ousand, then for a hundred rubles..."
     Goodbye  school! I would  never study  any more. What  for?  I had been
taught to read,  write and count. What more did I  need? Good enough for me.
And nobody would miss me when I was gone.  Maybe Valya would remember me for
a moment, and then forget.
     "Then  for a hundred rubles  four  hundred," Romashka  whispered. "Four
hundred thousand per cent on a hundred rubles."
     But I would  be coming  back. And Korablev, who would  be kicked out of
the school, would come to me moaning and begging me to forgive him. No fear!
     Then  suddenly I  recollected  how he had stood by  the  window when  I
called  on  him,  staring into the  yard, very sad and  a  little  tipsy. It
couldn't be him, surely? Why should he have betrayed me? On the contrary, he
had  probably given  no sign, pretending not  to  know  anything about  that
secret  council. I  was wrong to suspect him. It wasn't him at all. Then who
could it be?
     "Ah, it's Valya!" I suddenly said to  myself. "When I got back from the
Tatarinovs I had told him everything. It was Valya!"
     But  Valya, I remember, had started snoring in the middle of my  story.
Besides, Valya would never do a thing like that.
     Romashka, maybe?  I looked at  him. Pale,  with red ears, he sat on the
window-sill, multiplying  away like  mad. I  fancied that he was watching me
furtively  like a bird,  with  one round flat eye. But  he knew nothing, how
could he?
     Now that  I  had  firmly decided that it was not Korablev, there was no
sense in going  away.  But my head was aching and my ears  were ringing, and
somehow I felt  that I  had to go,  I couldn't  stay,  not after ç  had told
Romashka I was going.
     With a sigh, I picked  up my bundle, nodded to Romashka and went out. I
must have been running a temperature, because on going out into the street I
was surprised to find  it so cold. But  then, while still in the entrance, I
had taken off my jacket  and put my overcoat on over my shirt. I had decided
to  flog  the jacket-I  figured that  it  would  fetch round  about  fifteen
million.
     For  the same reason-my temperature and headache-I have no clear memory
of what I did at the Sukharevka black market, though I spent practically the
whole day there. All I remember was standing  in front of a stall from which
came a  smell of fried onions,  holding up  my jacket and  saying in  a weak
voice: "Anybody want a jacket?"
     I  remember being  surprised at  having such a weak  voice.  I remember
noticing in the crowd a huge  man wearing two shipskin coats. He was wearing
one with his arms in the sleeves, while the other-the one he was selling-was
thrown over his shoulders. I found it very odd that wherever I went, hawking
my merchandise,  I kept running  into this man. He  stood  motionless, huge,
bearded, clad in two coats, gloomily naming his price without looking at the
customers, who turned back the skirts and fingered the collar.
     I  stood  about, trying to warm  myself, and noticed that  though I  no
longer  felt cold,  my fingers were blue. I  was very thirsty,  and  several
times I decided-no  more: if I don't sell the thing in half an hour, I'll go
to the teashop and swap it for a glass of hot tea. But the next moment I had
a sort of hunch that a buyer would turn up in a minute,  and so I decided to
stick it for another half hour.
     I remember it was a  sort of  consolation to see that  the tall man had
not been able to sell his coat either.
     I felt like eating  a little snow, but the snow at  Sukharevka was very
dirty  and  the boulevard  was a  long way  off. In the  end I did go to the
boulevard and  ate some snow,  which, strange to say,  seemed  warm to me. I
think I  was sick, or maybe I wasn't.  All I knew was that I was sitting  in
the snow and somebody was holding me up by the shoulders  because I had gone
limp.  At last the support was removed and I lay down  and stretched my legs
out  luxuriously. Somebody  was saying something over  me,  it sounded like:
"He's had a fit. He's an epileptic." Then they tried to take  my pillow-slip
bundle and I heard them coaxing me:  "Don't be silly, we're putting it under
your head!", but I clung to it and wouldn't let go. The man in the two coats
passed by slowly, then suddenly threw one of the coats over me. But that was
already  delirium  and I  understood  that  perfectly well. They  were still
tugging at the pillow-slip. I heard a woman's voice saying: "He won't let go
of his  bundle." Then a  man's: "Never mind, lay  him down with his bundle."
