eeting. Day in, day out, this filled his mind.


        QUEEN OF THE MARKET


     Just  at this  time  the  early cherries began to  ripen. They  ripened
quickly, almost visibly, and every kind at once -black, red, pink and white.
Although the Bacheis had  been eagerly watching the progress  of  this great
harvest, nevertheless,  the actual realization  of its size came  upon  them
suddenly one fine morning when a black cloud of starlings swooped down  over
the orchard, followed by a grey cloud of sparrows.
     The birds descended on the trees; and  while  Vasily Petrovich,  Petya,
Pavlik, Dunyasha and Gavrila ran about below  frightening off  the marauders
with  umbrellas,  sticks, hats, handkerchiefs  and shouts, Auntie put on her
lace  gloves  and  hat,  and,  sparkling  with  happy excitement,  took  the
horse-tram to town where she intended first to find out the  retail price of
early cherries, and then to sell them wholesale at the market.
     It was evening when she returned, and as she approached the orchard she
heard shots.  It  was Pavlik,  instructed by Gavrila, firing an old shot-gun
which they had found in the attic.
     "Heavens! What  are you  doing?"  she  gasped in horror as she saw  her
gentle little darling pushing a charge into the gun.
     "Frightening  off the  sparrows. Look  out!"  Pavlik shouted and with a
most ferocious expression fired somewhere into the air, after which a little
cloud of feathers drifted down.
     Evidently, the war against the birds was going well.
     "Well, what's the commercial news?" asked Vasily Petrovich, rubbing his
hands. "I hope it's something good."
     "Yes and no," answered Auntie.
     "Now, just how do I take that?" he asked with a cheerful smile.
     At least  a dozen times that day he had gone round the orchard and seen
that the harvest was not  merely good, it was amazingly, fantastically rich.
Whole  poods of very large cherries hung from the branches, gleaming  in the
sun like jewels with all shades of red, from the palest creamy pink, through
coral, to that dark crimson which looks almost black.
     "How do you mean?" he asked again, not quite so cheerfully this time-he
had seen that Auntie looked rather upset.
     "I'll  tell you everything in a  minute, let  me wash up first, and for
goodness' sake, a cup of tea. I'm dying for tea!"
     All this boded nothing good.
     In half an hour Auntie was sitting on the veranda eagerly drinking tea.
     "It was like this. First  of  all I  went to  a  number of fruit shops.
There aren't many cherries yet, and the shops are selling them at fifteen to
twenty kopeks a pound."
     "Well,  well, well-that's splendid!" cried  Vasily Petrovich,  mentally
calculating how much  they would get from each tree, even at a  conservative
estimate of two poods per tree. "If that's the case, we're rich!"
     "Yes,  but  wait  a minute," said  Auntie wearily.  "That's the  retail
price. We  want to sell  wholesale. So I went to  the  wholesale  market and
found the fruit section.  It turned  out that the  wholesale price was  much
lower."
     "Of course, quite natural!"  cried Vasily Petrovich stoutly. "It always
is. What is it?"
     "They offer two rubles forty a pood. Our delivery."
     Vasily  Petrovich touched the steel frame of his pince-nez and his lips
moved as he calculated once more.
     "H'm ... yes... well, of course  that's rather a different sum. But all
the same it's quite good, quite good. We'll be  able to make our payment and
have quite a nice little profit too." And Vasily Petrovich  looked  gaily at
Auntie through his pince-nez.
     "You're very unpractical,"  said Auntie.  "Don't forget the two-forty's
with our delivery." With emphasis she repeated the words, "Our delivery!"
     "Ah yes ... delivery,"  mumbled Vasily Petrovich. "Now,  just what does
that imply?"
     "It  means  we've  got to  bring  the cherries  to them  there, at  the
wholesale market."
     "Well? What's wrong with that? We'll bring  them.  And then-kindly hand
over the money!"
     "Oh,  it's  impossible to  discuss  anything with you!"  cried  Auntie,
exasperated.  "Just stop a  moment and think -how are  we going  to  deliver
them? With what?  We have no  horse, no cart, no  baskets, no bast, no-we've
absolutely  nothing,  and no  means  of getting  them there. Not  to mention
picking  the fruit-that is, if  the  birds leave  any of it. We haven't even
ladders."
     "M'yes," mumbled Vasily Petrovich vaguely, blew his nose and said, "But
it's all very queer. Why  does it have to be our delivery? You ought to have
told them-if you want our cherries, please come and get them."
     "I did."
     "Well?"
     "They refused."
     "H'm.  There  must be some  misunderstanding there. After all,  there's
such a thing as competition. If one refused, perhaps another would agree."
     "I went round  'all of them,  and the impresson  I  got was that  there
isn't any competition  at  all,  it's all one band.  They're amazingly alike
even to-look at. Dark-blue shirts, red faces, sheepskin hats. The  same kind
of robbers  as those Persians who came to try and force down the price.  And
they all  talk  about some  Madame  Storozhenko.  It  looks as  if  all  the
wholesale fruit trade is in this lady's hands."
     "Well, why didn't you go and talk to her, then?"
     "I tried.  But you can't catch  her.  From morning to  night she drives
round orchards buying up the crops."
     "What are we going to do, then?" asked Vasily Petrovich.
     "I don't know," answered Auntie.
     They sat  staring at  each other in perplexity. Vasily Petrovich  wiped
his brown  neck  with a dirty  handkerchief  while Auntie  drummed  with her
fingers on a saucer. And Petya felt disaster again  looming over the family,
but  disaster much more  terrible than that other time when the  orchard was
drying up.
     The cherries ripened  every hour. The red ones blackened, the pink ones
reddened, the cream-coloured ones  turned a warm pink, while the white  ones
deepened  to a  honey  colour that  made the mouth water in anticipation  of
their sweetness. From early morning the war against the birds  went on. They
fastened bright-coloured rags to the branches, they set up scarecrows,  they
ran about under  the trees  clapping their hands  and shouting hoarsely, and
every now and then there was a report from the shotgun.
     It  was even harder work than hoeing  and bringing water. Oh, how Petya
learned  to hate starlings! How different they seemed now from  those poetic
birds whistling  gaily in  a  dozen different keys, making a spring day seem
brighter, paths more shady, and the little white clouds look as though  they
were sweetly sleeping.
     Now the birds were marauders descending in flocks upon the orchard from
all sides.  They pecked  the cherries with their sharp beaks, always finding
the ripest and tearing out a triangular piece of pulp.
     They did not so much  eat cherries as spoil them. When they were driven
off the trees, the whole flock continued flying about above them, describing
circles and swooping curves.
     The  Bacheis tried picking the cherries themselves, standing on chairs,
and discovered how difficult it was for inexperienced hands. They decided to
start off by  selling cherries retail and sent Gavrila  with a big basket to
Bolshoi Fontan.
     Gavrila spent all  day going round the villas and  brought back seventy
kopeks  and a strong smell of vodka, told them thickly  that this was all he
had been given and went off to sleep in the weeds behind the stable.
     Some summer  visitors  from nearby  villas  came to the  orchard to buy
cherries-two pretty girls with lace parasols and a student in a white tunic.
They asked for two pounds, but as Auntie had no scales she poured about five
into the dainty basket the student carried over his shoulder on a stick.
     -The girls at once hung cherries over their little ears and dimpled and
laughed, looking  prettier than  ever, while  Auntie gazed at them as though
wondering, "Dear God, how can anyone be so happy!"
     Then the postman brought  a typed letter from the notary containing the
ominous warning that the final date for payment was in three days.
     Auntie  hurried   to  town  again  but  returned  empty-handed;  Madame
Storozhenko  had  been away again and  the Persians, as though  mocking  all
common  sense,  had  offered  not  two-forty, but  a  ruble-thirty  a  pood,
delivered.  It  seemed likely that they  had been  rude to  Auntie as  well,
because she was nearly crying as  she tore off her hat and paced up and down
the veranda  saying  again  and again,  "What  rascals!  Heavens above, what
scoundrels!"
     Only one  thing  remained-to  hire  carts, horses and baskets from  the
German settlers, and flying in the face of Vasily Petrovich's principles, to
exploit  labour by  hiring girls from the villages  round  about and get the
fruit off the trees as quickly as possible-for the birds had  already pecked
a quarter of it.
     The Germans refused to let them have any carts  or horses and the girls
were already working in other orchards.
     "Curse  the  hour  when  I  let  myself  get drawn  into  this  idiotic
business!" cried Vasily Petrovich.
     "Vasily Petrovich, for your dead  wife's sake have  mercy  on me!" said
Auntie through her tears, in a voice that showed her nose was swollen.
     Then, to wind up the whole business,  the gate opened  creakingly and a
britzka rolled  in. One Persian sat on  the box, another stood on  the step,
and a  very  large,  stout lady  in  a  white  linen  coat and  a dusty  hat
ornamented  with  faded forget-me-nots  swayed and  jolted on the  seat. The
britzka went straight across the beds of petunias and  flowering tobacco and
halted by the house. The Persians at once seized the lady's elbows arid  she
climbed awkwardly down.
     She had  a fat but muscular face  with  a moustache, purple cheeks  and
expressionless eyes.
     "Here,  you, boy-what's your  name-don't  stand  there staring, run and
call  the master,  and look  sharp,"  she said in  the raucous  voice of the
market-place,  and was just going to sit down,  puffing, on  an iron  garden
chair brought  by  one  of the Persians  when Auntie  appeared,  followed by
Vasily Petrovich. "Are  you the owners here?" she asked and  without waiting
for an answer  held  out a hand with short thick  fingers  projecting from a
black lace mitten first to Vasily Petrovich, then to Auntie.
     "Good morning," she said. "I'm Madame Storozhenko."
     Auntie bubbled over with excitement.
     "Ah, how extremely kind  of  you," she twittered, assuming  her society
smile. "I have twice  tried to find you at the wholesale market but you were
always away.  You  are such an  elusive lady!"  And Auntie shook her  finger
charmingly at Madame  Storozhenko. "But I see that if the mountain does  not
go to Mohammed, then Mohammed comes to the mountain."
     "It  makes  no  difference,"  said  Madame  Storozhenko,  ignoring  the
aphorism  about the mountain and Mohammed. "They told me you  wanted to sell
your crop. I'll buy it."
     "In  that case, perhaps, you would care to  look at the orchard?"  said
Auntie, exchanging a most significant look with Vasily Petrovich.
     "I know  that  orchard like  the  palm  of  my hand,"  answered  Madame
Storozhenko.  "It's not my  first time  here. I always bought  the crop when
Madame Vasyutinskaya was running it. And I must  say she ran it much better.
Half your cherries  are pecked.  Of course,  it's no business of mine, but I
can tell  you, you've neglected the orchard  badly.  You'll hardly make ends
meet this  way.  I've  been trading in  fruit only five years myself, before
that  I dealt in fish, but you can  ask anyone  and they'll  tell you Madame
Storozhenko knows  a  thing  or  two about fruit.  You call  those cherries?
They're more like lice. You can take my word for it."
     Vasily  Petrovich  and  Auntie   stood  before  Madame  Storozhenko  in
alternating  hope and fear. Their fate depended  on her alone, but there was
nothing to be read on her coarse face. At last Madame Storozhenko spoke:
     "Take it or leave it, I've no time to waste on you. Here!" She opened a
big leather bag hanging on a strap over her shoulder,  and took out  a crisp
hundred-ruble note, evidently prepared beforehand. "There you are!"
     "What-only a  hundred  rubles! Why,  we've three hundred  to pay on the
note of hand alone!"
     "Take it and  less chat,"  repeated  Madame Storozhenko. "And say thank
you for it, too. At least you'll have nothing more to worry about, I'll look
after the picking, packing and transport.
     "Madame   Storozhenko,  have  you  no   conscience?"  Vasily  Petrovich
expostulated. "It's sheer robbery!"
     "My dear man," Madame Storozhenko wheezed condescendingly, "I've got to
make something out of it, haven't I?"
     "Yes, but these  cherries will  sell for at least  five hundred rubles,
we've reckoned it up," said Auntie.
     "Well, if you've reckoned  it up,  go and sell your crop yourselves and
don't waste other people's time. A hundred rubles, that's my last word."
     "But we've got to pay on a note of hand."
     "I know. In a  day  or two you've got to pay Madame Vasyutinskaya three
hundred  and if you don't, you lose the place. And lose it you will, because
you've no money and you'll be bankrupt  anyway. So my advice is to take what
you  can,   at   least  it'll  feed  you  a  little  while.  As  for  Madame
Vasyutinskaya's property, she'll rent it  to me through the notary. It'll do
much better with me than with you."
     "We'll see about all that!" said Auntie, turning pale.
     "Better drop those  airs!" snapped Madame Storozhenko with  unconcealed
contempt,  looking Vasily Petrovich  and  Auntie  up and down  with a black,
incomprehensible malice.  "You  think  I don't know your sort? You haven't a
single  kopek between  you. You're  beggars!  Paupers! And  call  yourselves
intellectuals!"
     "My dear madame," said  Vasily Petrovich, "what right have you to speak
this way?"
     Madame Storozhenko turned majestically to Auntie.
     "Listen-what's your name-tell this man  of yours to  climb off his high
horse, because in  three  days  I'll  kick  you out  of here with  all  your
rubbish. Ragamuffins!"
     Vasily  Petrovich made  a convulsive  movement,  he wanted to speak but
could only stamp his foot and make strangled sounds like a dumb man; then he
slumped down on the veranda step clutching his head in his hands.
     "Take  the  hundred  and  write a  receipt,"  said Madame  Storozhenko,
holding it out to Auntie unconcernedly.
     "You're  a wicked, vile woman!"  cried Auntie,  trembling from head  to
foot. She burst into tears and stumbled into the house.
     It  was such a  dreadful, disgraceful scene that not only Petya, Pavlik
and Dunyasha-even Gavrila  was  shocked into immobility,  and nobody noticed
Gavrik, who had emerged some time before from among the trees.
     Now he marched slowly, with a slight  roll, to Madame Storozhenko,  his
right hand thrust deep in his trouser pocket.
     "Get out of here, you  mangy  old market  shark!" he hissed through his
teeth. "Get out!"
     She   stared  at  him,   amazed,   then  suddenly  recognized  in  this
sixteen-year-old  workman  the  little  beggar  boy,  the  grandson  of  old
Chernoivanenko, who used to  bring bullheads to her at the wholesale  market
when she  still  had a fish stall. Madame Storozhenko had  a good memory and
she  realized  in  a flash that she was faced with her  old  enemy. In those
days, however,  he  had been small and defenceless and she could  do  as she
liked with him; now he was very different. Instinctively the old fox  sensed
danger.
     "Now, now, none of your bullying!" she  cried, moving restlessly  about
by the britzka, and turned to her Persians. "What are you thinking of? Smash
his mug in!"
     The Persians advanced,  lowering their heads in the sheepskin hats; but
Gavrik  withdrew his hand from his  pocket holding a knuckle-duster, and his
white lips tightened into a straight line.
     "Get out of here!"  he repeated ominously. He seized the reins close to
the bit and led the horse out of the gate, while Madame  Storozhenko and the
Persians clambered into the moving britzka as best they could.
     For a  long time the  hat with the forget-me-nots could  be seen moving
along the road between fields of green grain, and Madame Storozhenko's voice
could be heard screeching curses and obscene threats in the direction of the
orchard.
     Gavrik returned,  breathing hard  as  though he had  been  doing  heavy
physical work. He held out  his hand  in silence to  Petya, patted  Pavlik's
shoulder  and  stood  for a while beside  Vasily  Petrovich,  who was  still
sitting on the steps, his face in his hands.
     Then  Gavrik spat angrily, said, "Well, we'll see," and ran through the
orchard out into the steppe, disappearing as suddenly as he had come.
     For  a long time all  were silent-they felt that there was nothing more
to be  said. At last Vasily Petrovich  passed his hand down his face  with a
visible  effort and  wiped his  glasses with the hem of his  long  shirt; an
unexpected smile appeared on his face-a helpless childlike smile.
     "Thus, their feasting turned to disaster," he said with a sigh.
     But strange as it might seem, it was a sigh of relief.


