own the deserted street. The moon ran along beside me like  a dog, stopping
at  each and  every telegraph pole. The houses all had their shutters closed
tight. How  could people be  sleeping at  a time  like this? After there had
been a revolution! I felt like shouting a the top of my voice.
     Two rows of gleaming brass  buttons were  floating towards  us.  It was
Seize'em The  faithful  moon and I turned and  fled. The moon hid behind the
poles and  fences, while I tried to keep  well within the shadows they cast.
Alas! He had spotted me.
     "Stop! Stop, you scoundrel! Police!" he shrilled. But he had not called
my  name, and that meant he had not  recognized me. I kept  on running.  The
moon and Seize'em followed close behind. He  was my  enemy, but the moon was
my ally.
     It darted behind a roof, the better to conceal me.
     I  was mistaken. Seize'em had recognized me. The next day the following
entry was made on my page in the Deportment Ledger:
     "Seen by the  inspector out  on  the street after 7  p.m. Did not  stop
running despite having been ordered to."
     The moon was not mentioned.


        THE SOLDIER SAID: "AT EASE!"

     Oska and I escorted Annushka and her soldier-friend into the parlour an
marched  up and down, with Annushka's red kerchief  tied to  Papa's  walking
stick The soldier shouldered Oska's toy  rifle and  brandished it  as we all
sang:

     Up and down the mountains
     Did a schoolboy go,
     Shouting, "Down with that old tsar!"
     His red flag waving so.

     There  was a wonderful smell of polished army boots in the  parlour. My
brother and I and the soldier had become the best of friends. He let each of
us lick the paper of his home-rolled cigarette.
     Oska fidgeted as he sat on the soldier's lap.  Finally, he said: "Who's
strongest, a whale or an elephant? What if they  have a  fight? Which one'll
win?"
     "I don't know. Tell me."
     "I don't know, either. And  Papa doesn't know,  and Uncle doesn't know.
Nobody knows."
     We discussed the whale and elephant  problem for a while.  The  soldier
and I said the  elephant would win, and just  to  be spiteful, Annushka said
the  whale  would. Then the soldier  went over to the piano, sat down on the
stool and  tried  to sing The Marseillaise, accompanying himself  by hitting
one single note.
     Annushka finally realized it was way past our bedtime.
     "At ease!" the soldier said and we tramped off to bed.



     OSKA'S SELF-DETERMINATION

     Moonbeams  had marked the floor of our room off into hopscotch squares.
We might  actually have  played  in them.  But we  were lying in  our  beds,
talking about  the revolution. I  told Oska whatever I had  learned from our
uncle and also what I had read in the newspapers about the war, the workers,
the tsar and the pogroms.
     Suddenly Oska said, "What's a Jew, Lelya?"
     "It's a kind of  people. There are  all kinds. Like Russians, Americans
and Chinese. And Germans, and Frenchmen. And there are Jews, too."
     "Are  we Jews?  For real,  or  for make-believe?  Give me  your word of
honour that we're Jews."
     "My word of honour we are."
     Oska  was  stunned by  this discovery. He tossed about for  quite  some
time. I was half-asleep when he whispered, trying not to wake me, "Lelya!"
     "What?"
     "Is Mamma a Jew, too?"
     "Yes. Go to sleep."
     As  I drifted  off  to sleep I imagined  myself speaking  to  the Latin
teacher the  next day  and saying:  "We've had enough  of the old regime and
being made to  line  up along the walls. You have  no right  to  do that any
more!"
     We slept.
     Papa and  Mamma returned  late that night. I woke up. As is  often  the
case when people return late from visiting friends or the theatre, they were
tired and irritable.
     "That was an  excellent cake," Papa was saying. "We never have anything
like it. I wonder where all the money goes?"
     I  could hear Mamma's  surprise at finding  the butt  of a  home-rolled
cigarette in  the candle-holder on  the piano.  Papa  went off to gargle.  I
heard the tinkle of the glass stopper hitting the water pitcher. Suddenly my
father called my mother in a voice that was  unusually  loud for such a late
hour. Mamma  asked  him  something.  He sounded happy and excited. They  had
found my note, telling them the great news. I had written it before going to
bed and had stuck it in the mouth of the pitcher.
     They tiptoed  into the nursery. Father sat down on the  edge of my  bed
and put his arm around me. "You spell 'revolution' with an 'o', not  an 'a'.
Revolution. Ahh!" he said and tweaked my nose.
     Just then  Oska woke up. He had  apparently been thinking of his  great
discovery all the time, even in his sleep.
     "Mamma...."
     "It's late. Go back to sleep."
     "Mamma," he repeated, sitting up in bed, "is our cat a Jew, too?"


     " 'GOD SAVE THE TSAR...' PASS THIS ON"

     The next morning Annushka  woke Oska  and  me up by singing: "Arise, ye
workingmen, arise! Time for school!"
     The workingmen  (Oska  and I)  jumped  out  of bed.  During breakfast I
remembered  the Latin  pronouns I should have learned  by heart: hie,  haec,
hoc....
     Oska and I left the house together. It  was warm.  It was thawing.  The
cabbies'  horses shook their feedbags.  Oska, as  usual,  thought  they were
nodding to him. He was  a very polite boy, and so he stopped beside each and
every horse, nodded to it and said,
     "Good morning, horsie!"
     The  horses said nothing. The cabbies, who knew Oska by  now, said good
morning for them. One horse was drinking from a bucket.
     "Do you give him cocoa, too?" Oska wanted to know.
     I dashed off to school. Nobody knew a  thing yet.  I would be the first
to tell them. I whipped off my coat, burst into the classroom and shouted as
I swung my satchel: "Fellows! The tsar's been overthrowed!"
     There was a moment of stunned silence.
     Seize'em whom  I had not noticed, had a fit of coughing  and turned red
in  the face. He began  shouting:  "Are you  crazy?  I'll see to  you later!
Hurry! Time for chapel! Line up in pairs."
     But the boys surrounded me. They jostled each other and snowed me under
with questions.
     The corridor rang from the sound of marching  feet. The boys were being
lined up for morning prayers.
     The principal,  as dried-up, stiff and solemn as ever, strode along the
corridor, his well-pressed legs flashing. The brass buckles jangled.
     The  priest, as black  in  his cassock as an ink-blot in  a  penmanship
notebook, put on his chasuble. The service began.
     We stood there whispering. The long grey lines were restless.  Everyone
seemed to be whispering.
     "There's been a revolution in Petrograd."
     "Is that up on top of the map, where the Baltic Sea is?"
     "Yes. It's a big circle. You'd even find it on a blank map."
     "The history teacher said  there's  a  statue of Peter the Great there.
And the houses are bigger than churches."
     "I wonder what a revolution's like?"
     "It's  like  the  one in 1905 when we were  at war  with Japan.  People
demonstrated in  the streets, and  they had red flags, and the Cossacks  and
the police used their whips on them. And they shot them, too."
     "What rats!"
     "Golly,  we're going to have a written  test  today. I'll  probably get
another 'D'. Ah, who cares!"
     "Our Father who art in Heaven...."
     "That takes care  of the tsar. They sure got rid of  him. It serves him
right! Why'd he get us into the war?"
     "Shut up! D'you think there'll be less homework now?"
     "...For ever and ever. Amen."
     "What grade's  the heir in? I'll bet he never gets anything  but 'A's'.
He has nothing to worry about. No teacher'll ever give him a hard time."
     "Don't worry. Things'11 change now. He'll get his fair  share of 'D's',
too. It's about time he finds out what it's all about!"
     "Wait!  What's  the  genitive  plural?  Never  mind, I'll copy  it  off
someone."
     A note was being  passed along the  rows. It had been written by Stepan
Atlantis.  (Later  the note  and  Atlantis'  name were  both entered  in the
Ledger.) It read:
     "Don't sing 'God save the tsar'. Pass this on."
     "Today's chapter is from the Gospel according to Saint Luke."
     A shy,  freckle-faced  third year boy read the parable in  a  faltering
voice. The inspector prompted him, reading over his shoulder.
     The concluding prayer  followed: "...for the solace of  our parents and
the glory of our Church and Fatherland."
     Now,  in  just  another moment! We  all tensed.  The  "ruling  classes"
cleared their throats. Harrumph!
     The small,  long-haired precentor of Trinity Church honked loudly as he
blew his nose. At this a purple vein that resembled a big fat worm bulged in
his scrawny neck. We always  expected it to burst. The precentor stuffed his
coloured  handkerchief  back into  his  back pocket through the slit  in his
worn,  shiny frock coat. The tuning fork in his right hand seemed to fly up.
A  high metallic  "ping"  floated  above  the stuffy corridor. He fixed  his
greasy starched  collar, extracted his skinny, plucked-looking neck from it,
drew his little eyebrows together and sounded the key in a languorous voice:
     "Laa.... Laa-aa."
     We waited.  The  precentor  rose up  on tiptoe. His  arms  swooped  up,
raising  us in song. He began to sing in a high-pitched, screechy voice that
sounded like a finger being run down a window-pane: "God save the tsar...."
     The boys were  silent. Two or three hesitant  voices joined  in. Hefty,
who was  standing behind the  singers, said, as if  he were  making a mental
note of it: "Well, well...."
     The voices wilted.
     Meanwhile,  the precentor  faced  the silent  choir and waved  his arms
wildly. His sugary voice squawked: "Mighty ... and powerful, reign...."
     We could contain our laughter no longer. It rose as a great squall. The
teachers tried hard not to join us. The long corridor resounded with rolling
peals of laughter.
     The inspector chuckled. Seize'em's stomach jiggled. The first-year boys
shrieked  and  giggled.  The towering overgrown boys  bellowed.  The janitor
snickered. "Ha-ha ... ho-ho ... ho-ho-ho ... he-he-he ... ah-ha-ha...."
     The one exception was the principal. He  was as straight  and stiff  as
ever,  though paler  than usual.  "Silence!" he said  and stamped  his foot.
Everything seemed squashed into silence beneath his gleaming boot.
     At this point Mitya Lamberg, a senior and  leader among the older boys,
shouted: "Quiet! I  don't have a very strong voice."  And he started singing
The Marseillaise.


        "ON THE BARRICADES"

     I  was  standing  on my desk, making  a  speech. Two boys appeared from
behind the brick stove at the far  end of the room. It was  the shopkeeper's
son  Baldin  and  the  police  officer's  son  Lizarsky.  They always  stuck
together, reminding  us  of a  boat and barge. Lizarsky,  who  was short and
stocky and always swung his arms when he walked, would  lead the way, towing
lanky, dark-haired  Baldin behind. Lizarsky came over to my desk and grabbed
me by the collar.
     "What are you yelling about?" He swung at me.
     Stepan  Gavrya, alias Atlantis, shouldered Lizarsky away. "What's it to
you, you monarchist?"
     "Who asked you? Sock'im, Baldy!
     Baldin  was eating sunflower seeds  indifferently. Someone standing  in
back of him sang a ditty:
     See the boat that tows a barge,
     Goodness me!
     On the barge are seeds so large,
     Diddle-dee!
     Baldin shoved  his shoulder  into  Stepan's  chest. The usual  muttered
conversation followed:
     "Who do you think you are?"
     "That's none of your business."
     "Take it easy."
     "Who asked you?"
     The  fight that followed  probably burst  into flame  from  the  sparks
Baldin saw. A couple of other "monarchists" came  to his aid. A second later
it was a free-for-all.  Not until the  monitor shouted, "Ma'msele's coming!"
did the two  sides retreat to  their desks. A truce was  declared until  the
long recess.


