that after that  there  must come a
horrible  monster- something  halfway  between a  furry  yellow  duck and  a
crocodile-and this monster would seize Vanka-Rutyutyu's head in its jaws and
drag him off to the nether regions.
     This part, however, was not shown.  Perhaps it  was because not  enough
coppers had been thrown from the windows. In the next yard, though, business
was certain to be better.
     Their  eyes  fixed  on  the  wicker  basket   where  the   puppets  lay
mysteriously hidden, the bewitched children moved from one courtyard  to the
next in the wake of the loudly-dressed woman with a street organ  slung over
her shoulder and the hatless man carrying a screen under his arm.
     Pavlik, devoured by curiosity, trudged  along beside the other children
on  his  sturdy  little  legs,  his  tongue  sticking   out  and  his  light
chocolate-coloured eyes, with their large black pupils, open wide. He forgot
everything -Daddy and Auntie Tatyana, and even Kudlatka whom he had not  had
time to put in the stable or give a good portion of oats and hay.
     The boy lost  all sense of time. When  he  came out  of  his  trance he
discovered with a start that night was falling and that he was following the
street organ along  totally unfamiliar streets. All  the other  children had
long since disappeared. He was quite alone.
     The loudly-dressed woman  and the  man  with the  screen  walked  along
quickly,  evidently in a  hurry to  get home. Pavlik  could scarcely keep up
with  them.  The streets  became more  and more strange and  suspicious.  It
seemed to Pavlik  that the  man  and woman  were whispering  something  in a
sinister manner.
     They  turned  a  corner and then suddenly  wheeled  round,  and  Pavlik
noticed in  alarm that  there was  a cigarette in  the woman's mouth. Terror
swept  over  him. He began to tremble  as he suddenly remembered. Absolutely
everybody knew  that organ-grinders  enticed little children away from home,
broke their arms and legs, and then sold them to the circus as acrobats.
     How, oh how could he have  forgotten that! It was as well  known as the
fact that sweets manufactured by "Krakhmalnikov Bros."  could poison you, or
that the ice-cream sold in the streets was made of milk in which sick people
had bathed.
     Here  there  could be  no doubt. Only Gipsy  women and other  women who
stole children smoked. In  another minute they would seize him,  stuff a rag
into his mouth, and  carry him off to Romanovka, where they  would twist his
arms and legs out of their sockets and turn him into an acrobat.
     With a  loud wail Pavlik turned and fled.  He ran as fast as  he could,
until suddenly he bumped into Petya.
     After  giving  his little  brother  a  good spanking Petya triumphantly
dragged him home  by  the  arm. At  home, panic reigned.  Dunya  was running
frantically  through the neighbouring courtyards, her  cheap taffeta  skirts
swishing. Auntie Tatyana  was  rubbing her temples  with a  migraine  stick.
Father was getting  into his summer coat to go down to the police station to
report his children missing.
     Upon seeing Pavlik safe  and  sound, Auntie rushed up to him, undecided
whether to laugh or to cry.
     She  did both at  the  same time. Then she  spanked  the little vagrant
soundly. Then she planted  kisses all over his smudgy little face. Then  she
spanked him again.
     Only after that did she turn a threatening face to Petya.
     "And what about you, my friend?"
     "Where were you gadding about, you bandit?" Father shouted, seizing the
boy by the shoulder.
     "I was looking for Pavlik," Petya replied modestly. "I ran all over the
city before I found him. You ought to  thank me. If not for me he would have
been stolen long ago."
     Then and there he launched into a magnificent tale of how he had chased
the organ-grinder, how the organ-grinder had  tried to escape him down  back
alleys, and  how he had finally seized the  organ-grinder by  the collar and
shouted for the police.  Then the organ-grinder became frightened, let go of
Pavlik, and ran away.
     "Otherwise I'd have had him put in jail, by the true and holy Cross!"
     Although Petya's story, contrary to  his expectations, aroused not  the
slightest admiration, and Father even wrinkled his nose in disgust and said,
"Aren't you ashamed to talk such nonsense?" there  was nothing  anyone could
do  about  it, for it was Petya, and Petya alone, who had  found the missing
Pavlik. Thanks to that Petya got off scot-free.
     That's what came of being a lucky boy with two whorls on his crown!
     Meanwhile Gavrik had returned to the hut to find Grandpa and the sailor
greatly  excited. A little while before, some officials had come to the hut,
supposedly from the city  council, to check  up on Grandpa's fishing permit.
The papers had been in order.
     "Who's that on the bed?" the gentleman with the brief case had suddenly
asked, noticing the sailor.
     Grandpa did not know what to say.
     "Is he ill? If so, then why don't you take him to the hospital?"
     "No,"  said Grandpa, putting on an air of  cheerful indifference. "He's
not ill; he's drunk."