        FRIENDS IN NEED


     For  a little while calm  and quietness reigned in the house and in the
orchard.  The  Bacheis went about as though they had  just awakened and were
not yet  quite sure whether  it  was all  real or  a  dream.  They were very
considerate  to  each other,  even affectionate.  In the  evening  they  ate
yoghurt and  drank tea. They chatted  and joked.  But there was not one word
about their situation; it was as though they were saving all their  physical
,and mental strength for that very near future, the thought of  which was so
terrible.
     They went to bed early  and slept well,  luxuriating in  rest after all
their labour and perturbation, knowing  that the coming day would bring them
nothing new.
     At dawn Petya felt someone tugging his foot. He opened his eyes and saw
the wide-open  window and Gavrik standing by  his  bed.  The sun had not yet
risen, but it  was already  quite light in  the  room; the cool air of early
morning was  pouring  in;  outside, the trees  stood dark  green  against  a
crimson strip of sky, and the cocks were crowing sleepily in the distance.
     "Get up!" whispered Gavrik.
     "Why?" Petya whispered back.  He was so accustomed to  his friend's way
of popping up without warning  that his appearance at this early hour was in
no way startling.
     "Get your clothes on and out to work!" said Gavrik mysteriously, gaily,
and jerked his head  towards the  open  window. He turned, jumped on to  the
sill, and disappeared in the orchard.
     Petya knew  Gavrik, he  knew  this was no fooling,  it was serious.  He
dressed rapidly and shivering in the early chill followed Gavrik out through
the window.
     Voices came from the orchard. Petya went round the house and saw people
under  the cherry  trees. There was the beat of axes, the squeal of saws.  A
little way  off a  lad  he did not know  passed  by with a  new roughly made
ladder on his  shoulder. A similar ladder leaned against a tree,  and on the
top rung  stood a barefoot girl, one hand holding a branch heavy with fruit,
the other shading her eyes  from the sun which was just  rising over the sea
bathing her in blinding but still cool rays.
     "Petya!" the  girl called. He recognized Motya.  "What  are  you  doing
here?" he asked, approaching.
     "Picking  your fruit,"  she answered  gaily,  and Petya  saw the basket
hanging  from her arm.  "But  you've  quite forgotten us," she  added with a
sigh. "You never come to Near Mills now."
     She too had hung cherries over her ears and Petya thought they made her
look even prettier than before.
     "Well, here we are, you see," she went on merrily, pulling cherries off
the branches and dropping them into  her basket, leaves and all. "We've been
working over an hour, and you've only  just  managed to get your  eyes open.
Lazy-bones! God'll punish you for it!" She laughed so heartily that her foot
slipped.
     "Oh, catch me, I'm falling!" she cried,  but managed to  hold on, while
cherries rained down on Petya from the basket.
     "Look here, seriously, what's going on?" Petya asked.
     "Can't  you see for yourself?"  said Motya. "Your friends have come  to
gather your crop so it won't be lost."
     Petya looked round. And everywhere, on the trees and under them, he saw
more or less familiar  faces  from  Near Mills. With  surprise he recognized
Uncle  Fedya  Sinichkin, the  old railwayman, the young  schoolmistress  and
others of Terenty's  occasional  or regular visitors. Motya's brother Zhenya
was  there  too with  all his friends,  sitting  in  the trees like monkeys,
filling caps, baskets land  boxes with amazing dexterity and speed. Wherever
Petya looked he saw bare legs, bare, sunburned arms  and cotton shirts, from
all  sides he heard voices, laughter, jests and chaff. Before  he  had fully
taken it all in,  Gavrik came running  up carrying a pile of  old sacks  and
bast matting on his shoulder.
     "Here, take hold, put these under the trees,"  he  panted, and tossed a
number of sacks over to Petya.
     With a feeling that something very good was happening, caught up in the
atmosphere of  gay  activity, Petya  promptly  set to work spreading out the
sacks, crawling round them on his knees to smooth out the folds.
     Soon  great, ripe cherries began  falling on them with soft  thuds from
baskets, caps and aprons.
     When  Auntie,  wakened  by  the  noise,  came out  on  the  veranda  to
investigate, her first thought was that Madame Storozhenko had already taken
possession of the orchard and her roughs were unceremoniously plundering the
crop.
     Although  she  had  resigned  herself to the  knowledge  that  this was
inevitable, nevertheless, the sight of strangers stripping the trees was too
much for  her. She turned pale and  cried weakly, "How  dare  you! You've no
right! Robbers!"
     "Na-a-ay, you're  all  wrong," Gavrik half sang on a warm, affectionate
note as he passed her dragging a  ladder,  "We're your  own folks, from Near
Mills.  Now,  don't  you  worry  about anything,  not a single cherry'll  go
astray, I'll see  to that personally. Except maybe one or two that drop into
somebody's mouth by accident, that sort of thing might very well happen. But
what's it matter? You see yourself what a grand crop it is. I hope you never
have  any worse! Selling it retail, you'll get at least three rubles a pood.
And as for that old market bitch!" And Gavrik put his thumb to his nose.
     "Stop  a minute, I  don't  understand, won't you explain?" said Auntie,
looking into Gavrik's angry, determined face and  trying to make out what it
was all about.
     "Don't be angry with us  for not asking you  first," he said.  "No time
for  it-this is when a day feeds a year, as the  saying goes. Let the moment
slip and  it's gone! We had to  get hold  of  the wood for  ladders, and the
sacks  and bast mats and all that sort of thing. Wasn't  it the thing to do?
Or should we have let that old shark make beggars of you all?  No  sir! Time
to stop that! They've  sucked enough of our blood. The  day's gone  when  we
used to stand in front of them like asses."
     Auntie stared at Gavrik, his militant stance, a boy with a peeling nose
and yet a man with serious, angry eyes that said much more than his words.
     Perhaps she did not yet understand  everything, but the  main thing was
clear. Kind folks from Near Mills had come to their aid, and again there was
hope that they might be saved. Auntie's housewifely instincts reawakened.
     She quickly tied a  kerchief round her head and hurried about under the
trees,  putting  this and that right. She  told them to place the sacks  and
matting  so that they  would  not  have to carry the fruit so far, asked the
pickers to keep the various kinds of cherries  separate, gaily told the boys
not to put  more in their  mouths than in the baskets, sent Gavrila to fetch
some buckets  of drinking  water, then herself climbed a ladder into one  of
the trees, hung cherries over her ears  and, singing "The Sun is Low" at the
top  of  her voice,  began picking cherries and  dropping them  into  an old
hat-box.
     What a  wonderful day that was! It was a long time since Petya had felt
so full  of  bubbling  happiness. True, he  had no  ladder and did not  pick
cherries from the trees, which would have been more interesting, but running
about underneath was not so bad  either.  Now here,  now there, a full heavy
basket descended from the leafy  branches; he caught it in his arms,  poured
its contents out on to the  nearest  pile,  returned  to  the tree, sent the
basket  up again with a bounce from his head  and  went on to  the next tree
where another awaited him.
     His arms ached  pleasantly from  the  unaccustomed exercise, and it was
wonderful to see the pile of dark, shining berries growing  before his eyes,
prettily  mingled  with dark leaves, to which striped wasps  added flecks of
bright gold.
     Petya  was in charge of  ten  trees. Practically every minute  somebody
called him  to  take  a  filled  basket.  But Motya's  voice  was  the  most
insistent.
     "Petya, come here, mine's full! Where are you? Don't be so lazy! Here!"
     A  soft arm  in a pink  cotton sleeve would  lower a  heavy basket, and
through the leaves  Petya could  see Motya's rosy face  and  a cherry  stone
between her lips.
     By midday all were tired,  and  Gavrik marched up  and down between the
trees, calling out, "Break off, dinner-time, break off!"
     That was when Petya suddenly saw Marina and her mother. They were quite
close, coming  towards  him with  arms round  one another's waists like  two
girls, and the cherries  hung on their ears and the baskets in  their  hands
showed they must have been helping too.
     At  the sight  of Madame Pavlovskaya Petya's  courage oozed  out of his
toes. What if she had guessed who  it was that rustled in the weeds at night
and tossed love-notes in through the window?  Why, she really might pull his
ears!  That  first  time  he  saw  her  she  had  looked  rather  stern  and
disapproving.  But now, in her old house frock,  with  cherries hung on  her
ears, she seemed very kind and good-humoured. And Marina smiled with evident
pleasure, not a trace was left of that  cold, contemptuous  look  with which
she had thrown the dreadful word "babbler" at him.
     "Good morning,"  Petya  said  in confusion, and in an effort to produce
the best  possible  impression on Marina's mother essayed la polite click of
his  heels, which  came  off rather badly owing to his  being barefoot.  But
nobody seemed to notice.
     "You're  quite right, it  really is a marvellously good  morning," said
Marina's mother  with a kind of deep, serious smile. "Isn't it,  Petya? Your
name is Petya, isn't it?"
     She examined  him  with  interest,  for she  knew well enough about the
notes. Marina,  for her part, glanced up innocently and  said,  "It's a long
time since I've seen you," just as if nothing had ever happened.
     She provoked him. Petya would have liked to make some brilliantly witty
reply, but all  he could manage was to mumble morosely, "Well, that's not my
fault."
     "Why, whose is  it, then?" said Marina captiously, turned a little away
from Petya and began  picking at a rubbery drop of resin on the bark  of the
cherry tree under which she stood.
     "You  know whose," Petya  replied with  tender reproach, and then  took
fright-wasn't that almost a declaration?
     Auntie  came up just at  the  right  moment  to greet  the visitors and
rescue her nephew from the awkward situation.
     "Ah, it's  you?  At last! I  never  seem  to see you. How can you  shut
yourself up like that? After all, people come out here to enjoy the country,
the sea  air,  the garden. It's all here waiting for you and still you  stay
indoors all day,"  she twittered,  at  once  assuming  the mincing,  society
manner  which,  according  to her ideas, was  the correct one for a  refined
owner  of  a villa talking to  her refined guests. "Good gracious, what do I
see?" And Auntie clasped her hands.  "You have baskets! Is it  possible that
you have come to help us? But that is too charming, too kind of you! I won't
conceal it, we  were in a difficult situation,  a dreadful situation. Such a
wonderful  harvest, and  we, impractical  people  that we are.... You are  a
cultured person yourself, you will understand."
     "Yes, oh yes," said Madame Pavlovskaya coldly. "It  is a small but very
typical  incident,  clearly  illustrating  the  concentration  of commercial
capital. It  would seem that this Storozhenko-or whatever  her name is-has a
monopoly  of  the  local fruit  market  and  is  now  destroying  her weaker
competitors by fair means or foul. You must have been very blind not to have
seen it  at  once.  The  strong swallow up the weak-such is the  law  of the
historical development of capitalism."
     Auntie  listened  in alarm. Madame  Pavlovskaya, it  seemed, was  fully
informed about all their  affairs,  despite the fact  that  she never showed
herself outside the cottage.
     Of  all  she said Auntie  understood one  thing  only-that  it was very
"political,"   and  Madame   Pavlovskaya   must  be   a   dangerous  person.
Nevertheless, she tried to bring the talk back to the society tone.
     "You are absolutely right," she said, "and Madame Storozhenko is a real
monster.  A  rude,  uneducated animal,  absolutely out  of  place  in decent
society."
     Pavlovskaya frowned.
     "Madame  Storozhenko is first and foremost a foul creature that must be
fought."
     "Yes,  but  how?" said  Auntie,  with  a shrug  of distaste.  "I  can't
complain to a magistrate-it would be paying her too big a compliment!"
     Pavlovskaya  looked earnestly at  Auntie  for  a moment, then  suddenly
smiled, the way one smiles at children who ask foolish questions.
     "The magistrate? That's fine," she said and gave a dry, angry laugh.
     Auntie  looked  at  this  small  woman  with  the  amused, intelligent,
resolute  face, the  stubborn  little chin,  the  dark shadow  on her  upper
lip-and  felt she belonged  to some special, strange world, a world hard  to
understand, but a world which drew one.
     She  wanted  to  ask,  "Are you a  Social-Democrat?"  but  instead  she
embraced Pavlovskaya  and cried  impulsively,  like a  girl,  "Oh, I do like
you!"
     "I  don't know why,"  answered Pavlovskaya seriously, but it  was clear
that she liked Auntie too.
     Evidently, Pavlovskaya had started off with a  wrong impression of  the
Bachei family. She had thought them ordinary tenant farmers making money out
of  letting rooms and running the orchard, and they turned out to be  naive,
impractical people unable to cope with life and in bad trouble as a result.
     The sense  of  strain  disappeared and  talk became  easy. And although
Pavlovskaya  maintained  her  reserve,  within five  minutes Auntie's  quick
understanding  had  given  her a  fairly accurate  picture  of  all that was
happening round her.
     She realized that these pickers Gavrik had brought from Near Mills were
not  just casual workers,  but people united by  common interests and,  most
surprising of all, well acquainted with the Pavlovskayas. And in all of this
there seemed to be some mysterious significance.