        THE LONG RECESS

     It was a glorious  day. It was thawing. Boys were playing mumbly-peg on
the  drying walks. A  huge spotted pig was scratching  its side on a post in
the sun opposite school. Its black spots were like inkblots on a white piece
of blotting paper. We poured out into  the yard. There was a sea of sunlight
and not a single policeman in sight.
     "Everybody who's against the tsar, over here!" Stepan  Gavrya  shouted.
"Hey,  you monarchists! How many of  you are there  to a  pound when  you're
dried?"
     "Whoever's for the tsar, over here! Kill the bums!" Lizarsky screeched.
     A moment later the air was full of snowballs flying back and forth. The
battle raged. I was soon hit in the eye with such a hard-packed  snowball it
made me dizzy. I saw green and purple  stars, but our side was winning.  The
"monarchists" had been forced back to the gate.
     "Surrender!" we shouted.
     They  managed to  get out of the yard. As we raced  after  them we fell
into a trap.
     A junior high school was located nearby. We had always been at war with
the Juniors. They called us squabs and never missed a chance to pick a fight
with us (nor  did we). Our "monarchists",  those traitors, had  gone over to
the Juniors,  who did not know what the fight was all about,  but fell on us
anyway.
     "Kill the squabs! Get the pigeons!"  the horde  whistled and shouted as
it attacked.
     "Wait!" Atlantis shouted. "Wait!"
     Everyone stopped. He climbed onto a snowdrift, fell through it, climbed
up  again  and took off his  cap. "Listen,  fellows,  quit fighting.  That's
enough. From now  on there's  going to  be,  uh,  what's  the  word,  Lenny?
Eternity?  No. Fraternity! For everyone. And  there won't be  any more wars.
What a life! We'll all be on the same side from now on."
     He  was silent  for a moment, not  knowing  what else to say.  Then  he
jumped down and went over to one of the Juniors. "Give me five," he said and
shook the boy's hand.
     "Hooray!" I shouted, surprising myself.
     The boys began to cheer and laugh. Soon we were one happy crowd.
     Then the schoolbell pealed angrily.


        THE LATIN ENDING OF REVOLUTION

     "Roachius is steaming in!" the  monitor shouted and  rushed back to his
seat.
     The  door  opened.  We stood  up  noisily. The Latin  teacher  entered,
bringing in the quiet of the  deserted  corridor. He went to the lectern and
twirled his stringy, roach-like moustache until the tips bristled.
     His gold pince-nez spurred the bridge of his nose and galloped down the
rows  until his eye came to rest  on my swollen cheek. "What's that supposed
to be?" His slim finger was pointing at me.
     I  rose, and  in a dull,  hopeless  voice replied,  "I hurt  myself.  I
slipped and fell."
     "So   you   fell,   did  you?  I  see....  Poor  child.   Well,  Mister
Revolutionary, march  up to the front of the  class. So! It's a real beauty.
Have a look, gentlemen! So. What was the homework for today?"
     I stood at attention in front of the lectern and said nothing. Roachius
drummed  his fingers on the top of a desk.  My silence was anguished. It was
full of despair.
     "So. So you don't know. I gather you've had  no time  to look in to it.
You were too busy making a revolution. Sit down. You've just earned yourself
an 'F'."
     An indignant murmur filled the classroom. His pen pecked  at the ink in
the inkwell, soared over the lectern like a hawk, peered down from  above to
find my name in the class journal and....

     When the next semester
     Does stumble to an end,
     The teacher will present me
     With another "F', my friend.

     The  "monarchists" in the last row behind the stove snickered. This was
more than I could bear.  I breathed heavily.  The  boys shuffled their feet.
The teacher's knuckles rapped on the top of the lectern.
     "Silence! What's going on here? Do you want to get  reported again?  We
haven't been strict enough with you!"
     When the noise died down I said stubbornly, speaking through  my tears,
"But the tsar's been overthrowed anyway."


        NICHOLAS ROMANOFF, LEAVE THE CLASSROOM!

     Our last lesson that day was nature study.
     This  subject  was  taught by our  favourite teacher,  Nikita Pavlovich
Kamyshov,  a  jolly  man  with  a  long moustache. His classes  were  always
interesting  and full of fun. He entered the room with a springy step, waved
us  down  to our seats  and said  with  a smile:  "Well, my  doves,  what  a
situation, hm? There's been a revolution. That's really something."
     This encouraged us, and we all began shouting at once.
     "Tell us about it! Tell us about the tsar!"
     "Shush,  my doves!" he said,  raising  a  finger. "Shush!  Even  though
there's been a  revolution, there must be silence above all. Fine. Secondly,
though we are now on  to the study of the  solid-hoofed species, it is still
too early to speak about the tsar."
     Stepan Atlantis raised his hand. All eyes were on him. We  expected him
to oblige with a practical joke.
     "What is it, Gavrya?"
     "Someone's smoking in class."
     "I've never known you to  be a tattletale. All right,  who has dared to
smoke in class?"
     "The tsar," Stepan said impudently.
     "What? Who did you say?"
     "The tsar's smoking. Nicholas II."
     Indeed! There was a  portrait of  the  tsar  on  the wall, and someone,
apparently Stepan,  had poked  a hole  in the comer of the  tsar's mouth and
stuck a lighted cigarette in the hole.
     The tsar was smoking. We all burst out laughing. The teacher joined us.
Suddenly, he became very serious  and  raised  his  hand.  The laughter died
down.
     "Nicholas Romanoff, leave the room!"  he said solemnly. And so the tsar
was banished from the classroom.


        STEPAN, THE LIAISON OFFICER

     There was a  high fence between the yard of the  Girls School  and  our
school. There  were cracks in the fence. During  recess the boys would  pass
notes to girls  through the cracks. The  girls' teachers were always on  the
lookout to make sure that we did not come near the fence, but it didn't help
anyway.  Close  ties  existed between  the two yards, and  they were kept up
through the years.
     Once, when the senior boys were having a grand old  time, they got hold
of me during recess, swung me and tossed me  over the fence into the  girls'
yard. The  girls  flocked around. I was  so embarrassed I was ready  to cry.
Three minutes later their headmistress got me out of their clutches. She led
me  solemnly  into our  Teachers' Room.  My appearance  was rather  bizarre,
somewhat like that of Kostya Gonchar, the town fool  who  would deck himself
out in anything gaudy  that came to hand.  There  were flowers in my pocket,
chocolate on my lips,  a bright candy  wrapper  stuck in my belt, a pigeon's
feather  in my cockade, a paper devil on a string  around  my neck, and  one
trouser  leg was saucily tied with a pink ribbon  and  bow. All of the boys,
and even  the  teachers, nearly  collapsed at the sight of me. I never  went
near  the fence again  from that  day  on. That  was why, when the boys  now
picked me to be a delegate and go over to  the girls' side, I remembered the
candy wrapper, the headmistress and the pink bow, and flatly refused.
     "Go on!"  Stepan Atlantis said. "Why don't you want to? You're the best
man  for  the  job,  being as  you're  so polite. Well, never  mind, I'll go
myself, it's easy. After all, somebody has to explain things to them."
     And so Stepan climbed over the fence.
     We all pressed close to the cracks.
     The  girls were  running  around,  playing tag,  shrieking and laughing
loudly. Stepan jumped down  into their  yard.  "Oh!" they cried, stood still
for a moment and then rushed to  the fence  like chicks  coming to  a  hen's
clucking. They surrounded him. He saluted and introduced himself as follows:
"Stepan Atlantis." Then he took his hand from his visor for a moment to wipe
his nose. "You can call me Gavrya, but Stepan is better."
     "Who does he think he is, climbing over the fence like that? Hooligan!"
a small girl named Foxy said, puckering her lips.
     "I'm not a hooligan. I'm a delegate. I'll bet you're all still  for the
tsar, aren't you? Ha! What a bunch of ninnies!"
     Then  Stepan took a  deep  breath and  made a  long  speech,  carefully
choosing his words, for he wanted to sound polite.
     "Listen,  girls!  There  was a revolution  yesterday, and  the tsar was
booted out. I mean,  kicked  out. None  of  us sang 'God  save  the tsar' at
prayers this morning, and we're all for the revolution. I mean, for freedom.
We want to overthrow the principal, too. Are you for freedom or not?"
     "What's it like?" Foxy asked.
     "That  means there won't be a tsar  or a principal. They won't  make us
stand  along the walls any more, and we'll elect  whoever  we want  to be in
charge and tell us what to do. It'll really be great! And we can hang out on
Breshka Street. I mean, walk around there, whenever we want to."
     "I guess I'm for freedom," Foxy drawled after some thought. "What about
you, girls?"
     The girls were now all for freedom.


        THE PLOT

     Stepan Atlantis came  to see me late that evening. He came up the  back
stairs and called me  out the  kitchen. He looked very  mysterious. Annushka
was wiping the wet glassware. The glasses squeaked loudly. Stepan glanced at
her, as if taking her into his confidence, and said,
     "You know, the teachers want  to get rid  of  Fish-Eye. Honest. I heard
them  talking  about it.  I  was  walking  behind  the  history teacher  and
Roachius, and they  were saying  they'd report him to the committee. 'Pon my
honour. You know what";
     Tomorrow, when we  go to that whad-diya-call-it, manifestation,  when I
raise my hand, we're all going to shout: 'Down with the principal!' Mind you
don't forget I can't stay.  I  have to see the other  fellows,  and I'm dead
beat. Well,  reservoir!"* He turned at the door and said threateningly: "And
if Lizarsky opens up his trap again, I'll settle his hash. See if I don't."


        ON BRESHKA STREET

     There  was no school the next day. Both the Boys and the Girls  schools
had joined  the  demonstration  in town. The principal  phoned in to  say he
would not be in due to a bad cold ... cough-cough!
     Everything was so unusual,  so new and so  fascinating. We gathered for
the  demonstration. The teachers shook  the older  pupils' hands. They joked
and talked with them as equals. The Clerks' Club band was blaring. The cream
of  our local society, portly  officials of  the Escise Tax Bureau,  the tax
inspector, the railroad officials, the  thin-legged telegraph  operators and
postal clerks were all marching along in broken lines, vainly trying to keep
in  step.  There  were  caps,  cockades  piping,  tabs  and  silver  buttons
everywhere. Everyone  was carrying a  slip  of  paper  with the words of The
Marseillaise printed on it  which had been  handed out  somewhere along  the
line. The officials, having donned their spectacles, peered a their slips as
intently as if this was some  piece  of business correspondence and  sang in
joyless voices.
     The mayor, who had already been  deposed, appeared on the porch  o  the
district council office. He was wearing a pair of rubbers over red-and white
felt boots.  The ex-mayor took  off his hat and said in a hoarse  and solemn
voice:
     "Ladies and gentlemen! There's  been a revolution in Petrograd  and all
over Russia. His  Imperial Majesty ... that bloody despot... has  abdicated.
All  power ha gone over to the Provisional Government. Long  may it live! I,
for one, say. hooray!"
     The crowd cheered.
     Atlantis shouted, "And down with the principal!"
     But nothing came of this. The principal had not  appeared, and Stepan's
plan collapsed.
     A group  of teachers and the school inspector were  arguing heatedly on
the corner of Breshka Street. Stepan listened  to what they were saying. The
inspector was saying ponderously:
     "The Committee of the Duma will review our petition this evening, and I
believe the result  will be favourable. Then we will show Mister Stomolitsky
the door. The time of callous officialdom is over. Yes, indeed."
     Stepan dashed back  to where we were. The day suddenly seemed brighter,
and the inspector  suddenly  seemed  such a  good  fellow you'd think he had
never put Stepan's name down in the Ledger.
     More  and  more people  were  joining the ranks  of the  demonstrators.
Workers of the lumber yards, the printshop, the bone-meal factory, mechanics
from the railroad depot, plump bakers,  broad-shouldered stevedores, boatmen
and bearded peasants all dressed up in their Sunday best were marching along
jubilantly.
     The  echo of the bass drum pounded  against the walls of the granaries.
The  cheering rolled  along the  streets  in  a  great, sweeping  wave.  The
schoolgirls smiled warmly. The soft  breeze  fingered  the  telegraph wires,
strumming The Marseillaise. It was so good, so wonderful and exhilarating to
breathe, to  march along in  an overcoat that was unbuttoned  and  flapping,
against all the sacred school rules.


