第 10 页

One day Zhukhrai dropped in to see Polentovsky's wife as if in passing, and gave her some money.

"Here's something from your husband to keep you going," he said. "Only see you don't mention it to anyone."

The old woman gratefully clasped his hand.

"Thanks. We need it badly. There's nothing to give the children to eat."

The money came from the fund left by Bulgakov.

"Well, now we'll see what comes next," said Zhukhrai to himself as he walked back to the station.

"Even if the strike's broken under the threat of shooting, even if the workers are back at the job,the fire has been kindled and it can't be put out any more. As for those three, they're stout fellows,true proletarians,"

In a little old smithy whose soot-blackened front faced the road in the outskirts of the village of Vorobyova Balka, Polentovsky stood before the glowing forge, his eyes narrowed from the glare, and turned over a red-hot piece of iron with a pair of long-handled tongs.

Artem pumped the bellows suspended from a crossbeam overhead.

"A skilled worker won't go under in the villages these days—there's as much work to be had as you might want," chuckling good-naturedly in his beard the engine driver said. "A week or two like this and we'll be able to send some fatback and flour home to the folks. The peasant always respects a smith, son. You'll see, we'll feed ourselves up like capitalists, ha-ha! Zakhar's a bit different from us—he hangs on to the peasantry, has his roots in the land through that uncle of his.

Well, I can't say as I blame him. You and me, Artem, we've got neither harrow nor barrow, so to say, nought but a strong back and a pair of hands—what they call eternal proletarians, that's us— ha-ha—but old Zakhar's kind of split in two, one foot in the locomotive and the other in the village." He shifted the red-hot metal with the tongs and continued in a more serious vein: "As for us, son, things look bad. If the Germans aren't smashed pretty soon we'll have to get through to Yekaterinoslav or Rostov; otherwise we might find ourselves nabbed and strung up between heaven and earth before we know it." "You're right there," Artem mumbled. "I wish I knew how our people are getting on out there. Are the Haidamaks leaving them alone, I wonder."

"Yes, pa, we're in a mess. We'll just have to give up thinking of going home."

The engine driver pulled the hot piece of glowing blue metal from the forge and with a dexterous movement laid it on the anvil.

"Lay on to it, son!"

Artem seized the sledge-hammer, swung it high above his head and then brought it down on the anvil. A fountain of bright sparks spurted with a hiss in all directions, lighting up for a moment the darkest corners of the smithy. Polentovsky turned over the red-hot slab under the powerful blows and the iron obediently flattened out like so much soft wax.

Through the open doors of the smithy came the warm breath of the dark night.

Down below lay the lake, dark and vast. The pines surrounding it on all sides nodded their lofty heads.

"Like living things," thought Tonya looking up at them. She was lying in a grass-carpeted depression on the granite shore. High above her beyond the hollow the woods began, and below, at the very foot of the bluff, was the lake. The shadows of the cliffs pressing in on the lake gave the dark sheet of water a still darker fringe.

This old stone quarry not far from the station was Tonya's favourite haunt. Springs had burst forth in the deep abandoned workings and now three lakes had formed there. The sound of splashing from where the shore dropped into the water caused Tonya to raise her head. Parting the branches in front of her, she looked in the direction of the sound. A supple, sun-tanned body was swimming away from the shore with strong strokes. Tonya caught sight of the swimmer's brown back and dark head; he snorted like a walrus, cut through the water with brisk strokes, somersaulted and dived, then turned over on his back and floated, squinting in the bright sun, his arms stretched out and his body slightly bent.

Tonya let the branch fall back into place. "It's not nice to look," she smiled to herself and returnedto her reading.

She was so engrossed in the book which Leszczinski had given her that she did not noticesomeone climb over the granite rocks that separated the hollow from the pine woods; only when apebble, inadvertently set into motion by the intruder, rolled onto the book did she look up with a start to see Pavel Korchagin standing before her. He too was taken aback by the encounter and in his confusion turned to go.

"It must have been him I saw in the water," Tonya thought as she noticed his wet hair.

"Did I frighten you? I didn't know you were here,"

Pavel laid his hand on the rocky ledge. He had recognised Tonya.

