HOW THE STEEL WAS TEMPERED - Nikolai Ostrovsky (Thép đã tôi thế đấy)

HOW THE STEEL WAS TEMPERED - Nikolai Ostrovsky (Thép đã tôi thế đấy)

A Novel in Two Parts

Translated from the Russian by R. Prokofieva
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW

INTRODUCTION
The balcony door stood open, and the curtain stirred in the wind, filling out, rising reluctantly, and shrinking like a dipped sail. A crumpled towel left by someone on the radio made a white blur in the dusk. It looked like a white rabbit who had laid down its long ears preparing to jump.
I remembered that bright September morning in Sochi two years ago, the small house in Orekhovaya Street, the ripe, orange persimmons in the sunlit garden, the pleasant whitewashed room, and the dear face on the piled-up pillows.
The white rabbit nestled happily in the folds of the blanket as Nikolai''s nervous fingers caressed its long, silky ears. Nikolai was laughing softly, and his gleaming teeth were as white as sugar. On the bedside table lay several big red apples, and their lovely smell filled the whole house. The white rabbit, comically twitching its soft ears, licked the gentle human hand with its small pink tongue.
*
I wanted to shut my eyes tight and see that hot September morning again, and the house filled with sunlight and apple fragrance. My thoughts refused to take a melancholy course, and my mind was still unable to grasp what had happened and tell itself that this was the irrevocable...
But reality asserted itself, and my eyes saw with ruthless clarity the face that had forever grown still. The last struggle for survival had sapped all his life juices, and dried him as a leaf is dried in a hot wind. It only spared his tall, handsome forehead, and his soft dark chestnut hair. This clear, dome-like brow rose above a small, wizened face. And one fancied that his creative imagination, infused with revolutionary ardour and an irrepressible interest in and love of life, was still working busily... I placed my hand on his forehead. It was still warm and even moist, as though Nikolai was simply resting after his exciting exertion. The Order of Lenin twinkled uncannily on his sunken chest as if life were stirring in it, and one would see it rise in a soft sigh.
For three days, from morning till night, an endless stream of people of all ages filed past the bier which was literally submerged in flowers and wreaths. Nikolai Ostrovsky continues to live not only in his books: he himself is a heroic image, and one of the strongest and most striking personalities of his epoch.
Fate treated him cruelly, depriving him of the power of sight and the use of his legs and arms. But he overpowered his physical infirmities, his incurable disease, weakness, grief and torpor, and victoriously asserted life, creative endeavour, and struggle. As an ardent singer of the Bolshevik youth, he sang his militant, joyous song of struggle and victory of socialism, and his voice, ringing with a beautiful, lyrical strength, resounded throughout the Soviet land and the whole world.
Away with melancholy recollections! Let us part with them, for death is the tax we must pay for the frailty of our physical being, and let us turn to the inexhaustible, powerful fount of life...
I went to see him on a cold, windy day in 1932, a typical day for early Moscow spring. He lived in Mertvy Pereulok (since renamed Nikolai Ostrovsky Pereulok- Ed.)
The large flat was packed with tenants. It was noisy and crowded. People jostled you in the corridor, babies were howling, and someone was typing inexpertly in a far room, pecking at the keys with a woodpecker''s persistence.
What a setup for a writer! Imagine working in that din! I knocked, and opened the door into Nikolai Ostrovsky''s room.
A man, muffled up to his chin in blankets and shawls, was lying on the bed. The pillows were piled high, and I saw a mop of dark chestnut hair, a large, prominent forehead, and a thin, wan face that did not have a drop of colour in it.
The thin eyelids trembled slightly. The thick eyelashes cast bluish shadows on the hollow cheeks. Hands of a waxen transparency lay on top of the blankets. I knew that Nikolai Ostrovsky was an invalid, but still I did not picture him quite like this.
He looked so terribly weak and helpless that I decided not to bother him and come back another time.
Just then a slight old lady walked briskly into the room. She had lively dark brown eyes, and her face was wreathed in smiles.
"Mother, who''s there?" Nikolai suddenly asked in a voice that was somewhat hollow, but very young and not weak at all.
His mother told him my name.
"Oh! How nice," he said. "Come nearer, come here."
A beautiful white-toothed smile lighted up his face. Its every line seemed to glow with youthful eagerness and the joy of living. At first I fancied that his big, brown eyes also sparkled with animation. But in the next moment I realised that the sparkle came from the deep and rich colouring of the irises. Still, during our conversation I kept forgetting that he was blind, for there was so much concentration, attention and joviality in his radiant face.
We were talking about the first part of his novel How the Steel Was Tempered which had just been signed for publication in the magazine Molodaya Gvardia where I worked as e***or at the time. Nikolai was curious to hear how his characters had impressed us.
"Pavel, I think, is not a bad kid at all," he said with sly humour, and flashed me a smile. "I''m not making a secret of it, of course, that Nikolai Ostrovsky and Pavel Korchagin are the closest of friends. He''s made from my brain and my blood too, this Pavel person... What I want to know is this: does my novel read simply as an autobiography, the story of just one life?"
His smile suddenly waned, and with his lips compressed, his face looked cold and stern.
"I''ve purposely put the question so bluntly because I want to know whether the thing I''m doing is good, right, and useful for people or not? There are lots of single cases that are interesting in themselves, but a reader will pause before one for a moment, as before a shop window, even in admiration perhaps, and then walk on his way, never again remembering what he had seen there. That is what every writer should fear most, and myself, a beginner, the more so."
I told him that he had nothing to fear on this score. He interrupted me gently and said: "Only please, let''s agree on one thing: don''t comfort me from the kindness of your heart. You don''t have *****gar the pill for me. I''m a soldier, after all, I could sit a horse when I was a mere kid, and I won''t be thrown off now."
Although his lips twitched and his smile was shy and gentle, the strength of his unbreakable will was suddenly revealed to me with the utmost clarity. At the same time I felt terribly happy that what I had to say to him would, in fact, comfort him.
I told him that as I read his book I involuntarily recalled the heroes from the Russian and western classics. Many of these heroes, created by writers of genius, shaped the will and the mentality of whole generations. For background they had the history of social relations, social and personal tragedies, and the glory of the peaks attained by human culture.
Pavel Korchagin could take a proud and confident stand among the great and the gloried. This young newcomer, emerging from the fires of the Civil War, should not feel self-conscious finding himself in such illustrious company. Nor did he have to go cap in hand begging for a place, even if only the smallest, in the literati gardens. He had something which the others had not: his young heart was possessed of an inexhaustible strength and throbbed with an unquenchable passion of struggle, and his mind was fired by the most progressive and noble thoughts of people''s freedom and happiness.
Needless to say, Pavel Korchagin was irreconcilably hostile to someone like Balzac''s Rastignac, but all the freedom-loving characters in literature, whether in the works of Pushkin, Byron or Stendhal, were close to him in spirit. But, of course, he would find the greatest number of kindred souls among Gorky''s heroes. We were already talking like old friends, we touched upon different themes but invariably came back to the novel. Nikolai wanted to hear how the e***ing went and what changes were made by Mark Kolosov, the assistant e***or of Molodaya Gvardia, and myself. When I told him how we threw out all sorts of ornamental clichés, he gave a roar of laughter and then chuckled with good humour as I cited his unfortunate turns of speech and some words he had used.
"D''you know the reason for all these slips?" he asked, abruptly changing to a serious, thoughtful tone. "I suppose you''ll say it''s my lack of culture? That too, but there''s another thing you must take into account - my creative isolation, if you know what I mean. I began writing as a lone beginner, on my own responsibility. It''s wonderful that I''ll have literary friends now!"
He asked me what I thought of the composition of the novel as a whole, his handling of separate scenes, dialogues, descriptions of scenery, how well he had succeeded in bringing out the typical traits of his characters, and where he had made blunders in language, comparisons, metaphors, descriptive names, and so on.
Each one of his questions showed that he had done a lot of reading and thinking on the subject, and his approach to many of the problems involved in literary work testified to his maturity.
Time simply flew. I was afraid I was tiring Nikolai, but every time I rose to leave a word or a remark would start us off again, and I''d stay "for another minute". Our conversation skipped from one topic to another, the way it does with two people who have only just met and want to know each other better. Still, we went back to the novel all the time, and spoke of the second part on which Nikolai was working. I had completely forgotten that I was in a sickroom, visiting a hopelessly handicapped person.
He told me about his writing plans and worries, set himself the deadline for the coming chapters, and his words were charged with such truly exuberant energy that it never occurred to me to offer any uncalled-for sympathy or encouragement.
I was terribly glad that Molodaya Gvardia had acquired this new author - a fresh and powerful talent, a Bolshevik, veteran of the Civil War, a man with such remarkably clear-cut ideological and moral values.
This was a strong character, tempered in battle, and so, rather than restrain him, I wanted to help him to develop his plans.
I can still hear his deep voice, mellow with happiness and pride, as he said: "And so I''m back in the ranks. That''s the main thing, you know. I''m back in the ranks! Isn''t life wonderful! What a life is starting for me!"
All the way home I kept hearing these words: "What a life is starting for me!" and they sounded like a song.
I visited him a few more times before he was taken to Sochi, and gained a still deeper insight into the mentality and character of this amazingly courageous man.
Living in that overcrowded Moscow flat was a trial. Apart from the suffering which he did not immediately learn to hide so skilfully, there were troubles and cares which he was not spared. The family budget was more than modest. Olga Osipovna pinched and scraped as best she could, trying hard to hide their constant want from her son, always keeping her chin up and fussing round him with a smile and a ready joke on her lips, but still Nikolai with his sharpened sensitivity guessed the truth.
"You can''t fool me, Mother darling: the wolf is at the door again," he would say to her, and his mother would reply: "Mind your own business and leave the wolf to me." She always tried to turn their cares into a joke and Nikolai readily played the game, but there were some things that simply could not be laughed off.
Their room in that communal flat was cold and damp, and it was impossible for a bedridden person to remain there any longer.

The e***ors of Molodaya Gvardia approached the Central Committee of the YCL with a request to send Nikolai Ostrovsky to Sochi, and in the summer of 1932 his mother took him south. The day before they left, he sent me the following note:
"Dear Comrade Anna,
We''re starting south at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Everything has been done to let me build up a bit of strength to develop my offensive further. I want to stay in Sochi till late autumn. I''ll hang on as long as I can take it."
By "my offensive" he meant his work on the second part of the novel How the Steel Was Tempered. The difficult and at moments agonising process which Nikolai called "my work" was in truth an offensive...
I often remember his thin, yellowish hands which always lay on top of the blanket. They were the nervous, acutely sensitive hands of a blind man. He had the power of movement left only in his hands, as arthritis, that dread disease of the joints which was to be one of the causes of his death, had already seized the whole of his poor body.
Once, shortly before he left for Sochi, Nikolai said to me in the mocking tone he usually adopted when speaking of his con***ion:
"My shoulders and elbows don''t feel as if they belonged to me at all. It''s the craziest feeling! This is all I have left to me, all I possess!" Smiling with puckish sadness, he raised his hands a little and moved his fingers. "Try and manage with these!"
Although he disliked discussing his illness, he told me on one of my earlier visits that for a time he had been able to write with the help of a cardboard stencil.
"It wasn''t too convenient, but still it had its uses," he said.
At the beginning of August 1932 I received a letter from him from Sochi. He had written it in pencil with the help of his stencil. The too-straight lines and the unnaturally curved letters compelled the imagination to picture the physical strain and the effort of will that went into the writing of that short letter.
18 Primorskaya, Sochi, August 5
"Dear Comrade Anna,
"I am living with my mother very close to the seashore. I spend the whole day out in the garden, lying under an oak-tree and writing, making the best of the lovely weather (the next words were undecipherable) ... my head is clear. I am in a hurry to live, Comrade Anna, I do not want to be sorry afterwards that I wasted these days. The offensive, brought to a deadlock by my stupid illness, is developing again, and so wish me victory."
The force and tension of this "offensive" could be felt just from the words "I am in a hurry to live".
