eded darkness in order to sprout. And in the darkness of the storeroom the mystery of growth was taking place. Pale but firm spears were cutting their way through the silken, wasted husks of the bulbs. He knew that just in time for Easter, taut, bushy, pale pink, white and purple hyacinth flowers would miraculously appear on the thick stems. In the meantime, Petya's child's heart was lonely and numb in this grey, desolate world of the vernal equinox. The days were growing longer, Now he had nothing to fill the incredibly dragging hours between dinner and evening. How long they were, those dreary hours of the equinox! Even longer than the deserted streets stretching endlessly in the direction of Near Mills. Petya was now allowed to stroll about near the house. He walked slowly up and down the dry pavement, squinting at the sun as it set beyond the railway station. Only a year ago he had looked upon the station as the end of town. Beyond it lay geography. But now he knew that the town continued beyond the station, that there were the long, dusty streets of the suburbs. He clearly pictured them, reaching away to the west. In the distance, filling the broad space between two dreary brick houses, hung a monstrous red sun from the times when the Earth was young; it gave off no rays, yet its sharp, sullen light blinded you. Two weeks before Easter, wagon-loads of timber were brought to Kulikovo Field. Carpenters, navvies, and foremen appeared. Tape-lines were stretched over the ground in all directions. Contractors with yellow folding footrules in their outside pockets paced off sections of land. The construction of booths for the Easter fair had begun. Petya's greatest pleasure was to wander among the boxes of big nails, the axes, saws, logs and shavings, and to guess what would be built where in Kulikovo Field. Each new row of posts, each new trench, each lot measured by tape-line and marked off with pegs excited his imagination. His soaring fantasy drew pictures of amazingly beautiful booths full of wonders and mysteries, while levelheaded experience told him that it would all be the same as last year. No better and no worse. But his fantasy could not reconcile itself to that; it demanded something new, something never seen before. He loitered about near the workers and contractors in the hope of getting some information out of them. "I say there, could you tell me what this is going to be?" "A booth, naturally." "I know, but what kind?" "Wooden, naturally." Petya chuckled, to flatter the man. "I know that too. You do say funny things! But what will there be inside? A circus?" "That's right." "But how? Doesn't a circus have to be round?" "Then it won't be a circus." "Will it be a waxworks?" "That's right." "Such a tiny booth?" "Then it won't be a waxworks." "But really. What will it be?" "A privy." Petya blushed but then chuckled all the louder. He was willing to endure any humiliation as long as he found out at least something. "Ha-ha-ha! But really, what are you building here?" "Run along, kid, this ain't no place for you. You'll be late to school." "I don't go to school yet. I had scarlet fever, and pneumonia too." "Then go to bed instead of making a pest of yourself here." With a forced grin Petya sauntered off, racking his brains over the insoluble problem. For it was a known fact that before the booths were roofed with canvas and hung with pictures nothing could be learned. It was impossible to tell-as impossible as trying to guess the colour of the hyacinth that would blossom out on the pale stem by Easter Sunday. On Holy Saturday, highly mysterious green crates and trunks labelled "Handle with Care" were brought to the fairgrounds. Not a single boy in Odessa knew what was in them. You could only make a rough shot: wax figures, magicians' tables, or flat, heavy snakes with filmy eyes and forked tongues. One of the trunks was known to contain a mermaid with a lady's bust and a scaly tail instead of legs. But how did she get along without water? Could there be a bath-tub inside the trunk? Or was she packed in wet mud? All you could do was guess. Petya was dying for the fair to open. It seemed to him that nothing was ready, that the whole thing would fall through, that this year the fair would never open at all. But his fears proved groundless. By Easter Sunday all was ready: the pictures hung, the flagpoles whitewashed, and the square generously sprinkled from long green barrels which had been carted between the booths all the previous day and had darkened the dry earth with their glistening rakes of water. In a word, Easter came and blossomed exactly according to calendar. The bells pealed monotonously. A fresh-looking sun raced along among fluffy clouds. Auntie Tatyana, in a white lace dress, sliced a ham, turning back