down first. He then proceeded to slaughter  the  innocents, driving
the small  boys into a  far corner of the  yard and then stacking them  like
firewood.


        A DECISIVE BATTLE

     That was when Stepan Atlantis  entered the yard. "Pardon me as a matter
of procedure, but what's the fight on the agenda today?"
     I told him what had happened. Hefty shifted the pile of small boys into
a floundering pyramid and came over to us.
     "A bunch of  big louts like you playing at wrestling. Fooling around in
decisive times like these!"
     "You're all  wrong, Stepan.  This does wonders  for you.  Here, feel my
muscle. See what 1 mean?  If a fellow's strong,  he don't  give a  damn  for
anyone. You know why you and Lelya stick to the Juniors? Because you're both
yellow.  You think  if  you can't  fend  for  yourselves,  your gang'll come
running.  Ha! Well, I can do without your gang.  I can stick  up for myself.
See my fist?"
     "All brawn  and no brain,"  Stepan said. "What  do you think you can do
all by yourself? Where'11 it get you? If our gang, as you say, or, actually,
society goes after you, you'll never know what hit you. That's how strong we
are!"
     "Sure, if it's everybody against one. But that's not fair."
     "Was it fair when  everybody  had to work for one boss? How  many hired
hands did your fat old man drive like slaves?"
     "What's the matter? Did you forget your family has a farm, too?"
     "Don't you compare us.  Our plot  was the size of a hankie. You had  an
orchard and a garden, and land stretching off in all directions."
     "But those damn comrades of yours  set up a commune there and chased us
out."
     "1 know all about it. You tried  to bury your grain in the  cellar when
people were starving, but I made my old man give up whatever we could spare.
And don't think  my mother wasn't  after me! I  had to  stay over  at Kostya
Beetle's place.  And then he had to hide out at my place. We're all for  one
and one for all. And we're against people like you."
     "You mean you'd go against your own friends?" Hefty said very softly.
     "Former friends." Stepan's voice was barely audible.
     Silence slipped across the yard like a shadow. Then Hefty sighed loudly
and headed towards the gate. He was slumped over. His shoulder blades, which
had never known defeat, looked as if they had at last touched the mat.