He had a relapse soon after his arrival in Sochi, and this illness was to him a "stupid" waste of time and a really intolerable hindrance. And though his general health was so badly undermined, it was mainly with his unquailing willpower that he was able to overcome his new illness.
As soon as he was a little better he wrote me that letter "in his own hand" to test his endurance. I could picture him lying there, in the shade of the oak-tree, dictating to his volunteer secretaries for hours at a stretch, refusing to take a rest... His forehead is studded with drops of sweat, his thick eyebrows twitch up and down nervously, his eyelids tremble, and his thin fingers pluck at the edge of the blanket. He often clears his throat, dictating has already tired him, but his imagination has been starved in those "wasted days of illness", and he wants to make up for lost time. His forehead is hot and his heart literally misses a beat: he pictures the field of battle, he feels the earth quaking under the wrathful thudding of the cavalry, he sees the fearless horsemen coming on at a breakneck pace and cutting down the enemies of the working people. And now he pictures Moscow in those first years of peacetime construction, he recalls the YCL congress in the Bolshoi Theatre, and meeting his comrades-in-arms.
"Hurry... hurry... I must hurry to live..."
Molodaya Gvardia began publication of the second part of Nikolai Ostrovsky''s novel How the Steel Was Tempered in its January 1933 issue.
The letters I received from Nikolai in that period told me how great a price he was paying in lifeblood and nerves for his "offensive".
Running ahead of my story I want to say that he stayed in Sochi for three and a half years, and not the few months as originally planned.
In one of his letters he said:
"I have started studying in earnest. It''s pretty hard when you''re on your own. I''ve no literature, and no qualified teachers, but all the same I can feel the narrow horizons of my tiny personal experience widening, and my cultural baggage growing heavier... You asked me what I''d been doing these last three months. I devoted a lot of the time intended for my literary studies to the local young people. From a lone wolf I''ve turned into a ''cheer leader''. The committee bureau now holds its meetings in my house. I''m in charge of the Party activist circle, and chairman of the district culture-promoting council. In short, I''ve shifted closer to the Party''s practical activity, and have become quite a useful fellow. True, I use up a lot of strength, but then living''s become more fun. I''m in the Komsomol midst.
"I''ve set up a literary circle, and I run it as best I can. The Party and Komsomol committees take a lively interest in my work. The Party activists often meet in my house. I can feel the pulse of life. I wanted this local practice, consciously sacrificing three whole months, so as to get the feel of what is most vital and topical today."
And then he wrote:
"Still, I do a lot of reading. I''ve read Balzac''s La peau de chagrin, Figner''s Recollections, The Last of the Udeghei, Anna Karenina, Literary Heritage, all the back numbers of Literaturnaya Kritika, Turgenev''s A Nest of the Gentry and many more books."
I gave this letter to one of my office friends to read, and he was quite shaken. "I say, what a heroic character!" he exclaimed. "If I didn''t know who had written this letter I''d picture the writer as a big, strong chap in the pink of health reporting on his activities."
We did not learn till after the danger had blown over how terribly ill Nikolai had been. He wrote me in the beginning of 1934:
"I nearly died. The desperate struggle went on for a whole month. The worst is over, and I feel stronger with every day..."
The popularity of his novel was growing rapidly, and Ostrovsky was receiving more and more letters from people complaining that the book was unobtainable in their local libraries or bookstores.
He told me about a great variety of people and their work - miners, metalworkers, steel smelters, electricians, locomotive drivers, stokers, accountants, teachers, actors, artists. He had met some remarkable collective farm chairmen and team leaders. "What characters!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Their experience and knowledge of life are truly wonderful!"
Ostrovsky prided and delighted in his countrymen''s integrity, noting each excellent trait, while shabbiness, stupi***y and smugness outraged him so painfully as though he himself had been personally insulted. In this respect his vision was keener than that of many whose eyesight was unimpaired. In 1934 he wrote to me:
"To tell you the truth, even now I live a far happier life than do many of my callers, most of them calling from plain curiosity. I wouldn''t wonder. They have healthy bodies, but they lead a dull, colourless existence. They can see with both eyes, but I imagine that they have a bored, indifferent look. They probably pity me and think: ''Heaven preserve me from ever finding myself in his shoes!'' To me they seem such sorry creatures, that I swear I''d never agree to change places with them."
Can anything more be added to these lines which speak for themselves so clearly?
Ostrovsky was always full of plans, irrepressible energy and good cheer, and this was the frame of mind in which he began each new day, his only complaint being that the day was over too soon.
Nothing could weaken, let alone shatter, the strength of his spirit. If he had troubles his friends would only hear about them in passing, and then always in the past tense.
No matter how his friends remonstrated with him, Nikolai refused to listen to reason and worked for fifteen hours a day, he received multitudes of callers, slept little, and squandered the little physical strength he had. The last time I came to see him in Sochi, I scolded him for this. He listened with a comically meek and contrite expression on his face, then he began to sigh and mumble some extraordinary excuses. I kept a straight face as long as I could, and then I burst out laughing. My lecture had been a complete waste of breath!
"I''m a hopeless case, can''t you see?" Nikolai said, laughing with me. What we all feared did happen. In August 1935, his con***ion took a sudden and sharp turn for the worse.
"For my stubbornness life restored to me this boundless, wonderful, beautiful happiness, and I forgot the warnings and threats of my doctors. I forgot that I had so little physical strength. The fast-moving stream of people - Komsomol youth, esteemed factory workers and miners, all those heroic builders of our happiness - attracted to me by my novel fanned in me what seemed to be a dying fire. I was once again a passionate agitator and propagandist. I often forgot my place in the ranks where my orders were to use my pen rather and not my tongue.
"This traitorous health of mine played me false once again. All at once I rolled down to the dread boundary line.
"But, for all the danger there is, I won''t die this time either, of course. I simply must write my Born of the Storm. What is more, I must infuse it with all the ardour of my heart. I''ve got to make a screenplay of How the Steel Was Tempered. I''ve got to write a book for children about Pavel Korchagin''s childhood, and - this is a must - a book about Pavel''s happiness. This will take me five years of strenuous work. Five years of life is the minimum I must figure on. Are you smiling? But it can''t be different. My doctors also smile in embarrassment and dismay. Duty comes first with me, and so I take this five-year plan as a minimum. Tell me, Anna, is there a madman who''d depart this life at a time as wonderful as ours?"
It never occurred to me to "smile". His vitality and resistance were so fantastic, and his optimism was always so infectious, that I instantly believed in his "minimum" without a shadow of doubt. He should have his minimum. It could not be otherwise.
He was anxious to return to Moscow so as to be closer to his writer friends, and to avail himself of the material and counsel he needed for getting down to work on his new novel Born of the Storm.
Towards the end of the year, 1935, we succeeded in getting a flat for Ostrovsky in 40, Gorky Street.
In November I received a letter from him in which he said:
"A member of the Government is coming here in a day or two to present me with a decoration. I can''t leave until then. I must also get my doctor''s permission for the journey, as I am unwell again. When all these things have been cleared up, I''ll write and tell you the day of departure."
We were busy fixing up the flat in 40, Gorky Street, anxious to have everything just the way he''d like it... I was called to the phone in the middle of the haste and bustle of our e***orial day. It was a long-distance call from Sochi. There was a snowstorm outside. I picked up the phone and heard the blizzardly howling of the wind, snatches of music, whistling, crackling - a cacophony of indistinct sounds and voices.
And suddenly, Nikolai''s deep, hollowish voice rang in my ear as clearly as if he were speaking from Arbat Street and not all the way from Sochi.
"I''ll be in Moscow on the eleventh! We''ll hold a meeting of the ''general staff'' in my train compartment, the minute we steam in! You''ll tell me all your news, and I''ll tell you mine. I work like mad!"
On December llth, a cold wintry day, a small group of us went to Serpukhov to meet Nikolai Ostrovsky. There was a heavy snowfall. The tall, loud-mouthed locomotive tore into the haze of fluffy snow with startling suddenness. When the train came to a stop, we ran to the green service car. A young, round-faced woman emerged from the door.
"Is Nikolai Ostrovsky in this car?" we asked her.
"That''s right, that''s right," she replied with a nice smile.
Nikolai''s compartment was dark and hot. The faint light from the passage cast bluish shadows on his face. He had lost weight, but his laugh was as infectious as ever, his white-toothed smile was so radiant and his thin face so animated that, as usual, I forgot how ill he was.
"The old warrior''s back in the ranks," he said jocularly, but his voice rang with pride and jubilance.
He told us about the meetings which his young readers had arranged for him at the stops. And when we were left alone in the compartment for a minute, he said to me:
"You know... how I wanted... how terribly I wanted to see their faces. I felt all those wonderful boys and girls so strongly, they were so dear to me that at moments I fancied I was really seeing them... Of course, I was the happiest person in the world just then, but if I could see them, I would be able to tell my dear YCL''ers how much I love them more eloquently still."
I tried to change the topic, but Nikolai''s eyebrows twitched stubbornly, and he continued with a shadow of a patiently ironic smile on his lips:
"There''s no understanding the mentality of doctors at times. Apparently, surgery can restore a person''s eyesight for five or six days, and then he''ll go blind again. I believe this operation is called resection of the pupil. However, that''s not the point. Naturally, I refused to have such kindness done to me. People don''t seem to understand that by giving me sight for five days they''d be thrusting me backward and not helping me forward. I have succeeded in mastering all my desperate emotions connected with my blindness, and now from sheer humaneness the doctors are prepared to grant me even worse torments! All right, I''ll see you all, my dear friends, and then what? No, I have conquered darkness, I have trained myself to live in spite of this physical handicap, despising it, and I don''t want to have a new burden placed upon my soul."

In order not to tire him, we often left him alone in his compartment, during the journey. As we talked quietly in the passage, however, he''d hear what we were saying with his acute hearing, and call out something gay, witty and very much to the point.
...I called on Nikolai at his flat a few days later.
It was very warm in his large, high-ceilinged room. Two impressive electric heaters maintained the temperature at 25 or 26 degrees Centigrade.
Nikolai was wearing an embroidered Ukrainian shirt, which was very becoming. I had never seen him look so well before. There was a bit of colour in his hollow cheeks, and he had a new, earnestly-happy smile. He was lying back on his piled-up pillows, and his dark hair made a soft frame round his tall, white forehead. All of us who loved this man dearly exchanged happy glances, delighting in the wonderful, inexhaustible vitality with which his face vibrated.
The talk was gay and noisy. It suddenly occurred to one of the guests that we were tiring our host, and he asked anxiously:
"Aren''t we making too much of a noise?"
"Heavens no," Nikolai replied with a happy laugh. "Let''s have a real housewarming!" I once dropped in on him in the evening when his working day was over. Nikolai was in his everyday tunic made from army cloth. He looked tired. I asked him how many hours of dictation he''d had that day.
"Oh, not many, not many at all," he began, and suddenly admitted the truth: "About ten. I see you don''t approve. But I was so starved, so hungry for work! Honestly, even lovers don''t long for each other as passionately as I longed for work. And you know the mood that comes upon you after work. When my secretary left, I began thinking over the next scene, and I pictured it so vividly that I could have dictated it right there and then. In such moments "there''s no happier person than me in the whole world. I am a lucky fellow anyway, aren''t I? Lucky, and how!"
He recalled the interview he once gave in Sochi to an American lady journalist.
"I was virtually in her clutches: she wanted to know this, and she wanted to know that - a terribly noisy lady she was. And then she had to be told how my heart was working, how I felt in general, and so on and so forth. I listened and listened, and finally I asked her what she wanted all that information for about poor me. She began to hem and haw, saying something about compassion, humaneness, pity, and other such considerations. It dawned on me then that she was trying to make a martyr of me, a stoic, and a saint... My, how I wanted to tell her where to get off! Instead, I simply pointed out to her the correct approach to my life story, and explained why I considered myself a useful member of society."
Nikolai could not stand pity, or condescending, gushy kindness. He would ridicule anyone who so much as attempted to moan or lament over him. His sensibilities were extremely acute, and he could instantly discern the slightest change of mood in the people about him.