rind as thick and curved as the holster of a revolver. Sugar lambs covered the Easter cakes. A pink Christ holding a paper church banner flew through the air on a wire, like a ballet dancer. Round a green hill of watercress lay coloured eggs polished so glossy with butter that they reflected the newly washed windows. Curly hyacinths in bowls wound with crinkly pink paper gave off their stiflingly sweet and at the same time grave-yardish odour; a fragrance so heavy that you could almost see it rising as smoky lilac strands in the sunshine above the Easter table. But Easter Sunday, for Petya, was the longest and dreariest day of all, because no public entertainment or merry-making whatsoever was allowed. That day the police dedicated to God. But at noon on the following day-with the permission of the authorities-the public began to make merry. At the stroke of twelve the police officer on duty blew his whistle, and the tricoloured flag was run up on the tall whitewashed pole in the middle of Kulikovo Field. The next instant everything broke loose. The Turkish drums of the regimental bands struck up. The hurdy-gurdies and merry-go-round organs began to blare. From the whitewashed platforms of the booths came the shrill, baboon-like, guttural cries of the red-headed clowns and jugglers calling to the public. The glass beads and carriages and horses of the merry-go-round began to whirl. The fragile little swing-boats flew up into the dizzying blue of the cloud-spotted sky. From all sides came the insistent and unceasing clang of brass bells and triangles. A vendor passed carrying on his head a gleaming pitcher of coloured icy water in which swam a few slices of lemon, a piece of ice and a dusty silver sun. A pock-marked Port Arthur veteran in a shaggy black Caucasian fur cap had taken off his boots and was climbing the greased pole for the prize razor and shaving brush at the top. The dizzying carnival in Kulikovo Field thundered away for seven days from noon to sunset; it filled the Batchei home with the din and hubbub of merry-making crowds from the outlying working-class districts. Petya spent his days, from morn to dusk, in Kulikovo Field. For some reason he felt certain that he would meet Gavrik there. Many a time he sighted in the crowd a pair of lilac-coloured corduroys and a naval cap with anchor buttons-that was what Gavrik had worn the Easter before-and ran in that direction, threading his way through the crowd, but always in vain. It smacked somehow of Near Mills, this carnival of the common people where many of the men carried thin iron canes like Terenti's and a great many of the girls wore blue earrings like Motya's. But Petya's hopes did not come true. The last day of the fair drew to an end. The bands played the "Longing for Home" march for the last time. The flag was lowered. Police whistles trilled. The ground emptied. It was all over until next Easter. A sad and sullen sunset glowed long in the sky beyond the garish, startlingly quiet booths, beyond the iron wheels of the motionless tip-overs, beyond the bare flagpoles. The unbearably mournful silence of the holiday just over was broken only now and then by the lion's deep, blood-curdling roar and the hyena's jerky laughter. In the morning wagons came, and two days later not a trace of the fair remained. Kulikovo Field was again a black, dreary square from which all day long came the sing-song voices of sergeants drilling their men: "Right turn! One-two!" "Left turn! One-two!" "About turn! One-two!" The days kept growing longer, and more and more difficult to fill. Then one day Petya went to the seashore to pay Gavrik a visit. 43 THE SAIL Grandpa was dying. Gavrik knew this, and so did Motya and her mother, and so did Petya, who now spent his days on the shore. Grandpa knew it too. He lay from morning to night on a sagging iron bed which had been carried out of the hut, into the warm April sunshine. When Petya came up to say hello the first time he was embarrassed by the white transparency of Grandpa's face and its faint bluish glow against the red pillow. A clear, composed face, with a longish white beard, it had a beauty and dignity that struck Petya. But the most amazing and most disturbing thing about the face was that it seemed ageless, already beyond the limits of time. "Hello, Grandpa," said Petya. The old man turned his eyes with their bloodless violet lids and looked long at the boy in the Gymnasium uniform, but apparently without recognition. "It's me, Petya, from Kanatnaya and the corner of Kulikovo." Grandpa gazed into the distance without stirring. "Don't you remember him, Grandpa? He's the one you made a lead sinker for last year." A shadow of remembrance, as distant as a cloud, flickered in the old man's face. He smiled a clear, conscious