     THE PRINCIPAL'S RUBBERS

     The  clock in  the  vestibule  had long  since struck nine, but  still,
lessons had not begun. The classrooms were churning and boiling.  Amidst the
general buzzing voices would bubble up and burst like soap bubbles. Seize'em
was  patrolling the  corridor,  chasing the  boys  back into the classrooms.
There was a light square on the wall in the Teachers' Room where  the tsar's
portrait had hung. The teachers  were walking up  and down in tense silence,
enveloped by clouds of cigarette smoke.
     At last Atlantis, who was always in on everything,  decided to find out
what was  up  and went off  to the Teachers' Room, supposedly to  get a wall
map. He was back in no time, and bursting with news. He did two somersaults,
jumped onto the lectern, did a handstand there and, with his feet  waving to
and fro in. the air, he astounded us with a joyous howl:
     "Fellows! The Committee kicked the principal out!" Oh, joy! There was a
wild  slamming   of   desk  tops,  cheers  and  yelps.  The   commotion  was
ear-splitting.
     Hefty,  who was dizzy from joy, kept  pounding the boy next to him over
the  head  with  his geometry book and  shouting:  "They've kicked him  out!
Kicked him out! Kicked him out! Hear that? They've kicked him out!"
     Just then the heavy door opened at the end  of the  corridor into which
glee  waves  of  joy  were  pouring  from  every classroom,  and  a pair  of
highly-polish boots on  a pair of  unbending legs squeaked  softly into  the
Teachers' Room. The teachers rose as the  principal entered, although  their
usual  greeting did not folio Stomolitsky took instant  notice of this. "Eh,
what seems to be the matter, gentlemen?"
     "The matter,  Sir, lies in the fact that  you  ... but  perhaps you had
better read yourself," the inspector said and his beard rose and fell gently
as he spoke. He handed the principal  a sheet of paper as carefully as if he
wished Stomolitsky sign something important.
     The principal took  the proffered sheet. One word  stood out among  all
the rest and this was "Dismissal". However, he refused to accept defeat.
     "Eh  ... the District Board appointed me, and  I am  responsible to  it
alone,"  said  in  an  icy  voice.  "And,  furthermore, I  shall report this
unlawful action to Board immediately. And now," at this he clicked open  the
top of his gold pocket watch, "I suggest you all go to your classes."
     "What?" Kirill Ukhov,  the history teacher, exclaimed and yanked at his
angrily. "You.... You've been dismissed! It's something we all insisted  on,
and not a point that's up for discussion. Gentlemen! Say something! What the
hell is this anyway!"
     Boys  were  clustering  in the  doorway.  Though  they  were  dying  of
curiosity, they  said  nothing. Those  in the  back  rows  pressed  forward,
propelling those  in the front through the door.  As  they stumbled into the
Teachers' Room  they  straighter their jackets, fixed their belts and looked
rather embarrassed. Stepan Gavrya elbowed his way through, looked  at  Ukhov
with burning eyes and suddenly cried.
     "That's right, Kirill Mikhailovich!" Then he lunged towards Stomolitsky
"Down with the principal!"
     A dead silence followed.  Suddenly it  was as if  an avalanche had come
crash down upon the Teachers' Room, crushing and submerging all in its wake.
     "Down with him! Get out! Down with the principal! Hooray!"
     The  corridor echoed from the noise. Windows rattled. The entire  build
seemed  to  be shaking  from  the  wild  pounding of  feet, the  roaring and
shouting.
     For the first time in his life  the principal  seemed  shaken and bent.
Creases seemed to have suddenly appeared in his well-pressed trousers.
     The inspector feigned concern. He cocked his  eyes at the door politely
and said,
     "I  think you'd  better leave, Sir. I'm afraid we cannot guarantee your
safety."
     "You  haven't  heard  the end of this yet!" the  principal muttered and
stalked out.
     The bottom of his jacket caught on the door knob.
     He hurried to his office, clapped  on his cockaded cap  and put on  his
overcoat on  the  run,  so  that  his  arms missed the armholes.  He  dashed
outside. The janitor hobbled out onto the porch after him.
     "Sir! You've forgotten your rubbers! Your rubbers. Sir!"
     The principal  did not turn  back, his  skinny legs took him across the
muddy puddles, his shiny boots sinking into the  snow. The janitor stood  on
the porch, holding the principal's rubbers and clucking his tongue:
     "Tut-tut-tut! My-my!  Good Lord! That's the revolution for you! Look at
the principal go, and  without  his  rubbers!"  Then  he chuckled. "See  him
skittering! A real gee-raffe he is. My-my! A body can't help laughing! Shake
a leg! Looks just like one of them ostriches, he does."
     The boys poured out onto the porch. They were laughing and shouting.
     "Hey, watch him leg it! Bally-ho! Goodbye, Fish-Eye!"
     A snowball hit his back.
     "Whee! Keep on going! Jailer! Warden!"
     It was enough  to take your breath  away. There was the principal, just
think  of  it: the principal!-whom the boys  but yesterday  had to  greet by
standing stiffly at attention,  before whom they had quaked and tipped their
caps (always holding them by  the visor!), whose office they  had  passed on
tiptoe  only-there  was  the  principal,  running  away  so  shamefully,  so
helplessly and, to top it all, having left his rubbers behind!
     They could  see the teachers' pleased faces in the windows. The janitor
scolded:
     "Quit the ruckus! Shame on you! And you being educated boys!"
     Atlantis crept  up behind him, snatched one of the principal's  rubbers
from him and  sent it sailing after Stomolitsky.  The  boys  roared. Then he
stuck two fingers  in  his mouth  and whistled shrilly, with a trill at  the
end.  Only  true pigeon fanciers knew how to whistle like that, and Stepan's
tumbler pigeons were famous in town.
     When we trooped noisily back to  the classrooms, our faces flushed from
excitement, the teachers scolded us half-heartedly, saying:
     "That  wasn't nice  at  all,  gentlemen. Your behaviour was abominable.
Don't you realize that?"
     But we could see they were only saying that because they had to.


        THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY ON THE LOGS

     We called an  emergency  meeting  on  a pile of  logs in the yard after
school  that day,  and  pupils of all the  eight  grades came to the popular
assembly.  We were going to elect  delegates  to  the  joint meeting of  the
Teachers' Council and the Parents Committee. The one item on the agenda was:
"Relieving the principal his duties."
     Mitya Lamberg chaired the meeting.  He presided grandly on the logs and
s;
     "And now, gentlemen, present your candidates."
     "Where are we supposed to present them?"
     "Ha-ha-ha!" "Gentlemen! Nominate your candidates!"
     "Hey, Martynenko! You nominate him one! Ho-ho!"
     "Gentlemen!  Let's have some order! After all, you're  not  a  bunch of
prim school boys. And let's have some quiet at a time like this!"
     "Quit it, fellows!"
     The noise  finally died down. The election was set  into  motion. Mitya
Lamb Stepan Atlantis and Shura Gvozdilo, a fourth-grade boy, were elected.
     "Any more questions?"
     "Yes!" Atlantis scrambled up to the top of the pile. "Listen,  fellows.
It  serious matter, and  no fooling. We've got to  make it stick and present
Fish-Eye with all  our complaints. And there's something  else. There should
be delegates from both sides, and no monkey-business about it!"
     "That's right, Stepan! Delegates from both sides!"
     "Three cheers for the delegates!"
     As the boys tossed Stepan into the air a varied,  assortment of  things
dropped of  his pockets. They included  some popgun  corks,  cartridges,  an
oilcake, a  slug  of  lead and a pocket edition  of  The  Adventures  of Nat
Pinkerton. Mitya pounded an old pot which had served as the  chairman's bell
and was now a  drum. The boys carried  the delegates out through the gate on
their shoulders. Everyone cheered.
     The sun, tired from its steep climb during the day, had stopped to rest
on school  roof which was wet  from the melted snow, shiny and slippery. The
slipped, burned the windows opposite, plopped into a large puddle and winked
at the merry crowd of boys in a rainbow of colours.


        "FOR THE SOLACE OF OUR PARENTS"

     The indignant  principal had one last  resort: he went to  the  Parents
Committee for help.
     This was not an easy thing for him to do, since he considered the boys'
parents enemies of the state and had always forbidden the teachers to become
friendly them. As far as he was concerned, parents existed only as people to
whom he addressed reminders  of non-payment of tuition fees or notices which
were intended to draw their attention to  the poor behaviour of their  sons.
He regarded any interference in  school affairs on their part as a violation
of its sanctity.  If it were up to him, he would have  thrown out the phrase
"for the solace of our parents" from the morning prayer.
     However,  this was no time for settling scores. The  principal  trudged
over to see the veterinary, Shalferov, Chairman  of the  Parents  Committee,
who was known in town as the horse doctor.
     The principal arrived during Shalferov's office hours. The horse doctor
was so surprised to see him that he forgot  to offer Stomolitsky a chair. He
hastily  wiped his hand on a  greenish smock that was covered with unsightly
spots and then offered  it to the principal  who  was a dandy and a stickler
for cleanliness. The vet's hand smelled of fresh milk, stables and something
nauseatingly acrid.  The principal felt his stomach jump, but he  shook  the
proffered hand readily.
     They conversed as they  stood  in the cold foyer. It was cluttered with
milk cans, large bottles, wilted rubber plants and geranium  pots. A cat was
digging a hole in a box of sand in  the corner. Never  realizing that it was
witnessing an historical event involving the fall  of the principal, the cat
raised its tail and held it out stiffly.
     The horse  doctor listened  to the ashen-faced  principal's  story  and
promised his support. The principal thanked him humbly. The horse doctor was
hard-pressed for time, for a  cow was bellowing  out in the yard, and he had
to give  it  an  enema. Shalferov suggested that  the principal speak to the
Secretary of the Parents Committee.


        THE PRINCIPAL AND OSKA

     My  father  was Secretary  of the Parents Committee. The principal felt
very awkward about asking him for favours, since but a short while before my
father had applied  for the position  of school doctor when there had been a
vacancy,  and  the principal  had  written  the  following  on  my  father's
application:
     "We would prefer a doctor who is not of the Jewish faith."
     Father had just returned from the hospital where he had been operating.
He was washing up and gargling. The water bubbled  in his throat, so that it
seemed that Papa had come to a boil.
     The principal awaited him in the parlour.
     Goldfish  were swimming  in  the  fishbowl, dragging their  long, filmy
tails  along the bottom. One fish whose head looked like an aviator's helmet
(for  it had big  bulging eyes), swam  right up to  the  glass.  The  fish's
insolent  orb  stared at the  principal.  Recalling the  unpleasant nickname
given to him by the boys, he turned away in annoyance.
     Just then  the parlour door opened and  Oska  entered, pulling  along a
large and mournful  hobby horse. The horse had long since lost its youth and
its tail. It got stuck in the doorway and very nearly fell apart.
     Then Oska  noticed  the principal. He paused to look at him,  then came
closer and said, "Are you a patient?"
     "No. I've come on business."
     "Oh,  I know! You're the horse doctor. You smell  like a horse  doctor.
Don't you? You cure cows and cats, and dogs, and colties, and all the  rest.
I know. Can you cure my horse?  He has a train engine in his stomach. It got
in, but it can't get out."
     "You're  mistaken,   child,"  Stomolitsky  said  huffily.  I'm  not   a
veterinary, I'm the principal of the Boys School."
     "Oh."  Oska gasped respectfully. He  stared hard at the principal. "Are
you really the principal? You scared me. Lelya says you're very strict, even
the teachers  are scared of you. What's your  name? Snail?... No. Crab?... I
know! Shark-Eye!"
     "My name is Stomolitsky," the principal said sourly. "And what is .your
name?"
     "Oska. But why does everybody call you Shark-Eye?"
     "Don't ask stupid questions. Why don't you tell me ... ahem ... whether
you know  how to  read. You do? Well, then tell me ... mm ... ah.... Can you
tell me where the Volga flows. Do you know the answer?"
     "Sure. The Volga flows into  Saratov.  Now see if you know this:  if an
elephant and a whale have a fight, who'll win?"
     The principal was forced to admit that he did not know.
     Oska consoled  him by saying, "Nobody knows. Papa doesn't know, and the
soldier doesn't know. But why do they call you Shark-Eye? Was that your name
when you were little?"
     "That is quite enough! Why don't you tell me your horse's name?"
     "Horse. Everybody knows that. Horses don't have last names."
     "You're wrong. For instance, Alexander the Great had a  horse that  was
called Busifal."
     "And you're Fish-Eye, aren't you? Not Shark-Eye. I got mixed up. But  I
said i1 right now, didn't I?"
     Papa entered.
     "What a bright boy you have!" the principal said smiling angelically as
he bowed.