        E-MUET AND THE TROGLODYTES

     The next day my class decided to spend the algebra lesson analysing the
scrap between Hefty and Atlantis. Hefty sullenly refused  to participate. We
were expecting Alexander Karlovich, our  math teacher, but instead a strange
little old man in a clean  and  well-pressed tunic entered the classroom. He
was puny, nearsighted and bald, with a brush of mousy hair growing up around
his bald pate, so that it resembled a lagoon in an atoll.
     "Who's the bald dome?" Hefty inquired.
     The class roared.
     "Eh-mew-eh.... This?" the old  man said, poking a finger at his lowered
pate "Why?"
     "Un ... nothing special,"  Hefty replied. He  had  not expected  such a
reply.
     "Perhaps baldness has now been ... eh-mew-eh ... outlawed?" the old man
persisted.
     Everyone gazed at him respectfully.
     "Not at all.  Any way you like." Hefty did  not know how  to get out of
the mess.
     "That's very kind of you.  Let's  get  acquainted.... Eh-mew-eh.... I'm
your new  history  teacher. My name is Semyon  Ignatyevich  Kirikov.  Eh ...
mew-eh.... Good morning, troglodytes!"
     This was a word we had never heard before and so we were at a loss, not
knowing whether  he had  meant it  as praise  or  whether it was an  insult.
Stepan Atlantis rose.
     "I've a question to ask. What rock did you crawl out from under? That's
in the first place. And what did you call us? That's in the second."
     The troglodytes stamped their feet and rattled their desk tops.
     "Sit down, you creature.  Troglodytes were ... eh  ... mew-eh  ... were
cavemen,   cave   dwellers,   primitive  people.  Our   ...  eh-mew-eh   ...
great-great-great-progenitors, our forefathers, while you ...  eh-mew-eh ...
you are young troglodytes."
     "Does that mean I'm a troglodytess?" Madame Hippo demanded.
     "Not at all! You are positively a mammoths or a brontosauruses."
     "He's all right!" we whispered excitedly.
     The old man turned out to be a cunning conqueror. By the time the first
lesson  was over he  had captivated  us completely.  Stepan,  who was  never
lavish with  praise,  conceded that "the old  man's  all  right". We  had no
trouble giving our new  teacher a nickname. We named him E-muet,  the French
mute "e", and pronounced  it in French, eh-mew-eh. Kirikov did not enunciate
his words. He seemed to chew on them, mumbling in between and peppering each
phrase  with his  constant  eh-mew-ehs. E-muet did not take offence.  He was
cheerful and kindly. The girls wrote notes to him.
     E-muet called each of us a creature.
     "Creature Aleferenko! Rise!"
     And Aleferenko would rise.
     "Now then, creature. Let's go back ... eh-mew-eh  ... you cave dweller,
to what we spoke of at our last lesson."
     "We spoke of  hand picks  and the Stone  Age. It was all awfully boring
and prehistoric. No wars. No nothing."
     "Be seated, creature. Today's lesson will be duller still."
     And  he  would  drone  on  dishing out the next portion of  prehistoric
information. Having  rattled  it  off, he would immediately cheer up, post a
sentry at the door and spend  the other half of  the lesson reading aloud to
us from a 1912 copy of Satirikon, a humorous magazine, or else he would tell
us hunting yarns.  An attentive silence was one  of the honours bestown upon
Kirikov. His triumphant bald pate  gradually acquired  an aura  of glory. He
became  a living legend. Despite his near-sightedness, E-muet had discovered
that the class was divided into various parties, and so he,  too, divided us
into troglodytes (the old school  boys) and anthropoids (the  Juniors). This
completely won over the old school boys.
     However, it somehow seemed to me  that every  now and then something so
vague you  couldn't  put your finger on it, but  something evil and familiar
poked its ugly head out of this kindly old man. It  would rise up at the end
of some  of his jokes,  apparent but  as unpronounceable as e-muet, the mute
"e" in French.


        MAMMOTHS IN SCHWAMBRANIA

     At his fourth  lesson E-muet  addressed a  long speech to us.  He  even
mumbled and hemmed and  hawed less than usual that day. However, there was a
strong smell of liquor on his breath.
     "Troglodytes and anthropoids! I want  to light the sacred fire of truth
in your caves.  I will tell you why they make me tell you about troglodytes,
but forbid me to tell  you about  emperors.  Listen, my  primitive brothers,
mammoths and brontosauruses ... eh-mew-eh.... History has ended...."
     "No, it hasn't! The bell for recess didn't ring yet!" someone shouted.
     "Which  protozoan amoeba said  that?  I'm  not speaking  of our history
lesson. I'm speaking ... eh-mew-eh ... of the  history of mankind ... of its
magnificent,  martial history, so full of pomp and circumstance. History has
come  full circle. The Bolsheviks have  turned Russia back ... eh-mew-eh ...
to  the  primitive  state,  to  the  primordial  darkness.  There  is  chaos
everywhere, and ruin.... There is no kerosene.... We shall lose our fire....
We  shall  be  naked  ...  for  there  is  no cloth.... A return  to bestial
primitiveness  awaits  us,  my  dear troglodytes.... The iron tracks for our
trains will become evergrown! Eh-mew-eh ... the last  match will go out, and
the primordial night will be upon us."
     "How can it, when there'll be electricity everywhere?" Stepan cried.
     "Shut  up! He's right!"  Hefty said. "The commune wrecked everything on
our farm."
     "Who  cares  about  primitive times?  Tell us  about  when  there  were
knights!" someone shouted.
     Everyone began stamping. The troglodytes jumped over their desks.
     "So  let's  get down  on all  fours,  my dear troglodytes," E-muet said
cheerfully, "and let's raise a hoary cry in praise of the eternal night into
which we shall descend. Raghhhh! Ow-ww!"
     "Ow-ww!" everyone hawled gleefully.
     Some,  throwing themselves into  the act, scrambled down the aisles  on
all fours, making the  rest of the class double  over. Then someone began to
sing:

     Ah, when the night's dark,
     Oh, I'm so scared then,
     Troglodytess,
     My own Marusya!
     Oh, Marusya,
     Troglodytess!
     Stop your chatter,
     See me home first.