smile, showing his gums. "A sinker," he said softly, but without any special effort. "Yes. A lead sinker." Chewing his lips, he gave Petya a fond look. "You've sprung up. That's good. Go play now, my child. Play with pebbles on the beach. Go play. Only be careful and don't fall in the water." He evidently took Petya for a little child, something like his great-grandson Zhenechka who was crawling about in the yellow dandelions nearby. From time to time the old man lifted his head to take an admiring look at his household. Since the arrival of Terenti's family the place had become unrecognisable. It was as if they had brought a corner of Near Mills with them. Terenti's wife had freshened the clay floor for Easter and had whitewashed all the walls, inside and outside. The windows of the rejuvenated hut had been washed and bordered with blue, and they gleamed merrily in the sunshine. Round the hut grew green irises, now about to blossom. Among them Motya had laid out her dolls, representing society ladies at their summer villas. Linen of different colours was drying on the lines. Motya, her hair like a boy's, was watering the vegetable patch, pressing the big watering-can to her stomach with both hands. The dog Rudko, smiling sourly, ran up and down fastened to a wire between two posts. Near the vegetable patch, smoke was curling from a clay stove with a bottomless iron pot fitted into it for a chimney. There was the delicious smoky smell of gruel. Motya's mother, in a gathered skirt, was bent over a trough. All about her soap bubbles floated in the air. Occasionally Grandpa had the feeling that time had turned back, and he was forty again. Grandma had just whitewashed the hut. His grandson Terenti was crawling among the dandelions. On the roof lay a mast wrapped in a brand-new sail. Now he would heave the mast on his shoulder, take the oars and the red-leaded wooden rudder under his arm, and go down to the shore to rig the boat. But the lapses of memory were short-lived. The old man would suddenly feel weighed down by household cares. He would laboriously raise himself on his elbow and call Gavrik. "What do you want, Grandpa?" The old man would chew his lips for a long time as he gathered his strength. "The boat-not carried away, is it?" he would finally ask, his eyebrows lifting sadly, like two little gable roofs. "It's safe, Grandpa. You'd better lie down again." - "It ought to be tarred-" "I'll tar it, Grandpa, don't you worry. Now lie back." Grandpa would lie back obediently, but a minute later he would call Motya. "What are you doing there, my child?" "Watering the potatoes." "Clever girl. Yes, give 'em plenty of water. The weeds- are you pulling 'em out?" "I am, Grandpa." "Or else they'll choke everything. Well, go, my child. Play with your dolls for a while. Take a rest." Again Grandpa would fall back heavily. But then Rudko would start barking, and the old man would turn angry bushy eyes in the dog's direction. "Down, Rudko! Quiet, damn you!" He thought he was calling to the playful dog in a commanding shout. But actually he spoke in a murmur. Most of the time Grandpa lay motionless, gazing into the distance. Between the two low hills on the shore he could see a triangle of blue with a great many fishing sails. As he looked at them the old man carried on a leisurely conversation with himself. "Yes, that's true. The wind loves a sail. A sail makes all the difference in the world. A sail will take you wherever you want to go. You can go to Dofinovka, if you want, or you can go to Lustdorf. With a sail you can go to Ochakov, and to Kherson, and even all the way to Eupatorium. But if all you have is oars, and no sail-why, it's a joke! It'll take you a good four hours to row to Bolshoi Fontan. And another four hours back. Yes, a fisherman needs a sail. Without a sail it's no use putting out to sea. It's a disgrace. A boat without a sail is the same as a man without a soul." Grandpa thought about a sail all the time. That was since the night Terenti had dropped in for a minute to see the family. He had brought the children presents, given his wife three rubles for provisions, and said that he would try to see about a new sail in a couple of days. From then on Grandpa became more cheerful. His days were filled with dreams of the new sail. He could see it as clearly as if it stood before him: taut, strong, billowing in the fresh breeze. Worn out by his constant thoughts of the sail, Grandpa would fall into a state of semi-consciousness. He would no longer know where he was or what he was doing. Only his senses were alive. Little by little his awareness of what was himself and what not himself would begin to fade. He merged, as it were, with the world about him, turning into odours, sounds, colours. . .. A cabbage butterfly with