He himself was very good at cheering up others. The words he said were of the simplest, but they had a more powerful effect than many a passionate eruption of sympathy. He tried to get at the root of the trouble, and then offered his advice in a businesslike manner, very gently and tactfully showing which of the aspects involved were, in his opinion, not worth a tear. This ability to get to the bottom of everything, doing it with objective and passionate earnestness, was one of his strongest points.
Everyone who was acquainted with Nikolai Ostrovsky knows how hard he worked. To my great sorrow I was not in Moscow during the last week of his life. His secretaries told me how strenuously he worked in those last days. The secretaries took turns, working in two or three shifts, while he dictated without a break, pushing on with the doggedness of a real fighter to finish the first part of his novel Born of the Storm. He had promised the Central Committee of the YCL to have the book finished by mid-December, and he held his word.
His day was strictly scheduled: in the morning, he dictated to his secretary and then had it all read back to him two or three times. After a short break for lunch, he went back to work again. Then came the reading hour - newspapers, new books or the classics. He liked expressive reading, and listened with rapt, childlike attention. The evening ended with music on the radio and the news.
Once, we gathered in his room to hear a programme composed of his favourite songs and music; broadcast was a tribute to Nikolai Ostrovsky from the Radio Committee. When the concert was over, Nikolai said in a low, reflective tone:
"Happiness... this is it. Could I have ever thought that one day I''d be listening to a concert dedicated to me?"
We talked about music. He recalled that as a boy he would often stop under people''s windows if he heard someone playing the piano.
"The piano always attracted me, and amazed me extremely. Of course, I could not even dream of ever owning an instrument as expensive as a piano... Later, I learnt to play the accordion, and I felt so proud that my fingers could produce music. I loved my accordion. We had an accordion at the front too... it''s wonderful going into battle singing a song!"
He then recalled those wretched years when he worked as a kitchen boy at the railway station.
"It was a hard job, to put it mildly - fetch this and carry that, get a move on, look sharp, boy. I saw too much of the bottom of life, if you know what I mean, it was as though I were constantly watching the dirty feet of passersby from a basement window. I witnessed so much degradation, so many people go to pot through drink. But I was sorriest for the women, I feared most for those very young girls who were led astray right before my eyes."
The conversation turned to the female characters in Born of the Storm and, speaking with even greater heat, Nikolai said that what he wanted to show was true love and friendship, a truly moral and human attitude to a woman friend.
"There can be friendship without love, but it''s a shallow love if it has no friendship in it, no comradeship, no common interests. It''s not real love, it''s just a selfish pleasure, a pretty bauble. I''m not bragging and it''s all past anyway, but in the old days the girls used to give me the glad eye, and I was ridiculously shy and awkward... A Marusya or an Olessya would glance at me with her blue or brown eyes... it was a wonderful feeling, there''s no gainsaying it."
He laughed softly in reminiscence.
"Do you know," he said, "I got a letter the other day from Tonya Tumanova, not Tonya really but the girl who was the prototype of Tonya. Can you imagine it, she hasn''t forgotten me."
Nikolai fell abruptly silent, and for several minutes he lay still with a concentrated frown on his face. Not a muscle stirred, and only his thick black eyelashes trembled slightly. Then, he sort of gave himself a shake, and started telling me about Tonya Tumanova. The man she fell in love with and married, an engineer he was, turned out to be a weak, bad character. Tonya divorced him, and now lived apart with her two children, teaching for a living.
"She was a good, kind girl, but she was not made for struggle. It was often the case - people who could not fight for the common cause, could not put up a fight for their personal happiness either."
On one of my visits, I was shocked by Nikolai''s pallor and his strangely haggard look. He refused to tell me what was wrong at first, but finally he yielded to my insistence and said:
"My eyeballs are sore. I suppose there''s an inflammation. The right eye especially, it''s simply killing me. Did you ever get coal dust in your eyes? Well, I sometimes have the feeling that my right eye is stuffed full with this blasted coal dust, and it twists and turns inside like mad, ripping the eyeball apart. I had the specialist in the other day..."
He was silent for a minute, then he cleared his throat, and said in a somewhat constrained voice:
"He suggests removing the eyeballs, to spare me further suffering. I asked him whether he proposed sewing up my eyelids or sticking in a pair of artificial, glass eyes? Disgusting!"
A painful grimace contorted his face. He bit his lip hard, closed his eyes tight, and tensed himself, stubbornly determined to endure and master the pain.
"I said to him that it was not only myself I had to consider but also the people who associated with me," he spoke at last, breaking the distressing silence. " ''Think how pleasant it will be for my friends, I said to him, ''to look at this effigy with glass eyes. I can''t do it to them.'' ''No,'' I said. ''No matter how bad it is at times, I''ll keep my own eyes, they may be blind but at least they''re brown.'' Don''t you agree?"
He gripped my hand with his thin, nervous fingers that seemed to speak a language all their own. What I feared most in such minutes was "going all maudlin" which he hated. I cradled his cool, frozen-feeling fingers in my hands and, speaking in an affectionately humorous tone, assured him that even if he had carroty hair or a hooked nose, like the boy in Perrault''s fairy tale, we''d love him just as tenderly.
He smiled, and then said in a matter-of-fact voice: "I need another five years because the second and third parts of the book will mean a terrific amount of work, you know." Sighing softly, he said dreamily: "Yes, another five years would be nice. And then, oh well . . . if I did fall out of the ranks, at least I''d know that the offensive had been won." He loved such words as "ranks", "offensive", "victory", "battle", and pronounced them with a special sort of elation. I mentioned it to him once. He smiled, and slowly drew his long eyebrows together to the bridge of his nose -a thing he was wont to do in moments of profound and pleasant reflection.
"How could I help loving these words when for me they contain the main expression of life?"
I remember how happy he looked when he received his service card from the People''s Commissariat for Defence.
"You see, I''m still in the rank of fighters!" he exclaimed. One day we were talking about friendship, and suddenly Nikolai asked why Mark Kolosov and I did not come to see him more often. Other friends visited him practically every day. I replied that I saw no need in daily calls. In the first place, we did not want to tire him, knowing what a strain visitors were on him both physically and spiritually. In the second, we did not want to take up his time which might otherwise be given to our young people, for whom it was very good to associate with a person like Nikolai Ostrovsky. And is it the number of visits that actually counts? After all, a writer needed privacy, he had to be left alone to think in peace, to talk tete-a-tete with his heroes. In Ostrovsky''s case, these hours of solitude were particularly important, seeing that his secretaries were necessarily present at the creative process itself. All things considered, we were not going to make a nuisance of ourselves, and would continue visiting him as before. As for any outward manifestations of affection, surely, he had sufficient proof that we loved him and were his truest friends. "Oh, yes, yes, I do," he said, deeply moved. Our conversation drifted to other topics, and apropos of something or other I mentioned his copious correspondence. Nikolai responded eagerly, recalling many extremely interesting letters which "made his heart sing", and suddenly changing to a sombre key said:
"I want you to know, in case you ever have to sort out my papers, that you''ll find everything quite easily - every scrap of paper is in its right place. I''m a soldier, I like order..."
Everyone who knew him well will, at the memory of him, always feel the bitterness of irreparable loss, the wrench of parting with a bit of his heart. Time will blunt the pain, of course, but the grief will remain as profound.
Nikolai Ostrovsky is impossible to forget. He will never be forgotten by his friends or his readers. His image, personifying fortitude and dedication to the cause of socialism, will never be erased from our memories. He was a singularly charming, touchingly clean and nice person.
ANNA KARAVAYEVA
(From Recollections about Nikolai Ostrovsky)

Part One
CHAPTER ONE
"Those of you who came to my house to be examined before the Easter holidays, stand up!"
The speaker, a corpulent man in the garb of a priest, with a heavy cross dangling from his neck, fixed the class with a baleful glare.
His small hard eyes seemed to bore through the six children - four boys and two girls - who rose from their seats and looked at the man in the robe with apprehension.
"You sit down," the priest said, motioning to the girls.
The girls hastily complied, with sighs of relief.
Father Vasili''s slits of eyes focussed on the other four.
"Now then, my fine lads, come over here!"
Father Vasili rose, pushed back his chair and walked up to the group of boys who stood huddled close together.
"Which of you young ruffians smokes?"
"We don''t smoke, father," the four answered timidly.
The blood rushed to the priest''s face.
"You don''t smoke, eh, you scoundrels? Then who put the tobacco in the dough? Tell me that! We''ll see whether you smoke or not. Now then, turn out your pockets! Come on, turn them out, I say!"
Three of the boys proceeded to empty the contents of their pockets onto the table.
The priest inspected the seams carefully for grains of tobacco, but found nothing, whereupon he turned to the fourth lad, a dark-eyed youngster in a grey shirt and blue trousers patched at the knees.
"What are you standing there for like a dummy?"
The lad threw a look of silent hatred at his questioner.
"I haven''t any pockets," he replied sullenly, running his hands over the sides of his trousers.
"No pockets, eh? You think I don''t know who could have played such a scoundrelly trick as to spoil my dough?
You think I''m going to let you off again? Oh no, my boy, you shall suffer for this. Last time I allowed you to stay in this school because your mother begged me to keep you, but now I''m finished with you. Out with you!" He seized the boy painfully by the ear and threw him out into the corridor, slamming the door after him.
The class sat silent, cowed. None of the children could understand why Pavel Korchagin had been ejected, none but Sergei Bruzzhak, who was Pavel''s closest friend. He had seen him sprinkle a fistful of home-grown tobacco into the Easter cake dough in the priest''s kitchen where six backward pupils had waited for the priest to come and hear them repeat their lesson.
Now Pavel sat down on the bottom step of the school-house and wondered dismally what his mother would say when he told her what had happened, his poor hard-working mother who toiled from morning till night as cook at the excise inspector''s.
Tears choked him.
"What shall I do? It''s all because of that damned priest. What on earth made me go and put that tobacco in his dough? It was Seryozhka''s idea. ''Let''s play a trick on the old beast,'' he says. So we did. And now Seryozhka''s got off and I''ll likely be kicked out."
His feud with Father Vasili was of long standing. It dated back to the day he had a scrap with Mishka Levchenkov and in punishment was kept in after lessons. To keep the lad out of mischief in the empty classroom, the teacher took him to the second grade to sit in at a lesson.
Pavel took a seat at the back. The teacher, a wizened little man in a black jacket, was telling the class about the earth and the heavenly bodies, and Pavel gaped with amazement when he learned that the earth had been in existence for millions of years and that the stars too were worlds. So startled was he by what he had heard that he barely refrained from getting up and blurting out: "That isn''t what the Bible says!" But he was afraid of getting into more hot water.
The priest had always given Pavel full marks for Scripture. He knew almost the whole prayer book practically by heart, and the Old and New Testament as well. He knew exactly what God had created on each day of the week. Now he resolved to take the matter up with Father Vasili. At the very next lesson, before the priest had time to settle himself properly in his chair, Pavel raised his hand and, having obtained permission to speak, he got up.
"Father, why does the teacher in the second grade say the earth is millions of years old, instead of what the Bible says, five thou..." A hoarse cry from Father Vasili cut him short.
"What did you say, you scoundrel? So that''s how you learn your Scripture!"
And before Pavel knew what had happened the priest had seized him by the ears and was banging his head against the wall. A few minutes later, shaken with fright and pain, he found himself outside in the corridor.
His mother too had given him a good scolding that time. And the following day she had gone to the school and begged Father Vasili to take him back. From that day Pavel hated the priest with all his soul. Hated and feared him. His childish heart rebelled against any injustice, however slight. He could not forgive the priest for the undeserved beating, and he grew sullen and bitter.
Pavel suffered many a slight at the hands of Father Vasili after that. The priest was forever sending him out of the classroom; day after day for weeks on end he made him stand in the corner for trifling misdemeanours and never called on him to answer questions, with the result that on the eve of the Easter holidays Pavel had to go with the backward boys to the priest''s house to be re-examined. It was there in the kitchen that he had dropped the tobacco into the dough.