     "Drunk, is he? Your son?"
     "No."
     "A stranger?"
     "I tell you he's a drunk, Your Honour."
     "Yes, I understand. But where did he come from?"
     "Where?" Grandpa  repeated, pretending he  was a  half-witted old  man.
"He's a  drunk, I tell you. You know,  a drunk. He was  lying in  the weeds,
that's all."
     The gentleman looked closely at the sailor.
     "Was he lying in the weeds like that, in nothing but his underdrawers?"
     "That's how I found him."
     "Hey, you! Let me smell  your breath!"  the  gentleman shouted, putting
his face down close to the sailor's.
     Zhukov made believe he did not hear. He turned his face to the wall and
covered his head with a pillow.
     "Strange!  A  drunk  who  doesn't  smell  of  alcohol,"  the  gentleman
remarked. Then he added, regarding Grandpa severely, "You'd better look out,
there!"
     With that the officials departed.
     Gavrik did not like the looks of this at all.
     Passing by  the restaurant he  had seen the  district police inspector,
the nasty  one whom the local fishermen called "our boat snooper", seated at
a table.
     The  inspector had been  drinking beer, and  his  heavy mug stood on  a
thick  round piece of cardboard with the inscription "Sanzenbacher's  Beer".
He  had seemed less  interested in the beer, however, than in the time shown
by his silver watch.
     The sailor felt much better. Evidently the crisis had passed. He was no
longer feverish.
     He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his stubbly cheeks.
     "I'll have to get out of here at once," he said.
     "Where'll  you  go  without trousers?" Grandpa asked  sadly. "Stay here
until dark. No other way out. Hungry, Gavrik?"
     "I had supper at Terenti's."
     Grandpa raised his eyebrows. Think of it! His grandson had already been
at Terenti's. Quick work!
     "How are things there?"
     "He's planning to drop in today."
     The old  man  chewed his  lips  and  raised  his eyebrows still higher,
marvelling at how  quick-witted  his grandson was. Why,  he  grasped  things
better than many a grown man. And on top  of everything, he  was shrewd. Oh,
how shrewd he was!
     Although only  nine  and  a  half,  Gavrik  really  did  have a  better
understanding of some things than many adults. This  was not surprising, for
from his earliest years  he had lived among fishermen, and  the fishermen of
Odessa did  not  differ essentially  from  the  sailors,  stokers,  shipyard
workers   and  dockers,   that  is   to  say,  from  the  poorest  and  most
freedom-loving section of the city's population.
     They all had more than their  share of life's trials and  tribulations,
the children no less than the adults-and perhaps even more.
     This was the year 1905, the year of the first Russian revolution.
     The poor, the disinherited, the oppressed were rising to fight tsarism.
And not the last among them were the fishermen.
     It was a fierce struggle that had started, a struggle to the death. And
a struggle that taught them to be shrewd, cautious, vigilant, daring.
     All these qualities had gradually,  imperceptibly,  grown and developed
in our little fisherman.
     Gavrik's brother Terenti had also been a fisherman. After his marriage,
however, he had gone to  work  in the railway  shops. From many signs Gavrik
could not help guessing that his elder brother had something to do with what
in those times was vaguely and significantly called "the Movement".
     When he visited Terenti at Near Mills, Gavrik often heard him use words
like "committee", "faction", "password". Although  he did not know what they
meant, he sensed that they were connected with words like  "strike", "police
agent" and "leaflet", words everyone understood.
     Gavrik  knew especially well what  leaflets were, those sheets of rough
paper with small grey letters printed on them. Once Terenti had asked him to
distribute some  along the  shore, and he  had  put  them, at  night, in the
fishing boats, trying to do it so that no one saw him.
     Terenti had said,  "If anyone sees  you,  throw them into the water and
run. If they catch you, say you found them in the bushes."
     But everything had gone off all right.
     And so, that was  why Gavrik had decided to go straight  to his brother
about the sailor. He knew that  Terenti would  arrange  everything.  He also
understood, however, that his brother would  have to  consult  someone else,
and to go somewhere, perhaps even to that "Committee".
     That meant they must wait. But waiting was becoming dangerous.
     Several times the sailor opened the door a  crack and cautiously peeped
out.  It  was fairly dark by now, but not dark enough to risk  going out the
way he  was  without attracting attention, especially since there were still
many people on  the beach and  they could  hear singing from rowing-boats on
the water.
     The sailor returned to the bed. "The rats! The  damned bloodhounds!" he
said in a loud voice, no longer wary of the old man and Gavrik. "Just let me
get my hands on them! I'll-I don't know  what  I'd do  to them!  I'd risk my
head but I'd pay them back-" And  he quietly struck the bed with his massive
fist.