lemon-coloured veins on its ivory wings fluttered by. He was the butterfly, and at the same time he was the flight of the butterfly. A wave broke over the pebbles. He was its refreshing noise. His lips became salty from spray carried over by the wind. He was the wind and the salt. A child sat among the dandelions. He was that child, and he was also those bright chicken-yellow flowers towards which the child's hands reached. He was the sail, the sun, the sea. .. . He was all. But he did not live to see the sail. When Petya came to the shore one morning he did not find Grandpa near the hut. A bench had been set up where his bed usually stood, and a tall old man with a Kiev cross hanging from his dark neck was planning a board. A long taut shaving twisted itself out of the plane. Nearby stood Motya in tight shoes and a brand-new but unattractive print dress. "Grandpa died today," she said, coming up close to the boy. "Do you want to look?" She took Petya's hand in her own cold hand and, trying to keep her shoes from squeaking, led him into the hut. Grandpa lay on the same sagging bed, his eyes closed and bulging, his chin tied with a handkerchief. His big hands were folded high on his chest, over the icon of St. Nicholas, and held a small yellow candle. A column of such bright and hot sunlight came through the clean-washed window that the candle flame was not seen at all. There was only a little hollow of melted wax and the black hook of the wick surrounded by wavy air to show that the candle was burning. Two days later Grandpa was buried. The night before the funeral Terenti came. He knew nothing of Grandpa's death. On his shoulder he carried a huge, heavy package-the promised sail. He dumped it in the corner and stood for a while looking down at Grandpa in the unpainted pine coffin. Then, without crossing himself, he firmly kissed the old man on his hard, icy lips and went out in silence. Gavrik accompanied Terenti along the shore as far as Maly Fontan. Terenti gave him some instructions about the funeral, which, of course, he would not be able to attend, then shook hands and disappeared into the darkness. ...Four blond-moustached fishermen carried Grandpa on their shoulders in the light open coffin. In front, next to the undertaker in a tattered dress-suit, who carried a crude cross on his shoulder, walked Gavrik, clean, washed, neatly combed. On a towel he carried a huge clay bowl of kolevo. Behind the coffin walked Motya's mother with Zhenechka in her arms, Motya, Petya, and a few neighbours, fishermen, in their Sunday best. There were eight of them in all. But as the procession approached the cemetery it grew larger and larger. In some mysterious way news of the funeral of the old fisherman who had been beaten up in jail had spread all along the shore from Langeron to Lustdorf. Whole families and groups of fishermen-from Maly Fontan, Sredny Fontan, Valtukh, Arcadia, and Zolotoi Bereg-came out of seaside lanes to join the procession. Now a crowd of about three hundred marched in deep silence behind the pauper's coffin of Grandpa. It was the last day of April. Rain was gathering. Sparrows with outspread wings were bathing in the soft dust of the lanes. A grey asphalt sky hung over the gardens. Against it the monotonous young green of the trees, hanging limp in expectation of the rain, stood out sharply. Cocks crowed sleepily in the backyards. Not a single ray of sunshine came through the thick, muggy clouds. Near the cemetery the procession was joined by factory-hands and railwaymen from Chumka, Sakhalinchik, the Odessa Goods Station, Moldavanka, and Near and Distant Mills. The policeman on duty at the cemetery looked in alarmed surprise at the huge crowd streaming through the gates. Like the city, the cemetery had its main street, cathedral square, central district, boulevard, and poverty-stricken outskirts. Death, too, seemed helpless before the power of wealth. Even after he died a man remained either rich or poor. The crowd silently walked down the main street of the shady town of the dead, past marble, granite, and labradorite family vaults-those small, luxurious villas behind whose wrought-iron fences haughty stone angels with lowered wings stood amid the black greenery of cypress and myrtle. Each plot of land here had been bought at a fabulous price and was owned by dynasties of the rich. The crowd passed the central section and turned down a less wealthy street which had no villas, no mausoleums. Behind the iron fences lay marble slabs bordered by bushes of lilac and yellow acacia. The rains had washed the gilt from the carved names; small cemetery snails covered the marble plaques, greyed by time. Then came wooden fences and mounds covered with sod. After that were tedious rows of barren soldiers' graves with