No one had seen him do it, but the priest had guessed at once who was to blame.
The lesson ended at last and the children poured out into the yard and crowded round Pavel, who maintained a gloomy silence. Sergei Bruzzhak lingered behind in the classroom. He felt that he too was guilty, but he could do nothing to help his friend.
Yefrem Vasilievich, the headmaster, poked his head out of the open window of the common room and shouted: "Send Korchagin to me at once!" Pavel jumped at the sound of the headmaster''s deep bass voice, and with pounding heart obeyed his summons.
The proprietor of the railway station restaurant, a pale middle-aged man with faded, colourless eyes, glanced briefly at Pavel. "How old is he?" "Twelve." "All right, he can stay. He''ll get eight rubles a month and his food on the days he works. He''ll work twenty-four hours at a stretch every other day. But mind, no pilfering."
"Oh no, sir. He won''t steal, I''ll answer for that," the mother hastened fearfully to assure him.
"Let him start in today," ordered the proprietor and, turning to the woman behind the counter, said: "Zina, take the boy to the kitchen and tell Frosya to put him to work instead of Grishka."
The barmaid laid down the knife with which she had been slicing ham, nodded to Pavel and led the way across the hall to a side door opening into the scullery. Pavel followed her. His mother hurried after him and whispered quickly into his ear: "Now Pavlushka, dear, do your best, and don''t disgrace yourself."
With sad eyes she watched him go, and left. Work in the scullery was in full swing; plates, forks and knives were piled high on the table and several women were wiping them with towels flung over their shoulders. A boy slightly older than Pavel, with a shaggy mop of ginger hair, was tending two huge samovars.
The scullery was full of steam that rose from the large vat of boiling water in which the dishes were washed, and Pavel could not see the faces of the women at first. He stood waiting uncertainly for someone to tell him what to do.
Zina., the barmaid, went over to one of the dishwashers and touched her shoulder.
"Here, Frosya, I''ve brought you a new boy to take Grishka''s place. You tell him what he''s to do."
"She''s in charge here," Zina said to Pavel, nodding toward the woman she had called Frosya. "She''ll tell you what you have to do." And with that she turned and went back to the buffet.
"All right," Pavel replied softly and looked questioningly at Frosya. Wiping her perspiring brow she examined him critically from head to foot, then, rolling up her sleeve which had slipped over her elbow, she said in a deep and remarkably pleasant voice:
"It''s not much of a job, dearie, but it will keep you busy enough. That copper over there has to be heated in the morning and kept hot so there''s boiling water all the time; then there''s the wood to chop and the samovars to take care of besides. You''ll have to clean the knives and forks sometimes and carry out the slops. There''ll be plenty to do, lad," she said, speaking with a marked Kostroma accent laying the stress on the "a''s". Her manner of speaking and her flushed face with the small turned-up nose made Pavel feel better.
"She seems quite decent," he concluded, and overcoming his shyness, said: "What am I to do now, Auntie?"
A loud guffaw from the dishwashers met his words.
"Ha! Ha! Frosya''s gone and got herself a nephew..."
Frosya herself laughed even more heartily than the others.
Through the cloud of steam Pavel had not noticed that Frosya was a young girl; she was no more than eighteen.
Much embarrassed, he turned to the boy and asked:
"What do I do now?"
But the boy merely chuckled. "You ask Auntie, she''ll tell you all about it. I''m off." Whereupon he darted through the door leading to the kitchen.

"Come over here and help dry the forks," said one of the dishwashers, a middle-aged woman.
"Stop your cackling," she admonished the others. "The lad didn''t say anything funny. Here, take this." She handed Pavel a dish towel. "Hold one end between your teeth and pull the other end tight. Here''s a fork, run it up and down the towel, and see you don''t leave any dirt between the prongs. They''re very strict about that here. The customers always inspect the forks and if they find a speck of dirt, they make a terrible fuss, and the mistress will send you flying out in a jiffy."
"The mistress?" Pavel echoed. "I thought the master who hired me was in charge."
The dishwasher laughed.
"The master, my lad, is just a stick of furniture around here. The mistress is the boss. She isn''t here today. But if you work here a while you''ll see for yourself."
The scullery door opened and three waiters entered carrying trays piled high with dirty dishes.
One of them, a broad-shouldered cross-eyed man with a heavy, square jaw, said: "You''d better look lively. The 12 o''clock is due any minute, and here you are dawdling about."
He looked at Pavel. "Who''s this?" he asked.
"That''s the new boy," said Frosya.
"Ah, the new boy," he said. "Well, listen, my lad." He laid his heavy hands on Pavel''s shoulders and pushed him over to the samovars. "You''re supposed to keep them boiling all the time, and look, one of them''s out, and the other is barely going. Don''t let it happen again or I''ll beat the stuffings out of you!"
Pavel busied himself with the samovars without a word.
Thus began his life of toil. Never had Pavka worked so hard as on that first day. He realised that this was not home where he could afford to disobey his mother. The cross-eyed waiter had made it quite plain that if he did not do as he was told, he would suffer for it.
Placing one of his top-boots over the chimney and using it as a bellows, Pave! soon had the sparks flying from the large pot-bellied samovars. He picked up the slop pail and rushed out to the garbage dump, added firewood to the water boiler, dried the wet dish towels on the hot samovars - in a word, did everything he was told to do. Late that night when he went off wearily to the kitchen, Anisia, the middle-aged dishwasher, with a glance at the door that had closed behind him, remarked: "Something queer about that boy, look at the way he dashes about like mad. Must have been a good reason for putting him to work."
"He''s a good worker," said Frosya. "Needs no speeding up."
"He''ll soon cool off," was Lusha''s opinion. "They all try hard in the beginning..."
At seven o''clock the next morning, Pavel, utterly exhausted after a whole night spent on his feet, turned the boiling samovars over to the boy who was to relieve him. The latter, a puffy-faced youngster with a mean look in his eyes, examined the boiling samovars, and having assured himself that all was in order, thrust his hands into his pockets and spat through his teeth with an air of scornful superiority.
"Now listen, snotnose!" he said in an aggressive tone, fixing Pavel with his colourless eyes. "See you''re on the job here tomorrow at six sharp."
"Why at six?" Pavka wanted to know. "The shift changes at seven, doesn''t it?"
"Never mind when the shift changes. You get here at six. And you''d better not blab too much or I''ll smash your silly mug for you. Some cheek, only started in today and already putting on airs."
The dishwashers who had just finished their shift listened with interest to the exchange between the two boys. The blustering tone and bullying manner of the other enraged Pavel. He took a step toward his tormentor and was about to lash out at him with his fists when the fear of losing his newly acquired job stopped him.
"Stop your noise," he said, his face dark with rage, "and keep off or you''ll get more than you bargained for. I''ll be here at seven tomorrow, and I can use my fists as good as you can. Maybe you''d like to try? I''m game."
His adversary cowered back against the boiler, gaping with surprise at the bristling Pavel. He had not expected such a determined rebuff.
"All right, all right, we''ll see," he muttered.
Pavel, his first day at work having passed without mishap, hurried home with a sense of having honestly earned his rest. Now he too was a worker and no one could accuse him of being a parasite.
The morning sun was already climbing above the sprawling buildings of the sawmill. Before long the tiny house where Pavel lived would come into view, just behind the Leszczinski garden.
"Mother must have just got up, and here I am coming home from work," Pavel thought, and he quickened his pace, whistling as he went. "It turned out not so bad being kicked out of school. That damned priest wouldn''t have given me any peace anyway, and he can go to hell now for all I care. As for that gingerhead," he said to himself as he opened the gate, "I''ll punch his face for certain."
His mother, who was lighting the samovar in the yard, looked up at her son''s approach and asked anxiously:
"Well, how was it?"
"Fine," Pavel replied.
His mother was about to say something when through the open window Pavel caught a glimpse of his brother Artem''s broad back.
"Artem''s come home?" he asked, worried.
"Yes, he came last night. He''s going to stay here and work at the railway yards."
With some hesitation Pavel opened the front door.
The man seated at the table with his back to the door turned his huge frame as Pavel entered and the eyes under the thick black brows looked stern.
"Ah, here comes the tobacco lad. Well, how goes it?"
Pavel dreaded the forthcoming interview.
"Artem knows all about it already," he thought. "I''m in for a good row and hiding to boot." Pavel stood somewhat in awe of his elder brother.
But Artem evidently had no intention of beating him. He sat on a stool, leaning his elbows on the table, and studied Pavel''s face with a mingled expression of amusement and scorn.
"So you''ve graduated from university, eh? Learned all there is to learn and now you''re busying yourself with slops, eh?"
Pavel stared down at a nail sticking out of a floor board. Artem got up from the table and went into the kitchen.
"Looks as if I won''t get a thrashing after all," Pavel thought with a sigh of relief.
Later on at tea Artem questioned Pavel about the incident at school. Pavel told him all that had happened.
"What will become of you if you grow up to be such a scamp," the mother said sadly. "What shall we do with him? Who does he take after, I wonder? Dear God, to think of all I''ve had *****ffer from that boy," she complained.
Artem pushed his empty cup away and turned to Pavel.
"Now listen to me, mate," he said. "What''s done can''t be undone. Only now take care and do your work properly and no monkey business, because if you get yourself kicked out of this place I''ll give you a proper thrashing. Remember that. You''ve given mother enough trouble as it is. You''re always getting into some sort of mess. Now that''s got to stop. When you''ve worked for a year or thereabouts I''ll try and get you taken on at the railway yards as an apprentice, because you''ll never amount to anything if you mess about with slops all your life. You''ve got to learn a trade. You''re a bit too young just now, but in a year''s time I''ll see what I can do, maybe they''ll take you. I''ll be working here now. Ma won''t need to go out to work any more. She''s slaved enough for all sorts of swine. Only see here, Pavel, you''ve got to be a man."
He stood up, his huge frame dwarfing everything about him, and putting on the jacket that hung over the chair, said to his mother: "I''ve got to go out for an hour or so," and went out, stooping in the doorway.
Passing by the window on his way to the gate, he looked in and called out to Pavel: "I''ve brought you a pair of boots and a knife. Mother will give them to you."
The station restaurant was open day and night.
Six different railway lines met at this junction, and the station was always packed with people; only for two or three hours at night during a gap between trains was the place comparatively quiet. Hundreds of trains passed through this station bringing maimed and crippled men from the front and taking back a constant stream of new men in monotonous grey overcoats.
Pavel worked there for two years - two years in which he saw nothing more than the scullery and kitchen. The twenty odd people employed in the huge basement kitchen worked at a feverish pace. Ten waiters scurried constantly back and forth between the restaurant and the kitchen.
By now Pavel was receiving ten rubles instead of eight. He had grown taller and broader in these two years, and many were the trials that fell to his lot. For half a year he had worked as a kitchen boy but had been sent back to the scullery again by the all-powerful chef who had taken a dislike to him - you never knew but what the unruly cub might stick a knife into you if you beat him too often. Indeed Pavel''s fiery temper would have lost him the job long since had it not been for his tremendous capacity for hard work. For he could work harder than anyone else and he never seemed to get tired.
During rush hours he would dash with loaded trays up and down the kitchen stairs like a whirlwind, taking several steps at a time.
At night, when the hubbub in both halls of the restaurant subsided, the waiters would gather downstairs in the kitchen storerooms and wild, reckless card games would begin. Pavel often saw large sums of money lying on the tables. He was not surprised, for he knew that each waiter received between thirty and forty rubles a shift in ruble and half ruble tips, which they spent later in drinking and gambling. Pavel hated them.
"The damned swine!" he thought. "There''s Artem, a first-class mechanic, and all he gets is forty-eight rubles a month, and I get ten. And they rake in all that money in one day, just for carrying trays back and forth. And then they spend it all on drink and cards."
To Pavel the waiters were as alien and hostile as his employers. "They crawl on their bellies here, the pigs, but their wives and sons strut about town like rich folk."