        26
     THE PURSUIT

     Night had already fallen when  the door of the hut was suddenly  pushed
open, and  for an  instant  the  body of  a big man shut out the stars.  The
sailor sprang to his feet.
     "That's all right," Gavrik said. "It's our Terenti."
     The sailor sat down again, peering into the darkness at the newcomer.
     "Evening," came Terenti's voice. "It's so dark I can't see a soul.  Why
don't you light the lamp? What's up, out of paraffin?"
     "There's a few drops left." Grandpa rose with  a grunt and  lighted the
lamp.
     "Hello, Grandpa, how are things going with you? I was in town today and
I thought, what about  looking  my  own folk up?  Why, I  see  you've got  a
visitor as it is. Hello, there."
     Terenti gave the stranger a quick, close glance in the flickering light
of the wick lamp.
     "He's  the one we fished out of the sea," Grandpa explained wryly, with
a good-natured grin.
     "So I hear."
     The sailor said nothing. He eyed Terenti with glum suspicion.
     "Rodion Zhukov, I take it?" Terenti said, a gay note in his voice.
     The  sailor gave a start but  instantly  controlled  himself. He braced
himself more firmly against the bed with his fists and narrowed his eyes.
     "What about it?"  he said with a defiant smile. "Why do  I have to tell
you? I answer only to the Committee."
     The grin faded from Terenti's pock-marked face.  Never had Gavrik  seen
his brother so grave.
     "You  may take me for  the Committee," Terenti replied after a moment's
reflection. He sat down on the bed beside the sailor.
     "Prove it," the sailor said stiffly, edging away.
     "First prove who you are."
     The sailor indicated his underdrawers with an angry glance. "Can't  you
see for yourself?"
     "That's not enough."
     Terenti walked over  to  the door,  opened it a crack and said in a low
voice, "Will you come in for a minute, Ilya Borisovich?"
     There  was a rustling in the bushes, and  then a short frail young  man
wearing pince-nez on a black ribbon looped behind one ear entered the hut. A
black sateen Russian  blouse belted with  a leather strap showed beneath his
old, unbuttoned jacket. Atop  his shock of hair perched  a  flat engineering
student's cap.
     The sailor felt that he had seen this "student" somewhere before.
     The young fellow turned  sidewise, adjusted his pince-nez and  squinted
at the sailor with one eye.
     "Well?" Terenti asked.
     "I saw this  comrade on the morning of  June the 15th at  the  Platonov
jetty guarding the body  of the sailor Vakulinchuk who was brutally murdered
by officers," the young fellow said quickly, without  stopping  for  breath.
"You were there, Comrade, weren't you?"
     "Right you are."
     "There. I knew I wasn't mistaken."
     Without  saying a word Terenti produced a bundle from under  his jacket
and laid it on the sailor's knees.
     "Trousers, a  belt  and a jacket, couldn't get  boots, sorry, so you'll
have to  go without until you  can buy some,  and now  get dressed and don't
lose any time about it, we'll turn  our backs," the young fellow said all in
one breath, adding, "I've an idea this place is being watched."
     Terenti gave a wink. "Get going, Gavrik."
     Gavrik understood at once and quietly slipped out of the  hut into  the
darkness. He  stopped and listened.  He thought he heard a rustle among  the
dry potato bushes in the vegetable patch.
     He  crouched and  tiptoed  forward.  Suddenly,  when  his  eyes  became
accustomed to the  darkness,  he clearly saw  two  motionless figures in the
middle of the patch.
     The boy caught his breath. His ears began to  ring so loudly that he no
longer heard the sea. Biting his lips savagely,  he made his  way  without a
single sound to the rear of the hut to see if there was anyone on the path.
     On the path stood two other men, one of them in a white jacket.
     Gavrik crawled towards the hill and there he saw several men. He  could
tell  at  once  they were  policemen by  their white jackets.  The  hut  was
surrounded.
     He was just about to  run  back when a big, hot hand firmly  seized him
from behind by the scruff of the neck. He broke away,  but the  next instant
he was tripped up and sent sprawling into the bushes.
     A  pair of  strong hands  gripped him.  He  twisted round, and, to  his
horror, found himself face to face with Moustaches;  he  was staring into an
open foul-breathed mouth and at a chin as rough as a pine board.
     "Plee-eease," Gavrik whined in a thin little voice.
     "Shut up, you dog!" hissed Moustaches.
     "Let me go, plee-eease, let me go!"
     "I'll teach you to shout, you little rat," Moustaches  muttered through
his teeth, seizing Gavrik's ear in fingers of steel.
     Gavrik shrank back and, turning his face to the hut, screamed in a wild
voice, "Hook it!"
     "Shut up or I'll kill you!"
     Moustaches yanked Gavrik's ear so savagely that it cracked. Gavrik felt
as though his head had split. It was stabbed by horrible, unimaginable pain.