And again: "Looks like the Spanish 'flu."
     Then the world went dark.
     I was at death's door, and  twice they screened  me off from  the other
patients in the  ward. Cyanosis is always a sign of approaching death, and I
had it so bad that all the  doctors except one, gave me up  as a bad job and
only exclaimed every morning with surprise: "What, still alive?"
     All this I learned when I came round.
     Be that as it may, I did not die. On the contrary, I got better.
     One day I opened my eyes and was  about to jump  out of bed, thinking I
was in  the Children's Home.  Someone's hand  arrested  me. Somebody's face,
half-forgotten  yet so familiar, drew close  to mine. Believe it  or not, it
was doctor Ivan Ivanovich.
     "Doctor," I said to  him,  and  what with joy  and  weakness  I started
crying. "Doctor, ear!"
     He looked at me closely, probably thinking that I was still delirious.
     "Hen,  saddle,  box, snow, drink, Abraham," I said,  feeling the  tears
pouring  right down into  my  mouth. "It's  me, Doctor. I'm Sanya. Don't you
remember, that village, Doctor? We hid you. You taught me."
     He looked at me closely again, then blew out his cheeks and let the air
out noisily.
     "Oho!" he said, and laughed. "Do I remember! Where's your sister? Fancy
that!  All you could say  then was 'ear' and that  sounded like  a bark.  So
you've learnt to speak, eh? And  moved to Moscow too? Took it into your head
to die?"
     I wanted to  tell him that I wasn't thinking of dying at all,  just the
opposite,  when he  suddenly  put his hand  over  my mouth,  whipped  out  a
handkerchief with the other and wiped my face and nose.
     "Lie  still, old chap," he said. "You mustn't talk  yet. Who knows what
you'll be up to next-you've  been dying so many times. One word too many and
you may pop off."

     CHAPTER ELEVEN
     <I>A SERIOUS TALK</I>
     If you think that, having come  round, I  was on  the road to recovery,
you  are mistaken.  Hardly had I pulled through the Spanish 'flu than I went
down with  meningitis.  And  again  it  was Ivan Ivanovich  who  refused  to
acknowledge that my game was up.
     He sat for hours at my bedside, studying the strange  movements which I
made with  my  eyes and  hands. In the end I came to again, and though I lay
for a long time with my eyes rolled up to the sky, I was no longer in.
     "No longer  in  danger  of  dying," as  Ivan Ivanovich put it, "but  in
danger of remaining an idiot for the rest of your life."
     I  was lucky. I  did not remain  an  idiot, and after my illness I even
felt  somehow more  sensible than I was before.  It  was  a fact, though the
illness had nothing to do with it.
     Be that as it may,  I spent all of  six months in hospital. During that
time Ivan Ivanovich  and I saw each other almost  every other day. We talked
together about old times. It appears that he had been in exile. In 1914, for
being a  member  of  the  Bolshevik  Party, he  had been sentenced  to penal
servitude  and then to  exile for life. I  don't  know  where he  served his
sentence, but his place of exile was somewhere far away, by the Barents Sea.
     "I escaped from there," he said laughing, "and came running straight to
your village and nearly froze to death on the way."
     That's when I  learnt why he had stayed awake nights in our cottage. He
had left the black tube-the stethoscope-with me and my sister as a keepsake.
One word  leading to another, I told him the story of when and why I had run
away from the Children's Home.
     He heard me  out attentively, and for some reason kept looking straight
in my mouth.
     "Yes, wonderful," he said thoughtfully. "A rare case indeed."
     I thought he meant my running away from the Home being a rare case  and
was about to  tell  him it wasn't such a  rare thing as he thought, when  he
said again:
     "Not  deaf  and  dumb, but  dumb  without being  deaf.  <i>Stummheit  ohne
Taubheir.</i> To think that he couldn't say 'Mummy'! And now, a regular orator!"