Sometimes their sons came, wearing smart Gymnasium uniforms, and sometimes their wives, plump and soft with good living. "I bet they have more money than the gentry they serve," Pavel thought. Nor was the lad shocked any longer by what went on at night in the dark corners of the kitchen or in the storerooms. He knew very well that no dishwasher or barmaid would hold her job long if she did not sell herself for a few rubles to those who held the whip hand here.
Pavel, avid of life, had a glimpse of its bottom-most depths, the very sump of its ugly pit, and a musty, mouldy stench, the smell of swamp rot, rose up to him.
Artem was unable to get him hired as an apprentice at the railway yards; they would not take anyone under fifteen. But Pavel was drawn to the huge soot-blackened brick building, and he looked forward to the day when he could get away from the restaurant.
He went to see Artem at the yards frequently, and would go with him to look over the carriages, helping him whenever he could.
He felt particularly lonely after Frosya left. With the gay, laughing girl gone, Pavel felt more keenly than ever how much her friendship had meant to him. Now when he came in the morning to the scullery and listened to the shrill quarrelling of the refugee women he felt a gnawing sense of emptiness and solitude.
During a slack period at night, as he squatted beside his boiler, adding firewood and staring at the flames, he fell to think of Frosya, and a scene he had recently witnessed rose before his mind''s eye.
During the night interval on Saturday Pavel was on his way downstairs to the kitchen, when curiosity prompted him to climb onto a pile of firewood to look into the storeroom on the lower landing where the gamblers usually assembled.
The game was in full swing. Zalivanov, flushed with excitement, was keeping the bank.
Just then footsteps sounded on the stairs. Looking around, Pavel saw Prokhoshka coming down, and he slipped under the staircase to let the man pass into the kitchen. It was dark there under the stairs and Prokhoshka could not see him.
As Prokhoshka passed the turning in the stairs, Pavel caught a glimpse of his broad back and huge head. Just then someone else came hurrying lightly down the steps after the waiter and Pavel heard a familiar voice call out: "Prokhoshka, wait!"
Prokhoshka stopped and turned around to look up the stairway.
"What d''you want?" he growled.
The footsteps pattered down and soon Frosya came into sight.

She seized the waiter by the arm and spoke in a broken, choking voice.
"Where''s the money the Lieutenant gave you, Prokhoshka?"
The man wrenched his arm away from her.
"What money? I gave it to you, didn''t I?" His tone was sharp and vicious.
"But he gave you three hundred rubles," Frosya''s voice broke into muffled sobs.
"Did he now? Three hundred!" Prokhoshka sneered. "Want to get it all, eh? Flying high for a dishwasher, aren''t you, my fine young lady? The fifty I gave you is plenty. Girls a damn sight better than you, educated too, don''t take that much. You ought to be thankful for what you got - fifty rubles clear for a night is damn good. All right, I''ll give you another ten, maybe twenty, that''s all - and if you''re not a fool you can earn some more. I can help you." With this Prokhoshka turned and disappeared into the kitchen.
"Scoundrel! Swine!" Frosya screamed after him and, leaning against the woodpile, sobbed bitterly.
It is hard to describe what Pavel felt as he stood in the darkness under the staircase watching Frosya beat her head against the logs of wood. But he did not show himself; only his fingers spasmodically gripped the cast-iron supports of the staircase.
"So they''ve sold her too, damn them! Oh Frosya, Frosya..."
His hatred for Prokhoshka seared deeper than ever and everything around him was revolting and hateful to him. "If I had the strength I''d beat the scoundrel to death! Why am I not big and strong like Artem?"
The flames under the boiler flared up and died down, their trembling red tongues intertwining into a long bluish spiral; it seemed to Pavel that some jeering, mocking imp was showing its tongue at him.
It was quiet in the room; only the fire crackled and the tap dripped at measured intervals.
Klimka put the last pot, scrubbed until it shone, on the shelf and wiped his hands. There was no one else in the kitchen. The cook on duty and the kitchen help were asleep in the cloakroom. Quiet settled over the kitchen for the three night hours, and these hours Klimka always spent upstairs with Pavel, for a firm friendship had sprung up between the young kitchen boy and the dark-eyed boiler attendant. Upstairs, Klimka found Pavel squatting in front of the open firebox. Pavel saw the shadow of the familiar shaggy figure cast against the wall and said without turning around:
"Sit down, Klimka."
The boy climbed onto the woodpile, stretched out on it and looked at the silent Pavel.
"Trying to tell your fortune in the fire?" he asked, smiling.
Pavel tore his gaze away from the licking tongues of flame and turned on Klimka two large shining eyes brimming over with sadness. Klimka had never seen his friend look so unhappy.
"What''s wrong with you today, Pavel?" After a pause he asked: "Anything happened?" Pavel got up and sat next to Klimka. "Nothing''s happened," he replied in a low voice. "Only I can''t stand it here, Klimka." And his hands resting on his knees clenched into fists.
"What''s come over you today?" Klimka insisted, propping himself up on his elbows.
"Today? It''s been like this ever since I got this job. Just look at this place! We work like horses and instead of thanks we get blows - anyone can beat you and there''s nobody to stick up for you. The masters hire us to serve them, but anyone who''s strong enough has the right to beat us. After all, you can run yourself ragged but you''ll never please everybody and those you can''t please always have it in for you. No matter how you try to do everything right so that nobody could find fault, there''s always bound to be somebody you haven''t served fast enough, and then you get it in the neck just the same..."
"Don''t shout like that," Klimka interrupted him, frightened. "Somebody might walk in and hear you." Pavel leapt to his feet.
"Let them hear, I''m going to quit anyway. I''d rather shovel snow than hang around this . . . this hole full of crooks. Look at all the money they''ve got! They treat us like dirt, and do what they like with the girls. The decent girls who won''t do what they want are kicked out, and starving refugees who have no place to go are taken on instead. And that sort hang on because here at least they get something to eat, and they''re so down and out they''ll do anything for a piece of bread."
He spoke with such passion that Klimka, fearing that someone might overhear, sprang up to close the door leading to the kitchen, while Pavel continued to pour out the bitterness that burned inside him.
"And you, Klimka, take the beatings lying down. Why don''t you ever speak up?"
Pavel dropped onto a stool at the table and rested his head wearily on the palm of his hand. Klimka threw some wood into the fire and also sat down at the table.
"Aren''t we going to read today?" he asked Pavel.
"There''s nothing to read," Pavel replied. "The bookstall''s closed."
"Why should it be closed today?" Klimka wondered.
"The gendarmes picked up the bookseller. Found something on him," Pavel replied.
"Picked him up? What for?"
"For politics, they say."
Klimka stared at Pavel, unable to grasp his meaning.
"Politics. What''s that?"
Pavel shrugged his shoulders.
"The devil knows! They say it''s politics when you go against the tsar."
Klimka looked startled.
"Do people do that sort of thing?"
"I dunno," replied Pavel.
The door opened and Glasha, her eyelids puffed from sleepiness, walked into the scullery.
"Why aren''t you two sleeping? There''s time for an hour''s nap before the train pulls in. You''d better take a rest, Pavel, I''ll see to the boiler for you."

Pavel quit his job sooner than he expected and in a manner he had not foreseen.
One frosty January day when Pavel had finished his shift and was ready to go home he found that the lad who was to relieve him had not shown up. Pavel went to the proprietor''s wife and announced that he was going nevertheless, but she would not hear of it. There was nothing for him to do but to carry on, exhausted though he was after a day and night of work. By evening he was ready to drop with weariness. During the night interval he had to fill the boilers and have them ready for the three-o''clock train.
Pavel turned the tap but there was no water; the pump evidently was not working. Leaving the tap open, he lay down on the woodpile to wait, but fatigue got the better of him, and he was soon fast asleep.
A few minutes later the tap began gurgling and hissing and the water poured into the boiler, filling it to overflowing and spilling over the tiled floor of the scullery which was deserted at this hour. The water flowed on until it covered the floor and seeped under the door into the restaurant.
Puddles of water gathered under the bags and bundles of the dozing passengers, but nobody noticed it until the water reached a passenger lying on the floor and he jumped to his feet with a shout. There was a rush for luggage and a terrific uproar broke out.
And the water continued to pour in.
Prokhoshka, who had been clearing the tables in the second hall, ran in when he heard the commotion. Leaping over the puddles he made a dash for the door and pushed it open violently. The water dammed behind it burst into the hall.
There was more shouting. The waiters on duty rushed into the scullery. Prokhoshka threw himself on the sleeping Pavel.
Blows rained down on the boy''s head, stunning him.
Still half asleep, he had no idea of what was happening. He was only conscious of blinding flashes of lightning before his eyes and agonising pain shooting through his body.
Pavel was so badly beaten that he barely managed to drag himself home.
In the morning Artem, grim-faced and scowling, questioned his brother as to what had happened.
Pavel told him everything.
"Who beat you?" Artem asked hoarsely.
"Prokhoshka."
"All right, now lie still."
Without another word Artem pulled on his jacket and walked out.
"Where can I find Prokhor, the waiter?" he asked one of the dishwashers. Glasha stared at the stranger in workingman''s clothes who had burst into the scullery.
"He''ll be here in a moment," she replied.
The man leaned his enormous bulk against the door jamb.
"All right, I can wait."
Prokhor, carrying a mountain of dishes on a tray, kicked the door open and entered the scullery.
"That''s him," Glasha nodded at the waiter.
Artem took a step forward and laying a heavy hand on Prokhor''s shoulder looked him straight in the eye.
"What did you beat up my brother Pavka for?"
Prokhor tried to shake his shoulder loose, but a smashing blow laid him out on the floor; he tried to rise, but a second blow more terrible than the first pinned him down.
The frightened dishwashers scattered on all sides.
Artem turned and walked out.
Prokhoshka lay sprawled on the floor, his battered face bleeding.
That evening Artem did not come home from the railway yards.
His mother learned that he was being held by the gendarmes.
Six days later Artem returned late at night when his mother was already asleep. He went up to Pavel, who was sitting up in bed, and said gently:
"Feeling better, boy?" Artem sat down next to Pavel. "Might have been worse." After a moment''s silence he added: "Never mind, you''ll go to work at the electric station; I''ve spoken to them about you. You''ll learn a real trade there."
Pavel seized Artem''s powerful hand with both of his.

CHAPTER TWO
Like a whirlwind the stupendous news broke into the small town: "The tsar''s been overthrown!"
The townsfolk refused to believe it.
Then one stormy winter day a train crawled into the station: two students in army greatcoats, with rifles slung over their shoulders, and a detachment of revolutionary soldiers wearing red armbands jumped out onto the platform and arrested the station gendarmes, an old colonel and the chief of the garrison. Now the townsfolk believed the news. Thousands streamed down the snowbound streets to the town square.
Eagerly they drank in the new words: liberty, equality and fraternity.
Turbulent days followed, days full of excitement and jubilation. Then a lull set in, and the red flag flying over the town hall where the Mensheviks and adherents of the Bund had ensconced themselves was the sole reminder of the change that had taken place. Everything else remained as before.
Towards the end of the winter a regiment of the cavalry guards was billeted in the town. In the mornings they sallied out in squadrons to hunt for deserters from the South-Western Front at the railway station.
The troopers were great, beefy fellows with well-fed faces. Most of their officers were counts and princes; they wore golden shoulder straps and silver piping on their breeches, just as they had in the tsar''s time - for all the world as if there had been no revolution.
For Pavel, Klimka and Sergei Bruzzhak nothing had changed. The bosses were still there. It was not until November that something out of the ordinary began to happen. People of a new kind had appeared at the station and were beginning to stir things up; a steadily increasing number of them were soldiers from the firing lines and they bore the strange name of "Bolsheviks".
Where that resounding, weighty name came from no one knew.
The guardsmen found it increasingly hard to detain the deserters. The crackle of rifles and the splintering of glass was heard more and more often down at the station. The men came from the front in groups and when stopped they fought back with bayonets. In the beginning of December they began pouring in by trainloads.