At the  same time he was swept  by a wave  of  hatred  and anger that turned
everything black before his eyes.
     "Hook it!" he shouted again at  the  top of  his voice,  writhing  with
pain.
     Moustaches  threw  himself  on  Gavrik.  Continuing to  twist  his  ear
savagely, he used his other  hand to stop the boy's mouth. But Gavrik rolled
on the ground, biting  the sweaty, hateful, hairy hand. Weeping, he  shouted
frenziedly, "Hoo-ook it!"
     Moustaches  violently flung Gavrik aside and raced  towards  the hut. A
long police whistle sounded.
     Gavrik got to  his feet and saw at once that his shouts had been heard,
for  three figures-two tall and one short -dashed  out of the hut and across
the vegetable patch, stumbling as they ran.
     Two white  jackets barred their  way. The fugitives wheeled about, only
to find that they were surrounded.
     "Halt!" an unfamiliar voice cried out of the darkness.
     "Shoot, Ilya!" Gavrik heard Terenti yell in desperation.
     The next instant there were three flashes and three  revolver shots one
after the other, sounding like the cracking of a whip. The shouts and grunts
told Gavrik that a scrimmage was going on in the darkness.
     Would they be caught? So overcome with horror that he did not know what
he was doing, Gavrik dashed forward, as if he could help them in some way.
     He  had  not  run  more than  ten  paces  when  he saw  the  same three
figures-two  tall  and one  short-tear themselves away  from the tussle, run
towards the bluff and disappear in the darkness. "Stop them! Stop them!"
     There was a  flash of  red  light, followed  by  the loud report  of  a
policeman's Smith  &  Wesson.  Police  whistles shrilled at  the top  of the
bluff. It looked as if a cordon had been posted all along the shore.
     Gavrik listened with a sinking heart to the hue and cry of the pursuit.
It was beyond him why Terenti had  chosen  to run in that direction. Only  a
madman  would have climbed the bluff. Straight into a trap, where they would
all be caught. It would have been better to try to escape along the beach.
     He  ran on  a bit  farther. He thought he could  make out three figures
crawling up the sheer wall of the bluff. They were done for!
     "Oh, Terenti,  why did you go that way!" the  boy whispered in despair.
He bit his hand to keep from crying, but scalding tears tickled his nose and
stung his throat. Then all of a sudden Gavrik understood why they had chosen
the bluff. He'd  quite  forgotten. And  yet  it was so simple! The point was
that-
     At  this very  moment Moustaches  flung  himself  at Gavrik, caught him
under the arms and dragged him backwards, tearing the boy's shirt. He pushed
him into the hut, near which two policemen  were now standing. Gavrik struck
his  cheek painfully against the  door and fell  on top of Grandpa, who  was
sitting on the floor in the corner, his legs crossed under him.
     "If  they  get away,  I'll have your heads!" Moustaches  yelled at  the
policemen, and ran out.
     Gavrik sat down beside Grandpa, crossing his legs under him in the same
way.  They sat in  silence,  listening  to the whistles and  cries gradually
dying away in the distance.
     At last all was silence.
     Only then did Gavrik  become  aware of his  ear. He  had  forgotten all
about  it,  but it  ached  terribly.  It  felt  as  if it were on fire. Even
touching it was painful.
     "That devil! Almost tore my ear right off!"  he  muttered,  trying  his
hardest to hold back the tears and to appear indifferent.
     Grandpa  glanced at him without turning  his head. The  old  man's eyes
were motionless and  horrifyingly blank. He softly chewed  his lips.  For  a
long time  he was  silent. At last he shook his head and said reproachfully,
"Who ever saw the likes of it? Tearing off a child's ear! Is that the way to
act?"
     He drew a heavy sigh and took to chewing his lips again. All at once he
bent  anxiously  over Gavrik, looked fearfully at the  door to  see  whether
anyone was  listening,  and whispered, "Did you hear anything? Did they  get
away?"
     "They went up the bluff," Gavrik said rapidly in an undertone. "Terenti
took them to  the catacombs. If  they're  not  shot down on the path they're
sure to get away."
     Grandpa turned his face to the icon of  the miracle  worker, closed his
eyes,  and  slowly crossed himself  with a sweeping  gesture,  pressing  his
folded fingers hard against his forehead, his stomach and both shoulders.
     A tear, so tiny that it  was almost invisible, crept down his cheek and
disappeared in a wrinkle.


        27
     GRANDPA

     Many cities  of  the world have catacombs-Rome, Naples, Constantinople,
Alexandria, Paris, Odessa.
     Some  fifty  years  earlier,  Odessa's  catacombs  had  been  limestone
quarries.  To this day they run in a labyrinth beneath the entire city, with
several exits beyond its limits. Everyone  in Odessa knew, of  course,  that
the  catacombs  were  there, but few had ever gone down into them, and fewer
still had  any idea of their layout. The  catacombs were, in a way, Odessa's
mystery, its legend.