        FATHERS, DADS, AND OLD MEN

     Whirr! Buzz!
     The ventilator  in  the  Teachers'  Room  sounded like  a huge fly on a
windowpane. It was suffocating in the heated room. Now and then a board of a
desk in one  of the dark, deserted classrooms would creak. The clock in  the
downstairs hall ticked loudly.
     "I will now call to order the joint  meeting  of  the Parents Committee
and the Teachers' Council."
     The Parents Committee was seated at a large table. Facing them in a row
were the teachers.  Mitya Lamberg and Shura Gvozdilo huddled together at the
far end of the table. Shura seemed lost. Lamberg, who was  older and bigger,
was trying not to look too awed.  The inspector  had  barred Stepan Atlantis
from the meeting,  saying,  "You  can  expect  anything  from that rascal. I
wouldn't trust him for a minute."
     "I'll be very quiet," Stepan had promised.
     "Show him out!" the inspector had said to the janitor.
     "Out  you go,  my  boy."  The janitor  had pushed the protesting Stepan
lightly. "Some delegate! Troublemaker!"
     Stepan  had been deeply hurt. "Well, don't blame me if nothing comes of
this. Reservoir. Adieu."
     At the very outset of the meeting the lights went out.  It was  a usual
power failure. The Teachers' Room was plunged into darkness, Mitya stuck his
hand  into  his pocket to  get  his  matches, but suddenly realized  that  a
non-smoking schoolboy was not supposed to have  matches  in  his pocket. The
janitor brought in a kerosene lamp with a round green shade that resembled a
parachute. The  lamp  was hung over the table.  It swayed slightly,  casting
flickering shadows  that  made the  noses of the people around the table now
grow very long, now become very short.
     The inspector was the first speaker. He spoke smoothly and wittily, and
his forked  beard, so like  a snake's  forked tongue,  bobbed  up  and  down
craftily.
     The fathers of the boys who lived on farmsteads were breathing heavily.
Their eyes  drooped  as  Romashov droned  on.  The long-haired priest put  a
strand of hair behind  his ear, the  better  to hear him. The  tax collector
wiped his glasses intently,  as if he were going to  examine each and  every
one of the inspector's words through his spectacles. The shopkeeper bent one
plump finger after another meaningfully, in time to the inspector's words.
     Gutnik,  the fat miller  and  a  member of the Duma,  spoke up for  the
principal. "How can  you teachers take things into your own hands like this?
Let  me tell  you, it's not  right. You should have asked the District Board
first. Stomolitsky was always a man  for law and order. We knew that when he
was in charge, everything was as it should be. That's why he should stay on.
And I have a feeling that that's just how things will be. Besides, these are
troubled times. It's like everything was on  fire all  over. And the boys'll
start acting up. Aren't I right?"
     The parents began to nod in agreement. The men were afraid to let their
sons have  too  much freedom. If you let the reins go  just a little,  you'd
never again be able to manage that crowd of pigeon-fanciers, dare-devils and
loafers.


     THE PRINCIPAL'S LEDGER

     Nikita Pavlovich Kamyshov, the geography and science teacher, jumped to
his  feet excitedly. Mitya and Shura looked at  their favourite teacher with
hope. He was very intent and spoke heatedly. Every sentence he uttered was a
line in Fish-Eye's unwritten Ledger.
     "Gentlemen! What's the matter? The tsar's been dethroned, but we ... we
can't even get rid of the principal! You're the parents! Your children, your
sons came here to this hateful place, to get  an education. But what sort of
an  education could they get?  What,  I ask you, could they  get here, these
children, when we teachers,  we grown-up people, were suffocating? There was
no air  to  breathe. It was  disgraceful!  We had  a  regular  barracks-room
atmosphere! Why, if a boy was seen wearing a soft collar he was made to stay
after school for eight hours! My God! Now, when the air  has become  cleaner
all over Russia, we here, in our house, are afraid  to open a window and air
the  premises!"  He  yanked  at his  long,  drooping  moustache  and  dashed
breathlessly out of the room.
     It became very still.
     The principal, who  had been sitting  unobtrusively in a corner,  broke
the  quiet  with his flat voice. He had turned green from  the light of  the
lampshade and from bile. He tried  to explain away Kamyshov's accusations by
saying: "He's trying to get even. There's the law  ... and discipline ... my
duty ... the Board."
     He was interrupted by  Robiiko, a huge, dark-haired man, as tall as the
freight trains he drove were long. The trainman crashed his fist down on the
table  and said: "What's  the  use  of  all  this  talk? If there's  been  a
revolution,  that means  these are  revolutionary times!  We  go straight on
through  without  any  stops.  As  for  the principal,  we  haven't yet seen
anything good except bad from him. And  I  say we ought to ask the boys. Let
their delegates  have the floor. Otherwise,  what  was the use  of  electing
them?"
     Mitya rattled off the speech he had learned by heart.
     "And what do you say?" the chairman said, turning to Shura Gvozdilo.
     Shura jumped  up. His arms were  plastered to  his sides, as if he were
reciting a lesson.
     The principal's fishy eyes stared at him with loathing.
     Shura  cocked  a  wary eye at Stomolitsky.  Who could tell? Perhaps  he
would remain at his post and get even later. Shura swallowed the lump in his
throat. His heart  sank, all the way down to his heels, but  just then Mitya
squeezed his  foot so hard between his  own heels that Shura's heart bounded
back  into  place  again.  Shura  tossed his head, swallowed hard again  and
suddenly felt better.
     "We're all for down with the principal!" he shouted.
     Someone  had jarred the lamp. It  was swaying.  Once again  the shadows
began  to move. They were  shalfing their heads  reproachfully.  Noses began
growing longer  and getting shorter again, and the principal's dejected nose
seemed the longest of all.


        PRESENCE OF MIND

     The  meeting dragged  on  far into the night.  At last,  the  following
resolution was drawn up:
     "Juvenal  Bogdanovich Stomolitsky  is to  be  relieved of  his  post as
principal of the Boys School. Nikolai Ilyich Romashov, the school inspector,
is  to be temporarily appointed principal until the District Board  confirms
his appointment."
     The former principal left the meeting in silence without saying goodbye
to anyone.  Romashov  fluffed  his  beard  with  a victorious  air. The  new
principal's pleased beard no longer looked like a snake's forked tongue but,
rather, like a chunk of bread with a dent in the middle.
     Shura  had  become  much  bolder.  He mentioned  setting  up  a student
council. The flame in the lamp leaped from the sudden burst of laughter that
followed. Someone even slapped his back.
     "Ah, it's good to be young! Such spit and fire!"
     "Delegates of those snot-nosed babies! Ha-ha-ha!"
     Shura was embarrassed. He sniffled and rubbed his belt buckle.
     The discussion passed  on to another matter. The parents began to yawn,
covering  their  mouths with their  hands. Shura could  barely keep his eyes
open.  The green parachute-lamp  floated above the  table. The  flame hissed
faintly,  casting ragged shadows. Waves of heat rose from the  lamp glasses.
He was dying  to  sleep.  To top it all,  the ventilator  whirred on  and on
monotonously.
     The principal had been kicked  out. Shura felt he  had accomplished his
mission,  but  the teachers,  parents  and  the  new  principal  were  still
debating, and he felt it was impossible to simply get up and leave. That was
when  he construed  a very adult sentence about his presence no longer being
required and, therefore, it being possible for  him  to  leave  the meeting.
Shura  rose. He  opened his  mouth to say  all this when he realized he  had
forgotten the first word of the sentence. As  he searched  for it he  forgot
all the others. The words seemed happy to have escaped  from his drowsy mind
and  pranced  about in front of  his  sleepy eyes. "Presence", a  very adult
word, had just donned  a tunic with  gold  buttons and climbed into the lamp
glass  insolently. The flame stuck  its  tongue out  at him,  and "possible"
started tossing  the dot  over the "i"  at him.  It  was attached to  a long
rubber  band and bounced  off his head just like the paper  balls  that  Chi
Sun-cha sold at the market.
     "What is it you wish to say?" the chairman inquired.
     All eyes were on Shura.
     He tugged at the bottom of his jacket in despair and said: "May I leave
the room?"


     SEIZE'EM ENDS THE DAY

     Shura went outside. The sky  was as  black as a blackboard. A cloud-rag
had wiped  it clean  of all  the  star designs.  A dense  black silence  had
engulfed the town. For  the first few  moments after  leaving the  Teachers'
Room he stumbled about in the  dark like a  fly in an inkblot.  At last,  he
made out the shape of a human figure.
     "Is that you, Shura? I'm frozen stiff."
     "Atlantis!"
     "Well? What happened?"
     Shura  dragged  on each word to  make  an impression. "Nothing special,
really. Naturally,  we  got  what  we wanted.  Fish-Eye  got  the sack.  The
inspector's taking his place for the time being."
     "Wait a minute! What about the student council?"
     "Ha!  Anything else you'd like?  They laughed  their  heads off when  I
mentioned it."
     "What? Then what did you get? That's no revolution! They kicked out the
principal and put the inspector in his place. Ah!" Stepan disappeared in the
dark. Shura Gvozdilo shrugged and headed home. The night watchman's clapper,
that wooden cuckoo of all provincial nights, sounded in the  stillness. Soon
the parents and teachers trudged home across the dark square.
     Seize'em was the last  to leave. He  had  stayed on in order  to  enter
Lamberg and Gvozdilo's  names in the Black Book-just  in case.  And  so that
memorable  day came  to a close  with  the  Ledger  and  Seize'em's  spindly
signature.


        REFORMING THE OLD SCHOOL MARKS

     A  new portrait was  hung  in the Teachers' Room. It was  a portrait of
Alexander Kerensky. His hair was cut in a short brush, and  the tabs  of his
wing collar stood out stiffly.
     The teachers  pledged allegiance  to  the Provisional  Government at  a
special service. The general morning prayers were  discontinued.  Instead, a
short prayer  was read in each classroom before lessons began each  morning.
Finally, the liberal-minded new principal took a bold step and did away with
the old system of grading our work.
     "All these  'F's',  'D's' and  'A-minuses' are unpedagogical," Romashov
said, addressing the Parents Committee.
     From  that day on the teachers no longer  gave us "F's" and "A's". They
now   wrote  "Poor"  instead  of   "F",  "Unsatisfactory"  instead  of  "D",
"Satisfactory" instead of "C", "Good" instead of "B" and "Excellent" instead
of "A". Then, in order to keep up the idea of pluses and minuses, they began
writing  "Very  good",  "Not  quite satisfactory", "Nearly  excellent", etc.
Roachius was very dissatisfied with the new system of grading and once wrote
"Very poor,  with two minuses" on Hefty's test paper. This was also the mark
he gave him for the term.
     "If 'Poor'  is an 'F',"  Hefty mused, "then the grade  he  gave me  for
Latin this term is someplace way down the line. Probably a 'Z'. What if it's
even worse than that?"