     DON'T KICK A MAN WHEN HE'S DOWN!


     Petya and Marina  strolled along a path in  the garden, each pretending
to be deep in thought, but actually not knowing  what to say, or rather  how
to begin.
     "Are you angry  with me?" asked  Marina, and as Petya remained morosely
silent  she cautiously  scratched his sleeve.  "Don't  be  angry," she said.
"Better let's be friends. Shall we?"
     Petya squinted down at her  and scented a trick. She was trying to lure
him  into  a  declaration.  She  wanted him  to  say,  "I don't  believe  in
friendship between a man and a woman." And then she would catch him at once.
Oh, no,  my dear, that's an  old game.  I'm not so silly! And Petya remained
silent.
     "Why are you so quiet?" she asked, trying to see his face.
     "There's  nothing I can say to you," he answered in a significant tone.
Let her understand it any way she liked. She sighed, then lowering her voice
almost to a whisper she asked, "Have you been wanting to see me?"
     "Have you?" asked Petya in his turn, not recognizing his own voice.
     "Yes, I  have,"  she  answered and  dropped her head so  low  that  the
cherries  fell off her  ears.  She  stopped  and  picked  them  up  in  some
confusion.
     "I even dreamed of you once," she said, blushing.
     Petya could  not  believe  his  ears.  "What's  this,"  he  thought  in
agitation.  "Can this be  a confession  of love?" Petya had never even dared
dream  of such happiness. But now,  when she shyly, truthfully told  him she
had  wanted to see  him,  she  had dreamed  of him, Petya  suddenly  felt an
enormous  relief, even disappointment.  Well,  that was all  right!  Only  a
minute ago she had seemed inaccessible, and now she had become a nice but at
the same time quite ordinary girl, not in the least like that Marina whom he
had loved in such hopeless torment.
     "Have you ever dreamed of me?" she asked.
     Petya felt the  decisive moment had come, the whole  further  course of
the romance depended on his answer. If he said, "Yes," it was the same  as a
declaration  of love. Where would he be then? He dreamed of her, she dreamed
of him; he loved  her,  she  loved him.  Mutual love. The  very thing he had
wanted. Of course, it was very nice and all that, but wasn't it a little too
soon?  Just as  things  were getting  interesting-there you were,  all of  a
sudden-mutual love!
     Of course, that would  relieve Petya of all sorts of worry and  trouble
like sleepless nights, jealousy, or sitting in wet wormwood tossing notes in
through a window.  That was certainly a  big advantage. But afterwards? Only
one thing  left-to  kiss  her. The very thought of that made  Petya  hot and
uncomfortable. No, no, anything you like, only not that!
     But there stood Marina leaning against the  ladder under a cherry tree,
looking at him  with darkened eyes and licking cracked lips that even looked
hot, lips from which Petya could not tear his eyes.
     "Why don't  you answer?" she insisted, in the voice of a snake-charmer.
"Did you dream of me?"
     Again she was clearly gaining the upper  hand. Another second and Petya
would  have  submissively  whispered,  "Yes." But  a  spirit  of  doubt,  of
contradiction, triumphed.
     "Strange as it may be, I haven't," said  Petya with a strained, crooked
smile which he imagined to be icy.
     She dropped her Lashes and turned slightly pale.
     "Aha,  caught  the  wrong  bird  this  time,  my  dear,"  thought Petya
triumphantly.
     He  had no pity  for her. Now, when  he  felt himself the conqueror, he
already liked her less.
     "Is that true?" She raised her  eyes and with feigned interest examined
the crown of the tree under which they were standing. Petya  even thought he
caught  a faint smile as though she had seen something amusing there. But he
was not to be caught by tricks like that.
     "You see," said Petya,  who was far from wanting to  bring matters to a
break, "it's not so much that I haven't  seen you in  dreams, but I've never
dreamed of you."
     "What do you mean?" she  asked with interest and  again  smiled up into
the tree, and even seemed to wink at it slyly.
     "It's  simple  enough," Petya answered. "To see a person in a  dream is
one  thing,  to  dream of a person is another. Can't  you understand that? I
could have seen you, you  see all sorts of things in dreams. Plenty of them.
But to dream specially of one person-that's something quite different."
     "I don't understand," she said, biting her lip.
     "I'll explain. To dream of a person, that's when ... well, how shall  I
put it... when, well,  when  you're in love,  or  whatever it is.  You,  for
instance,  have  you  ever loved  anyone?" asked  Petya  sternly, up on  his
hobbyhorse.
     "Yes. You," Marina answered quickly.
     Petya frowned to hide his satisfaction.
     "I don't believe in women's love," he answered with weary disillusion.
     "You're  wrong. And have you ever loved anyone?" she  asked.  She could
not have found a question that would please him more. Like a silly mouse she
came running into the trap so cleverly, insidiously set out by Petya.
     "Questions of that kind are never answered," said Petya, "but I'll tell
you,  because I regard  you as my  friend. After all, we are friends, aren't
we?"
     "I don't believe in friendship between a man and a woman," said Marina.
     "Well,  I  do!" said  Petya  in  chagrin. She  was beginning  really to
irritate  him;  she kept on  saying just  the things  he ought to have said.
Anyone would have thought she had never read a single love-story.
     "You're wrong," she observed. "But I thought you had  something to  say
to me?"
     "I wanted to  say-or rather, not say, to tell....  Well,  say  or tell,
what does it matter. But of course, only to you as  a friend, because nobody
else  knows or ever will  know."  Petya half  turned  from her  and hung his
head.-"I have loved," he said with a sad smile.  "Or rather, I love now. But
it is of no importance."
     "And she?"
     "Ah,  even more than I love her! I love, but  she is  in love.  And one
day, just imagine it, we went out on the steppe to  gather snowdrops. It was
a lovely evening in spring-"
     "I know," said Marina quickly. "It's Motya, isn't it?"
     "How did you guess?"
     "That doesn't matter. I did. Though I can't understand what you see  in
her," she added with a slight grimace. "Do you really love her?"
     "It's  queer, but  I do," said Petya  with a shrug. "I don't understand
myself how it  happened. There's nothing special  about her,  just  a pretty
face, but-there you are."
     There  was a  rustle in  the  leaves  above  and  a  cherry stone fell,
probably dropped by a starling.
     "Shoo!" cried Petya, waving his arms.
     "So that's it," said Marina jealously. "So you like going to the steppe
for snowdrops? Well, and what happened there? I suppose you kissed her?"
     "Questions like that are never answered," said Petya evasively.
     "But I'm your  friend so you've got to  tell me  everything. You've got
to!" Marina cried with an angry stamp.
     "Aha,  jealous, are you, my dear?" thought Petya. "You  wait, I've more
for you yet!"
     "Tell  me this minute, did you  kiss her or not? Or I'll go  right away
and you'll never see me again! You hear me? Never!" Her eyes flashed.
     She was  wonderfully pretty  at the  moment, and Petya with a  careless
shrug answered, "All right. Of course I kissed her."
     "Oh, for  shame, you little  fibber!" That  was Motya's voice from over
their  heads, and the next moment  Motya  herself,  her  face flushed,  came
sliding down and started hopping round Petya on one foot  chanting, "I never
thought you'd tell such fibs! I never thought you'd tell such fibs!"
     "Oh, Motya, you're a wonder, how you ever kept from laughing too soon!"
cried Marina, clapping her hands.
     "I  had to keep  my hand over my  mouth all the  time!"  Motya bubbled,
still hopping round Petya. "Fib-ber! Fib-ber!"
     Petya wished the earth would open and swallow him.
     "So that was it?" said Marina menacingly. "So you kissed her, did you?"
She went  close up  to Petya, with a quick,  dexterous  movement  twisted  a
strand of his hair round her finger and gave it a good, hard tug.
     "Ow! That hurts!" cried Petya.
     "Didn't you hurt me?" said Marina.
     Despite all the horror of his situation, Petya could not but appreciate
that splendid answer, taken straight from Turgenev's First Love.
     Suddenly  Marina gave her  mysterious, mermaid laugh  and with feminine
inconsequence said, "Listen, Motya, let's just give him a good beating!"
     "Let's!"  said Motya, and the two girls advanced  on Petya with ominous
laughter.
     With a quick movement he twisted away  from  under their very hands and
raced off at top speed, bare heels twinkling.
     Off went the girls after him. He could hear their merry, mocking cries.
They  were overtaking him. Then Petya decided on a well-known trick-to throw
himself  down  right  under the feet of  his pursuers. He was in too great a
hurry,  however, he flopped  down  before  the  girls were close enough. And
there he was,  looking  foolish on  all fours, while the girls leisurely ran
up, sat astride on him and started pummelling him.
     It did not hurt particularly, but it was humiliating.
     "Don't kick a man when he's down!" Petya groaned piteously.
     Then with  triumphant giggles they turned to tickling him. He  squealed
with helpless laughter. But just at the right moment Gavrik dropped from the
skies to help his friend.
     "Two to one's not fair! Rescue all!" he cried and flung himself down on
the girls. "Come on all! Come on all!"
     The summons immediately brought Pavlik, Zhenka  and the  boys and girls
of  Zhenka's gang, and  in a few moments  all that  could be seen under  the
trees was a  pile of heaving,  panting, giggling, squealing bodies, arms and
legs.