     Terenti,  however,  had  once  been a fisherman.  He  knew  the  Odessa
shoreline  perfectly, and had made an exact  study of all the catacomb exits
there.
     One of these exits was located a hundred  paces behind the hut, halfway
up the  bluff. It was a narrow opening concealed  by growths  of sweet-brier
and spindle  tree.  A brook  trickled out of  the  opening and ran  down the
bluff, causing the creepers and weeds to tremble.
     After repulsing the first  attack of the  policemen and the detectives,
Terenti led his comrades straight to the opening in the bluff.
     Their  pursuers  knew  nothing  of  its  existence.  They  thought  the
fugitives  were trying to make their way to town through the villa district.
This played into their hands, for they  had the district surrounded and  the
fugitives would be trapped for certain.
     And so, after the first shots the  policemen were ordered to hold their
fire.
     When he had waited  below for about a quarter of  an hour, the chief of
the  Alexandrovsky police  station, who was directing  the  raid personally,
sent  the district  police  inspector to find  out if the criminals had been
caught.
     The inspector took  the easy but  roundabout  path  to the top  of  the
bluff, and another quarter of an hour passed  before he  returned to  report
that the fugitives had not been seen up there. It thus  turned out that they
were neither at  the  top nor at the  bottom.  Then where were they?  It was
utterly  impossible to  think  they  were  sitting in  the bushes  somewhere
halfway up the bluff, waiting to be caught.
     Nevertheless,  the chief ordered  his men to climb up  and search every
bush. Then,  no longer trusting "those fools",  he  himself  followed  them,
letting  out  strings  of oaths as his patent-leather  boots slipped on  the
grass and clay.
     They combed  the bluff from bottom to top but nothing did they find. It
seemed a  miracle. The fugitives couldn't  have been  swallowed  up  by  the
earth!
     "Your Honour!" a frightened voice suddenly cried from above. "Could you
please come here?"
     "What's the matter?"
     "It's the catacombs, Your Honour."
     The  chief of police reached up  and caught hold of  the  thorny bushes
with his white-gloved  hands. An instant later he was seized by strong hands
and pulled up to a small ledge.
     Moustaches struck  one  match  after  another, and by their light  they
could make out a long black crevice overgrown with bushes.
     The chief saw at once that he had  lost.  What a catch had escaped him!
He shook  with rage; he  stamped his  elegant boots; his white-gloved  fists
struck out right and left, hitting random noses, cheekbones and moustaches.
     "What are you standing  there for, you idiots!" he blustered in a voice
hoarse from shouting. "Forward, march! Search all the catacombs! Catch those
scoundrels  or else I'll tear your heads off! I'll smash your damned mugs to
a pulp! Forward, march!"
     But  he  knew that it was hopeless. To  search  all the catacombs would
take a fortnight at least. And it was  useless even to  start, for they  had
already lost  more  than half  an  hour and  the  fugitives had  undoubtedly
reached the other side of town long since.
     Several  policemen  unwillingly crawled  through the opening.  Lighting
matches  continually, they hovered not far from the entrance,  examining the
damp  limestone walls  of  the underground  passage  that  disappeared  into
sepulchral darkness.
     The chief  spat on the ground in  disgust and ran down the side  of the
bluff, his spurs jingling. He was choking with fury. He tore so violently at
the  over-starched collar of his white pique uniform jacket  that  the hooks
flew off.
     He strode  through  the crackling  bushes  to  the  hut,  and  savagely
wrenched open the door. The policemen  sprang to attention  in  fright.  The
chief stepped into the little room and halted, his feet  wide  apart and his
twitching  fingers  behind his  back. He  was followed through  the door  by
Moustaches.
     "Your  Honour,"  Moustaches  whispered  mysteriously,  his  round  eyes
indicating Grandpa, "he's the owner of this undercover place  and that's his
brat."
     Without glancing at Moustaches the chief stretched out his arm, put the
flat of his white hand against the man's sweaty face, and pushed it  away in
furious disgust.
     "No one's asking you, you fool! I know that myself!"
     Gavrik  was  horror-stricken. He felt  something dreadful  was about to
happen. Small, pale, his ear red  and swollen, he stared unblinkingly at the
erect,   broad-shouldered  officer   in   the   blue  breeches   and   black
patent-leather shoulder belt.
     After standing like that fully a minute,  a minute that seemed an  hour
to the boy, the chief sat  down  on the edge of the bed. Without  taking his
eyes off  Grandpa  he  stretched  out a patent-leather boot, drew  a  silver
cigarette  case and  an  orange-coloured  matchbox from  his tight breeches'
pocket, and lit a yellow cigarette.