The guardsmen came down in force to the station with the intention of holding the soldiers, but they found themselves raked by machine-gun fire. The men who poured out of the railway carriages were inured to death.
The grey-coated frontliners drove the guards back into the town and then returned to the station to continue on their way, trainload after trainload.
One day in the spring of nineteen eighteen, three chums on their way from Sergei Bruzzhak''s where they had been playing cards dropped into the Korchagins'' garden and threw themselves on the grass. They were bored. All the customary occupations had begun to pall, and they were beginning to rack their brains for some more exciting way to spend the day when they heard the clatter of horses'' hoofs behind them and saw a horseman come galloping down the road. With one bound the horse cleared the ***ch between the road and the low garden fence and the rider waved his whip at Pavel and Klim. "Hi there, my lads, come over here!" Pavel and Klim sprang to their feet and ran to the fence. The rider was covered with dust; it had settled in a heavy grey Layer on the cap which he wore pushed to the back of his head, and on his khaki tunic and breeches. A revolver and two German grenades dangled from his heavy soldier''s belt.
"Can you get me a drink of water, boys?" the horseman asked them. While Pavel dashed off into the house for the water, he turned to Sergei who was staring at him. "Tell me, boy, who''s in authority in your town?"
Sergei breathlessly related all the local news to the newcomer.
"There''s been nobody in authority for two weeks. The homeguard''s the government now. All the inhabitants take turns patrolling the town at night. And who might you be?" Sergei asked in his turn.
"Now, now - if you know too much you''ll get old too soon," the horseman smiled.
Pavel ran out of the house carrying a mug of water. The rider thirstily emptied the mug at one gulp and handed it back to Pavel. Then jerking the reins he started off at a gallop, heading for the pine woods. "Who was that?" Pavel asked Klim. "How do I know?" the latter replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"Looks like the authorities are going to be changed again. That''s why the Leszczinskis left yesterday. And if the rich are on the run that means the partisans are coming," declared Sergei, settling the political question firmly and with an air of finality.
The logic of this was so convincing that both Pavel and Klim agreed with him at once.
Before the boys had finished discussing the question a clatter of hoofs from the highway sent all three rushing back to the fence.
Over by the forest warden''s cottage, which was barely visible among the trees, they saw men and carts emerging from the woods, and nearer still on the highway a party of fifteen or so mounted men with rifles across their pommels. At the head of the horsemen rode an elderly man in khaki jacket and officer''s belt with field glasses slung on his chest, and beside him the man the boys had just spoken to. The elderly man wore a red ribbon on his breast.
"What did I tell you?" Sergei nudged Pavel in the ribs. "See the red ribbon? Partisans. I''ll be damned if they aren''t partisans..." And whooping with joy he leapt over the fence into the street.
The others followed suit and all three stood by the roadside gazing at the approaching horsemen.
When the riders were quite close the man whom the boys had met before nodded to them, and pointing to the Leszczinski house with his whip asked:
"Who lives over there?"
Pavel paced alongside trying to keep abreast the rider.
"Leszczinski the lawyer. He ran away yesterday. Scared of you most likely..."
"How do you know who we are?" the elderly man asked, smiling.
"What about that?" Pavel pointed to the ribbon. "Anybody can tell..."
People poured into the street to stare with curiosity at the detachment entering the town. Our three young friends too stood watching the dusty, exhausted Red Guards go by. And when the detachment''s lone cannon and the carts with machine guns clattered over the cobblestones the boys trailed after the partisans, and did not go home until after the unit had halted in the centre of the town and the billeting began.
That evening four men sat around the massive carved-legged table in the spacious Leszczinski parlour: detachment commander Comrade Bulgakov, an elderly man whose hair was touched with grey, and three members of the unit''s commanding personnel.
Bulgakov had spread out a map of the gubernia on the table and was now running his finger over it.
"You say we ought to put up a stand here, Comrade Yermachenko," he said, addressing a man with broad features and prominent teeth, "but I think we must move out in the morning. Better still if we could get going during the night, but the men are in need of a rest. Our task is to withdraw to Kazatin before the Germans get there. To resist with the strength we have would be ridiculous. One gun with thirty rounds of ammunition, two hundred infantry and sixty cavalry. A formidable force, isn''t it, when the Germans are advancing in an avalanche of steel. We cannot put up a fight until we join up with other withdrawing Red units. Besides, Comrades, we must remember that apart from the Germans there''ll be numerous counter-revolutionary bands of all kinds to deal with en route. I propose that we withdraw in the morning after first blowing up the railway bridge beyond the station. It''ll take the Germans two or three days to repair it and in the meantime their advance along the railway will be held up. What do you think, Comrades? We must decide..." he turned to the others around the table.
Struzhkov, who sat diagonally across from Bulgakov, sucked in his lips and looked first at the map and then at Bulgakov.
"I agree with Bulgakov," he said finally.
The youngest of the men, who was dressed in a worker''s blouse, nodded.
"Bulgakov''s right," he said.
But Yermachenko, the man who had spoken with the boys earlier in the day, shook his head.
"What the devil did we get the detachment together for? To retreat from the Germans without putting up a fight? As I see it, we''ve got to have it out with them here. I''m sick and tired of running. If it was up to me, I''d fight them here without fail..." Pushing his chair back sharply, he rose and began pacing the room.
Bulgakov looked at him with disapproval.
"We must use our heads, Yermachenko. We can''t throw our men into a battle that is bound to end in defeat and destruction Besides it''s ridiculous. There''s a whole division with heavy artillery and armoured cars just behind us... This is no time for schoolboy heroics, Comrade Yermachenko..." Turning to the others, he continued: "So it''s decided, we evacuate tomorrow morning... Now for the next question, liaison," Bulgakov proceeded. "Since we are the last to leave, it''s our job to organise work in the German rear. This is a big railway junction and there are two stations in the town. We must see to it that there is a reliable comrade to carry on the work on the railway. We''ll have to decide here whom to leave behind to get the work going. Have you anyone in mind?"
"I think the sailor Fyodor Zhukhrai ought to remain," Yermachenko said, moving up to the table. "In the first place he''s a local man. Secondly, he''s a fitter and mechanic and can get himself a job at the station. Nobody''s seen Fyodor with our detachment - he won''t get here until tonight. He''s got a good head on his shoulders and he''ll get things going properly. I think he''s the best man for the job."
Bulgakov nodded.
"I agree with you, Yermachenko. No objections, Comrades?" he turned to the others. "None. Then the matter is settled. We''ll leave Zhukhrai some money and the credentials he''ll need for his work... Now for the third and last question, Comrades. About the arms stored here in the town. There''s quite a stock of rifles, twenty thousand of them, left over from the tsarist war and forgotten by everybody. They are piled up in a peasant''s shed. I have this from the owner of the shed who happens to be anxious to get rid of them. We are not going to leave them to the Germans; in my opinion we ought to burn them, and at once, so as to have it over and done with by morning. The only trouble is that the fire might spread to the surrounding cottages. It''s on the fringes of the town where the poor peasants live."
Struzhkov stirred in his chair. He was a solidly built man whose unshaven face had not seen a razor for some time.
"Why burn the rifles? Better distribute them among the population."
Bulgakov turned quickly to face him.
"Distribute them, you say?"
"A splendid idea!" Yermachenko responded enthusiastically. "Give them to the workers and anyone else who wants them. At least there will be something to hit back with when the Germans make life impossible. They''re bound to do their worst. And when things come to a head, the men will be able to take up arms. Struzhkov''s right: the rifles must be distributed. Wouldn''t be a bad thing to take some to the villages too; the peasants will hide them away, and when the Germans begin to requisition everything the rifles are sure to come in handy."
Bulgakov laughed.
"That''s all right, but the Germans are sure to order all arms turned in and everybody will obey."
"Not everybody," Yermachenko objected. "Some will but others won''t."
Bulgakov looked questioningly at the men around the table.
"I''m for distributing the rifles," the young workers supported Yermachenko and Struzhkov.
"All right then, it''s decided," Bulgakov agreed. "That''s all for now," he said, rising from his chair. "We can take a rest till morning. When Zhukhrai comes, send him in to me, I want to have a talk with him. Yermachenko, you''d better inspect the sentry posts."
When the others left, Bulgakov went into the bedroom next to the parlour, spread his greatcoat on the mattress and lay down.
The following morning Pavel, coming home from the electric power station where he had been working as a stoker''s helper for a year now, felt that something unusual was afoot. The town seethed with excitement. As he went along he met people carrying one or two and sometimes even three rifles each. He could not understand what was happening and he hurried home as fast as he could. Outside the Leszczinski garden he saw his acquaintances of yesterday mounting their horses.
Pavel ran into the house, washed quickly and, learning from his mother that Artem had not come home yet, dashed out again and hurried over to see Sergei Bruzzhak, who lived on the other side of the town.

Sergei''s father was an engine driver''s helper and owned a tiny house and a small plot of land.
Sergei was out, and his mother, a stout, pale-faced woman, eyed Pavel sourly.
"The devil knows where he is! He rushed out first thing in the morning like one possessed. Said they were giving out rifles somewhere, so I suppose that''s where he is. What you snotnosed warriors need is a good hiding - you''ve got out of hand completely. Hardly out of pinafores and already dashing off after firearms. You tell the scamp that if he brings a single cartridge into this house I''ll skin him alive. Who knows what he''ll be dragging in and then I''ll have to answer for it. You''re not going there too, are you?"
But before Sergei''s mother had finished scolding, Pavel was already racing down the street.
On the highway he met a man carrying a rifle on each shoulder. Pavel dashed up to him.
"Please, uncle, where did you get them?"
"Over at Verkhovina."
Pavel hurried off as fast as his legs could carry him. Two streets down he collided with a boy who was lugging a heavy infantry rifle with bayonet attached. Pavel stopped him.
"Where''d you get that?"
"The partisans were giving them away out there opposite the school, but there aren''t any more. All gone. Handed them out all night and now only the empty cases are left. This is my second one," the boy declared proudly.
Pavel was utterly dismayed by the news.
"Damn it, I should''ve gone straight there," he thought bitterly. "Now it''s too late!"
Suddenly an idea struck him. Spinning around, he overtook the boy in two or three bounds and snatched the rifle out of his hands.
"One''s enough for you. This is going to be mine," he said in a tone that brooked no opposition.
Infuriated by this robbery in broad daylight, the boy flung himself at Pavel, but the latter leapt back and pointed the bayonet at his antagonist.
"Look out or you''ll get hurt!" Pavel shouted.
The boy burst into tears of helpless rage and ran away, swearing at Pavel as he went. Pavel, vastly pleased with himself, trotted home. He climbed over the fence, ran into the shed, laid his acquisition on the crossbeams under the roof, and, whistling gaily, entered the house.
Summer evenings in the Ukraine, especially in small Ukrainian towns like Shepetovka, which are more like villages on the outskirts, are beautiful indeed. These calm summer nights lure all the young folk out of doors. You will see them in groups and in pairs - on the porches, in the little front gardens, or perched on woodpiles lying by the side of the road. Their gay laughter and singing echo in the evening stillness.
The air is heavy and tremulous with the fragrance of flowers. There is a faint pinpoint glimmer of stars in the depths of the sky, and voices carry far, far away...
Pavel dearly loved his accordion. He would lay the melodious instrument tenderly on his knees and let his nimble fingers run lightly up and down the double row of keys. A sighing from the bass, and a cascade of rollicking melody would pour forth...
How can you keep still when the sinuous bellows weave in and out and the accordion breathes its warm compelling harmonies. Before you know it your feet are answering its urgent summons. Ah, how good it is to be alive!
This is a particularly jolly evening. A merry crowd of young folk have gathered on the pile of logs outside Pavel''s house. And gayest of them all is Galochka, the daughter of the stonemason who lives next door to Pavel. Galochka loves to dance and sing with the lads. She has a deep velvety contralto.
Pavel is a wee bit afraid of her. For Galochka has a sharp tongue. She sits down beside Pavel and throws her arms around him, laughing gaily.
"What a wonder you are with that accordion!" she says. "It''s a pity you''re a bit too young or you''d make me a fine hubby. I adore men who play the accordion, my poor heart just melts."