crosses as alike as rifles at the present. But even this section of the cemetery was too prosperous for Grandpa. He was buried near the wall, in a narrow glade strewn with the purple shells of Easter eggs. Behind the wall the caps of mounted police could already be seen. The mourners formed a close circle around the grave. The light pauper's coffin was slowly let down with strips of linen. On every side Petya saw lowered faces and big black hands crumpling workers' and fishermen's caps. The silence was so complete and so sullen, and the air so stifling, that the boy felt something dreadful would happen in Nature-a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake -at the first sharp sound. But oppressive silence reigned. Motya was also depressed by the silence. With one hand she held on to Petya's Gymnasium belt and with the other to her mother's skirt. She stood motionless, watching the yellow mound of clay grow over the grave. At last a faint, almost noiseless stir passed through the crowd. One after another, without hurrying or pushing, people came up to the fresh grave, crossed themselves, bowed low, and offered their hand first to Motya's mother and then to Gavrik. Gavrik, who had given the bowl to Petya to hold, scooped up kolevo with a new wooden spoon and poured it into the cupped hands or the outstretched caps; he did it neatly, with a preoccupied frown, thriftily, giving a little to each so that there should be some for all. With tender respect, trying not to drop a single grain, each mourner put the kolevo into his mouth and walked away to give his place to another. This was all that Grandpa's family could offer to the friends and acquaintances who shared their grief. To some of the fishermen who came up for kolevo Gavrik bowed and said, "Terenti sends you his regards. He asks you not to forget the May Day outing at twelve o'clock tomorrow, in your own boats, opposite Arcadia." "We'll be there." Finally there were only four purple comfits left in the bowl. Gavrik made a dignified bow to those for whom nothing remained, said, "Excuse us", and distributed the four sweets among Zhenechka, Motya, and Petya, not forgetting himself, either. "It's not bad," he said as he handed Petya the sweet. "Krakhmalnikov Brothers. Eat it, in Grandpa's memory. Will you come to the May Day outing with us tomorrow?" "I will," Petya said. He faced the grave and bowed low, as everybody else had. The crowd slowly dispersed. The cemetery became deserted. Somewhere in the distance, on the other side of the wall, a lone voice started to sing. A chorus of voices joined in: Farewell, comrade, you honestly trod Your valorous, noble path. . . . But a police whistle immediately resounded. The song stopped. Petya heard running feet on the other side of the wall. Then all was quiet. A few drops of rain fell on the grave. But the rain was only teasing; it stopped before it had really started. It became muggier and gloomier than ever. Motya, her mother, Gavrik, and Petya crossed themselves for the last time and set out for home. Petya said good-bye to his friends at Kulikovo Field. "So don't forget," said Gavrik significantly. "Naturally." Petya nodded with dignity. Then, with a show of nonchalance, he strolled up to Motya. "Say, Motya," he whispered quickly, blushing with humiliation at having to ask a girl a question, "what's a May Day outing?" Motya's face took on a strict, somewhat solemn expression. "Workers' Easter," she replied. 44 THE MAY DAY OUTING All night long a warm, gentle rain had fallen. It had started in April and ended in May; a little after eight o'clock the wind had carried away the last drops. The sky had not yet cleared, and now it merged with the sea, from which rose a steaming mist; there was no horizon. The bathing huts seemed to hang in milky air. Glossy, curving reflections of the piles swayed in the bottle-green water. Not only was the water warm but it actually looked warm. Gavrik and Petya rowed along with pleasure. At first they bore down hard, to see who could outpull the other. But Petya was no match for Gavrik. The little fisherman easily got the upper hand over the Gymnasium pupil, and the boat kept describing circles. "Stop your fooling, lads," Terenti called from his seat in the stern, where he was toying with his iron cane. "You'll overturn us." The boys stopped competing but they immediately thought up a new game: who could row with the less splash? Up until then they had not splashed much at all. But the moment they tried not to, spray flew from their oars as though on purpose. The boys began to shoulder and elbow each other. "Get away, you tramp!" shouted Petya, doubling over with laughter. "You're a tramp yourself!" Gavrik retorted, tightening his lips. Suddenly, quite by accident, his oar threw up such