     "He smokes Asmolovs," Gavrik thought.
     The  chief  blew  the  smoke  through  his  nostrils,  drawling  out  a
"Ss-o-o-oo!" together with the smoke. Then he suddenly shouted at the top of
his  lungs, in a  voice so  loud that Gavrik's ears rang.  "Stand up in  the
presence of an officer, you scoundrel!"
     Grandpa nervously sprang to attention. Standing on his bent, bare black
legs and adjusting the shirt over his frail chest,  he stared  at  the chief
with dull, expressionless eyes.
     Gavrik could see Grandpa's taut neck trembling; the dry  skin, on which
there was an old scar, stretched like two reins.
     "So you're hiding outlaws, eh?" the chief said in an icy voice.
     "No, sir," Grandpa whispered.
     "Speak up, now. Who was just here?"
     "I don't know, sir."
     "You don't know, eh?" The chief  slowly rose  to his feet,  compressing
his lips. With a clipped, precise swing he gave  the old man  a blow in  the
ear that flung him against the wall.
     "Speak up! Who were they?"
     "I  don't  know,  sir," the old  man repeated firmly,  his jaw  muscles
twitching.
     Again the fist in the white glove flashed through the air. Two trickles
of blood  began to flow from Grandpa's nostrils. He closed his eyes, hunched
his shoulders, and caught his breath with a sob.
     "What's this beating for, Your Honour?"
     Grandpa's voice was  low but  stern. He wiped his nose  and  showed the
chief his blood-stained hand.
     "None of your lip!" cried the chief, turning pale.
     The large velvety birth mark stood out black on his plaster-white face.
He glanced disgustedly at his spoilt glove.
     "Speak up! Who were they?"
     "I don't know."
     Grandpa had time to cover his face with his hands and turn to the wall.
The  blow  struck him  on the  head.  His trousers bagged  out at the knees.
Slowly he sank to the floor.
     "Don't hit him!  He's an old man!" cried Gavrik with tears  of despair,
flinging himself at the chief.
     But the chief was already striding out of the hut. "Take this scoundrel
into custody!" he shouted.
     The  policemen seized the old man and twisted his arms behind his back.
They dragged him out of the hut as though he were a  bundle of straw. Gavrik
dropped to the floor and, gnawing at his fists, burst into sobs of rage.
     For  some time he sat motionless, listening with one ear  to the noises
and stirrings of the night. His other ear was deaf.
     Every now and then  he deliberately put his finger in his good ear, and
a profound silence enveloped him. It was a terrifying silence, in which some
nameless danger seemed to lurk.
     He would then uncover his ear, as if hurrying to release the imprisoned
sounds. One ear, however, could not take in all  the different sounds at the
same time.
     First he  would hear the deep infrequent sighs of  the sea, and nothing
else. Then the tinkling music of the crickets would break  in, shutting  out
the sound of the sea.  A warm breeze, passing over the weeds, would fill the
night with rustling, and  leave no place either for the crickets or the sea.
Then there would be only the sputtering of the lamp, in  which  the paraffin
had burnt out.
     All  at  once a  realisation of his  loneliness swept  over the boy. He
sprang to his feet, blew out the lamp, and dashed off to look for Grandpa.
     A luxuriant August night enveloped the world.  The  twinkling black sky
showered its stars upon the running boy. The chirp  of the crickets streamed
as high as the Milky Way itself.
     But  what  did all that  indifferent beauty  matter  to  the  tortured,
outraged child since it had no power to make him happy!
     Gavrik ran as fast as he could.
     By the time he caught up with Grandpa  and the  two policemen they were
already in Staro-Portofrankovskaya Street, just outside the police  station.
They were riding in a  droshky, one  of the  policemen sitting and the other
standing.  Grandpa had  fallen off  the seat. He lay  on  the floor  at  the
policeman's  feet,  his  head bobbing helplessly against the step. The light
from the gas lamps flickered across his face, streaked with dust and blood.
     Gavrik made a dash forward but the droshky came to a  stop in  front of
the police station. The policemen dragged  the stumbling old man through the
gate.
     "Grandpa!"
     One of the policemen rapped Gavrik across the back of the neck with the
scabbard of his sword. The gate swung closed. The boy remained alone.

        28
     STUBBORN AUNTIE TATYANA

     Petya's moment of supreme happiness and triumph had come.
     By  one o'clock in the afternoon he had  already made the  round of all
his acquaintances in the 'house to show his new Gymnasium  cap  and  give an
excited account of the exam he had just passed.
     To be quite truthful, there was almost nothing  to tell. There had been
no actual  examination but  merely a simple  entrance test  lasting  fifteen
minutes.  It began  at half past  ten, and  by five minutes  past eleven the
bowing, smiling assistant in the shop next door to the Gymnasium was handing
the boy his old straw hat wrapped in paper.