     At the  lectern  Kirikov  was chanting like a witch doctor.  Once again
something very familiar flitted across his  contorted  face, but I  couldn't
seem to grasp that  elusive  "something". I, too, was caught  up  in macabre
merriment of  my classmates. I felt that I, too, wanted  to crawl and howl a
bit. The lack  of a  tail  was  disappointing, but  did not really spoil the
general  impression.  I  could  practically  feel the  soil of  Schwambrania
shuddering under the heavy tread of the advancing mammoths.
     "Hey, fellows, stop it!" Kostya Beetle shouted,  coming to his  senses.
"Tell them he's pulling the wool over their eyes, Stepan. Hey, Stepan!"
     But Stepan had  disappeared. I hated to think that he  had run off. The
mammoths  raised  their trunks  like  question  marks  and  stopped  at  the
Schwambranian border, not knowing what to do.
     Forsunov,  President  of  the  Student Council, and  then  Stepan  came
running in.  The troglodytes were  instantly  swept forward  into  the  20th
century. The mammoths galloped off the Big Tooth Continent.  Kirikov's  bald
pate lost its shine.
     "You can get into  a  lot of  trouble for filling their heads with such
nonsense," Forsunov said softly.
     "You lousy bourgeois. You  saboteur!" Stepan added,  sticking his  head
over Forsunov's shoulder.
     "Eh-mew-eh,  I  was simply presenting the  basic  ideas of,  eh-mew-eh,
anarchism Naked man on the naked earth, and no personal property."
     "Toadstool!"   I  shouted   joyously,  taking   myself   by   surprise.
"Toadstool," I repeated with conviction, for I had recreated  the nettle-man
in my mind's eye,  our  summer of Kvasnikovka, the  many clocks and watches,
Death-Cap-Poison-Emi  and  the personal  property  of the bald man with  the
sack. And now E-muet, a mut and silent "e", had become an open "e".
     Kirikov was exposed and relieved of his teaching post. The  anthropoids
welcomed his  removal, but the troglodytes,  led by Hefty, resented it. They
began plotting their revenge, choosing the following day as the date for the
massacre of the Juniors and calling it a "universal ruckus".
     "We're going  to have a  St.  Bartholomew's Night tomorrow morning,"  I
whispered to Oska that night.
     Oska, who was always one to confuse -words when  he was wide awake, now
mumbled sleepily, "Are they going to kill the Hottentots?"
     "The Huguenots,  not the Hottentots, and, anyway,  not the Huguenots at
all, but  the Juniors, and they're not going to kill them dead, they'll just
beat them up."
     "Did tryglodytors fight in the arena in Ancient Rome, too?" he suddenly
asked.
     "No, gladiators. Troglodytes are...."
     There were still a few lost  mammoths roaming  about in Schwambrania. I
told Oska they were hiding out among the huge prehistoric ferns.
     "Fammoths graze in the merns," he mumbled sleepily.