a fountain that Terenti barely managed to save himself by sliding to the floor of the boat. The two boys choked with laughter. Petya laughed so hard that bubbles formed on his lips. "Why all the splashing, you little hellhound?" "None of your lip." Terenti nearly lost his temper, but then he too was taken by a fit of irrepressible boyish merriment. Making a ferocious face, he gripped the gunwales and rocked the boat with all his might. The boys rolled on top of each other and their heads knocked together. They cried blue murder. Then they began to pound the water madly with their oars, drenching Terenti from both sides. Terenti did not let it go at that: he quickly bent over, turned aside his screwed-up face and, working his palms with lightning speed, shot water at the boys. In a minute all three were wet from head to foot. Laughing and sputtering, they lay back on the thwarts and moaned in exhaustion. The wind was clearing away the mist. The sun dazzled the eye from the water as if a mirror had suddenly been placed beside the boat. The shore emerged from the haze like a transfer picture. A bright May day began to sparkle in all its blue, violet, and green colours. "Well, we've had our fun, and that's that," Terenti said sternly. With his sleeve he wiped his wet forehead, across which ran a satiny white scar. "Let's be on our way." The boys grew serious and leaned upon their oars. Petya worked hard, puffing and sticking out his tongue. To tell the truth, he felt a bit tired. But he would never admit it in front of Gavrik. Something else troubled him, too: he was dying to know whether the May Day outing had already begun or not. But he did not want to ask because he was afraid of making a fool of himself, as he had that time about Near Mills. Motya had told him that a May Day outing was a workers' Easter. Well, they had been rowing along the shore a good half-hour now, but so far there was no sign of any Easter cake, or ham, or Easter eggs. But perhaps that was as it should be. It wasn't an ordinary Easter, after all, but a workers' Easter. Finally the boy could hold out no longer. "I say there," he asked Terenti, "has the May Day outing started yet?" "No, not yet." "When will it, then? Soon?" The minute the words were out of his mouth Petya prepared an exaggeratedly gay and flattering smile. From his many years of experience in conversing with adults he knew what would follow. "It'll start when it begins." "But when will it begin?" "When it starts." To Petya's surprise, however, Terenti answered him as if he were a real grown-up. "First we'll pick someone up at Maly Fontan and then we'll begin." At Maly Fontan they really did pick up a passenger: a dandified gentleman carrying a cane and a string bag. In a single leap he was in the boat and sitting beside Terenti. He threw a furtive glance at the shore and said, "Turn to. Cast off." It was the sailor. But-my God! How elegant he was! The boys gaped at him, enraptured and at the same time crushed by his unexpected splendour. They had never imagined a human being could be so magnificent. He wore cream-coloured trousers, green socks and dazzling white canvas shoes. But that was not all. A red silk handkerchief showed from the pocket of his navy-blue jacket, and a sapphire horseshoe gleamed in his tie with the "peacock's eye" design. But that was not all. He wore a bulging starched shirt-front, and a starched collar with wings turned down like a visiting card propped his cheeks. But that was not all. A straw hat with a striped ribbon sat at a dashing angle on the back of his head. But that was not all. A watch chain with a mass of trinkets on it dangled across his stomach, and on his hands, with their elegantly crooked fingers, were grey cloth gloves. That was the finishing touch. While up until now the boys had not definitely settled who were the grandest beings on earth-Army Staff clerks or kvass vendors-now it was laughable even to consider the question. One could boldly, sight unseen, give up all the kvass vendors and all the staff-clerks for the sailor's curly little moustache. The boys were so busy looking at the dandy that they forgot all about rowing. "Look, Petya!" Gavrik exclaimed. "Look-he's wearing gloves!" The sailor spat through his teeth, farther than the boys had ever spat in their dreams. "Why should everybody be able to see my anchor?" he said, with an angry glance at Gavrik. "I covered it up. Come now, lads, that's enough fooling." He suddenly assumed an important air, twirled his moustache, glared at Terenti, who was bent double with laughter, and barked: "Ahoy there, you in the cutter! Listen to my command! Oars ready! Give way together! 