        TERENTY SEMYONOVICH


     That  night  Vasily  Petrovich  had  slept  like  the  dead-  the heavy
dreamless  sleep  of a  tormented exhausted  man, devoid of  all  thought or
feeling.
     It was  late when he wakened,  and for a  long time he continued lying,
eyes closed, face to the wall, unable to imagine  what  would happen to them
all now.
     At last he forced  himself to rise, dress and  go out into the orchard.
There he saw piles of cherries on the sacks and matting spread out under the
trees,  and  a great many  people-some  familiar, some strangers-standing on
ladders  or sitting  on  the  branches, gathering  the  crop. He  saw horses
cropping the  grass near  two platforms. And finally  he saw  Auntie  coming
towards him with small energetic steps, smiling cheerfully.
     "Well,  Vasily  Petrovich,  everything's  settled  and  it couldn't  be
better!"
     "What do you mean?"  he answered in a monotonous, expressionless voice.
A  faint smile  appeared on  his face, a strange fixed smile like  that of a
sleepwalker.
     "Oh, good gracious, what else could I mean but our crop, our cherries!"
Auntie answered gaily.
     At the word "cherries" Vasily Petrovich started.
     "No, no! For pity's sake,"  he groaned,  "for pity's  sake spare me all
that-that torture."
     "But listen a moment," said Auntie gently.
     "I won't  listen! I don't want to listen!  Leave  me alone!  I'd sooner
carry sacks at the  port!" cried Vasily Petrovich desperately, and, turning,
ran back into the house without looking hack, stumbling, waving his arms.
     "Listen to me at least!" Auntie called after him.
     He made  no  reply, he did  not want to understand anything except that
this  must  be  another  of  Auntie's  foolish  ideas  and  they  were   now
irretrievably ruined.
     He lay  down  again on  his  bed,  face to the  wall, wanting one thing
only-to be let alone.
     Auntie did let him alone, she knew it was no good talking to him. So in
two days everything was done, without Vasily Petrovich's participation.
     Platforms  drove  away and drove  back  again.  Horses snorted. Baskets
creaked. In the evening camp-fires sparkled on the steppe and, together with
the  smoke, the wind brought an appetizing smell of stew and baked potatoes,
and  the sound of singing. All  this made  for  a  cheerful,  almost festive
atmosphere. And it was indeed a festival of gay, free work.
     Vasily  Petrovich, however, saw nothing of it, or rather, he refused to
see  anything. He  was  in the  hopeless,  desperate, tormented state  of  a
trusting  man who  suddenly discovers that he has been  grossly deceived. He
realized that the whole world had deceived him.
     His world had been one of illusions. And the most dangerous of them had
been his belief that he was a free man of independent mind.  For  in reality
he, with all his  splendid, lofty thoughts,  his purity of spirit, his noble
heart,  with all his love  for his  country and his people, had been  a mere
slave, as much  a slave as  the millions of  other Russians, a slave  of the
church,  the state,  and what  was  called "society." As soon  as he made  a
feeble attempt to be honest and independent, the state poured its wrath upon
him in the person of  the official from the Education Department, "society,"
in the person of Faig; and when he tried to live by  the labour of his hands
so as to  preserve his  independence, to earn his bread  in the sweat of his
brow, he found that  this too was impossible, because  it did  not happen to
suit. Madame Storozhenko.
     Most of the time Vasily  Petrovich  spent  on his  bed,  but  now he no
longer turned his face to the wall,  he lay on his back,  his arms folded on
his chest, staring  at the ceiling with its  play  of green reflections from
the  orchard  outside.  His  jaws  were tightly clenched  and angry  furrows
crossed his handsome forehead.
     On the third day Auntie knocked at the door-softly but very decidedly.
     "Vasily Petrovich, would you mind coming out for a minute?"
     He jumped up and sat on the edge of the bed.
     "What is it? What do you want?"
     "Come on to the veranda."
     "Why?"
     "There's something important."
     "Will you kindly spare me any important affairs whatsoever."
     "All the same, I beg you to come."
     Vasily Petrovich caught a new, serious note in Auntie's voice.
     "Very well," he said dully. "Just a minute."
     He tidied himself, put on his  sandals, rinsed his  face,  smoothed his
hair with a wet brush and went out, prepared for any trials or humiliations.
     But  instead  of a  bailiff,  a policeman, a notary or something  along
those lines, he saw a stout  man of middle age in a canvas jacket-apparently
a workman, who  held a piece of sugar in  his  teeth  and  was  drinking tea
"through"  it from a saucer balanced on three fingers. Perspiration trickled
down  his red, pock-marked face,  and judging by the  warm  smile with which
Auntie regarded him, he was evidently a most admirable person.
     "Ah, here you are, let me introduce you," Auntie said. "This is Terenty
Semyonovich Chernoivanenko  from Near Mills. You remember, Petya stayed with
him, and our furniture's there."
     "I'm Gavrik's brother, your Petya's friend," said Terenty. He carefully
put  down the saucer and held out his great hand to  Vasily Petrovich. "Very
glad to make your acquaintance. I've heard a lot about you."
     "Really?" Vasily  Petrovich  said,  seating  himself at the  table  and
unconsciously assuming his "teacher" pose with one leg flung over the other,
his  pince-nez on  the black  cord dangling from  his hand.  "Well, well, it
would be interesting to hear exactly what it was you heard about me."
     "Oh, just that first you couldn't get on with  the  authorities because
of Count Tolstoi,  and  then you couldn't  get on with Faig because of  that
blockhead Blizhensky," Terenty said with a sigh, "well, and all the  rest of
it. And of course, you acted quite rightly and we respect you for it."
     Vasily Petrovich pricked up his ears.
     "And who are 'we'?" he asked.
     Terenty laughed good-naturedly.
     "  'We,' Vasily Petrovich, are ordinary  working folk. The people, that
is."
     Vasily Petrovich's alertness increased. It all .smacked of  "politics."
With some uneasiness he looked at Auntie, because this,  of course,  must be
her latest undertaking,  and perhaps a dangerous one. But  suddenly he saw a
pile of paper  money on the table-green  three-ruble notes, blue  fives  and
pink tens, neatly stacked and tied round with .thread.
     "What's that money?" he asked.
     "Just imagine," Auntie said with a modest smile of hidden triumph, "our
early cherry crop's sold and this is what we've made."
     "Six  hundred  and fifty-eight  rubles clear  profit!"  Terenty  added,
rubbing his hands. "Now you'll be all right!"
     "But just a moment," cried Vasily  Petrovich, mistrusting his own eyes.
"How did it all happen? The horses? The platforms? Our delivery? What? How?"
     "That's simple," Terenty said. "Our firm is on a sound footing. For the
right  kind  of  people we  can get  hold of anything-horses, platforms,  or
packing.  Because we're,  well  ...  the proletariat. Everything  is in  our
hands, Vasily Petrovich. Isn't that so?"
     Although the word "proletariat" was one of the most dangerous, smelling
not only of politics but even of revolution,  Terenty spoke it so simply and
naturally that Vasily Petrovich accepted it  just  as naturally, without the
slightest inner protest.
     "So  it's  you who  arranged  everything?"  he  said,  putting  on  his
pince-nez and looking at Terenty with renewed cheerfulness.
     "Yes, we did it," Terenty answered with a shade  of pride, and returned
Vasily Petrovich's cheerful look.
     "Our saviour!" said Auntie,
     Then she told  him in detail  and with a good deal of humour about  the
sale  of the cherries. They  had been taken on platforms through  the  whole
town and  sold right from  the platforms retail, and their success had  been
phenomenal.   People    grabbed    them    up,   sometimes    buying   whole
basketfuls-especially the  white  and pink ones; the black ones were less in
demand.
     "And  just   imagine,"  said  Auntie,  wrinkling  her  nose,  her  eyes
sparkling, "our Pavlik was the best salesman of all."
     "What?" Vasily Petrovich frowned. "Pavlik sold cherries?"
     "Of course," Auntie said, "we all did. Do you think I didn't  sell them
too? I most certainly did. I  put on an old hat a la Madame Storozhenko, sat
on the box by the driver, and drove in triumph along  all the streets. Well,
and how could I  stop the children after that?  They all sold cherries-Petya
and Motya and Marina and little Zhenya."
     "Wait  a moment,"  Vasily Petrovich said sternly. "Did my children sell
cherries in the streets? I think I can't have understood you properly."
     "Oh,  good  gracious,  there's  nothing to understand.  They sat on the
platforms  and drove  along  the  streets  shouting,  'Cherries!  Cherries!'
Somebody had to do the shouting. Just think how they enjoyed it! But Pavlik,
Pavlik!  He really amazed me. He shouted  better than any of the others. I'd
never thought. You know, he's got a voice just like-  Sobinov's. And such an
artistic manner,  and the most important  thing-a  real understanding of the
customer! He always knew how to treat them, when to  insist on a  high price
and when to lower it a bit."
     "Oh, this  is  outrageous!" muttered  Vasily  Petrovich  and  was  just
preparing  to  be  really  angry when he suddenly seemed to hear  his Pavlik
calling  out  in  a  voice  like  Sobinov's,  "Cherries! Cherries!"  and  an
involuntary smile slipped under his moustache. He snatched his pince-nez off
and sat back with his benevolent teacher's "He-he-he!" It did not last long,
however, in a moment he was frowning again.
     "It's  not  really  very funny,  though,"  he  said with  a  sigh.  "If
anything, it's sad. But it's a true  saying:  When in Rome, do as the Romans
do."
     "That's true," Terenty said, "but  it's not  all the truth. You mustn't
just do as the Romans do, you must fight them.  Or  they'll gobble you up so
there's nothing  left. Take that  old  bitch Madame  Storozhenko-excuse  the
language, but it's  the only name for her-she almost swallowed  you whole. A
good thing we managed to get here in time."
     "Yes," said Vasily  Petrovich, "I  don't know how to  thank you. You've
literally saved us from  ruin. Thank you! Thank you  from the  bottom of  my
heart!"
     "Fine words butter no parsnips," said Terenty with a grin.
     Vasily Petrovich looked  at Auntie in some  perplexity. He did not know
what to  do  next.  Ought he to offer Terenty  money? But  Terenty evidently
guessed his thought.
     "Nay, it's not money I mean,"  he said. "We helped you out, well,  just
to be neighbourly. From a feeling of solidarity. And, of course, not  to let
a good man down. Now we want you to help us a bit."
     Terenty kept using  the word "we,"  but for  some reason it  no  longer
alarmed Vasily Petrovich.
     "How can I help you?" he asked with interest.
     "This way." Terenty took out a folded  handkerchief and wiped  his big,
kindly face and round cropped head with the satiny-white soar on the temple.
"We've got  a small study  circle, a sort of Sunday school. We  read various
pamphlets, books, and  newspapers, and so  far as we can, we study political
economy. Well, that's all right as far as it goes," and Terenty sighed, "but
it  doesn't  go  far  enough.  Vasily  Petrovich,  we're  short  of  general
knowledge. You  know-history, geography ... how life began in the world  ...
that sort of thing. Now, how do you look at that?"
     "You mean, you want me to read some popular lectures?" Vasily Petrovich
asked.
     "That's  exactly it.  Yes, and a bit  of Russian literature wouldn't do
any harm either. Pushkin, Gogol, Count Tolstoi. ... In general, whatever you
think is needed, you know more about that. And in return we'll help you with
the orchard. The early cherries  are all sold, but there are still  the late
cherries, and apples, and  pears. And you've  a vineyard too. Not  very big,
but it'll take a good bit of work. You'll never manage it all by yourselves.
So that's the idea, you help us and we'll help you."
     Vasily Petrovich had already  resigned himself to the  thought that his
educational activities were over, and now such a  blaze of joy flared  up in
him that for  a  moment he could hardly  master himself. He  even rubbed his
hands  and  flashed  his pince-nez in his  old  class-room  manner, .saying,
"Well,  well...."  But  with  the  memory  of  the  trouble  and humiliation
connected with his former work, his enthusiasm quickly died out.
     "Ah, no," he said,  "no, no!  Anything but that!  I've had enough." His
face bore an imploring look and he cracked his fingers. "For pity's sake not
that! I vowed to myself. And what  sort of teacher am I if they've driven me
out from everywhere?" he concluded bitterly.
     "Why,  Vasily Petrovich, how can  you talk like  that!"  cried  Auntie,
horrified.
     "They didn't drive you out, they tried to gobble you up," Terenty said.
"You stuck in the throat of those gentry, so they just tried to get  you out
of the way. It's as Simple as that. We  stick in their throats too, but they
can't get rid of us.  We're too tough. They  couldn't  settle us properly in
1905, and now, in 1912,  they don't have a chance. And you want to deny it!"
he added reproachfully, although Vasily  Petrovich  had  said  nothing, only
stared at Terenty, trying to find the connection between 1905, 1912  and his
own fate which had worked out so dreadfully.
     "No," he said at last,  but with less resolution. "All  you  say may be
right to a certain extent, but it doesn't make it any easier for me." He was
just going to  add that he would rather go to the port and carry sacks,  but
for some  reason  stopped himself, thrust his  beard forward  and said, "And
that's that."
     "All right,"  Terenty said,  "have it your own  way. But I think you're
making a mistake. Where's the sense of  it if a  teacher stops teaching? Why
should  you  stop?  What's  it  matter that  you  couldn't  agree with  that
blockhead of an official  and that shark Faig?  They're  not the people. The
people  are still very  ignorant, you know  it  yourself. They  need  light,
knowledge. The working class lacks  educated people. And  where can  we find
them, when we haven't the means?  Who can help us  as  you can? We've helped
you,  you help us. We've got to  be  neighbourly, Vasily Petrovich. It's not
far from us to  you. The same proletariat. It's only two miles from here  to
Near Mills, across  the  steppe  as the  crow  flies. Well, what  about it?"
Terenty bent a warm look on Vasily Petrovich. "You won't have to come to us.
We'll  come  ourselves, if you agree; on Saturday evenings after work, or on
Sundays. We'll earth  up  your trees and water  the orchard  and work in the
vineyard, and  then you'll teach us a bit after.  Out in the open air, under
the trees, on the grass or somewhere on the steppe, in -some quiet spot-that
would really be fine. Especially as the police  have been giving us no peace
at all in Near Mills lately. As soon as folks get together anywhere to  talk
or  read  books-there's  a  raid,  a   search,  a  fuss-and  come   to   the
police-station. But  this is ideal. Even if they should come it is all plain
and  clear-folks  working in an orchard, the  most  ordinary  thing  in  the
world."
     Terenty talked gently, almost tenderly, respectfully, now and then just
touching Vasily Petrovich's sleeve with two fingers as softly  as though  he
were removing a wisp of down. And the more  he talked, the more that idea of
lessons under the sky, in the open air, appealed to Vasily Petrovich. It was
just  the  thing  that  had been lacking-free enlightenment inspired by free
physical labour.