"You aren't interfering at all. You may stay and talk with me for a while if you like."

Pavel looked at Tonya in surprise.

"What could we talk about?"

Tonya smiled.

"Why don't you sit down—here, for instance?" She pointed to a stone. "What is your name?"

"Pavka Korchagin."

"My name's Tonya. So now we've introduced ourselves."

Pavel twisted his cap in embarrassment.

"So you're called Pavka?" Tonya broke the silence. "Why Pavka? It doesn't sound nice, Pavel would be ever so much better. That's what I shall call you—Pavel. Do you come here often. .. ."

She wanted to say "to swim", but not wishing to admit having seen him in the water, she said instead: "for a walk?"

"No, not often. Only when I've got time off," Pavel replied.

"So you work somewhere?" Tonya questioned him further.

"At the power plant. As a stoker."

"Tell me, where did you learn to fight so skilfully?" Tonya asked unexpectedly.

"What's my fighting to you?" Pavel blurted out in spite of himself.

"Now don't be angry, Korchagin," said Tonya hastily, seeing that her question had annoyed him.

"I'm just interested, that's all. What a punch that was! You shouldn't be so merciless." She burst out laughing.

"Sorry for him, eh?" Pavel asked.

"Not at all. On the contrary, Sukharko only got what he deserved. I enjoyed it immensely. I hear you get into scraps quite often."

"Who says so?" Pavel pricked up his ears.

"Well, Victor Leszczinski declares you're a professional scrapper."

Pavel's features darkened.

"Victor's a swine and a softy. He ought to be thankful he didn't get it then. I heard what he said about me, but I didn't want to muck up my hands."

"Don't use such language, Pavel. It's not nice," Tonya interrupted him.

Pavel bristled.

"Why did I have to start talking to this ninny?" he thought to himself. "Ordering me about like this: first it's 'Pavka' doesn't suit her and now she's finding fault with my language."

"What have you against Leszczinski?" Tonya asked.

"He's a sissy, a mama's boy without any guts! My fingers itch at the sight of his kind: always trying to walk all over you, thinks he can do anything he wants because he's rich. But I don't give a damn for his wealth. Just let him try to touch me and he'll get it good and proper. Fellows like that are only asking for a punch in the jaw," Pavel went on, roused.

Tonya regretted having mentioned Leszczinski. She could see that this young man had old scores to settle with the dandified schoolboy. To steer the conversation into more placid channels she began questioning Pavel about his family and work.

Before he knew it, Pavel was answering the girl's questions in great detail, forgetting that he had wanted to go.

"Why didn't you finish school?" Tonya asked.

"Got thrown out."

"Why?"

Pavel blushed.

"I put some tobacco in the priest's dough, and so they chucked me out. He was mean, that priest;he'd worry the life out of you." And Pavel told her the whole story.

Tonya listened with interest. Pavel got over his initial shyness and was soon talking to her as if she were an old acquaintance. Among other things he told her about his brother's disappearance.

Neither of the two noticed the hours pass as they sat there in the hollow engrossed in friendly conversation. At last Pavel sprang to his feet.

"It's time I was at work. I ought to be firing the boilers instead of sitting here gassing. Danilo is sure to raise a fuss now." Ill at ease once more he added: "Well, good-bye, miss. I've got to dash off to town now."

Tonya jumped up, pulling on her jacket.

"I must go too. Let's go together."

"Oh no, couldn't do that. I'll have to run."

"All right. I'll race you. Let's see who gets there first."

Pavel gave her a disdainful look. "Race me? You haven't a chance!"

"We'll see. Let's get out of here first." Pavel jumped over the ledge of stone, then extended a hand to Tonya, and the two trotted through the woods to the broad, level clearing leading to the station.

Tonya stopped in the middle of the road. "Now, let's go: one, two, three, go! Try and catch me!" She was off like a whirlwind down the track, the soles of her shoes flashing and the tail of her blue jacket flying in the wind. Pavel raced after her.

"I'll catch up with her in two shakes," thought Pavel as he sped after the flying jacket, but it was only at the end of the lane quite close to the station that he overtook her. Making a final spurt, he caught up with her and seized her shoulders with his strong hands.