     THE DARLING OF THE LADIES' COMMITTEE

     The plot our house was on belonged to a large grain company. A winnower
was forever whirring under an overhang. Golden dunes of wheat rose on canvas
spread out on the ground,  and the broad-shouldered scales would jerk  their
iron  shoulders  like  a   person  who  was   trying  to  scratch  his  back
unobtrusively.  All  day long women were  busy patching canvas sacks in  the
yard,  sewing with long needles  as  they  sang  mournful songs of love  and
parting.
     One of the  sack-menders was  taken  on as a  cook for the family  of a
company  employee. The  cook had a  son named Arkasha, who attended  primary
school. Arkasha  was small for  his  age and so  full of freckles  his  face
looked like a piece of canvas covered with spilled grains of wheat. He was a
very bright boy and wanted very much to go on to high school.
     There  was  a  Ladies'  Charity  Committee  in  our town, and  the lady
Arkasha's  mother worked  for belonged to it.  At her  urging  the Committee
decided to sponsor the gifted boy. That was how Arkasha Portyanko came to be
a scholarship pupil in my grade, having passed the entrance examination with
flying colours.
     He was a  very serious  and kind-hearted boy, and  he  and I became the
best of friends. He was not a quiet boy, but his mild pranks and jokes  were
quite unlike the rough play  of his classmates. He was an honour pupil,  and
as  each  term ended he  would take  his excellent report card  home  to his
mother in the kitchen.  There was a line  marked "Parent's signature" at the
bottom,  and  his  mother would sign it  laboriously  and with  great pride,
placing a dot at the end of her name as reverently as if she were lighting a
votive candle in church.


        PLUS MINUS LUCY

     All the boys in my class knew  that  Arkasha was in  love.  The blaring
formula of his love  appeared regularly on the blackboard: "Arkasha + Lucy =
!!"  Lucy  was  the  daughter  of  the wealthy  chairwoman  of  the  Ladies'
Committee. When Arkasha's  mother discovered whom her son had a crush on she
shook her head.  "Good  Lord!  What  a girl  you've chosen! Have  a  look at
yourself! You'll be the death of me yet!"
     However, Lucy liked Arkasha very much. He would meet  her in the arbour
and they  would read together. The sun  shining through  the leaves showered
warm bits of its confetti on them. One day Arkasha brought Lucy a bouquet of
lilies-of-the-valley.
     At Christmas Lucy's  mother had a  party for  her. Lucy invited Arkasha
without having  asked her mother's  permission to do so. Arkasha set out for
the party in his  well-brushed,  well-pressed school uniform. He entered the
brightly-lit hall  and  was  imagining  the  delights that  awaited him when
Lucy's mother suddenly blocked  his way. She was a  tall woman with rustling
skirts and seemed very  much disturbed to have discovered a cook's son about
to attend her daughter's party.
     "Come  back some other time,  child," she said in a sugary  voice, "and
use  the  back  stairs. Lucy's busy.  She can't see you now. Here  are  some
sweets for you and your mother."
     Arkasha did not  see Lucy again after that. He missed her very much. He
looked wan and began slipping in his studies.
     In February of 1917, soon after the revolution, a portly gentleman in a
fine,  fur-lined  coat  was speaking animatedly  to  a  crowd  of  people on
Troitskaya Square, saying  that now there were  no more  masters and no more
slaves,  that from now on everyone was equal. Arkasha believed every word of
what he said, for it seemed to him that since a wealthy man was saying there
would  be no more masters, it must be so. That  was when he decided to write
Lucy a letter. I found it in the Ledger  several years later together with a
single dried lily-of-the-valley.


        THE LETTER

     "My dearest sweetheart Lucy,
     "Since there has now been  an overthrow of the tsarist regime, it means
everybody  is  equal and free. There are no more masters, and  nobody has  a
right to  insult me and send me packing from a Christmas party like  then. I
miss you  so much. My  mother says  I even  lost weight.  I don't go  to the
skating  rink any  more,  but not because  I'm  jealous, as  Lizarsky  says,
watching him  and you skating together.  How  do you like that,  he says. To
hell (scratched out)  To blazes with  him. I'm  not  one bit jealous. He got
what  was coming to him, because he's a monarchist (that means he's  for the
tsar), and that's why he's so mad. And now, dear Lucy, you and I can be like
a brother and a sister,  that is, if you want to. That's because there was a
revolution and we're equals  now. Actually,  though, you're a hundred  times
better than I am. I can't tell you how much I miss you. My word of honour. I
keep thinking about  you when I do my homework,  and even when I sleep I see
you in my dreams. Just as clear as day. We had the word 'lucid' in spelling,
and I wrote 'Lucy'.  You  spend all your time with Petya Lizarsky. He's  the
one who cribs his math from me  and then says he solved the problem himself.
And he  holds  your arm. I'm  not  one bit jealous,  though.  It's  strange,
though,  because  you're  so smart,  and  pretty, and good, and intelligent,
Lucy, and there you  are, walking out, arm-in-arm with a monarchist. There's
liberty, fraternity and equality now, so that no one will be angry at you if
you go  out with me.  I won't ever  say anything about  you  going out  with
Petya, because that  was during the tsar's reign and three hundred years  of
the autocracy.
     "My  mother  and I have never  been very happy. My greatest joy was the
revolution and you, dear Lucy. And I never cried like I did that day of your
party.
     "I finally decided to write to you, though it means I have no pride. If
you haven't  forgotten me and want  to  be  friends again, write me a  note.
It'll be the happiest day of my life. . "This flower is from that bouquet.
     "Yours truly,
     "Arkasha Portyanko, 3rd grade.
     "P.S. Please excuse the blots. And please tear up this letter."


        MERRY MONOKHORDOV

     The  algebra teacher had a very strange last name: Monokhordov. He  had
fiery  red hair and huge round  jowls, which earned  him  his  nickname, Red
Hippo.
     He was  forever giggling,  and this constant  merriment was  weird  and
impossible to understand.
     "He-he-he!" he would giggle shrilly. "He-he-he! You don't know a thing.
Here, he-he-he  ... you  should have written a  plus  sign, not a  minus ...
he-he-he.... That's why I've ... he-he-he ... given you  ... he-he-he ... an
'F'."
     Arkasha  had taken out the letter he had  written  and was  reading  it
under his desk. He was so engrossed that he did not see Monokhordov creep up
on  him. Arkasha jumped, but it was too late. The  teacher's  thick fingers,
covered generously with red hairs, closed on the letter.
     "Ha-ha-ha! A letter! He-he, it's not sealed.  This should be very, very
interesting... he-he ... I'd like to know what  you've been doing  ... he-he
... during my class!"
     "Please give it back!" Arkasha shouted, shaking visibly.
     "Oh, no ... he-he-he. I'm sorry, but... he-he ... this is my trophy."
     A  reddish giggling filled the  classroom. Monokhordov went back to the
lectern and pored over the letter. A boy he had called  on and had forgotten
all about stood by the blackboard unhappily.  His fingers were full of chalk
dust. The teacher was busy reading.
     "He-he-he  ... very amusing...," he said as he came to the end. "Rather
interesting. A letter ... he-he ... to his lady-love. I will  read it  aloud
... he-he-he ... as a lesson to you all."
     "Read it! Read  it!" everyone shouted excitedly, drowning out Arkasha's
desperate pleas.
     Monokhordov kept stopping  every now and then to get the giggles out as
he read the letter addressed to Lucy aloud  from beginning  to end. The boys
yowled. Arkasha was as white as a sheet. He had never  been so humiliated in
his life.


        THE FLOWER IN THE LEDGER

     "You're  starting young,  Portyanko ...  he-he ... very young." Arkasha
knew that  he could never send Lucy the defiled  letter. All the lofty words
he had used and which had  caused such ribald laughter now seemed stupid  to
him,  too. However,  the terrible hurt  he felt made him say in a very quiet
and menacing voice:
     "Please give me my letter."
     The boys stopped laughing instantly.
     "Oh,  no,"  Monokhordov  chuckled. "This'll  go  into  the  Ledger  ...
he-he-he."
     Then Arkasha  exploded.  "Don't  you  dare! You've  no  right  to!"  he
screamed and stamped his feet. "Reading somebody else's letter's the same as
stealing!"
     "Get  out! This minute!" Monokhordov bellowed and his  fat jowls shook.
'Don't you ever forget that you're a charity boy. You'll fly out of here ...
he-he ... ike a balloon."
     The  dried lily-of-the-valley cracked faintly as the hard covers of the
class journal snapped shut over it. Later, the new principal  gave Arkasha a
dressing down.
     "You scoundrel," he said softly. "How dare you talk to your elders like
that? I'll expel you, you brat. You'll  end your  days at hard  labour,  you
ingrate. Just who do you think you are? Hm?"
     Arkasha was again reminded that he was a charity boy, that he  was only
there because of the kindness of others, and that the revolution had nothing
to  do  with anything. There  had to  be order, above all, and he,  Arkasha,
would be  expelled in no  time if this  order were disturbed. Arkasha's name
was entered  in the Ledger.  He was left after school for two hours. In  the
end, what he gathered  was that the world was  still the same  old place and
that it was still divided into the rich and the poor.

        PART TWO

        SCHWAMBRANIA

        THE SCHWAMBRANIAN REVOLUTION



        THE VOYAGE OF THE BRENABOR

     The Schwambranian Fleet set out on a great voyage  around the continent
in order to chart the exact boundaries of Schwambrania.  The ships  set sail
in the middle of 1916 and did not dock until November 1917. The significance
of this  voyage in the history of  Schwambrania was great, indeed, as can be
seer from the documents which have come down to us. My Schwambranian archive
contain a detailed map of Schwambrania and the log of the  flagship Brenabor
There is no sense  quoting it in  full here,  as it is very long  and rather
dull. Today's  readers will find many of  its pages hard to understand. That
is why the account o the  voyage is given in a revised and abridged form and
some  things  are  explained  in  parenthesis.  I have  tried to  retain the
Schwambranian style of writing wherever possible.
     I would also like to explain the following:
     At  the  time  in  question,  Brenabor  Case  IV  was  the  Emperor  of
Schwambrania We borrowed the name complete from a well-known  ad of the day.
That  was  when  two  automobiles   were  added  to  the  coat  of  arms  of
Schwambrania, although  it already boasted  the Schwambranian  wisdom tooth,
the Black Queen,  Keeper of the  Secret, and the ship of  Jack, the Sailor's
Companion.
     King Brenabor No. 4  was a  rather easy-going fellow. Still and all, he
was a monarch, and none of  us wanted to be him. Then again,  we didn't want
to be plain commoners, either. That was when Brenabor adopted us. We decided
he had picked  us  up at  sea when  we  were very  little. The  vicious  old
Chatelains Urodena had put us, new-born, into an empty sauerkraut barrel and
had tossed us into the sea. King Brenabor was out rowing when he got a whiff
of stale cabbage and rescued us.
     At that time nearly  every children's story had an orphan in it. A tale
about  an adopted child was both fashionable and  touching. As for the smell
of stale cabbage, that  did not in any way make us less attractive, for many
parents insisted that all children, and not only adopted ones, were found in
cabbage patches.
     The squadron was made up of the following ships: the flagship Brenabor,
Beef Stroganoff, the Jules Verne, the Liquid Metal, the  Prince Courant, the
Cascara Sagrada, the Gratis, the Valiant, the Gambit,  and the Donnerwetter.
Despite his  youth, Admiral  and  Captain Ardelar Case, meaning  me, was  ii
command of the squadron.  Oska was the  Vice-Admiral  and  Chief Able-Bodied
Seaman.  His name was  Satanrex. The name was  of operatic origin. The local
druggist often  sang  at our home musicales.  He had  a  deep basso and sang
Mephistopheles'  aria, which included the words "Satan wreaks his  vengeance
there".  Hi ran his words together when he sang, and  so the first two words
sounded like "Satanrex". Oska kept asking everyone who Satanrex was.
     Jack, the Sailor's Companion, was our faithful guardian at sea.