     While Terenty was still talking, Vasily Petrovich made a mental plan of
his first  lectures. He would begin,  of course, with a  popular  outline of
general history and physical geography-perhaps to be followed by astronomy.
     "Well, Vasily Petrovich, what about it? Do you agree?" Terenty asked.
     "Yes, I do," Vasily Petrovich answered decidedly.
     That day Auntie went to town, made the payment, and a new life  started
at the farm.


        GLOW-WORMS


     For five days of the  week  everything went on  as  before. The Bacheis
continued to work in the  sweat of their brow, earthing up and watering late
cherry  and  apple trees.  The only  change  was  that  now the Pavlovskayas
sometimes joined them.
     Petya and  Marina had slipped into friendly, somewhat dull, neighbourly
terms. Nevertheless-more  from  habit than anything  else-he would sometimes
look  volumes at her to  which she usually replied by  unobtrusively putting
out her tongue.
     Every Saturday afternoon, however, a whole procession would arrive from
Near  Mills.  Motya,  Gavrik and  Zhenka  came,  then  tall, thin  Sinichkin
carrying his  spade carefully wrapped  in  newspaper under his arms. The old
railwayman  with his lamp whom Petya knew  from Near Mills and  Uncle  Fedya
would come striding .along in step  like  soldiers, Uncle Fedya with  a  big
copper kettle in his hand and a large, flat loaf of bread under his arm.
     The  young  schoolmistress  would  come  running  from  the  horse-tram
terminus, clasping a few dog-eared pamphlets to her breast.
     There were  others of Terenty's Sunday guests,  workers whom Petya  had
often seen  in the  streets, the  workshops or the gardens when  he lived in
Near Mills.
     Terenty  himself  usually came  last. He would  throw off his boots and
jacket, place them neatly under a tree and at once take charge.
     "Well, folks, time to stop smoking and get to work."
     He distributed the jobs quickly;  some people he  sent to help with the
earthing, others to  weed,  or  bring  water from the cistern, or  water the
trees, or work in the vineyard. Then he would take a spade or hoe  and start
himself.
     They worked for only a couple of hours or so, but got through more than
the  Bacheis had  done in  a week. Then  all went  to the sea for  a  bathe,
returned  refreshed,  sat  down soberly  in  a circle  under the  trees, and
Terenty went to fetch Vasily Petrovich.
     "Certainly, I'm  quite ready," he invariably replied, coming out on the
veranda in a freshly-ironed tussore jacket, starched shirt with a black tie,
and pointed kid boots.
     He approached  the  group  with his springy teacher's  step, erect  and
severe, carrying  under his arm an  exercise  book containing the outline of
his  lecture  which  he  had  been  preparing  for  several   days;  Terenty
respectfully brought a chair from the veranda and placed it for him.
     When Vasily Petrovich appeared, the "pupils" wanted to rise, but with a
quick  movement he gestured to them to remain seated, refused the  chair and
himself  sat  down  on  the  grass  as  though stressing  the special, free,
unofficial nature of the studies.
     It  should be added  that  this was the only  freedom  Vasily Petrovich
permitted himself. In  nothing else did he deviate a hair's breadth from the
strictest academic tradition.
     "Well,"  he  would say, glancing  down  at  his  notes,  "last  time we
discussed the life of primitive man who  already knew how  to make fire, who
hunted with the aid of crude  weapons of stone, but who had not yet  learned
to cultivate the land or to sow grain...."
     Petya, who sometimes joined the circle, discovered a new father-not the
ordinary, domestic  Dad-dear,  kind and  sometimes  unhappy, but  a  capable
teacher presenting his subject in a clear, logical sequence.
     Petya had never realized his father had such a fine, ringing  voice, or
that  mature working men could listen  to him with such childlike attention.
Petya noticed that they even stood a little in awe  of him. Once Uncle Fedya
forgot  where he was and lighted a cigarette. Then  Vasily Petrovich stopped
in the middle of a sentence and fixed such an icy look upon the culprit that
he crushed out  the cigarette  in his palm, flushed  crimson, jumped to  his
feet,  and standing to attention with bulging eyes jerked out  navy-fashion,
"Excuse me, Comrade Lecturer! Won't happen again!"
     "Sit  down," said  Vasily  Petrovich  coldly  and  took  up his lecture
exactly where he had broken off.
     Behind his  back  Terenty  shook  his  fist at Uncle  Fedya, and  Petya
realized that his father not only  himself took  a pride  in his profession,
but made others respect it too.
     Usually they  all spent  the night  with the  Bacheis, rising early  to
work,  so  they cooked their  supper immediately after the lecture to get to
sleep in good time.
     A  fire was lighted  beside  the  twig-and-weed  shanties, and a  great
cauldron of potato-and-pork stew was hung  over it. Night fell; the darkness
under the trees became so intense that from the distance it looked as though
the fire was burning in the mouth of a cave. Black shadowy forms moved round
it; they were gigantic and it seemed that their heads could touch the stars.
It all reminded Petya of a gipsy camp.
     When the stew was ready, Terenty would go to the house to invite Vasily
Petrovich to join them.
     In  a few moments he would  appear, this time  in  domestic garb-an old
Russian shirt and sandals on his bare feet. Someone  would hand him a wooden
spoon and, squatting down, he would eat  the rather smoky stew  with evident
relish and praise it highly.
     Then they would  drink tea, also  smoky, and  eat rye bread.  Sometimes
fishermen from Bolshoi Fontan whom Terenty  knew  would join  them, bringing
fresh  fish. On  those  occasions supper  would  continue  until  long  past
midnight.  Gradually the talk  would  turn to  political  subjects-at first-
cautiously,  in veiled- words, then with  increasing  frankness, with such a
vigour of expression  that  Vasily Petrovich would  produce  a yawn, stretch
himself, rise and say, "Well, I won't trouble you any further. Thank you for
the supper, but now I'm for bed. And I advise you to get some sleep too. The
stew was really incomparable."
     Nobody urged him  to stay. They  would put out the fire  and gather  in
Terenty's  shanty,  light the railway lantern and continue their talk-but it
was talk of a different  nature. Pavlovskaya would join them, bringing along
a  thick, worn, cloth-bound book.  Petya knew that now they would  read Karl
Marx's Capital and the latest issue of the Pravda, and after that they would
discuss Party affairs.
     This, however,  was not for Petya's ears, not  even for Gavrik's. Their
job was to  walk all  round the orchard and the house, keeping an eye on the
steppe and especially  on the roads.  If they  saw anything suspicious, they
were to give the alarm by firing the shot-gun. But who  could appear  in the
middle of the night on  the steppe, so far  from town? Who  could ever think
that  an  innocent orchard  concealed  a  small shanty  lighted by a railway
lantern where eight or ten workmen and fishermen were discussing the destiny
of Russia, the destiny  of the  world, drawing up leaflets, discussing Party
matters and preparing for revolution.
     Petya  and  Gavrik,  however,  did  their  duty conscientiously.  Petya
carried  the  old  shot-gun  they  used  for scaring  birds  slung over  his
shoulder, while Gavrik now and then slipped his right hand into  a pocket to
touch a loaded Browning of which Petya knew nothing.
     At first the girls  would  go round with them, for company.  Marina, of
course, knew what it was all about, but Motya innocently  thought  they were
guarding the orchard  against  thieves, and  followed Petya on tiptoe, never
taking her eyes off the shot-gun.
     She was no longer angry with him for being such a little liar, she even
loved him more, especially now when it was so quiet, dark and mysterious all
round, when  sleep had laid its  hand on  everything but the quails and  the
crickets, when the whole steppe lay silvery in the starlight.
     "Petya, aren't  you even a bit afraid of thieves?" she  whispered,  but
Petya pretended not to have heard.
     He  was  not  in the mood for  love. And  altogether, he  had vowed  to
himself to have no more dealings with girls. He'd had enough! Better to be a
lone, brave, taciturn man for whom women do not exist.
     He  gazed  intently  out on the empty  steppe,  ears  pricked  for  the
slightest sound. But Motya tiptoed after him and asked, "Petya, if you see a
thief will you shoot him?"
     "Of course," Petya answered.
     "Then I'll stop up my ears," Motya whispered, faint with fear and love.
     "Let me alone!"
     She said  no more,  but in a little  while  Petya heard a  queer  sound
behind him, like a cat sneezing. It was Motya's stifled giggle.
     "What are you sniggering about?"
     "Remember that time Marina and I fooled you?"
     "Idiot! It was I that fooled you both," Petya growled.
     "You let  your  imagination  run away  with you,"  said Marina  in  her
mother's voice. During these nocturnal strolls she was very quiet, reserved,
adult, said little and walked beside Gavrik, even taking his  arm sometimes.
And although that did give Petya a pang of jealousy, he continued resolutely
in his role of a man for whom love does not exist.
     But alas, love  did exist, the  whole  warm night on the  steppe seemed
filled  with it.  It was  in  everything-the  dark sky,  thick  with  summer
star-dust, the crystal choir of crickets, the gentle, warm,  scented breeze,
the distant barking of a dog, and especially the glow-worms that seemed like
fires in the far  distance, yet you  need  but stretch out your hand and the
soft,  weightless little lamp lay on your palm shedding its dead green light
on a tiny patch of skin.
     The girls collected glow-worms and put them in  each other's hair. Then
they began to yawn and soon afterwards went  to their shanty, floating  away
through the darkness like twin constellations.
     Gavrik  and  Petya continued to guard  the  camp  alone until the light
disappeared  in Terenty's  shanty.  Sometimes this  was  only when dawn  was
breaking.
     In those early morning hours  Gavrik talked with unusual frankness, and
Petya  learned  much that  was  new to  him.  He understood now that  a new,
-powerful revolutionary movement had  already begun, and that  it was led by
Ulyanov-Lenin  who, Gavrik said, had moved from Paris to Cracow to be closer
to Russia.
     "And  do  you  think  it'll  really  come-revolution?"   asked   Petya,
pronouncing the dreadful word with an effort.
     "I don't just think it, I'm sure of it," Gavrik answered and added in a
whisper, "If you want to know, it's already-"
     Petya waited breathlessly for what Gavrik would  say next.  But  Gavrik
said nothing, he. could not  find the words for all he  had sensed  or heard
from  Terenty. But Petya  understood. The  Lena  shooting.  The strikes. The
meeting on  the  steppe.  The Pravda.  The fight  with  that  bully. Prague.
Cracow. Lenin. And finally this night, that lantern in the shanty. What else
was it all but a herald of the mounting tide of revolution?