     From  the moment he put it on before the shop  mirror and right through
until evening, Petya did not remove his new cap.
     "What a grand showing I made in that exam!" Petya declared excitedly as
he hurried down the street beside Auntie Tatyana.
     He kept looking in all the windows to catch glimpses of himself  in his
new cap.
     "Calm  yourself, my dear," Auntie Tatyana remarked, her chin  quivering
with suppressed laughter. "It wasn't an exam but only a test."
     "Why, Auntie Tatyana, how can you say  that!" Petya cried at the top of
his  voice. He turned red with  anger and  stamped his feet, ready  to burst
into tears. "You weren't there, yet you talk! It was a real examination. You
were waiting in the reception room, so you have no right to say it wasn't. I
tell you it was an exam!"
     "To be  sure. I'm the fool,  and  you're the clever one. It was  only a
test."
     "It wasn't! It was an exam!"
     "You will insist that the beard was clipped."
     Auntie Tatyana  was  referring to  the  old  Ukrainian joke  about  the
stubborn fellow who argued  with his wife as to whether the  volost  clerk's
beard was  clipped or shaven. Despite  all evidence to  the contrary he kept
insisting  it  was  clipped.  Finally his infuriated wife picked him  up and
threw him into the river. He continued to shout "It was clipped!" and as his
head  went under the water he raised one hand and made clipping motions with
his fingers.
     But Petya did not take the hint.  In a tearful voice he kept repeating,
"It was an exam! It was an exam!"
     Auntie Tatyana was a kindhearted woman, and now she began to feel sorry
that she was depriving her nephew of the most  precious part of his triumph.
If the word "exam"  meant so much to the boy,  then let him  have his joy of
it. Why irritate him on this happy day?
     And  so, she made a bargain with  her conscience. "On second thought, I
probably was  mistaken,"  she  said  with a subtle smile,  "I do  believe it
really was an exam."
     Petya beamed. "And what an exam!"
     Yet deep down inside Petya was consumed by doubts. It had all been much
too quick and easy for an exam.
     True, the children had been lined up in  twos and led into a classroom.
Also, there had been a long table covered with a blue cloth. And behind that
table had  sat stern  examiners in blue uniforms with gold buttons,  wearing
gold-rimmed spectacles, medals, starched shirt-fronts  that  looked as stiff
as egg-shells, and  cuffs that crackled.  Among them had stood out  the silk
cassock and womanish curls of a priest.
     Petya had  felt his  stomach sink; his feet had turned  clammy;  an icy
sweat  had  broken  out on his temples. All the  symptoms known  since  time
immemorial had been there.
     But as to the exam itself- No, Petya now clearly saw that it was only a
test, after all.
     The minute the boys had  seated  themselves  at  the  desks one of  the
examiners  buried  his nose in a big sheet of paper on  the table and  said,
rolling out each word beautifully and distinctly, "Well, let us begin. These
boys  will  please step  forward:  Alexandrov, Boris;  Alexandrov,  Nikolai;
Batchei, Pyotr."
     When he  heard  his  name pronounced in  full,  sounding so strange and
forbidding in  that bare, echoing classroom,  Petya felt as if  someone  had
punched him in the  pit of the stomach. He had  never dreamt the  terrifying
moment would come so soon.
     Taken completely by surprise, he  turned a fiery red and almost fainted
as he walked across the slippery floor to the table.
     Each of the three boys was turned over to an examiner.
     Petya fell to the priest.
     "Well, now," drawled the huge old man, rolling back the wide sleeves of
his cassock.
     Then  he pressed against his narrow chest  the  dagger  of  a  crucifix
hanging from his neck on a silver chain. The  chain  was made of  flat links
with grooves like those in coffee beans.
     "Come closer, son. What is your name?"
     "Petya."
     "Not Petya  but  Pyotr, my dear boy. You left Petya at home.  And  your
last name?"
     "Batchei."
     "The son of Vasili Petrovich who teaches in the trade school?"
     "Yes."
     The priest leaned back  in his  chair in  the dreamy attitude  of a man
smoking.
     He  squinted at  Petya with an ironical  smile that  the  boy  did  not
understand, and  said, "I know him, I should say  so. A gentleman of liberal
views. Well, now-" He pushed himself still farther back in the  little chair
until it swayed on its two hind legs.
     "Which prayers do you know? Do you know the Creed?"
     "Yes, I do."
     "Recite it."
     Petya  filled his  lungs with air and  began to  rattle  off  the Creed
without any punctuation stops, trying to get it all out in one breath:
     "I believe  in  God the  Father maker of Heaven  and Earth  and of  all
things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ-"
     Here Petya ran out of breath and came to a stop.
     Hurrying lest  the  priest think  he  had forgotten the end, he  took a
fresh gulp of air with a sob, but the priest waved his hand in alarm.