'Un, 'un!" he sang out, acting the bosun. "Back starboard! Un, un! The boys leaned on their oars. The boat turned to the open sea, towards the gleaming silver flame of midday. Ahead of them, half a mile from shore, a cluster of fishing boats could be seen. A burning feeling of exultant fear gripped Petya. Exactly the same feeling he had had in the autumn the first time he followed Gavrik into a section of the city surrounded by the police. But then the boys had been alone. Now they were with powerful and mysterious grown-ups, who gave not the slightest sign that they had ever seen Petya before. Petya knew, however, that they remembered him very well. Once the sailor even winked at him, as if to say, "Here we are, brother, still alive and kicking!" For his part, Petya also made believe he was seeing the sailor for the first time in his life. All this made it jolly, although a bit upsetting. In general, the occupants of the boat were in a keyed-up and somehow over-joyous mood. Soon the boat was among a host of other fishing craft bobbing up and down in one place opposite Arcadia, as arranged. A whole flotilla of boats painted in different colours surrounded Grandpa's old, weather-beaten tub. Gathered there were all the fishermen who the day before had walked behind Grandpa's coffin-fishermen from Maly Fontan, Sredny Fontan, Valtukh, Arcadia, and Zolotoi Bereg. There were some from farther off, from Lustdorf and Dofinovka, and even one from Ochakov. They were all old friends and neighbours. Taking advantage of the occasion, the fishermen were leaning over the sides of their boats and talking. They were making so much noise it sounded like a marketplace. Each new boat was greeted with shouts, jets of spray, and the splash of oars. No sooner had Grandpa's boat, bumping and scraping against other boats, made its way into the circle, where a few empty Sanzenbacher beer bottles already floated, when cries came from all sides: "Hi, Terenti!" "Easy there! You'll sink our tubs with your iron-clad!" "Hey, you tramps, make way for the chief politico!" "Say, Terenti old boy, where'd you pick up that dandy of yours? The Lord preserve us! Oo-la-la, oui-oui, par-ley-voo!" Terenti waved his cap, puffed out his cheeks and bowed to all sides with a show of bashful self-importance. "Don't pounce on me all at once!" he piped. "At least take turns. Greetings, Fedya! Greetings, Stepan! Greetings, Grandpa Vasili! Ah, Mitya? Still alive? I was sure the Maly Fontan bullheads had swallowed you up long ago! Tell me-how many of you to the pound, dried? Sasha, swing round to the left!" Terenti grinned and screwed up his face as he bantered with his old pals. He looked about him with satisfaction, reading aloud the names of the boats. "Sonya, another Sonya, and another Sonya, and again Sonya, and Sonya from Lustdorf, and another three from Langeron. Hah! Eight Sonyas to one little me! Nadya, Vera, Lyuba, Shura, Motya. . .. Oh, mother of mine! What sort of place is this? I want to go home!" he cried in mock horror, covering his face with his cap. There were also about four Olgas, half a dozen Natashas, not less than a dozen Three Bishops, and a big Ochakov boat with the intriguing name Good Old Pushkin. When silence and order finally set in, Terenti nudged the sailor with his elbow. "Begin, Rodion." The sailor unhurriedly removed his hat, put it in his lap, and combed his moustache with a tiny comb. Then he stood up and, placing his legs wide apart for balance, said in a loud, clear voice, so that everybody could hear him, "Hello, comrade fishermen of Odessa! May Day greetings to you all!" His face instantly became bony, snub-nosed, decisive. "From what I just heard, some of you folks would like to know who I am and how I come to be here-an elegant gentleman in gloves and a starched shirt, ooo-la-la, parley-voo, and all that. Well, I can tell you that I'm a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, the Bolshevik faction, and I was sent here to you by the Odessa Joint Committee. Also that I'm just the same kind of worker and sailor as all of you here. And now about the starched shirt and the white trousers and the rest of it. I'll explain that with a question of my own. All of you here are Odessa fishermen and you probably can tell me the answer. Why does the mackerel wear such a beautiful sky-blue skin with dark-blue stripes, like watered silk? You don't know? Then I can tell you. So that it won't be seen in our blue Black Sea, and so that it won't be so easy for you to catch it on your fishermen's hooks. Is that clear?" There was laughter in the boats. The sailor winked, shook his head, and said, "Well, I'm just like that fish who specially puts on the kind of coat you won't notice right off." Louder laughter came from the boats. "A whopper of a fish!" "A whole dolphin!" "Ain't you afraid of being hooked some day?" The sailor waited until the calls stopped, and