        A GREAT, UNIVERSAL RUCKUS

     The universal ruckus was  invented ages  ago.  It  was the greatest and
most terrible kind of schoolboy revolt. A universal ruckus was only resorted
to in  extreme cases,  when all  other  means of resisting  the  authorities
failed. I had never yet witnessed such an event, though school legends still
recalled the  last  one.  It  had  taken  place in  1912,  after  the  three
ringleaders  of an attack on the principal's doorman  had been expelled. The
doorman had informed on the boys and had been pelted with rotten eggs.
     And  so, the troglodytes decided to declare a  Great  General Universal
Ruckus,  with  Hefty in command. He looked somewhat preoccupied when he came
to school the  next morning, but he was calm. There was an ugly semblance of
calm in the air. No one played "Chopsticks". No one  wrestled. No one played
the staring game. The corridor, always a churning stream, emptied the moment
the bell  rang. The stunned teachers  walked  along  this strangely deserted
river bed.  They were greeted by  a  dead  silence  when  they entered their
respective classrooms.
     Our  first lesson was  Russian  grammar. The teacher,  a  curly-haired,
blond-bearded man named Melkovsky, peeped in the door cautiously. The moment
he  appeared the  troglodytes, displaying their former  training,  jumped to
their feet like  so many jack-in-the-boxes and  stood at attention by  their
desks. The anthropoids and Stepan  were a few moments behind the others. The
general upward  sweep  lifted  me,  too.  We  stood  there  respectfully  at
attention.
     "Now, now! Be seated  everyone," Melkovsky said and waved his hand, for
he had become unaccustomed to such reverence.
     The pupils were settling back slowly. Melkovsky tested the lectern with
the tip of his shoe. It did not explode. Then he mounted it cautiously.
     "The morning prayer, Monitor!" Hefty snapped.
     "Are you crazy?" Stepan said.
     An oppressive silence descended upon us.
     "0, Gracious Saviour, bless  us this day  and..." Volodya  Labanda, the
monitor that day, intoned.
     Some of the boys were crossing themselves from force of habit. "Perhaps
I'd better leave," Melkovsky mumbled. He was thoroughly confused.
     Just then the monitor popped up beside him, carrying the class journal,
and  the  puzzled teacher  heard  the monitor's patter, as in the "good old"
Boys School days:
     "Absent   today   are   Stepan  Gavrya,  Konstantin  Rudenko,   Nikolai
Makukhin..." and he went on to read the list of all the Juniors.
     "Wait! Stop!" supposedly absent boys shouted  and jumped to their feet.
"You're lying! We're here!"
     "You'll soon be  absent," Hefty said. There  was a smirk on  his  face.
"The  Ruckus  is  on,  troglodytes!" He stuck  two fingers  in his mouth and
whistled so shrilly it hurt our ears.
     The "B"  class  in the adjoining  room whistled back.  Then eight other
whistles  were carried  down  the corridor,  and a rumble echoed through the
school.  Classes were disrupted. The Juniors were dragged out  by the  feet,
thrown out  the doors and  windows. Textbooks fluttered down, flapping their
pages like  huge butterflies.  The girls  took care  of  the  shrieking  and
screaming part of it.  Ink was shed in our classroom. A blackboard was being
carried  down the  hall like  an icon. "Attention, everybody! Down with  the
anthropoid  Juniors! Long live S. I. Kirikov! Demand his reinstatement," the
message on the blackboard read.
     Five  minutes  later  there  was not  a single  anthropoid left  in the
building. Troglodyte patrols were guarding the exits. The desks had all been
turned over.
     The Great Universal Ruckus had begun.


        "FIGHTING CONTINUES ON ALL FRONTS"