Pavel blushes to the roots of his hair - luckily it is too dark for anyone to see. He edges away from the vixen but she clings fast to him.
"Now then, you wouldn''t run away from me, would you? A fine sweetheart you are," she laughs.
Her firm breast brushes Pavel''s shoulder, and he is strangely stirred in spite of himself, and the loud laughter of the others breaks the accustomed stillness of the lane.
"Move up, I haven''t any room to play," says Pavel, giving her shoulder a slight push.
This evokes another roar of laughter, jokes and banter.
Marusya comes to Pavel''s rescue. "Play something sad, Pavel, something that tugs at your heartstrings."
Slowly the bellows spread out, gently Pavel''s fingers caress the keys and a familiar well-loved tune fills the air. Galochka is the first to join in, then Marusya, and the others.
All the boatmen to their cottage
Gathered on the morrow,
O, ''tis good
And O, ''tis sweet
Here to sing our sorrow...
The vibrant young voices of the singers were carried far away into the wooded distances.
"Pavka!" It was Artem''s voice.
Pavel compressed the bellows of his accordion and fastened the straps.
"They''re calling me. I''ve got to go."
"Oh, play just a little more. What''s your hurry?" Marusya tried to wheedle him into staying.
But Pavel was adamant.
"Can''t. We''ll have some music tomorrow again, but now I''ve got to go. Artem''s calling." And with that he ran across the street to the little house opposite.
There were two men in the room besides Artem: Roman, a friend of Artem''s, and a stranger. They were sitting at the table.
"You wanted me?" Pavel asked.
Artem nodded to him and turned to the stranger:
"This is that brother of mine we''ve been talking about."
The stranger extended a knotted hand to Pavel.
"See here, Pavka," Artem said to his brother. "You told me the electrician at the power plant is ill. Now what I want you to do is to find out tomorrow whether they want a good man to take his place. If they do you''ll let us know."
The stranger interrupted him.
"No need to do that. I''d rather go with him and speak with the boss myself."
"Of course they need someone. Today the power plant didn''t work simply because Stankovich was ill. The boss came around twice - he''d been looking high and low for somebody to take his place but couldn''t find anyone. He was afraid to start the plant with only a stoker around. The electrician''s got the typhus."
"That settles it," the stranger said. "I''ll call for you tomorrow and we''ll go over there together."
"Good."
Pavel''s glance met the calm grey eyes of the stranger who was studying him carefully. The firm, steady scrutiny somewhat disconcerted him. The newcomer was wearing a grey jacket buttoned from top to bottom- it was obviously a tight fit for the seams strained on his broad, powerful back. His head and shoulders were joined by a muscular, ox-like neck, and his whole frame suggested the sturdy strength of an old oak.
"Good-bye and good luck, Zhukhrai," Artem said accompanying him to the door. "Tomorrow you''ll go along with my brother and get fixed up in the job."
The Germans entered the town three days after the detachment left. Their coming was announced by a locomotive whistle at the station which had latterly been deserted.
"The Germans are coming," the news flashed through the town.
The town stirred like a disturbed anthill, for although the townsfolk had known for some time that the Germans were due, they had somehow not quite believed it. And now these terrible Germans were not only somewhere on their way, but actually here, in town.
The townsfolk clung to the protection of their front-garden fences and wicket gates. They were afraid to venture out into the streets.
The Germans came, marching single file on both sides of the highway; they wore olive-drab uniforms and carried their rifles at the ready. Their rifles were tipped with broad knife-like bayonets; they wore heavy steel helmets, and carried enormous packs on their backs. They came from the station into the town in an endless stream, came cautiously, prepared to repel an attack at any moment, although no one dreamed of attacking them.
In front strode two officers, Mausers in hand, and in the centre of the road walked the interpreter, a sergeant-major in the Hetman''s service wearing a blue Ukrainian coat and a tall fur cap.
The Germans lined up on the square in the centre of the town. The drums rolled. A small crowd of the more venturesome townsfolk gathered. The Hetman''s man in the Ukrainian coat climbed onto the porch of the chemist''s shop and read aloud an order issued by the commandant, Major Korf.
1
All citizens of the town are hereby ordered to turn in any firearms or other weapons in their possession within 24 hours. The penalty for violation of this order is death by shooting.
2
Martial law is declared in the town and citizens are forbidden to appear in the streets after 8 p.m.
Major Korf, Town Commandant.

The German Kommandantur took up quarters in the building formerly used by the town administration and, after the revolution, by the Soviet of Workers'' Deputies. At the entrance a sentry was posted wearing a parade helmet with an imperial eagle of enormous proportions. In the backyard of the same building were storage premises for the arms to be turned in by the population.
All day long weapons were brought in by townsfolk scared by the threat of shooting. The adults did not show themselves; the arms were delivered by youths and small boys. The Germans detained nobody.
Those who did not want to come in person dumped their weapons out on the road during the night, and in the morning a German patrol picked them up, loaded them into an army cart and hauled them to the Kommandantur.
At one o''clock in the afternoon, when the time limit expired, German soldiers began to take stock of their booty: fourteen thousand rifles. That meant that six thousand had not been turned in. The dragnet searches they conducted yielded very insignificant results.
At dawn the next morning two railway men in whose homes concealed rifles had been found were shot at the old Jewish cemetery outside the town.
As soon as he heard of the commandant''s order, Artem hurried home. Meeting Pavel in the yard, he took him by the shoulder and asked him quietly but firmly:
"Did you bring any weapons home?"
Pavel had not intended to say anything about the rifle, but he could not lie to his brother and so he made a clean breast of it.
They went into the shed together. Artem took the rifle down from its hiding place on the beams, removed the bolt and bayonet, and seizing the weapon by the barrel swung it with all his might against a fence post. The butt splintered. What remained of the rifle was thrown far away into the waste lot beyond the garden. The bayonet and bolt Artem threw into the privy pit.
When he was finished, Artem turned to his brother.
"You''re not a baby any more, Pavka, and you ought to know you can''t play with guns. You must not bring anything into the house. This is dead serious. You might have to pay with your life for that sort of thing nowadays. And don''t try any tricks, because if you do bring something like that home and they find it I''d be the first to be shot - they wouldn''t touch a youngster like you. These are brutal times, understand that!"
Pavel promised.
As the brothers were crossing the yard to the house, a carriage stopped at the Leszczinskis'' gate and the lawyer and his wife and two children, Nelly and Victor, got out.
"So the fine birds have flown back to their nest," Artem muttered angrily. "Now the fun begins, blast them!" He went inside.
All day long Pavel thought regretfully of the rifle. In the meantime his friend Sergei was hard at work in an old, abandoned shed, digging a hole in the ground next to the wall. At last the pit was ready. In it Sergei deposited the three brand-new rifles, carefully wrapped in rags: he had picked them up when the Red Guard detachment distributed arms to the people. He had no intention of giving them up to the Germans and had laboured hard all night to make sure that they were safely hidden.
He filled up the hole, tramped the earth down level, and then piled a heap of refuse on top. Critically reviewing the results of his efforts and finding them satisfactory he took off his cap and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
"Now let them search, and even if they find it, they''ll never know who put it there, because the shed is nobody''s anyway."
A firm friendship had sprung up between Pavel and the grim-faced electrician who had been working a full month now at the electric station. Zhukhrai showed the stoker''s helper how the dynamo was built and how it was run.
The sailor took a liking to the bright youngster. He frequently visited Artem on free days and listened patiently to the mother''s tale of domestic woes and worries, especially when she complained about her younger boy''s escapades. Thoughtful and serious, Zhukhrai had a calming, reassuring effect on Maria Yakovlevna, who would forget her troubles and grow more cheerful in his company.
One day Zhukhrai stopped Pavel as he was passing between the high piles of firewood in the power station yard.
"Your mother tells me you''re fond of a scrap," he said, smiling. " ''He''s as bad as a game-****,'' she says." Zhukhrai chuckled approvingly. "As a matter of fact, it doesn''t hurt to be a fighter, as long as you know whom to fight and why."
Pavel was not sure whether Zhukhrai was joking or serious.
"I don''t fight for nothing," he retorted, "I always fight for what''s right and fair."
"Want me to teach you to fight properly?" Zhukhrai asked unexpectedly.
"What d''you mean, properly?" Pavel looked at the other in surprise. "You''ll see."
And Pavel was given a brief introductory lecture on boxing.
It did not come easy to Pavel. Time and again he found himself rolling on the ground, knocked off his feet by a blow from Zhukhrai''s fist, but he proved a diligent and persevering pupil, and in the end he mastered the art.
One warm day after a visit to Klimka''s place Pavel, for want of something better to do, decided to climb up to his favourite spot - the roof of a shed that stood in the corner of the garden behind the house. He crossed the backyard into the garden, went over to the clapboard shack, and climbed up onto its roof. Pushing through the dense branches of the cherry trees that hung over the shed, he made his way to the centre of the roof and lay down to bask in the sunshine.
One side of the shed jutted out into the Leszczinski garden, and from the end of the roof the whole garden and one side of the house were visible. Poking his head over the edge, Pavel could see part of the yard and a carriage standing there. The batman of the German Lieutenant quartered at the Leszczinskis'' was brushing his master''s clothes.
Pavel had often seen the Lieutenant at the gate leading to the grounds. He was a squat, ruddy-faced man who wore a tiny clipped moustache, pince-nez and a cap with a shiny lacquered peak. Pavel also knew that he lived in the side room, the window of which opened onto the garden and was visible from the shed roof.
At this moment the Lieutenant was sitting at the table, writing. Presently he picked up what he had written and went out of the room. He handed the paper to the batman and walked off down the garden path leading to the gate. At the summer house he paused to talk to someone inside. A moment later Nelly Leszczinskaya came out. The Lieutenant took her arm and together they went out of the gate into the street.
Pavel watched the proceedings from his vantage point. Presently a drowsiness stole over him and he was about to close his eyes when he noticed the batman entering the Lieutenant''s room; he hung up a uniform, opened the window into the garden and tidied up the room. Then he went out, closing the door behind him. The next moment Pavel saw him over by the stable where the horses were.
Through the open window Pavel had a good view of the whole room. On the table lay a belt and some shining object.
Driven by an irresistible curiosity, Pavel climbed noiselessly off the roof onto the cherry tree and slipped down into the Leszczinski garden. Bent double, he bounded across the garden and peered through the window into the room. Before him on the table were a belt with a shoulder strap and holster containing a splendid twelve-shot Mannlicher.
Pavel caught his breath. For a few seconds he hesitated, but reckless daring gained the upper hand and reaching into the room, he seized the holster, pulled out the new blue-steel weapon and sprang down to the ground. With a swift glance around, he slipped the revolver into his pocket and dashed across the garden to the cherry tree. With the agility of a monkey he climbed to the roof and paused to look behind him. The batman was still chatting pleasantly with the groom. The garden was silent and deserted. Pavel slid down the other side and ran home.
His mother was busy in the kitchen cooking dinner and paid no attention to him.
He seized a rag from behind a trunk and shoved it into his pocket, then slipped out unnoticed, ran across the yard, scaled the fence and emerged on the road leading to the woods. Holding the heavy revolver to prevent it from knocking against his thigh, he ran as fast as he could to the abandoned ruins of a brick kiln in the woods.
His feet seemed barely to touch the ground and the wind whistled in his ears.
Everything was quiet at the old brick kiln. It was a depressing sight, with the wooden roof fallen in here and there, the mountains of brick rubble and the collapsed ovens. The place was overgrown with weeds; no one ever visited it except Pavel and his two friends who sometimes came here to play. Pavel knew places where the stolen treasure could be safely hidden.
He climbed through a gap in one of the ovens and looked around him cautiously, but there was no one in sight. Only the pines soughed softly and a slight wind stirred the dust on the road. There was a strong smell of resin in the air.
Pavel placed the revolver wrapped in the rag in a corner of the oven floor and covered it with a small pyramid of old bricks. On the way out he filled the opening in the old oven with loose bricks, noted the exact location, and slowly set out for home, feeling his knees trembling under him.