then remarked, "Just try and catch me. I'm slippery." Then he continued: "I look round me, comrades, and I can't help thinking of our sea and our land. The sun shines bright. The sea is chock-full of all kinds of fish. The fields are chock-full of wheat. In the orchards there's all kinds of fruit: there's apples and apricots and cherries and pears. There's grapes. In the steppe there's horses and oxen and cows and sheep. Down underground there's gold and silver and iron and everything else. What more could anybody want? There's plenty for everybody, or so it would seem. Plenty, so it would seem, for everybody to be happy and satisfied. But what do you think? No! Everywhere there's always the rich, who don't do a stroke of work but take everything for themselves. And everywhere there's the poor, who work day and night like the damned and don't have a damned thing to show for it! How is that? I can tell you the answer. It's very simple. Take the fisherman. What does he do? He fishes. He pulls in a catch and takes it to market. And how much do you think he gets at the market, say, for a hundred bullheads? Thirty or forty kopeks!" The sailor paused and glanced round. "You're lucky if you get thirty," said an old man who looked like Grandpa and was lying in the bow of a clumsy boat named the Dolphin. "Day before yesterday I brought in four hundred and she wouldn't give me more than twenty-five-take it or leave it! And the next minute she started selling 'em herself for eighty." All the fishermen began to speak at once. The sailor had touched their sorest spot. Some complained that it was a dog's life if you had no sail. Others shouted that the market had them by the throat. While the grown-ups were making so much noise the boys did not miss their opportunity. Some of the fishermen had brought their children along on the outing. In the boats sat well-mannered girls in a brand-new print frocks and barefoot scowling boys with shiny patches of skin on their apricot cheeks. They wore sateen Russian blouses and fishermen's caps with anchor buttons. All of them, naturally, were Gavrik's pals. And naturally, they started to make no less noise than the grown-ups. They immediately began to tease one another, and before two minutes had passed a regular sea battle was on. Gavrik got it in the face with a dead bullhead, while Petya's cap fell into the water and nearly sank. There was so much noise and such splashing that Terenti yelled, "Shut up, everybody, or else I'll have to tear all your ears off!" "So it comes out," the sailor continued, shouting above the din, "that the bosses rob us of three-quarters of what we earn by the sweat of our brow. And what do we do about it? The minute we raise our heads they give it to us over the noggin with a sword. Crack! They're still thrashing us, comrades, and pretty hard, too. We raised the red flag on the Potemkin but we weren't able to hold out. We started an uprising, and the same thing happened. It's awful to think of how much of our working-class blood has been spilled all over Russia! How many of our brothers have perished on the scaffold, in the tsarist torture chambers, in the dungeons of the secret police! I don't have to tell you. You know it yourself. Only yesterday you buried a fine old man of yours, who quietly and modestly gave his life so that his grandsons and great-grandsons might be happy. His noble old worker's heart had stopped beating. His soul, so precious to us all, has flown away. Where is it now? It's gone, never to return. For all we know it may be flying above us now, like a gull, and is happy to see that we aren't giving up our cause but intend to fight again and again for our freedom-to fight until we finally throw the hated government from our backs." The sailor fell silent. He wiped his perspiring forehead with his handkerchief. The wind played with the piece of red silk as if it were a small banner. Deep, complete silence reigned over the boats. On shore, police whistles were already sounding the alarm. The sailor looked in that direction and winked. "Our friends are getting worried. Never mind. Let the pigs squeal, for all the good it'll do 'em!" He thumbed his nose fiercely at the shore, which was sprinkled with elegant umbrellas and panamas. An instant later the handsome Fedya, lounging in the stern of his magnificent boat, the Nadya and Vera, struck up the "Longing for Home" march on his concertina. Coloured eggs, dried sea-roaches, bread, and bottles appeared in all the boats as if out of nowhere. The sailor dug into his string bag and produced some refreshments, which he divided equally among everybody in the boat. Petya's share was a wonderful dried sea-roach, two monastery rolls and a purple egg. The May Day outing really did prove to be a merry workers' Ea