        DEPARTURE

     Page 1 of Admiral Ardelar Case's diary  began as follows: "The sun rose
in  the morning and  shone above the horizon. The view of  the sea was  very
beautiful. A hundred  thousand soldiers  and a million people were there  to
see  us  off.  A  brass  band  was  blasting  away,  and it  was  a  regular
manifestation.  New Schlyamburg was all illustrated  (This is an error.  The
admiral wanted to say "illuminated".).  I had on a pair of white bell-bottom
flannel trousers, white shoes and spurs, a starched collar, a light-blue bow
tie, a  long-waisted  purple Circassian coat  with gold  cartridge slots and
epaulets, a short crimson cape lined with  a tiger-skin and a captain's  cap
with a plume. I led the way. I was tall and lithe."
     The ships were moored at the pier. The second whistle  had sounded. The
stevedores were  busy loading pastries and thousands of tubes of  strawberry
jelly.
     The Navy-passenger dreadnought Brenabor was  so huge  that  street cars
and hacks coursed back  and forth along the deck, charging twenty kopecks to
take you from  the  stern  to the  bow,  although  oats were  very cheap  in
Schwambrania. The Brenabor's six stacks smoked like six huge fires. It had a
ten  thousand camel-power whistle,  and  its masts  were so high  they  were
always capped with snow.
     "Attention in the engine room!" I said.
     "Stand by!" Jack, the  Sailor's  Companion, said. "Steh fertig bei  der
Machine!"
     The tsar was there to see us off. He  climbed  up on a barrel  and said
the following manifesto:
     "Yo-ho-ho, ye Schwambranian knights in shining armour! We, by the Grace
of God,  Emperor of  Schwambrania, Tsar  of Caldonia, Balvonia et cetera, et
cetera, command you to have a bon voyage  both ways. If you  happen to see a
war anyplace, get right  into the fight and slash away! Give the enemy their
comeuppance. Men! All the centuries, as many  as there were and will be, are
looking down on you from the tops of these masts! Forward march, my friends,
on your voyage! Bugles,  blare a song of  victory! And  be sure  to go below
deck if you  get caught in a squall or a  storm so's you  won't  catch cold.
Forward,  fearless knights! Off to the rolling seas, heading  southwest. God
bless us and Godspeed!"
     At this, everyone burst into the Schwambranian anthem, composed by  the
Vice-Admiral, and having all the stresses on the first syllable:

     "Hoo-ray, hoo-ray!" they all shouted,
     The Schwambranians.
     "Hoo-ray, hoo-ray!" they were clouted!
     Do-re-mi-mans.
     But not one of them was murdered,
     All of them survived.
     And they blasted all the others.
     Lo! They're strong and live!

     The Brenabor sounded its ten thousand camel-power whistle for the third
time. Riders tumbled, and their horses galloped off. Anyone standing was now
sitting. Anyone sitting was now  lying. As  for those that  had been  lying,
there  wasn't much else they could  do. The ships  cast  off. The voyage had
begun.
     "Don't forget to write!" the tsar shouted.
     The squadron was going full steam ahead. The  pennants fluttered in the
breeze. The tall, sleek Brenabor led the caravan,  going  a hundred knots an
hour.  The wind was blowing up. The waves churned. The sun went down in  the
evening.


        THE BATTLE OF CHARADE

     The  voyage was progressing well, with the sun coming up in the morning
and going down in the evening. If  we are to believe the Admiral's log,  the
wind was becoming stronger with each passing day. The squadron  did not drop
anchor a Port  Manteau  and  passed  Cape  Gialmar,  coming round the tip of
Cacophonia   and  Cape  Rugby   as  it  headed  for  Drandzonsk.   A  small,
single-breasted  ship  was sent out to meet  us (Another  error.  Suits  are
single-breasted,  not  ships.),  and  the people  of  Drandzonsk offered  us
Triumph  cigarettes. We stopped  for a smoke and continued  on our  way. Two
days later we dropped anchor in Medusa Harbour.
     Vast,  masculine forests stretched  off into the distance beyond Medusa
(Naturally, there  are  no  such forests. One  sometimes speaks of a  virgin
forest,  but the  admiral  was  a  woman-hater.).  There,  in the  masculine
forests,  we hunted wild run toddies. The rum  toddies  were  animals we had
discovered in an ad of the well known Shustov Distilleries. Rum toddies were
not to be found in any other country except Schwambrania. They had the  head
of a buffalo and the body of a horse, s'  that they  both kicked and butted.
They were ferocious.
     Then  Satanrex and  I  explored the  Cor-i-Dor Desert.  Everything  was
deserted  in the desert. Meanwhile,  the squadron  under Jack, the  Sailor's
Companion  rounded Cape Pudding  and steamed into Balvonsk. We  boarded  our
ship again and continued on our way. The Piliguinian  Fleet was sighted  off
Cape Charade, with the vile cad, Count Chatelains Urodenal, in command.
     "Ah, main royal  yard!" Jack, Sailor's  Companion,  cursed. "Fore royal
standin  backstay! Unter  lissel  left  and  right, too!  Plombiren Sie  die
Schiffsraume! Seal the  holds!" And he began to  flash his eyes.  Chatelains
Urodenal picked up his  megaphone and  declared war  on us. A battle  at sea
followed.  Our ships and their  ships attacked each other  and tried to send
over boarding parties. What followed was a regular Trafalgar, which ended as
our Waterloo. The Liquid  Metal,  Donnerwetter and the Boef  a la Stroganoff
were all sunk, and the others were towed off by the Piliguinians. They  took
them off to their  prison, which  was on Garlandia, a  desert island in  the
Arsenic Ocean. Our valiant Brenabor was the only ship that did not surrender
to the enemy and managed to break through the fiery circle. The lone vessel,
its sails billowing, sped across the ocean blue. There was an island in that
ocean. It was a bleak granite island without a  sign of life.  It was  named
Punishment Isle and  was a part of the Liverpill Archipelago. Cape Comer was
on that island and there,  in a seashell grotto, the  Black  Queen lived. We
dropped anchor. The Queen did not look bad, although she was a bit mouldy.
     Then we  passed the dangerous islands of  Quinine, Biomalt,  Cocoa  and
Codlive-roil. As we drew alongside Cape  Colt, we sighted  the tops  of  the
Overthere Mts. and the inaccessible  Peak Puzzle, so we turned westwards and
entered Seven Scholars Bay.
     We were approaching Elfin Island.


        THE FAMOUS PERSONS FOREST RESERVE

     The Prince and the Pauper, Max  and Moritz, Bobus and Bubus, Tom Sawyer
and Huck Finn, Oliver Twist,  the  Little Women and the Little Men, and when
they  were  grown, Captain  Grant's Children,  Little  Lord Fauntleroy,  the
Twelve   Huntsmen,  the  Three   Spinners,  the  Seven  Wise  Scholars,  the
Thirty-three Knights, who were the  nephews of Uncle Chernomor, the Last Day
of Pompeii, and the One Thousand and One Nights all came out to welcome us.
     "Long live Your Royal Brilliance!" they shouted.
     There was a  green oak on the island. And  a  gold chain on the oak.  A
puss-in-boots walked round and  round it, looking very wise. When he went to
the right, he would read a book out  loud, and when  he went to the left, he
would  turn  on a gramophone. Just  like Durov's  famous  circus animals.  A
sphinx sat on the top of a cliff, making up riddles and charades.
     Familiar  characters from many books lived here, for Elfin Island was a
forest  preserve for  all the famous characters we had ever read about. They
lived here out of time and place.
     A large  company  was riding  towards us, led by the Mysterious  Knight
with his  visor down. Next came  the Headless Horseman. Don Quixote  whipped
his old nag on,  with his  faithful sword-bearer Sancho Panza trotting along
on a donkey.  Sancho  was carrying some windmill slats that Don Quixote  had
hacked  off  some place or other. Then came Ivan the Fool  on the Humpbacked
Horse. He stuck out his tongue as he rode by. Then  came the  Three Knights,
Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich and Dobrynya Nikitich  on their three mighty
steeds.  The  horses were  harnessed to the  Tsar-Cannon. Nat Pinkerton, the
well-known  detective, crept along in  their wake.  He was  looking for  the
Mysterious Knight and was being  shadowed  by the famous detective, Sherlock
Holmes.
     A man with long  hair and a  long  beard  and clothed in  animal  skins
appeared  from behind  some  bushes. A wise  old  parrot was perched  on his
shoulder. The parrot was plucking fortune cards from his master's pocket.
     "Rrrr-robinson Crr-rusoe!" the parrot squawked.
     We  recognized  the  great  hermit.  Following  Robinson  was a  savage
carrying  several parcels. He was completely naked.  He didn't  have on  any
pants  at all.  All he had on  was a calendar leaf for a loincloth. The word
written on the page was:
     "Friday". At  the  sight of us Robinson begged our pardon and asked Don
Quixote to lend him his shaving basin, which Don Quixote did. Robinson  went
off to shave, while Friday, having stopped to  gossip with Sancho  Panza and
ask his advice about something, ran  off to put on  some  clothes in a house
with a sign outside that read:

        ORDERS FILLED
     Ladies and Men's
     Valiant Little Tailor
     Sews seven cloaks at a stroke

     "They mean us," the Seven Wise Scholars said.
     That evening our visit was marked by  a gala  fete and fireworks in the
Mysterious  Garden. Bluebirds  and Blue Herons were there.  Golden Cockerels
crowed, and geese laid golden eggs, while squirrels whistled popular tunes.
     We were there, too, and drank  mead with the rest, but since  we had no
moustaches, it did not flow down our chests.


        THE SUNSET WAS CANCELLED

     The days of  the festivities coincided  with  the  first  days  of  the
revolution Russia.  Reality  was  wonderful. It turned everything  about  us
topsy-turvy. The following telegram was received from Schwambrania:

     The people of Schwambrania  are worried.  Indignant over the  Battle of
Charade. Brenabor partially abdicated. Chatelains Urodenal temporary ruler.

     Half an hour later the Brenabor, having sealed the holds and raised the
red  flag,  sailed  at full steam off  to  the  Brightasday Sea.  We  passed
Lilliputia, Shellacputia, Port Folio and  Getamoveonio. We rechristened  our
ship. It  was now  the  Carshandar and Jupiter.  The  crew was  all  for the
republic and had renounced the traitor of  a tsar. After all, Brenabor No. 4
had  temporarily  installed the  villian  Chatelains  Urodenal  in  order to
preserve his  crown. Urodenal's troops were  guarding the Hopscotch Plateau,
having dug in along the  Nitty, Plotzky and  Socko-Pocko canyons.  We had no
choice but to  press  on  towards  the  Candelabra Mountains. There, in  the
northern  foothills,  the  republican  conspirators  were hiding  out in the
environs of Port Rait. We took them on  board. Then, rounding Cape Clock and
bypassing  Knuckle  duster, we  sailed for  the free shores  of  Carshandar,
dropping anchor in Port Yippee.  The Carshandarians  welcomed us  with  open
arms.  Carshandar  was  enveloped in  a revolutionary  uprising.  Urodenal's
landing  party was only able  to take Condora. We set siege  to Condora from
the Lilac Sea. Condora fell. We absconded  with  great riches. Then, passing
Cape Rick-Rack  and  Cape Billbock, we stopped off at Port  Ico, and finally
dropped anchor on the Carshandar Riviera. I  changed my last name and became
Ardelar de Carshandar.
     In  order to  prepare a coup on the entire continent, I  stowed away in
the sealed hold of one of the ships and  made  my way  to New Shiyamburg.  I
lived in the capital, disguised  as an Indian. However, on the very  eve  of
the  uprising,  Brenabor recognized  me  by  the scar  in my  left  eyebrow.
Urodenal had me arrested and brought me before a court martial.
     The trial of Admiral de Carshandar lasted a whole day (Sunday). This is
how the Admiral described it in his diary:
     "The  courtroom was full of  people  who  were staring at  me with open
curiosity.  I was in the dock,  so handsome and lithe. Four guards had their
rifles trained on me, to make  sure I didn't escape. The former Brenabor was
the chief  justice. He really  hated  my  guts.  Count  Chatelains Urodenal,
black-haired and a cad, was prosecuting me personally.
     "There was no brass band at all. Satanrex was my lawyer. They had sworn
they  wouldn't  arrest  him or  throw him  into  jail. The  prosecutor lied,
telling everyone to their  face that I was  a crook, but my  lawyer got even
and said  that Urodenal was  a crook if there  ever  was one. Then  Brenabor
said: 'Mr. Prisoner  at the Bar! You have five minutes to give them  a peace
of  mind.' Then  I rose, so  tall  and  lithe, and  the courtroom died down.
'Honourable Judges!'  I shouted. 'You  are  under  arrest in the name of the
Free  Continent  of  Big  Tooth!'  In  a flashing  eye  Jack,  the  Sailor's
Companion,  dashed into  the  courtroom  with some revolutionaries  and they
overthrew the tyrants. Everyone cheered, and there was a general ovation."
     The admiral did not mention the sunset that day. Apparently, due to the
coup, there was a continuous sunrise over Schwambrania.