        MOUSTACHE


     Soon the late cherries ripened. There were fewer trees this time but no
less bother.
     At the height of the picking Madame Storozhenko suddenly appeared. This
time  she did  not  enter  but had the  britzka  stop at the far side of the
scrub-grown earth bank that marked  the boundary. For a  long time she stood
on the step,  steadying  herself  with  a hand on the  head of  one  of  the
Persians, watching the work.
     "Ragamuffins,  scamps, proletarians!" she  kept screaming, shaking  her
big canvas sunshade  threateningly. "I'll  teach you to  go  forcing  prices
down! I'll have the police on you!"
     Nobody took any notice and she finally drove away, with a parting yell,
"I'll put a stop to your tricks, so help me God!"
     The next day platforms came for the cherries. While they were still out
on  the  steppe,  a little  distance from the orchard, Petya  saw some heavy
boxes thrown off them which afterwards disappeared.
     "What boxes were those?" he asked.
     "I thought  you  were  asleep,"  Gavrik  replied,  evidently  none  too
pleased. He ignored Petya's question.
     "No, but seriously, what were those boxes?"
     "What boxes?" Gavrik drawled,  with a  look of innocence. "Where'd  you
see any boxes? There aren't any!"
     But Petya had seen them plainly enough.
     "Don't play the fool!" he snapped angrily.
     Gavrik came and stood in front of him, legs apart.
     "Forget them," he  said sternly. But there was such  mysterious triumph
in his face, such a sly gleam in  his eye that Petya's curiosity only flamed
higher.
     "Tell  me-what were they?" he said again. He knew full  well that their
contents was  some important  secret,  and that  Gavrik was aching to  boast
about it. "Well?" he said insistently.
     Then Gavrik brought  his face  up  close, hesitated a moment, and after
looking all round said in a whisper, "A flat press."
     Petya could not believe his ears.
     "What?" he said.
     "A flat  press for printing," Gavrik said  very  distinctly. "Don't you
understand? Dunderhead!"
     Dozens of times Petya had passed that little gully on the steppe, thick
with tall weeds, without noticing anything special  about  it. But  when  he
looked at it this time he saw the weeds at the  bottom stir and two  figures
climb  out-first  Uncle  Fedya  and  then  the  old  railwayman.  Now  Petya
understood it all. There  must be  a cave in the  rocks at the bottom of the
gully, there were many of these caves all round the city,  opening on to the
steppe or  among the cliffs, and Petya  knew they were the entrances to  the
famous Odessa catacombs. So that was where the boxes had gone!
     "Get it?" said Gavrik and gave Petya such a  keen, almost menacing look
that  the boy was just about  to pronounce  some  solemn vow when  he caught
himself up, and returning Gavrik's look, said merely, "Yes. I got it."
     "I  hope  you do,"  said Gavrik.  "And remember,  you've  seen nothing.
Forget it all."
     "I  know," Petya  said, and they both went unhurriedly to  the  orchard
where the cherries were being poured out in piles on the platform.
     Next morning Terenty reappeared  on the veranda and  put  some money on
the table.
     "You  see how well it works out," he  said. "You help us, we  help you.
There's  a hundred and seventeen here,  and we kept  back fifteen rubles for
small expenses. I hope you don't object?"
     "Oh, of course not, of course not," Vasily Petrovich said.
     He never suspected  that these  "fifteen rubles for small expenses" had
been sent that very day to St. Petersburg,  and  that  in a week's  time the
list of acknowledgements of cash received in the Pravda would include a line
that read, "From a group of Odessa workers, 15 rubles."
     That was how the cherry crop was marketed.
     The  next  thing  would  be  the early  apples.  The summer was passing
quietly, everything was going well-except for a small  incident which passed
unnoticed by all but Petya,  on whom it left an unpleasant  impression. . As
he neared the orchard one day after a bathe he  saw a man coming out of  the
gate. There was something familiar about him. Moved by an inexplicable sense
of danger, Petya slipped  quietly  into  the  maize field and  squatted down
among  the thick stems  and rustling leaves.  The man  passed  so close that
Petya  could have reached out and  touched his dusty serge trousers and grey
canvas shoes.  He looked up and saw against the bright blue sky  and  marble
clouds a head in a summer  cap of loofah with  two peaks-in front and at the
back-the kind of cap dubbed "Hullo-Good-bye!"; he saw the grey moustache and
pince-nez of dark  glass like those worn by the blind. It was Moustache, the
secret police spy whose face  had been imprinted on Petya's mind as a child,
on the Turgenev, and whom he  had seen  again just  before his trip  abroad,
standing with a coastguard officer on board the Palermo.
     The man passed  without noticing Petya, his bluely shaved cheeks puffed
out, trumpeting softly a popular march.
     Petya waited a little while and then hurried home to find out what this
man  had come for. But  he  got little satisfaction. According to Auntie, it
was a summer resident from Bolshoi Fontan who had  simply come for cherries;
Auntie  had told him she was sorry but he was too late. He had  walked round
the orchard, praised it  and  said  he  would  most  certainly  come back in
September when the grapes were  ripe.  That was all. As it was the middle of
the week only the family had been there, and. Petya felt easier in his mind.
Perhaps  the man  really was staying at  Bolshoi  Fontan for  the summer and
really had  come only  for cherries.  After all, he  was a human being,  why
shouldn't he have a summer cottage at Bolshoi Fontan?
     Gavrik,  however, took  it much more seriously, although he agreed that
it might be mere chance".  To be  on the safe  side,  Terenty  increased the
sentries, and Gavrik and Petya paced the steppe not  only on Saturday nights
but during the day as well. It was evidently a false alarm, however, for the
man did not appear again.