"What will happen now?" he thought and his heart was heavy with foreboding.
To avoid going home he went to the power station earlier than usual. He took the key from the watchman and opened the wide doors leading into the powerhouse. And while he cleaned out the ashpit, pumped water into the boiler and started the fire going, he wondered what was happening at the Leszczinskis.
It was about eleven o''clock when Zhukhrai came and called Pavel outside.
"Why was there a search at your place today?" he asked in a low voice. Pavel started.
"A search?"
"I don''t like the look of it," Zhukhrai continued after a brief pause. "Sure you haven''t any idea what they were looking for?"
Pavel knew very well what they had been looking for, but he could not risk telling Zhukhrai about the theft of the revolver. Trembling all over he asked:
"Have they arrested Artem?"
"Nobody was arrested, but they turned everything upside down in the house."
This reassured Pavel slightly, although his anxiety did not pass. For a few minutes both he and Zhukhrai stood there each wrapped in his own thoughts. One of the two knew why the search had been made and was worried about the consequences, the other did not and hence was on the alert.
"Damn them, maybe they''ve got wind of me somehow," Zhukhrai thought. "Artem knows nothing about me, but why did they search his place? Got to be more careful."
The two parted without a word and returned to their work.
The Leszczinski house was in a turmoil.
When the Lieutenant had noticed that the revolver was missing, he had called in his batman, who declared that the weapon must have been stolen; whereupon the officer had lost his temper and had smashed his fist into the batman''s face. The batman, swaying from the impact of the blow, stood stiffly at attention, blinking and submissively awaiting further developments.
The lawyer, called in for an explanation, was loudly indignant at the theft and apologised to the Lieutenant for having allowed such a thing to occur in his house.
It was Victor Leszczinski who suggested that the revolver might have been stolen by the neighbours, and in particular by that young ruffian Pavel Korchagin. His father lost no time in passing on his son''s conjecture to the Lieutenant, who at once ordered a search made.
The search was fruitless, and the episode of the missing revolver showed Pavel that even enterprises as risky as this could sometimes succeed

CHAPTER THREE
Tonya stood at the open window and pensively surveyed the familiar garden bordered by the stately poplars now stirring faintly in the gentle breeze. She could hardly believe that a whole year had passed since she had been here where her childhood years had been spent. It seemed that she had left home only yesterday and returned by this morning''s train.
Nothing had changed: the rows of raspberry bushes were as carefully trimmed as ever, and the garden paths, lined with pansies, mother''s favourite flowers, were laid out with the same geometric precision. Everything in the garden was neat and tidy - evidence of the pedantic hand of the dendrologist. The sight of these clean-swept, neatly drawn paths bored Tonya.
She picked up the novel she had been reading, opened the door leading to the veranda and walked down the stairs into the garden; she pushed open the little painted wicket gate and slowly headed for the pond next to the station pump house.
She passed the bridge and came out on the tree-lined road. On her right was the pond fringed with willows and alders; on the left the forest began.
She was on her way to the ponds at the old stone-quarry when the sight of a fishing rod swung over the water made her pause.
Leaning over the trunk of a twisted willow, she parted the branches and saw before her a sun-tanned, barefoot boy with trouser legs rolled up above the knee. Next to him was a rusty can with worms. The lad was too engrossed in his occupation to notice her.
"Do you think you can catch fish here?"
Pavel glanced angrily over his shoulder.
A girl in a white sailor blouse with a striped blue collar and a short light-grey skirt stood on the bank, holding on to the willow and bending low over the water. Short socks with a coloured edging clung to her shapely suntanned legs. Her chestnut hair was gathered in a heavy braid.
A slight tremor shook the hand holding the fishing rod and the goose-feather float bobbed, sending circles spreading over the smoothness of the water.
"Look, look, a bite!" the excited voice piped behind Pavel.
He now lost his composure completely and jerked at the line so hard that the hook with the squirming worm on the end of it fairly leapt out of the water.
"Not much chance to fish now, damn it! What the devil brought her here," Pavel thought irritably and in order to cover up his clumsiness cast the hook farther out, landing it, however, exactly where he should not have - between two burdocks where the line could easily get caught.
He realised what had happened and without turning around, hissed at the girl sitting above him on the bank:
"Can''t you keep quiet? You''ll scare off all the fish that way."
From above came the mocking voice:
"Your black looks have scared the fish away long ago. No self-respecting angler goes fishing in the afternoon anyway!"
Pavel had done his best to behave politely but this was too much for him. He got up and pushed his cap over his eyes, as he usually did when roused.
"You''d do better, miss, if you took yourself off," he muttered through his teeth, drawing on the most inoffensive part of his vocabulary.
Tonya''s eyes narrowed slightly and laughter danced in them.
"Am I really interfering?"
The teasing note had gone from her voice and given way to a friendly, conciliatory tone, and Pavel, who had primed himself to be really rude to this "missy" who had sprung from nowhere, found himself disarmed.
"You can stay and watch, if you want to. It''s all the same to me," he said grudgingly and sat down to attend to the float again. It had got stuck in the burdock and there was no doubt that the hook had caught in the roots. Pavel was afraid to pull at it. If it caught he would not be able to get it loose. And the girl would be sure to laugh. He wished she would go away.
Tonya, however, had settled more comfortably on the slightly swaying willow trunk and with her book on her knees was watching the sun-tanned, dark-eyed, rough-mannered young man who had given her such an ungracious reception and was now deliberately ignoring her.
Pavel saw the girl clearly reflected in the mirror-like surface of the pond, and when she seemed to be absorbed in her book he cautiously pulled at the entangled line. The float ducked under the water and the line grew taut.
"Caught, damn it!" flashed in his mind and at the same moment he saw out of the corner of his eye the laughing face of the girl looking up at him from the water.
Just then two young men, both seventh-grade Gymnasium students, were coming across the bridge at the pump house. One of them was the seventeen-year-old son of engineer Sukharko, the chief of the railway yards, a loutish, fair-haired, freckle-faced scapegrace whom his schoolmates had clubbed Pockmarked Shurka. He was carrying a fancy fishing rod and line and had a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. With him was Victor Leszczinski, a tall, effeminate youth.
"Now this girl is a peach, there''s nobody like her about here," Sukharko was saying, winking significantly as he bent toward his companion. "You can take my word for it that she''s chock-full of r-r-romance. She''s in the sixth grade and goes to school in Kiev. Now she''s come to spend the summer with her father - he''s the chief forest warden here. My sister Liza knows her. I wrote her a letter once in a sentimental sort of vein. ''I love you madly'' - you know the sort of thing - ''and await your answer in trepidation''. Even dug up some suitable verses from Nadson."
"Well, what came of it?" Victor asked curiously.
"Oh, she was frightfully stuck up about it," Sukharko muttered rather sheepishly. "Told me not to waste paper writing letters and all that. But that''s how it always is in the beginning. I''m an old hand at this sort of thing. As a matter of fact I can''t be bothered with all that romantic nonsense - mooning about for ages, sighing. It''s much simpler to take a stroll of an evening down to the repairmen''s barracks where for three rubles you can pick up a beauty that''d make your mouth water. And no nonsense either. I used to go out there with Valka Tikhonov - do you know him? The foreman on the railway."
Victor scowled in disgust.
"Do you mean to tell me you go in for foul stuff like that, Shura?"
Shura chewed at his cigarette, spat and replied with a sneer:
"Don''t pretend to be so virtuous. We know what you go in for."
Victor interrupted him.
"Will you introduce me to this peach of yours?"
"Of course. Let''s hurry or she''ll give us the slip. Yesterday morning she went fishing by herself."
As the two friends came up to Tonya, Sukharko took the cigarette out of his mouth and greeted her with a gallant bow.
"How do you do, Mademoiselle Tumanova. Have you come to fish too?"
"No, I''m just watching," replied Tonya.
"You two haven''t met, have you?" Sukharko hastened to put in, taking Victor by the arm. "This is my friend Victor Leszczinski."
Victor, blushing, extended his hand to Tonya.
"And why aren''t you fishing today?" Sukharko inquired in an effort to keep up the conversation.
"I forgot to bring my rod," Tonya replied.
"I''ll get another one right away," Sukharko said. "In the meantime you can have mine. I''ll be back in a minute."
He had kept his promise to Victor to introduce him to the girl and was now anxious to leave them alone.
"I''d rather not, we should only be in the way. There''s somebody fishing here already," said Tonya.
"In whose way?" Sukharko asked. "Oh, you mean him?" For the first time he noticed Pavel who was sitting under a bush. "Well, I''ll get rid of him in two shakes."
Before Tonya could stop him he had slipped down to where Pavel was busy with his rod and line.
"Pull in that line of yours and clear out," Sukharko told Pavel. "Hurry up now..." he added as Pavel continued fishing calmly.
Pavel looked up and gave Sukharko a glance that boded no good.
"Shut up. Who do you think you are!"
"Wha-at!" Sukharko exploded. "You''ve got the cheek to answer back, you wretched tramp! Clear out of here!" He kicked violently at the can of worms which spun around in the air and fell into the pond, splashing water in Tonya''s face.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sukharko!" she cried.
Pavel leapt to his feet. He knew that Sukharko was the son of the chief of the railway yards where Artem worked, and that if he hit that flabby, mousy mug of his he would complain to his father and Artem would get into trouble. This alone prevented him from settling the matter then and there.
Sensing that Pavel would hit out at him in another moment, Sukharko rushed forward and pushed him in the chest with both hands. Pavel, standing at the water''s edge, teetered dangerously, but by frantically waving his arms regained his balance and saved himself from falling in.
Sukharko was two years older than Pavel and notorious as a troublemaker and bully. The blow in the chest made Pavel see red.
"So, that''s what you want! Take this!" And with a short swing of his arm he punched Sukharko''s face. Before the latter had time to recover, Pavel seized him firmly by his uniform blouse, clinched him and dragged him into the water.
Knee-deep in the pond, his polished shoes and trousers soaking wet, Sukharko struggled with all his might to wrench himself loose from Pavel''s powerful grip. Having achieved his purpose, Pavel jumped ashore. The enraged Sukharko charged after him, ready to tear him to pieces.
As he spun around to face his opponent, Pavel remembered:
"Rest your weight on your left foot, with your right leg tense and right knee bent. Put the weight of your whole body behind the punch and strike upward, at the point of the chin."
Crack!
Sukharko''s teeth clicked as Pavel''s fist struck. Squealing from the excruciating pain that shot through his chin and his tongue which was caught between the teeth, Sukharko flailed wildly with his arms and fell back into the water with a loud splash.
Up on the bank Tonya was doubled up with laughter.
"Bravo, bravo!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Well done!"
Seizing his entangled fishing line, Pavel jerked at it so hard that it snapped, and scrambled up the bank to the road.
"That''s Pavel Korchagin, a rowdy if there ever was one," he heard Victor say to Tonya as he went.
There was trouble brewing at the station. Rumour had it that the railwaymen on the line were downing tools.
The workers of the yards at the next large station had started something big. The Germans arrested two engine drivers suspected of carrying proclamations with them. And among the workers who had ties with the countryside there was serious ferment because of the requisitioning and the return of landlords to their estates.
The lashes of the Hetman''s guards seared the backs of the peasants. The partisan movement was developing in the gubernia; the Bolsheviks had already organised nearly a dozen partisan detachments.
There was no rest for Zhukhrai these days. During his stay in the town he had accomplished a great deal. He had made the acquaintance of many railway workers, attended gatherings of young folk, and built up a strong group among the mechanics at the railway yards and the sawmill workers. He tried to find out where Artem stood, and he asked him once what he thought about the Bolshevik Party and its cause.
"I don''t know much about these parties, Fyodor," the burly mechanic replied. "But if there''s help needed, you can count on me."
Fyodor was satisfied, for he knew that Artem was made of the right stuff and would stand by his word. As for the Party, he wasn''t ready for that yet. "Never mind," he thought, "in times like these he''ll soon learn for himself."