        THE END OF THE BLACK BOOK



        I WANT TO ATTEND MEETINGS

     All sorts of  meetings were being  held  everywhere, for the  grown-ups
were quite carried away by politics. My own  mother had been elected  to the
Council of Deputies by the Ladies' Circle. Papa was Vice-Chairman of the new
Duma. Since the Duma and the Council were at odds. Papa and Mamma were, too.
     I was burning with a desire  to enter politics, since T, too, wanted to
attend  meetings,  make speeches and  elect  candidates.  That  was  when  I
received a letter  from my  friend Vitya Expromptov in Saratov. He described
his  Boy  Scout troop in  such  glorious terms that I decided to  organize a
branch in my school.
     I read whatever I could about scouting. Then one day after classes were
over and the boys were buckling their satchels, I climbed  onto  the lectern
and made a long speech.
     "Gentlemen, we've had enough of fighting during recesses, playing cards
and being disunited. We should band together, that is, like  a  club.... And
we won't lie,  smoke or curse. We'll  drill, have our own  clubroom and hold
club meetings. We'll elect a leader,  and we'll be  young scouts. I mean Boy
Scouts. What do you say? Who wants to be a Boy Scout?"
     Practically every boy  there  wanted  to  be  one.  The  commotion that
followed was unimaginable.  Nikolai Ilyich looked in to  see what  was going
on. He said that if we didn't stop yelling, he'd have all our names put down
in the Ledger before we ever drew up a list of future Boy Scouts.


        A THREE-FINGERED SALUTE

     The following Sunday the first scout meeting was held in school. To  my
surprise, there were a great  many boys  from other grades and  even several
seniors.
     We  conducted  our  meeting  just like  adults:  we  stood up  and made
speeches, and someone kept the minutes.
     Two  troops were  formed. I  was elected  scout leader. Shalferov,  the
horse  doctor's son, was elected Treasurer, for he was considered  to be the
most honest of us all.
     Our Rules were based on  the scout law: we would not smoke, drink,  lie
or use bad language, but would  be courteous, cheerful, do a good deed every
day, always smile, and  salute our superiors on  the street by raising three
fingers to  our caps. The three fingers stood for the three  commandments of
the  scout  oath: "...to  do my duty to God  and my country and to obey  the
scout  law." Actually, the Handbook said: "...and my monarch", but  we  used
the alternative "country". There was  a  hitch as far as God was  concerned,
for  Stepan  Atlantis suddenly announced that he was  an atheist. We had  to
convince him that God was  actually like your conscience and, anyway. He had
only been included to make things sound right. We finally convinced him, and
Stepan solemnly  raised  three fingers and repeated  the scout oath. He then
promised to stop smoking within a week.
     We signed up quite a few parents  as sponsors. They donated money which
we  used  to  buy a tricoloured flag  and  an old  automobile horn  that was
missing its rubber bulb. This home-made bugle called for  a great  amount of
wind. It would then produce a loud and  horrible  sound. Hefty was  the only
one who had  the necessary lung power, and  so he was elected bugler. He was
flattered  and tried  his  best, blowing  so  hard it  made trucks veer  and
steamships green with envy.
     We were given  a room in  the local children's library to serve  as our
clubhouse. By then so many other boys had signed up, we had  formed two more
troops. I was now a troop leader. Boys saluted me on the street. I felt very
proud.


        SIR ROBERT, ST. GEORGE AND GOOD DEEDS

     All  the  preparatory  work  was finally  completed.  The clubroom  was
furnished, the flag displayed, the scout promise  made, the patrol and troop
leaders  elected, the scout law learned  by heart. Every one of  us knew who
Lord Baden-Powell was and what St. George had to do with scouting.
     However,  nobody knew  what  to  do after  all  of the  above  had been
accomplished. We  decided to stage a mock battle between  the two troops  on
granary row, but the watchmen chased us away.
     We tried  doing good  deeds, deciding we would  patrol the town and fix
street benches and fences, and  help old  ladies carry their  shopping bags.
However, schoolboys had a bad reputation in Pokrovsk, and the very first old
lady  whom Atlantis tried to help  began screaming wildly the moment he took
hold of her heavy bag. A crowd  gathered  on the spot. Stepan barely managed
to escape.
     I then  discovered that my fellow-scouts were doing their good deeds in
the following manner:  they would sneak up to a  stout fence in the dark and
pry off some boards. The following morning they would appear on the scene as
benefactors  and  mend it with  goody-goody expressions.  They received  ten
points at the Good Deed Contest for this.
     We soon became very bored with scouting.
     There  was no  use expecting any help  from  St.  George, our  heavenly
patron. Lord Baden-Powell, wearing a broad-brimmed Boer campaign hat, smiled
down at us from the wall portrait. He couldn't suggest anything of interest,
either.
     Once again the boys began smelling strongly of tobacco.


        A BARGE OF CRIPPLED HEROES

     The autumn  of 1917  was  the first autumn during which  Russia was not
ruled by a tsar.
     This  autumn  was  just like any other, a  time  of melons, shoals  and
second exams for  the boys  who  had not been promoted. At this time a barge
carrying bearers of the St. George Cross for Valour docked at Saratov. There
was a  Museum  of War  Trophies on the  barge, and so the entire  school was
taken to see this floating embodiment of patriotism.
     A slogan painted  on the side of  the  barge read: "War to a Victorious
End!" You could still make out  the lettering underneath that had  not  been
completely erased.  It  read:  "For our  country, our tsar...." Every single
member of the crew had been awarded  the St. George Cross.  Nearly  all were
missing an arm  or  a  leg, and some  were missing both. Artificial legs and
crutches creaked and tapped along the deck. However, every  man had a little
St. George Cross dangling on his chest.
     We  roamed the barge for three hours, sticking our  heads into the wide
barrels  of  the  Austrian howitzers and fingering the  silk of  the Turkish
banners  that had been captured in battle. We  saw a tremendous German shell
called a "trunk".  You could pack the death of an entire company into one of
them. Finally,  the amiable curator showed us the museum's main  exhibit. It
was a German  helmet,  taken off a dead  officer.  It's outstanding features
were the  hair of the killed man that was stuck to the  inside of the helmet
and real, dried German blood. The curator spoke of this with relish.
     The curator  was an  officer.  He  stood  on his own,  natural legs and
gesticulated with his own undamaged, well-cared for hands.


        THE DEFEAT OF ST. GEORGE

     Stepan did not  say a word all the  way  back, but that very evening he
came over to the scout clubroom and quarrelled with the rest of us.
     "Did you notice the smell there, fellows? Just like the  butcher stalls
at the market. That's the smell of blood. It hits you right in the nose. But
what the hell's it all about? After all, they're all human beings."
     "We  have  to fight  to a  glorious, victorious end," one  of  the boys
ventured.
     "You're  a damn  fool! Just aping what somebody else said. What's there
in  it for us? To hell with  you  and  your precious  St.  George.  Go  play
soldiers, and  maybe  you'll get  a St. George  Cross,  too. As for the  Boy
Scouts, what the hell good are you if you're all  for the  war? Cross me off
your damn list.  Understand? I've  had enough  of fooling around." He pulled
out a pack of forbidden cigarettes and lit one up insolently.
     We  stood around  in silence, feeling somehow  embarrassed. Then  Hefty
grunted, slowly pulled out his own pack of cigarettes, went over to Atlantis
and said, "Give me a light. The game's over. Let's go."
     Sir Robert Baden-Powell was smiling down at us from the wall. There was
nothing funny  about it at all, but according to the scout  law, a scout was
always supposed to be cheerful. Sir Robert grinned, just like Monokhordov.


        ATLANTIS

     Once, during a  geography lesson in the first grade, Stepan Gavrya, who
had been left  back, raised his hand from where  he  sat in the last row and
said, "Is it  true what it says in books about  Atlantis? I mean, that there
really is a place like that?"
     "Perhaps. Why?"  Kamyshov,  our geography teacher, asked with a  smile.
"Because I'm going to  find it,  that's what. I'll look around in the ocean,
and I know I'll find it. I'm a darn good diver, you know."
     That was when Stepan got his nickname. From that day on he became known
as  Atlantis. Stepan, that devoted pigeon fancier and dare-devil, really did
dream of finding the lost Atlantis.
     Sitting in a hayloft, sneezing from the fragrant dust, he described his
future to his friends. "I'll pump all the water out of there and fix all the
doors in the palaces, and you've  never seen the kind of life we're going to
have. It'll  really be a lark! There won't be any  principals there,  and no
Latin, that's for sure."
     He  left stifled  within  the  stone walls of  the  school. Stepan  was
hot-headed. His  head  was  as hot as a  watermelon  in a melon patch  on  a
blazing July  day. Learning came very hard to him. He  was from a very small
farm outside  the town, and  all  of  the vast, endless steppe was  his back
yard. He  was used to shouting at camels,  and his  foghorn voice shook  the
official stillness of the school every time he opened his mouth.
     "Gavrya,"  a  teacher would say, calling  on him.  "Yah?"  Stepan would
bellow in reply and then be reprimanded. He had run away  to  join the army,
but had been returned home from the very first railroad station. Then he had
run away again and had been caught again. He did not like to talk about it.


        UPSIDE-DOWN

     Stepan  had strange,  funny  ideas  about life.  First,  before  really
getting the hang of a  thing, he would  see it upside-down, as it were. They
said he  had even learned to read  upside-down in the beginning. This is how
it had all come about. Stepan's elder brother was  being prepared for school
by a  teacher who came to the house to  teach him to read.  Stepan was still
very small and was not supposed to participate in these lessons. The teacher
would open the primer, and Stepan's brother, who sat by her side, would read
aloud.  Stepan  would  sit  across  the table from them,  leaning over as he
listened to every word. However, when he looked at the book he would see all
the words upside-down, and that was  how he remembered them. That was how he
learned to  read: from  right to  left and  upside-down. He later had a very
hard time learning to read the correct way.
     Stepan suddenly became very grown-up after the boys' visit to the barge
to  see the wounded soldiers. He was forever going off someplace and reading
books we knew nothing  about. He would often drop by at  my house, but would
spend  his  time  in  the  kitchen  talking to  Annushka's  soldier. Another
frequent  visitor there was a Czech named Kardac, a prisoner-of-war who  had
been in the Austrian Army. The three of them would argue heatedly. After one
such argument  Stepan said to me in  a puzzled voice "What  do you know?  It
looks like I  have everything upside-down  again. Can you beat that! I was a
damn fool talking about Atlantis the way I did.  We  can have a pretty  good
life here, too, you know. That's something I never thought about."