"Tag! You're it!" he cried gaily, panting from the exertion.

"Don't! You're hurting me!" Tonya resisted. As they stood there panting, their pulses racing,Tonya, exhausted by the wild chase, leaned ever so lightly against Pavel in a fleeting moment of sweet intimacy that he was not soon to forget.

"Nobody has ever overtaken me before," she said as she drew away from him.

At this they parted and with a farewell wave of his cap Pavel ran toward town.

When Pavel pushed open the boiler-room door, Danilo, the stoker, was already busy firing the boiler.

"Couldn't you make it any later?" he growled. "Expect me to do your work for you?" Pavel patted his mate on the shoulder placatingly. "We'll have the fire going full blast in a jiffy, old man," he said cheerfully and applied himself to the firewood.

Toward midnight, when Danilo was snoring lustily on the woodpile, Pavel finished oiling the engine, wiped his hands on waste, pulled out the sixty-second instalment of Giuseppe Garibaldi from a toolbox, and was soon lost in the fascinating adventures of the Neapolitan "Redshirts' "

legendary leader.

"She gazed at the duke with her beautiful blue eyes. . . ."

"She's also got blue eyes," thought Pavel. "And she's different, not at all like rich folk. And she can run like the devil."

Engrossed in the memory of his encounter with Tonya during the day, Pavel did not hear the rising whine of the engine which was now straining under the pressure of excess steam; the huge flywheel whirled madly and a nervous tremor ran through the concrete mounting.

A glance at the pressure gauge showed Pavel that the needle was several points above the red warning line.

"Damn it!" Pavel leapt to the safety valve, gave it two quick turns, and the steam ejected through the exhaust pipe into the river hissed hoarsely outside the boiler room. Pulling a lever, Pavel threw the drive belt onto the pump pulley.

He glanced at Danilo, but the latter was fast asleep, his mouth wide open and his nose emitting fearful sounds.

Half a minute later the pressure gauge needle had returned to normal.

After parting with Pavel, Tonya headed for home, her thoughts occupied by her encounter with the dark-eyed lad; she felt happy, though she did not know why.

"What spirit he has, what grit! And he isn't at all the ruffian I imagined him to be. At any rate he's nothing like all those silly schoolboys. . . ."

Pavel was of another mould, he came from an environment to which Tonya was a stranger.

"But he can be tamed," she thought. "He'll be an interesting friend to have."

As she approached home, she saw Liza Sukharko and Nelly and Victor Leszczinski in the garden.

Victor was reading. They were obviously waiting for her.

They exchanged greetings and she sat down on a bench. In the midst of the empty small talk,Victor sat down beside her and asked:

"Have you read the novel I gave you?"

"Novel?" Tonya looked up. "Oh, I. . . ." She almost told him she had forgotten the book on the lakeshore.

"Did you like the love story?" Victor looked at her questioningly.

Tonya was lost in thought for a moment, then, slowly tracing an intricate pattern on the sand of the walk with the toe of her shoe, she raised her head and looked at Victor.

"No. I have begun a far more interesting love story." "Indeed?" Victor drawled, annoyed. "Who's the author?"

Tonya looked at him with shining, smiling eyes.

"There is no author. . . ."

"Tonya, ask your visitors in. Tea's served," Tonya's mother called from the balcony.

Taking the two girls by the arm, Tonya led the way to the house. As he followed them, Victor puzzled over her words, unable to guess their meaning.

This strange new feeling that had imperceptibly taken possession of him disturbed Pavel; he did not understand it and his rebellious spirit was troubled.

Tonya's father was the chief forest warden, which, as far as Pavel was concerned, put him in the same class as the lawyer Leszczinski.

Pavel had grown up in poverty and want, and he was hostile to anyone whom he considered to be well off. And so his feeling for Tonya was tinged with apprehension and misgiving; Tonya was not one of his own crowd, she was not simple and easy to understand like Galochka, the stonemason's daughter, for instance. With Tonya he was always on his guard, ready to rebuff any hint of the mockery or condescension he would expect a beautiful and cultivated girl like her to show towards a common stoker like himself.