第 47 页

Artem, sitting at the table, looked somewhat uncomfortable. He was aware that neither his mother nor his brother approved of his marriage. They could not understand why Artem, whose family had been proletarian for generations, had broken off with Galya, the stonemason's pretty daughter and a seamstress by trade whom he had been courting for three years, to go and live with a dull,ignorant woman like Styosha and be the breadwinner in a family of five. Now, after a hard day's work at the railway yard he had to toil at the plough in an effort to revive the run-down farm.

Artem knew that Pavel disapproved of his desertion to what he called the "petty-bourgeois elements", and he now watched his brother take stock of his surroundings.

They sat for a while exchanging a few casual remarks. Presently Pavel rose to go, but Art emdetained him.

"Wait a bit, and have a bite with us. Styosha will bring the milk in soon. So you're going away again tomorrow? Are you sure you're quite strong enough, Pavka?"

Styosha came in. She greeted Pavel, and asked Artem to go with her to the barn and help her carry something. Pavel was left alone with the dour old woman. Through the window came the sound of church bells. The old woman laid down her pothook and began to mutter sourly:

"Lord above, with all this cursed housework a body can scarce find time to pray!" She took off her shawl and, eyeing the newcomer askance, went over to the corner where hung the holy images,dreary and tarnished with age. Pressing together three bony fingers she crossed herself.

"Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name!" she whispered through withered lips.

The urchin playing outside in the yard leapt astride a black lop-eared hog. He dug his small bare heels smartly into its sides, clung to its bristles and shouted to the running, snorting beast: "Geeup, gee-up! Whoa! Whoa!"

The hog with the boy on its back dashed madly about the yard in a desperate effort to throw him,but the slant-eyed imp kept his seat firmly.

The old woman stopped praying and stuck her head out of the window.

"Get off that pig this minute, you little beast, or I'll wring your neck!"

The hog finally succeeded in shaking his tormentor off his back, and the old woman, mollified,returned to her icons, composed her features into a pious expression and continued:

"Thy kingdom come. . . ."

At that moment the boy appeared in the doorway, his face grimy with tears. Wiping his smarting nose with his sleeve and sobbing with pain, he whined:

"Gimme a pancake, Mummy!"

The old woman turned on him in a fury.

"Can't you see I'm praying, you cross-eyed devil, you? I'll give you pancakes, you limb of satan!..." And she snatched a whip from the bench. The boy was gone in a flash. The two little girls on top of the stove snickered.

The old woman returned to her devotions for the third time.

Pavel got up and went out without waiting for his brother. As he closed the gate behind him he noticed the old woman peering suspiciously out at him through the end window of the house.

"What evil spirit lured Artem out here?" he thought bitterly. "Now he's tied down for the rest of his life. Styosha will have a baby every year. And Artem will be stuck like a beetle on a dunghill.

He may even give up his work at the railway." Thus Pavel reflected gloomily as he strode down the deserted streets of the little town. "And I had hoped to be able to interest him in political work."

Pavel rejoiced at the thought that tomorrow he would be leaving this place and going to the big town to join his friends and comrades, all those dear to his heart. The big city with its bustling life and activity, its endless stream of humanity, its clattering trams and hooting automobiles drew him like a magnet. But most of all he yearned for the large brick factory buildings, the sootyworkshops, the machines, the low hum of transmission belts. He yearned for the mad spinning of the giant flywheels, for the smell of machine oil, for all that had become so much a part of him.

This quiet provincial town whose streets he now roamed filled him with a vague feeling of depression. He was not surprised that he felt a stranger here now. Even to take a stroll through the town in daytime had become an ordeal. Passing by the gossiping housewives sitting on their stoops, he could not help overhearing their idle chatter.

"Now who could that scarecrow be?"

"Looks like he had the consumption, lung trouble, that is."

"A fine jacket he's got on. Stolen, I'll be bound."

And plenty more in the same vein. Pavel was disgusted with it all.