        THE EVE

     Hungry  women standing in  line for  bread at the market fell  upon the
mayor. Dogs howled at night, and the  wooden clappers sounded feebly  in the
awkward  hands of the  volunteer home  guardsmen.  The city council  was  in
session  every single day. A cold,  damp wind  was  blowing  from the Volga,
tossing  scraps  of foam  onto  the  bank.  Torn  shreds  of  proclamations:
"Citizens!... The Constituent Assembly..." waltzed along the dusty streets.
     Something  very heavy was dropped in Saratov  beyond the Volga  at four
o'clock  in the  afternoon. This was followed by a  great gust of  wind. The
windows rattled. Boom!
     And then again, twice in a row:
     Boom!... Boom!
     It seemed  as  though  someone  was swinging  a tremendous rug  beater,
beating  out  a fantastic rug that was miles long. People would stop on  the
street and look up at the sky. Crows winged back and forth. Crowds of idlers
dotted  the rooftops,  as they usually did  when there was a fire someplace.
Those standing on the pavement shouted:
     "See anything?"
     "Sure. As clear as day. That was some explosion."
     "Who's shooting?"
     "Who knows? Probably the Cadets!"
     From the  top of the  school building we could see tiny white puffs  of
smoke rising  over  Saratov. They  quickly  expanded to become dark,  ragged
clouds.  Half  a  minute later a heavy blow would come crashing down  on the
roof, deafening us slightly. By night time there was a red glow of fire over
Saratov. Nobody turned on their lights in Pokrovsk that night. The sky was a
feverish crimson.


        THE HISTORY LESSON

     At nine o'clock  the following morning boys in long great-coats hurried
across the square as always. Their pencil boxes rattled in their satchels.
     A dull grey morning  crept into the classrooms. The lectern  creaked as
the  sleepy-eyed history teacher leaned on it. The monitor, crossing himself
automatically, rattled off the morning prayer. Then  he  handed  the teacher
the class journal and reported on the absent pupils:
     "Stepan Gavrya is absent."
     The teacher had not had enough sleep. He yawned and scratched his chin.
"And so the Emperor Justinian the Great and  ... aag-ah-haa ... Theodora ...
(he was overcome by yawning). And The-agh-aah-do-oh-ra...."
     It  was  terribly  dull to have  to  listen  to  an account of ancient,
long-dead  emperors at a time when real,  live  people  were  making history
right there, across the Volga.  There was a loud murmuring in the classroom.
Finally, Aleferenko got up and said:
     "Would you please explain all about  what's going on  in  Russia  right
now?"
     "Gentlemen!" The teacher was indignant. "In the first  place, I'm not a
newspaper. Secondly, you are too young to  discuss politics. Now, where were
we? Justi...."
     "You sure are old," someone in the back row muttered.
     "Old regime, that's what you are!"
     "What? Get up and stand by the wall!"
     "Don't listen to him, Kolya!" the boys shouted.  "Who does he  think he
is, Justinian the Great?"
     "Get out!"
     But  just then a deep,  mighty, all-consuming  sound burst in  from the
sires. carried in on the wings of  the  wind. It was the  bone-meal  factory
whistle.  It was immediately caught up by the piping whistle of the railroad
depot.  The lumber yards on the  hill  joined in  various trebles. The flour
mill whistled. The cannery buzzed like some distant  bumblebee. A river boat
on the Volga piped frantically, wildly.
     The morning was full of their songs.
     The inspector dashed into the classroom. Confusion was entangled in his
beard like a fly. No one rose to greet him.


        A DAY THAT WAS NOT ENTERED IN THE LEDGER

     Annushka's soldier friend, Kharkusha, was  making a speech on the river
ban He was standing on the pier, gesticulating with his good hand. From afar
he seemed to be conducting the orchestra  of  whistles. We  elbowed  our way
through the crowd.
     A boat was rapidly approaching the pier. It was  the Tamara. Its wheels
turning  smartly, slapping  the water, and two ridges of white foam  rose on
either side of the prow. A red flag looked as if it was about to fly off the
mast. The  boat was now  close enough for us to see the men and machine-guns
on its deck. The men looking weary but determined, and as set as if they had
been bolted to the deck.
     This was the revolution docking at Pokrovsk.  The captain on the bridge
was wearing a red armband. Standing next to him  with a rifle slung over his
should and  his cap  tilted back was Atlantis. I recognized the man standing
next to him. They were workers from the lumber yards.
     "Hey! Look! It's Stepan!"  my classmates  yelled.  "Atlantis! How'd you
there?"
     Petya Yachmenny, a very proper boy, shook his head and said, "Why'd you
play hookey? You'll get in trouble now."
     "Oh, no,  I won't!" Stepan said and laughed. He leaped over the railing
and  on the pier  as the  boat was  docking. "Not on your  life I won't! The
Black Book's good as dead and buried now. For good!"
     The tie  ropes had been secured,  and now  the boat  was hissing as  it
bumped  against  the  pier  The  captain  was  issuing  commands  through  a
megaphone. Men with red armbands were lining up on the deck.
     "These're our men," Atlantis said proudly.
     "They're Bolsheviks," people murmured in the crowd.
     "Ready!" the captain said.


        THE END OF THE BLACK BOOK

     At  the end of  the  spring  term  we  burned the  school diaries  that
contained our day-to-day marks. Such  was the old school custom. This  time,
however, it seemed to have acquired a new significance, one that we were all
aware of.
     A huge bonfire blazed in the school yard. We pranced about it in a wild
Indian  dance  as   the   flames  consumed  our  "D's"   as  our  reprimands
disintegrated and the days we had attended school went up in smoke.
     "Hooray!" we shouted,  three hundred strong. "Hoor-rray! We're burning!
the  last! diaries! of the old regime! They'll never return!  An end  to all
diaries! An end to no dinners! Death to the ledgers! Hooray! The last school
ledgers in the world are burning! No more cramming or demerits! There go the
ledgers of the old regime!"
     Hefty and Stepan made their way to the deserted Teachers' Room.
     The bookcase containing the Black  Book was locked. The squirrel's tail
was tickling  dusty Venus' nose. A huge papier-mache  model of  a  human eye
stared at the boys in amazement. Then Hefty kicked in the door panel.
     The Black Book was removed from the bookcase.
     "Into the fire with it!" Atlantis  yelled  as he appeared on the porch,
carrying the thick Ledger. "We'll roast Seize'em's tattling!"
     But  every  single boy  wanted to touch the Dove  Book, to read what it
said about him, to discover its secrets. All the ledgers of  previous  years
were  then tossed into  the flames. The last was read aloud by  the bonfire,
and we had a grand old time listening to its loathsome pages. We  decided to
preserve it for posterity, and Stepan was  elected to be the  Keeper of  the
Ledger, since  at  least  a  quarter  of  all the  mischief  reported  in it
concerned the boy who had once decided to set out in search of Atlantis.
     The  old ledgers were going up in flames.  Their hard covers writhed in
the fire. Then Forsunov, one of the seniors, came out on the porch. He was a
member of the local Council of Deputies.
     "Let's  have a  minute  of  quiet, comrades," he said.  "The Council of
Deputies has  decided to fire all  the  old regime teachers. This means that
Romashov,  Roachius,  Ukhov and  Monokhordov will  all  go. We'll  have  new
teachers.  We'll elect  our own representatives  to  the  Teachers' Council.
Everything'll be different now. This is the end of the Black Book."
     Three hundred boys in grey school uniforms marched around the fire that
was now  dying down. They  hooted and  howled, and shouted gleefully as they
carried the unmasked and helpless Black Book  at the head of this unheard-of
funeral procession.
     Meanwhile, a mound  of charred, brittle pages was curling up amidst the
ashes.


        WANDERING ISLANDS



        NETTLES AND TOADSTOOLS

     We spent  the  summer of  1918 on the  Carshandar  Riviera  in Northern
Schwambrania and in the village of Kvasnikovka, which was twelve  kilometres
from Pokrovsk.
     We battled all through  the summer, stamping out large  settlements  of
toadstools and cutting down every nettle in  sight  with  bloodthirsty glee.
Naturally, quite a few innocent mushrooms and harmless dandelions lost their
lives in  the fray.  It  was rainy summer,  and weeds and  grass sprouted in
great  profusion. Then  one  day  w  captured  the  worst  villain  of  all,
Death-Cap-Poison-Emir. It was an amazing  mushroom with a stem as large as a
tenpin and  a dark-red cap dotted with white bumps that looked  like  a huge
chunk of sausage. There could be  no  doubt about it: this was the chieftain
of all toadstools.
     We carried Death-Cap-Emir home with  great  pomp, walking along  in the
shade of its umbrella-cap. Suddenly, two men  appeared on the road. They had
con from the ravine and were walking towards us.
     "That's some umbrella! Whaddya know!"  one  of them said. He had big ea
that wiggled when  he spoke. The man was wearing a ragged khaki field jacket
and puttees.  There was a  visible stubble  on  his chin. In fact, there was
something definitely nettle-like about him  that made me  feel itchy when he
looked at us.
     "He made me all itchy inside," Oska said to me afterwards.
     Just then the other man came up. His grin  revealed two rows  of rotten
teeth.  T second man was pale and puny.  He  had on a  linen  shirt  with  a
standing collar and  a large mushroom-like hat. He reminded me  of  a rotten
toadstool.
     "Won't   you   treat  us  to   that  dainty  titbit,  young  men?"  the
toadstool-man said.
     "Don't be stingy,  brother," the  nettle-man said. "We're damn  hungry.
And  everything's  common property now, even  mushrooms, by  the way.  Am  I
right, brothers?"
     "How'd you know we're brothers?" Oska asked.
     "I know everything."
     "Everybody's brothers now," the toadstool-man added. Then he went on in
very solemn voice: "Young men, judging by the look of your swords, I can see
1 you are a pair of fine, upstanding knights. Help your suffering fellow-men
in t of trial, brothers,  or  I'll be forced by the pangs  of hunger  to eat
this  mushroom the  poison-mushroom variety, and I will  die at your feet in
terrible convulsions
     "That's  for sure. We're more  dead than alive  anyway," the nettle-man
said.
     We were horror-stricken when he bit  off a small piece of the death-cap
began to writhe. The toadstool-man would have pulled his hair in despair had
he had any,  but he was bald. We stood there in stunned  silence and then hi
something knocking inside the dead man.
     "His heart's still ticking," Oska said uncertainly.
     "That's my spirit entering and leaving my body in turns, Brother,"  the
dead  said  sorrowfully. "Here  I am, dying of hunger,  poor soul,  and  all
because of  the  revolution. What did I shed my  blood  for? Call  your dear
mamma, boys. Maybe she can save this  orphan. Tell her a man is dying and is
willing to trade a watch or a clock for some bacon."
     The  nettle-man  then began  pulling  pocket  watches,  locket-watches,
stopwatches,  alarm clocks  and  chronometers  from his pockets.  We  stared
spellbound  in  awe  at this  great  treasure.  The environs  of Kvasnikovka
resounded with a mighty ticking.


        THE COMMISSAR CHECKED THE TIME

     Half  an  hour later  the summer people  and  the  local  village women
crowded  around  the two  men. The  nettle-man was pulling wall  clocks  and
cuckoo  clocks  from his bag and winding them up,  while the  toadstool-man,
like  some circus magician,  was pulling a length of  silk material from his
stomach  and  growing  thinner by  the  second. He  then  came up  with  the
following from his knapsack:
     two desk sets, a pair of bedroom slippers, a small fish bowl (no fish),
an icon, a pair of curling irons, several gramophone  records, a dog collar,
a starched dickey, an enamel bedpan and a  mouse-trap. His floppy hat turned
out to be a lampshade.
     "Do you have a sewing machine?" one of the village woman asked.
     "I did have one, but I traded it in Tambov."
     As  the trading was proceeding at a lively pace, the nettle-man  made a
speech, just as if he were at a meeting.
     "Now, my dear ladies, women and everybody else, you  can see what we've
come to,  and  all  on  account of those Bolsheviks. And, mind, we shed  our
working-class blood for them, down to the very last drop, my dear ladies and
women. We're both from Petrograd."
     "Look! The Commissar's coming!" a boy shouted.
     The nimble men quickly stuffed their wares back into their sacks.
     "Let's see  your papers," Commissar Chubarkov said when he had  got out
of the gig. "And stop agitating!"
     "How can you say such a thing?  You're  supposed  to be one of us," the
nettle-man replied calmly.
     "I'm not one of you, and  don't you  ever  forget it,"  Chubarkov  said
angrily and  put  his  hand in his  pocket. "Let's see your papers, you damn
profiteer!"
     The toadstool-man's hands shook as he pu