        THE SAIL


     One  Saturday at  the  beginning  of  August  Petya  and Gavrik,  after
circling  round the orchard a few times  and seeing nothing suspicious, went
to the  cliffs, lay  down and  gazed out to sea. The  sun had only just set,
there  was  a brisk wind  and  the  glow was  fading from  the  pink clouds.
Dolphins played not far from the  shore, and on the horizon the  white sails
of scows stood out against the sky, for it was the mackerel fishing season.
     The  scows  moved  in various directions  and  frequently changed their
course, now approaching, now withdrawing. Sometimes one of them  would  come
quite close and  pass,  tossing, along the coast; then the two could see the
fountains of  spray  as  its  flat  bottom slapped the  water,  and  the man
standing on  the battered  bow moving a long  rod, bent like a bow, backward
and  forward.  The  boys knew  that at  the end  of  the  long  line  was  a
bait-brightly painted fish of  lead  with a  multitude  of sharp  hooks. The
great art of this kind of fishing was to adapt the speed of the bait  to the
movement  of the  shoal. The  rapacious mackerel would start to  pursue  the
shining bait  and it must not be pulled too far  ahead or made  too easy  to
seize. The fisherman must tantalize the fish before letting it snap, then it
would be firmly caught.
     It was  interesting to watch,  but  Petya and Gavrik  were  thinking of
something else.  They watched the  sails, trying to guess which was  the one
they awaited.
     In addition to the fishing boats they could see far out the smart white
sails of  the racing yachts of the fashionable clubs on  the last lap of the
annual handicap for the prize offered by the Odessa millionaire Anatre. They
were just racing for the finish, leaning over  sharply with  the wind-lovely
vessels built at the best wharves of Holland and Britain. At any other time,
of course, Petya and Gavrik  would have had  eyes for nothing else, but  now
Gavrik   only   remarked  contentedly,   "It's   like  Saturday  evening  on
Deribasovskaya Street. Crowded. Easy to slip through."
     "I believe it's that one, look, with the old 'Bolshoi Fontan lighthouse
on her beam,"  said Petya, pronouncing the words  "on her beam" with special
satisfaction.
     "No," said Gavrik, ''Akim Perepelitsky's scow is bright blue, only just
painted, and this is all scaled off!"
     "I believe you're right."
     "I certainly am." "Look! There she is!" -
     "Where?"
     "Opposite Golden Shore, a bit closer, look, bright blue!"
     "It's got a new jib, Perepelitsky's is patched."
     "When did they say they'd come?"
     "When the sun sets."
     "It's set now."
     "It's still too light. Needs to get a bit darker first."
     "Maybe they won't come at all?"
     "Rubbish. This is Party work."
     The boys went on staring intently out to sea.
     Only a  little while before a representative  of the  Central Committee
had  come  to Odessa secretly from abroad, from Ulyanov-Lenin, bringing  the
Party  directives regarding the  elections to  the Fourth  State Duma. For a
week  now he  had been  going everywhere addressing Party meetings about the
political situation.  Now he was expected  at  the farm.  As A precautionary
measure  a  young-fisherman,  Akim Perepelitsky, was  to  bring  him on  his
fishing boat from Langeron.
     The light  faded from  the clouds, the sea  darkened. The yachts passed
and disappeared. The  sails of fishing boats became noticeably fewer. A band
was playing far away, in  Arcadia, and the wind brought the distant music of
trumpets and the dull thud of a drum. And still Akim Perepelitsky's scow did
not appear.
     Suddenly Gavrik cried, "Look, there it is!"
     It  was not at all where  they had  expected it to  appear -instead  of
coming from the Langeron side, it appeared from  near to Lustdorf. Evidently
Akim  Perepelitsky  thought it safer to  keep  far out to sea until  he  was
opposite Lustdorf  and  then turned back to Kovalevsky's dacha. Now the scow
was quite close in, leaping  from wave  to wave before  a brisk wind, making
straight for the shore.
     There were  two  men in it. The one lying  back in the  stern with  the
tiller  under his arm was Akim Perepelitsky, Petya  knew him  at  once.  The
other-short  and thickset,  in an  old, striped singlet  under a fisherman's
canvas  coat, barefoot, trousers rolled to his knees-was sitting astride the
side of the boat, skilfully unlashing the jib-sheet.  This man Petya did not
immediately recognize.
     While the boys  raced down the cliff path  the  sails were furled,  the
rudder taken in  and  dropped  in  the  stern, the keel raised  and the scow
grounded  gently,  the bottom scraping the pebbles as it  buried its nose in
the shingle.
     Following the unwritten law of the coast, Petya and Gavrik first helped
to pull the heavy boat ashore, and then greeted the arrivals.
     "Gosh!  It's Uncle  Zhukov!" cried  Gavrik  like a child, shaking hands
vigorously with the Central  Committee"  representative. "I knew  it! I  was
sure it was you coming!"
     Zhukov looked at  Gavrik for a moment. "Aha!" he said at last.  "Now  I
know you  too. Wasn't it you who pulled me  out of the water opposite Otrada
Villa  seven  years ago? Look  how  you've  shot  up! I'm sorry  about  your
grandad.... Aye, he was a good old man, I liked him! Well, may his soul rest
in peace. I remember how  he kept praying to St. Nicholas,  not that he ever
got  anywhere by it...."  A shadow  from past  memories passed  over  Rodion
Zhukov's face.
     "What's your name, by the way? I'm afraid I've forgotten."
     "Gavrik. Gavrik Chernoivanenko."
     "Chernoivanenko? Any relation to Terenty?"
     "Yes, I'm his brother."
     "You don't say! And following in his footsteps, I  see." "Uncle Zhukov,
I know you too," Petya put in plaintively, tired of seeing the attention  of
the  Central Committee representative  concentrated on Gavrik alone. "I knew
you even before he did. When you hid in the coach, remember? And then on the
Turgenev."
     "Well, of all things!" cried Zhukov merrily.  "So it  looks as if we're
old friends, too, if you're telling the truth."
     "I  am,  I swear it," cried Petya and crossed himself. "Gavrik can tell
you. Gavrik, tell him how I carried cartridges to Alexandrovsky Street!"
     "It's right, he did," said Gavrik.
     "And I saw you in Naples a year ago. You were with Maxim  Gorky.  Isn't
that right?"
     Zhukov looked at Petya.
     "Yes, it's right," he said. "I remember you now. You were in a sailor's
blouse, weren't you?"
     "Yes," Petya said and looked at Gavrik in triumph.
     "See?"
     "Only there's one thing, lads," said Zhukov sternly.
     "Forget that I was ever called  Uncle Zhukov. That's gone. I'm Vasilyev
now. Don't forget. What's my name?"
     "Vasilyev," the boys said in one voice.
     "Remember, then.... Well, and what's your name?" he asked,  turning  to
Petya.
     "Petya."
     "He's that teacher's son," Gavrik amplified.
     "I guessed it," said Zhukov, thought for a moment and added decisively,
"well, don't let's waste time. Let's go. Have they all come?"
     "Long ago," Gavrik answered.
     "All clear along the way? I gave them my word in Cracow  that I'd be as
prudent as a young lady."
     "Yes, it's all clear," Gavrik said.
     Rodion Zhukov took a round basket of mackerel from the scow and  put it
on his head, like any fisherman taking his catch to sell at the villa doors.
     "A good catch," said Gavrik with respect.
     "A whole basket in  one go and with one  silver bait,"  laughed Zhukov,
with a wink  at  Akim  Perepelitsky. Handsome  young  Akim with  a  forelock
falling over his forehead swung the  oars with lazy grace on to his shoulder
and they began to climb the cliff path.
     Gavrik went about fifty paces  in front of the two  men, Petya the same
distance  behind them; if either of them noticed anything  suspicious he was
to  whistle through his fingers. Petya held  his fingers ready, worried by a
foolish fear that if  he  needed to whistle, he might suddenly be  unable to
make  a sound.  Everything was quiet, however,  and avoiding the  road, they
made their way to the  orchard where Terenty met them by the vineyard. Petya
saw them  hug each other with many  enthusiastic slaps on the back, and then
go  to the shanties  where a  fire was  already  crackling  under the trees,
sending out showers of golden sparks.
     When  Petya  went  up to the shanties a little  later,  Rodion  Zhukov,
smoking  a short pipe  with  a  metal lid,  was  sitting  before  the  fire,
surrounded by a group of people.
     "Let's review the events that have taken place in the six months  since
the Prague Conference, comrades," he was  saying.  "In  the first place, the
Party exists again. That is  the main thing.  I don't  need to  tell you how
this was done, what tremendous difficulties  -we had to  overcome. There was
the rabid persecution by the tsarist  police, the failures, the provocation,
the incessant interruptions in the work of the local centres and the Central
Committee. But  now  that's all past, thank heaven. Our Party's  going ahead
boldly, confidently,  broadening its activities and increasing its influence
among the masses. Not in the old way, but in the  new way.  What was left to
us after the  defeat of  the 1905 Revolution?  Illegal  activities,  nothing
else.  But now  in addition to our illegal cells,  our secret little  groups
even more carefully concealed than  before, we  have broader,  legal Marxist
teaching. It is this combination of legal and illegal that characterizes our
preparations for  revolution under the new conditions. We are advancing to a
new  .revolution,  comrades,  under slogans  of  a  democratic  republic, an
eight-hour working day and complete confiscation of all the big estates. You
know  that these slogans have been caught up over the whole  of Russia. They
have been accepted by all the thinking proletariat. To put it briefly, we've
stopped  the retreat.  Stolypin's  liberal counter-revolution is on its last
legs. There  are  more  strikes, mere  uprisings.  This  is  a revolutionary
movement of the masses, it is the  beginning of the offensive of the working
masses against the tsarist monarchy."
     Petya never  took his eyes off Rodion Zhukov, off that face lighted  by
the leaping, crackling flames of the fire. He was no longer the Zhukov Petya
had seen as a child and had never forgotten.  Nor was it  the Zhukov  he had
seen in Naples, nor even  the Zhukov who had just  walked  barefoot over the
steppe  with  the  round  basket   of  fish  on  his  head.  It  was  a  new
Zhukov-Comrade Vasiilyev, exacting, almost stern,  with narrowed, imperative
eyes, a firm mouth and short  moustache clipped a  foreign way.  It  was the
sailor who had become a captain.
     "Now let's talk  about the  elections to the Fourth State Duma," Zhukov
went   on.   "Despite   persecution   and    mass   arrests,   the   Russian
Social-Democratic  Party  now has  a  clearer,  more definite programme  and
tactics than any other party. This is how Vladimir Lenin-Ulyanov, writing in
the  Workers'   Paper,  formulated  the   situation   on  the   eve  of  the
elections...."
     Gavrik tugged at Petya's sleeve.
     "What  are  you  sitting  here for,  as if  you've nothing  to do?"  he
whispered. "We've got to keep watch."
     Petya  slipped quietly out of the circle,  and suddenly saw his father.
Vasily Petrovich stood  leaning  against a tree,  arms folded,  listening so
intently  to Rodion  Zhukov that  he did not  even  turn his head when Petya
jolted  his  shoulder in passing. His hair  fell in disorder over his  lined
forehead and a tiny reflected fire sparkled in each glass of his pince-nez.