     The Commissar  tethered  his horse to the door. Then he  pulled  up his
boots and  stalked  down  the corridor.  It was deserted. Everyone was at an
emergency meeting in a large classroom  turned into an auditorium. Hefty sat
at a table on the rostrum, looking well in the  role of chairman and victor.
He  was flanked  by  Forsunov and a  senior named  Rothmeller, the  son of a
wealthy sausage merchant. Rothmeller  had just finished  speaking.  Forsunov
was gazing at the table.
     A troglodyte patrol was guarding the entrance.  The Juniors, rather the
worse for wear  and hardly anthropoids any  longer, were laying siege to the
door. The  troglodytes  moved  aside  to let  the commissar through.  Stepan
Atlantis  slipped  in  under cover  of  his broad back, but  the troglodytes
dragged him back into the corridor.
     "The next speaker is Commissar Chubarkov," Hefty said.
     "And that's that!" the boys shouted in unison.
     "What's the ruckus?"
     "It's universal!" came a chorus.
     "Wait a minute, boys!"
     "We're not minute-boys!"
     "Comrades!" the Commissar said.
     "We're no comrades of yours!"
     "Then who are you?" Chubarkov was getting really angry.
     "Tro-glo-dytes!" they chanted.
     "What? Trouble-tykes? All right. That's enough! I say it's time to stop
the nonsense. And that's that."
     "Where were you before?" they jeered.
     "Meaning what?"  Chubarkov thundered.  "It's  a  stupid  question.  You
didn't  dare open your mouths when Stomolitsky was the principal. And that's
for sure! I can just see  him getting into  a debate with you! He'd put your
names down in the Black Book in no time, or have you expelled."
     "And that's that!" someone yelled from the back rows where the worst of
the die-hard troglodytes clustered. "And that's  all there is to it! We want
Kirikov!"
     The  troglodytes were out of control.  However,  it was no easy  job to
outshout the  booming  voice  of  the  former Volga stevedore  accustomed to
speaking at mass meetings.
     "I really  am  surprised," he was saying slowly and forcefully, and the
noise  began  to  die  down. "Can't you  understand what's happening? You're
getting  a modern  education.  What's so fascinating about all those  tsars?
Here in the Common Work School you'll  get to know about your people,  about
where they  came from, how they got to  be  what they  are,  and about their
development.  As  for Kirikov, who turned out to be a black-marketeer on the
side,  all he  did was stuff your  heads  full  of  nonsense. What  sort  of
darkness was  he talking about when education  brings light?  Enlightenment.
And don't you forget that under the old regime they kept this light from the
workers  and  the peasants. They wanted  to keep them ignorant and backward.
Can you imagine  all the people that are going to get an education now? Take
me,  for instance." He  suddenly became shy.  "As soon as things quiet down,
I'll be going off to Petrograd to study, too. Now why, comrades, do  you and
those uh, trouble-tykes, let every no-good, low-down snake-in-the-grass turn
your young eyes away from the truth and  keep the other fellows from getting
out  of  that old primitive darkness  and into the  light? Why do you  think
they're worse than you? You think their daddies aren't as rich as yours?"


     CALIGULA'S HORSE

     What followed was  to  become legend.  A deafening clatter was heard in
the corridor, followed by Mokeich  shouting: "Stop! Where d'you think you're
going?"
     The troglodyte guard at  the  door suddenly parted, and Stepan Atlantis
galloped  into the  auditorium  astride the Commissar's  horse.  The Juniors
burst in after him, sweeping away whatever remained of the guards.
     "Whoa! He got loose! I barely managed to catch him, Comrade Commissar."
Indeed, Stepan was a wily fellow.
     The horse whinnied softly.
     "Excuse me,"  the  Commissar said.  He  was  apparently addressing  his
horse. "I'll be through here  in a  minute,  that's for sure. This is what I
think, boys. You've  had  your  row, and now it's time to settle down. We'll
put it to a vote to make it legal, and that's that!"
     Hefty  and  Rothmeller  were whispering uneasily. Stepan, still astride
the Commissar's horse, looked the troglodytes  over. The horse  shifted  its
weight delicately, as if fearful  of stepping on someone's toes. Hefty rose.
His former swagger was gone. Once again Stepan had won the day.
     "They've ridden roughshod over you," Hefty said.
     No  one replied. Our math teacher, Alexander Karlovich  Bertelyov, went
over to the table on the rostrum. He was serious, as always.
     "My friends!" he said and  dropped  his pince-nez nervously. Then,  for
the next few minutes, he slapped his hand around on the table nearsightedly,
as  if he were  trying  to  catch  a  grasshopper.  He finally  located  his
pince-nez  and brought the world back  into focus again.  He  continued: "My
friends, I am  not  interested  in politics  and  am  not used to  your mass
meetings. I have only asked for the floor from  a purely scientific point of
view. It so happened that, due to an oversight on our  part, Kirikov, and no
offence meant,  tried to  teach you  something that  was pure, unadulterated
hogwash.  A  lot  of obscurantist  nonsense that  could  never  stand  up to
criticism, and  certainly not from a purely scientific point of view. In the
end, the revolution  leads  to progress.  It  brings great new l