     "That will do, that will do. Go to the next examiner."
     Now Petya stood in front of the mathematics examiner.
     "How high can you count up to?"
     "As high as  you like," Petya replied,  emboldened  by  his triumph  in
religion.
     "Excellent. Count up to a million."
     Petya  felt  as  if  he had fallen through a hole  in the ice.  Without
realising it, he made a choked, gasping  sound. He looked round  desperately
for help, but everybody was busy, and the mathematics examiner was gazing to
the  side  through  his  glasses,  in whose  curved lenses  were  distinctly
reflected the  two big classroom windows and  beyond them the  trees of  the
Gymnasium  garden, the blue cupolas of  the St. Panteleimon  Church and even
the watch  tower of the Alexandrovsky fire station, on which hung two  black
balls showing that there was a fire in the second precinct.
     Count up to a million!  Petya was lost.  Bravely he  began,  "One, two,
three,  four, five,  six, seven.  .  ." stealthily crooking  his fingers and
smiling sheepishly and sadly. "Eight, nine, ten, eleven. . . ."
     The mathematics examiner gazed impassively out of the window.
     "That will do," he said when the  dispirited  boy reached seventy-nine.
"Do you know the multiplication table?"
     "Once one makes one, once two makes two, once three makes three," Petya
began  in a loud,  quick  voice, afraid  of being stopped. But the  examiner
nodded his head. "That will do."
     "I know addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, too!"
     "That will do. Go to  the next  examiner." Why, they wouldn't  even let
you open your mouth! It wasn't fair.
     The next examiner  had a long, wispy beard through which  a shiny medal
could be seen. "Read from here."
     Petya reverentially took the book with the marbled-paper cover, staring
at the thick yellow fingernail that lay across the big letters of the title,
The Lion and the Dog.
     "The  Lion  and  the  Dog,"  Petya  began  at  a  smart pace,  although
stuttering  a bit from  excitement. "The Lion and the Dog.  There was once a
lion  who lived  in  a  menagerie.  He was very ferocious.  The keepers were
afraid of him. The lion ate a great deal of meat. The owner of the menagerie
did not know what to do-" "That's enough."
     Petya  almost  burst  into tears. How could  that be  "enough" when  he
hadn't even reached the dog! "Do you know any poems by heart?"
     This was the moment Petya secretly had been waiting for. It  would be a
triumph. Now he would shine in all his glory!
     "I know The Sail, by M. Y. Lermontov."
     "Recite it, please."
     "With expression?"
     "Very well."
     "Just a minute."
     Petya  quickly put one foot forward (this was absolutely necessary when
reciting with expression) and flung back his head.
     "The Sail, by M. Y. Lermontov!" he announced in a sing-song voice.

     A white sail gleams, so far and lonely,
     Through the blue haze above the foam.
     What does it seek in distant harbours'?
     What is it fleeing from at home?

     He quickly spread his arms in a gesture of surprise and puzzlement  and
then  continued,  hurrying to get  in as  much as  he  could  before he  was
stopped:

     The billows run; the breezes play
     About the mast that dips and creaks;
     It is not joy the wand'rer flees from,
     Nor is it happiness he seeks.

     Petya hastily emphasised the words "It is not" with a gesture,  but the
examiner waved his hand in good time.
     "That's enough."
     "I'll finish  in  another moment. There's  only a little bit left," the
boy begged.

     ` Below, the sea is crystal azure. . . .

     "That's quite enough. You may go home."
     "Don't I have to recite anything else?  I know  A. S. Pushkin's The Lay
of Oleg the Wise"
     "No, nothing  more.  You may  tell  your  parents  that  you have  been
accepted. That is all."
     Petya was dumbfounded. For a minute or  two he stood  in  the middle of
the classroom not knowing what to do next.
     It seemed absolutely  unbelievable that this  mysterious and terrifying
event for  which  he had prepared  so anxiously all  summer long was already
over.
     At last he gave a clumsy click of the  heels, stumbled, and ran out  of
the classroom. A second later he dashed back like a madman.
     "May  I  buy  my Gymnasium  cap now?" he asked, his voice breaking with
excitement.
     "Certainly. You may go."
     Petya  burst  into the reception room  where Auntie  Tatyana, wearing a
summer hat with a  veil  and long  gloves,  sat  on a  gilt  chair beneath a
plaster-of-Paris bust of Lomonosov.
     "Auntie  Tatyana!"  he shouted in a voice that must have carried to the
coachmen  in the street. "Hurry  up!  They told me  to buy my  Gymnasium cap
straightaway!"

        29
     THE ALEXANDROVSKY POLICE STATION

     Oh, the bliss of buying that cap!
     First they  tried on cap after cap until the proper fit was found, then
they bargained, and after