        AT THE CAMP-FIRE


     Petya and Gavrik circled the orchard and turned on to  the road leading
to the terminus.  The  old  horse-tram  had  recently  been replaced  by  an
electric tram; its deep cello note  came to  them from the distance,  a blue
electric spark travelled along  the  wire past the gardens,  and  the bright
light from the windows made the  steppe  seem still darker.  Suddenly Gavrik
stopped and  gripped  Petya's  arm. A number of white figures  were  walking
along the side of the road in single file, making straight  for the Bacheis'
orchard. Before  Gavrik  had time  to whisper, "Police!" Petya distinguished
the white summer tunics. The boys raced breathlessly back to the fire.
     "The  Liquidators shout  about  a  decent,  licensed  platform  for the
elections. But  we Bolsheviks  consider that what's needed isn't a  platform
for  the  elections,  but   elections  for  carrying  out  a   revolutionary
Social-Democratic platform. We have already used the elections  for this and
we shall continue using them, we shall use even the most reactionary tsarist
Duma for revolutionary teaching, agitation, propaganda. That's how it is!"
     Rodion Zhukov  coughed angrily and reached out to the fire for an ember
to  relight his pipe; at that moment Gavrik whispered to Terenty  who raised
his hand without getting up.
     "Just a minute, comrades. A point of order," he said in a quiet, almost
business-like  tone.  "First  of  all  please  preserve  absolute  calm  and
revolutionary self-control. We're surrounded by police."
     Petya  expected  everyone  to jump up and seize weapons. He  pulled his
shot-gun off his shoulder-he had not had time to fire it as they ran back to
the farm. Now it's going to start, he thought, fearful yet thrilled.
     To his great surprise, however, all remained  sitting quietly round the
fire. Only Rodion Zhukov with a sharp movement  knocked out his pipe  on the
ground and slipped it into his pocket.
     "All  stop where you are; you, Rodion, and you, Tamara," Terenty turned
to  Pavlovskaya, "will have  to hide for a little while.  We've  got a  good
place not far from here. Gavrik, off you go! Take our illegal workers to the
gully. They can sit it out there."
     "Damn them, they  interrupted us at  the  most  important point,"  said
Rodion Zhukov gaily. "Well, comrades, here you've got a splendid instance of
our  tactics-the  combination  of  legal  and  illegal."  His  eyes  flashed
mischievously yet somehow menacingly in the light of the fire.
     "Go on, go on underground," said Terenty impatiently.
     Pavlovskaya and Zhukov followed Gavrik, passing  beneath the  trees and
disappearing  into  the darkness.  A  slight shadow that was Marina  slipped
after them.  Petya  made  to follow her, gripping  his shot-gun, but Terenty
shook  his finger in warning and he  halted. Everything happened quickly and
quietly,  without any stir. When the police officer with  three of  his  men
followed Moustache into the orchard, trying to step quietly and  keep  their
sabres from  rattling,  they  found  a picture  of  perfect peace-a group of
people sitting by a camp-fire quietly eating supper.
     "Who are you?  What's the reason for  this assembly?" the officer asked
sternly, advancing out  of the darkness.  Without  a  doubt  he expected his
appearance to be as startling as a clap of thunder. But they went quietly on
with their supper, only the old railwayman carefully licked his wooden spoon
clean, wiped it  on  his  trousers  and  held it out to the officer  saying,
"You're welcome to join us, to have a bite of supper. Akim, move over a bit,
so there's room for His Honour to sit down."
     "Nay, what's  the good  of  that,"  drawled  Akim  Perepelitsky lazily.
"They've got a whole squad, our stew'll not  go round them all.  They'd best
go back to the station and eat their prison skilly."
     "Get up!" snapped the officer. "Who d'you think you're talking to?"
     "No need to be so  free, Your Honour, we haven't tended pigs together,"
drawled Akim more lazily still, raised himself on his elbow  and spat in the
fire.
     "Ugh-rabble!" said the officer viciously, blowing his reddish moustache
and wrinkling his fleshy nose. "You- I'll make you...."
     Meanwhile,  the  policemen stood in the darkness under the trees, ready
at any moment to  seize anyone  they could lay  hands  on, although what was
happening was very different from what they had expected.
     They had  thought they would  catch dangerous bomb-throwers red-handed,
that  they would have  to use  their sabres and  perhaps fire-arms too.  But
instead of that, this man with  the moustache had brought them to an orchard
where people  sat  round  a camp-fire peacefully eating their supper and not
only  showed no  fear of  the police  but  even  talked impertinently to the
officer. It looked as though they'd come on a fool's errand.
     "My good sir, I haven't the honour of knowing who you are," said Vasily
Petrovich  in a voice trembling  with indignation, drawing himself up to his
full height and coming up close to the officer.  "What do you want  here? By
what right  do you  break into  this orchard? And- and-and interrupt  people
having their supper," he added, his beard shaking.
     "And who might you be?" asked the officer sternly.
     "I not only might be,  I am the tenant and full master here, on a fully
legal agreement," said Vasily Petrovich, assuming a lofty schoolroom manner.
"These  are my labourers ...  seasonal labourers, if the  term  pleases  you
better,  whom I  hired to work in the garden and vineyard."  (Terenty nodded
approvingly.) "I am Councillor  Bachei, and I won't stand any trespassing on
my grounds at night!" he cried, his voice rising to a  shout, and he stamped
his sandaled foot angrily.
     "Excuse me,  we  are not  trespassing,  we  are the  police,"  said the
officer, falling back a step.
     "To me you are trespassing!" Vasily Petrovich shouted. "I wish to  have
nothing to do  with you. Why do  you  persecute me? Great heavens,"  and his
voice became plaintive.  "When  will it all end? First it was that official,
then  Faig, then Madame Storozhenko. And now the police. Leave me alone!" he
yelled, beside himself. "Let me live  in peace! Lea-ve m-ee a-lo-ne! Or I'll
lodge a complaint-with the Governor, with Major-General Tolmachov!"
     Strange  as  it  might seem, his  confused  speech  produced a  decided
impression  on  the officer, especially the mention of Tolmachov. After all,
who could  say what he was, this Bachei? Suppose he really did  complain  to
General Tolmachov?
     "You  don't  need  to raise  your voice,"  said  the  officer, more  in
expostulation  than  threat,  and  went  over  to  Moustache  who  had  been
sauntering about in the darkness under the trees, carefully looking over all
the  men round the fire, one after  the other. The officer whispered to him,
coughed, and turned back to Vasily Petrovich.
     "We have information  that  various illegal assemblages  are constantly
held  here, that  banned pamphlets are  read and-well, that people assemble.
And all assemblages are at present strictly forbidden."
     "But,  Your  Honour," said  Akim  Perepelitsky  insinuatingly,  "people
assemble for work here, to earn a bit- well, to dig round the trees  and tie
up the  vines, and do the watering.... It's a bit of  extra money for a poor
man."
     "I'm not  talking to  you," the officer snapped. "I'm  talking  to  the
tenant."
     "I don't see  that we have anything to discuss," said Vasily Petrovich.
"As for your assertion  that some kind of banned pamphlets are read here and
all the rest of it, that is simply  a figment  of your diseased imagination,
nothing more."
     "Then  why do  you  assemble these  people here  at night?"  asked  the
officer  wearily-he  had realized  long ago that the  raid  was  a  failure,
because nothing could be proved.
     "They  'assemble,'"  said  Vasily Petrovich with a  delicately ironical
emphasis on the word, "because with your kind permission I read lectures  to
them."
     "Aha, lectures?" The officer pricked up his ears.
     "Yes,"  Vasily Petrovich  said,  straightening his pince-nez.  "Popular
educational  lectures  on  the  history  of  civilization,  literature   and
astronomy-following the programme  authorized by  the Ministry of Education.
Have you any objections?"
     "Astronomy." The officer shook his head disapprovingly and wrinkled his
fleshy nose. "Of course,  if you follow the authorized programme, then  it's
all right, you can go on."
     "Ah, so you permit it?"  cried Vasily  Petrovich  in mock delight. "You
permit it! How very condescending! Well then-in that case I will not venture
to detain  you  any  longer. Or  perhaps you would  like  to make  a search-
confiscation-or whatever you  call it? In that case, be so kind. The orchard
is at your disposal!" exclaimed Vasily Petrovich ceremoniously with a broad,
hospitable  gesture of  both  arms  as  though wishing  to  embrace all this
wonderful night with its dark trees, camp-fire, glow-worms and starry sky.
     "Dad's grand!" thought Petya, his eyes fixed  admiringly on his father.
At that moment there was the rustle of skirts and Auntie came running out.
     "What's this? What's this? What's  going on  here?" she panted, turning
alarmed eyes on the officer and the policemen.
     "Don't  get  excited,  it's nothing  dreadful,"  said  Vasily Petrovich
calmly.  "This gentleman had  been given false information-that some kind of
illegal assemblages took place here, but fortunately it all turned out to be
a mistake."
     "Aha, I understand," said Auntie. "That's probably Madame Storozhenko's
doing."
     "I can  tell  you  nothing about that, madame," said  the  officer, and
after whispering  to Moustache, he gestured angrily to the policemen.  These
shuffled about a little,  then moved away through the orchard in single file
like geese, their white  tunics  adding to the resemblance in the  darkness.
Soon they disappeared through the gate.
     "As for  those  lectures of yours,  I  shall have  to report them to my
superiors,'' the officer said.
     "To  the Governor himself if you like,"  replied Vasily  Petrovich  and
without waiting for them  to leave, he lay  down by the fire and said in his
ringing teacher's voice,
     "Well, gentlemen, let us continue. Last time I  acquainted you with the
elementary foundations of astronomy, the wonderful science of the stars. Let
me repeat briefly what I  told  you. Astronomy is  one of the  most  ancient
sciences of mankind. The Egyptians...."
     Petya  slipped cautiously out of  the  circle  of fire-light, slung the
shot-gun  over his shoulder and followed  the police, hugging the shadows of
the trees. As he came up  level with the officer and Moustache  he heard the
officer saying angrily,  "With  agents like you, I might as well sit down on
the  stove and wait for my belly  to boil." "But  I  swear  I  had  the most
reliable information!"
     "Oh, go to hell. Madame  Storozhenko greased  your  palm handsomely and
you went  and made  fools of us. Coming out here for nothing  on a  Saturday
night.  Thank heaven there's  the electric tram  now,  or we'd  have had  to
rattle back on that horse-tram!"


        STARS


     So they were leaving. But Petya felt he must see them on the  tram with
his  own  eyes. Then he went back.  On  the road he  saw a small, motionless
figure. It was Motya.
     "What are you doing here?" he asked sternly.
     "Waiting," she whispered. "I was so worried about you...."
     "Nobody asked you to," he said. "Go home."
     "Have they left?"
     "Yes."
     "On the electric tram?"
     "Yes."
     Motya laughed softly.
     "What's so funny?"
     "It's queer-you  and I  alone  in  the empty field,  and the night  all
round.... Petya," she said after  a pause, "weren't you  frightened when you
followed them?"
     "Silly! What about the gun?"
     "Yes, that's right." Motya sighed. "But I nearly died of fear."
     The night was dark and warm, with a slight breeze. Now and then a faint
report like a shot came from Arcadia, where  fireworks were being let off. A
number of rockets  soared  into the air, glowing orange, and burst  in great
fiery  stars  that floated slowly down,  and then  their dry  cracks came to
Petya and Motya.
     "How lovely!" said Motya and sighed again.
     "Go home," was all Petya answered.
     She turned and went  obediently down the road,  and soon disappeared in
the dim silvery light.
     Petya turned into the steppe and ran to the familiar gully.  Nobody had
told him  to see  the police safely away, and  nobody had  told him to go to
Rodion Zhukov  afterwards. He was impelled  by an unconscious but sure inner
urge. It was as though some force moved him.
     It was  quite warm in the gully. Rustling through the weeds, Petya felt
his way along the steep rocky side, seeking the opening.
     "Is that you, Petya?" Gavrik's voice asked out of the darkness.
     "Yes, it's me."
     "What's happening?"
     "Everything's all right. They've gone."
     "And not taken anyone?"
     "No, no one."
     "That's good. Here, reach out your hand."
     Petya did so, and  Gavrik pulled him into the cave. For some  time they
moved ahead in complete darkness, their shoulders now and then touching  the
wall, bringing down  trickles of dry soil. Then the passage-way became lower
and narrower so that they had to crawl on all fours. At  last a faint  light
appeared, the passage widened, and Petya found himself in a  large cave hewn
out in the rock, with a sloping, smoke-blackened roof.
     A lantern hanging on the wall cast a light, crisscrossed by the shadows
of its bars, so that the cave looked like a cage. It was damp  and cool, yet
stuffy. The lack of fresh air was very noticeable. In the corner beneath the
lamp Petya saw  a  small flat  printing-press  and guessed  this was the one
brought in  the boxes he  had  seen. In  a case alongside lay the type which
Gavrik had  been bringing from the  Odessa Leaflet print-shop for two years.
On the wall hung his familiar blue overalls stained with printer's ink.
     Rodion Zhukov  w-as sitting on  the floor  his  back  against the wall,
smoking his pipe and reading a book, making pencil notes in the margin.  The
Pavlovskayas were  settled  on the boxes in  which the press had  come.  The
mother sat with her old  waterproof drawn round her, and  Marina was asleep,
her head with its  black hair-ribbon resting on her mother's knees, her feet
in their dusty little buttoned shoes, one worn  through at the  toe,  tucked
under her.
     All  of  their belongings lay on  the floor beside them-  the  kerosene
stove  wrapped in newspaper, the bundle and  the small travelling-bag, which
led to the conclusion that they always had  their things packed. They looked
like people sitting in  some small,  out-of-the-way railway station  waiting