He had torn himself away from all this long ago. He felt a far closer kinship now with the big city to which he was bound by the strong, vitalising bonds of comradeship and labour.

By now he had reached the pine woods, and he paused a moment at the road fork. To his right stood the old prison cut off from the woods by a high spiked fence, and beyond it the white buildings of the hospital.

It was here on this broad common that the hangman's noose had choked the warm life out of Valya and her comrades. Pavel stood in silence on the spot where the gallows had been, then walked over to the bluff and down to the little cemetery where the victims of the Whiteguard terror lay in their common graves. Loving hands had laid spruce branches on the graves and built a neat green fence around the graveyard. The pines grew straight and slender on the top of the bluff and the young grass spread a silky green carpet over the slopes.

There was a melancholy hush here on the outskirts of the town. The trees whispered gently and the fresh scent of spring rose from the regenerated earth. On this spot Pavel's comrades had gone bravely to their deaths that life might be beautiful for those born in poverty.

Slowly Pavel raised his hand and removed his cap, his heart filled with sadness.

Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world

— the fight for the Liberation of Mankind. And one must make use of every moment of life, lestsome sudden illness or tragic accident cut it short.

With these reflections, Korchagin turned away from the cemetery.

At home his mother was unhappily preparing for her son's departure. Watching her, Pavel saw that she was hiding her tears from him.

"Perhaps you'll stay, Pavel dear?" she ventured. "It's hard for me to be left alone in my old age. It doesn't matter how many children you have, they all grow up and leave you. Why must you run off to the city? You can live here just as well. Or perhaps some bob-haired magpie there has caught your fancy? You boys never tell your old mother anything. Artem went and got married without a word to me and you're worse than him in that respect. I only see you when you get yourself crippled," his mother grumbled softly as she packed his meagre belongings into a clean bag.

Pavel took her by the shoulders and drew her towards him.

"No magpies for me, Mother! Don't you know that birds choose mates of their own species? And would you say I was a magpie?"

His mother smiled in spite of herself.

"No, Mother, I've given my word to keep away from the girls until we've finished with all the bourgeois in the world. Bit long to wait, you say? No, Mother, the bourgeoisie can't hold out very long now. Soon there will be one big republic for all men, and you old folk who've worked all your lives will go to Italy, a beautiful warm country by the sea. There is no winter there, Mother. We'll install you in the rich men's palaces, and you'll lie about in the sun warming your old bones

while we'll go and finish off the bourgeois in America." "That's a lovely fairy-tale, Son, but I shan't live to see it come true. . . . You're just like your

grandad, the sailor, always full of ideas he was. A regular brigand, God forgive him! Finished up at Sevastopol and came home with one arm and one leg missing and two crosses and two silver medals on his chest. But he died poor. Bad-tempered too, he was. Hit some official over the head with his crutch once and was sent to jail for about a year. Even his military crosses didn't help him then. Yes, it's your grandad you take after and no mistake."

"Now then, Ma, we can't have such a sorrowful farewell, can we? Let me have my accordion. I haven't touched it for a long time."

He bent his head over the mother-of-pearl rows of keys and began to play. His mother, listening, caught a new quality in his music. He never used to play like this. The dashing, rollicking tunes with the trills and runs, the intoxicating rhythms for which the young accordionist had once been famed, were gone. His fingers had lost none of their power or skill, but the melody that flowed from under them now was richer and deeper.

Pavel went to the station alone.

He had persuaded his mother to stay at home for he knew that the final parting would upset her too much.

The waiting crowd piled pell-mell into the train. Pavel climbed onto one of the topmost shelves and sat there watching the shouting, excited passengers arguing and gesticulating down below.

As usual everyone carried packs and bundles which they shoved under the seats.

As soon as the train got into motion the hubbub subsided somewhat and the passengers settled down to the business of stuffing themselves with food.

Pavel soon fell asleep.

On his arrival in Kiev, Pavel set out at once for Kreshchatik Street in the heart of the city. Slowly he climbed onto the bridge. Everything was as it had been, nothing had changed. He walked across the bridge, sliding his hand over the smooth railings. There was not a soul on the bridge. He paused before descending to admire the majesty of the scene. The horizon was wrapped in the velvety folds of darkness, the stars sparkled and glittered with a phosphorescent glow. And down below, where the earth merged with the sky at some invisible point, the city scattered the darkness with a million lights. . . .

Voices raised in argument invaded the stillness of the night and roused Pavel from his reverie.

Someone was coming this way. Pavel tore his eyes away from the city lights and descended the stairs.

At the Area Special Department the man on duty informed Pavel that Zhukhrai had left town a long time ago.

He questioned Pavel searchingly and, satisfied that the young man really was a personal friend of Zhukhrai, finally told him that Fyodor had been sent to work in Tashkent on the Turkestan front.

Pavel was so upset by the news that he turned and walked out without asking for further details. A sudden weariness made him sink down onto the doorstep to rest.

A tramcar clattered by, filling the street with its din. An endless stream of people flowed past him.

Pavel caught snatches of gay women's laughter, a rumbling bass, the high-pitched treble of a youth, the wheezy falsetto of an old man. The ebb and flow of hurrying crowds never ceased.

Brightly-lit trams, glaring automobile headlights, electric lights ablaze over the entrance to a cinema near by.... And everywhere — people, filling the street with their incessant hum of conversation.

The noise and bustle of the avenue dulled the edge of the pain caused by the news of Fyodor's departure. Where was he to go now? It was a long way to Solo-menka where his friends lived.

Suddenly he remembered the house on University Street. It was not far from here. Of course he would go there! After all, the first person he longed to see, after Fyodor, was Rita. And perhaps he could arrange to spend the night at Akim's place.

He saw a light in the end window from afar. Controlling his emotion with an effort he pulled open the heavy oaken outer door. For a few seconds he paused on the landing. Voices issued from Rita's room and someone was strumming on a guitar.

"Oho, so she allows guitars nowadays. Must have relaxed the regime," he said to himself. He tapped lightly on the door, biting his lip to quell his inner excitement.

The door was opened by a young woman with corkscrew curls. She looked questioningly at Korchagin.

"Whom do you want?"

She held the door ajar and a brief glance within told Pavel that his errand was fruitless.

"May I see Rita Ustinovich?"

"She's not here. She went to Kharkov last January and I hear she's in Moscow now."

"Does Comrade Akim still live here or has he left as well?"

"No, he isn't here either. He is Secretary of the Odessa Gubernia Komsomol now."

There was nothing to do but turn back. The joy of his return to the city had faded.

The problem now was to find somewhere to spend the night.

"You can walk your legs off trying to look up old friends who aren't there," he grumbled to himself, swallowing his disappointment. Nevertheless he decided to try his luck once more and see whether Pankratov was still in town. The stevedore lived in the vicinity of the wharves and that was nearer than Solomenka.

By the time he reached Pankratov's place he was utterly exhausted. "If he isn't here either I'll give up the search," Pavel vowed to himself as he knocked at a door that had once been painted yellow.

"I'll crawl under a boat and spend the night there."

The door was opened by an old woman with a kerchief tied under her chin. It was Pankratov's mother.

"Is Ignat home, Mother?"

"He's just come in."

She did not recognise Pavel, and turned round to call: "Ignat, someone to see you!"

Pavel followed her into the room and laid his knapsack on the floor. Pankratov, sitting at the table eating his supper, glanced quickly at the newcomer over his shoulder.

"If it's me you want, sit down and fire away, while I get some borshch into my system," he said.

"Haven't had a bite since morning." And he picked up a giant wooden spoon.

Pavel sat on a rickety chair to one side. He took off his cap and, relapsing into an old habit, wiped his forehead with it.

"Have I really changed so much that even Ignat doesn't recognise me?" he asked himself.

Pankratov dispatched a spoon or two of borshch, but since his visitor said nothing, he turned his head to look at him.