     And he began telling the other doctors about me.
     I  was a bit disappointed that the doctor had not said a word about the
affair that had made me leave  the Home, and  if anything, had seemed to let
it drift past his ears. But I was mistaken, for one fine day the door of our
ward opened and the nurse said: "A visitor for Grigoriev."
     And in came Korablev.
     "Hullo, Sanya!"
     "Hullo, Ivan Pavlovich!"
     The whole ward stared at us with curiosity.
     Perhaps that was why he  started  by only talking about my illness. But
when all had switched their attention back to their own affairs, he began to
scold  me. And a good piece of his mind did he give me! He told me, word for
word, exactly  what I had thought about him and said it was my duty to go to
him and tell him:  "Ivan Pavlovich, you're a cad" if I thought he  was  one.
But I had not done this,  because I was a typical individualist. He relented
a  bit  when,  completely  crushed,.  I  asked:  "Ivan  Pavlovich, what's an
idividualist?"
     In short,  he kept going at  me until visiting time was over. In taking
his leave, however, he shook my hand warmly and said he would come again.
     "When?"
     "In a day or two. I'm going to have a serious talk with you."
     The next visiting day Valya Zhukov came  to see me and for two  blessed
hours  talked  about  his  hedgehog. On leaving  he  reminded  himself  that
Korablev sent me his regards and said he would call on me one of these days.
     I  twigged  at once that this was going to be the serious conversation.
Very interesting! Going to give me some more of his mind, I thought.
     The talk started with Korablev asking me what I wanted to be.
     "I don't know," I said. "An artist, perhaps."
     His eyebrows went up and he said:
     "No good."
     Truth to tell, I had never thought of what I  wanted to be. In my heart
of hearts  I  wanted to be somebody like  Vasco  Nufiez  de Balboa. But Ivan
Pavlovich's "no good" had been so positive that it put my back up.
     "Why not?"
     "For  many reasons," Korablev  said firmly. "For one thing  because you
haven't enough character."
     I was dumbfounded. It had never occurred to me that I had no character.
     "Nothing of the sort," I said sulkily. "I have a strong character."
     "No you haven't. How can a man have  a character when  he doesn't  know
what  he'll be doing the next hour. If you had any character you'd be  doing
better at school. But you were studying poorly."
     "Ivan Pavlovich," I cried in despair, "I only  had one 'unsatisfactory'
mark."
     "But you could study very well if you wanted to."
     He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I was silent.
     "You have more imagination than intelligence."
     He paused again.
     "And  generally, it's high  time  you figured out what you're  going to
make of your life and what you are in this world  for. Now  you say, 'I want
to be an  artist.'  But to become that, my  dear boy,  you'd have  to become
quite a different person."

     CHAPTER TWELVE
     <I>I START THINKING</I>
     It's all  very  well to say you've  got  to become  quite  a  different
person. But how are you to do it? I didn't agree that I had done so badly in
my studies. Only one  "unsatisfactory",  and in arithmetic at that, and only
because one day I had cleaned my boots and  Ruzhichek  had called me out and
said:
     "What  do you polish your  boots with, Grigoriev? Bad eggs  in paraffin
oil?"
     I had answered him  back,  and from that day  on he had  kept giving me
"unsatisfactory"  marks.  Nevertheless, I  felt that Korablev was right  and
that I  had to become quite a different person. Did I really lack character?
I'd have to  check that. I must make a resolution to do something and do it.
For a start I  resolved to read <i>A  Hunter's Sketches,</i> which I had started to
read the year before and given up because I found it very dull.
     Strange!  I took  the book again  from the hospital library,  and after
some five pages I found it duller than ever. More than anything else  in the
world now I  wished I had not  made  that  resolution. But  I had to keep my
word, even if I had given it to myself, whispered it under my blanket.
     I  waded through <i>A  Hunter's Sketches</i> and  decided  that  Korablev  was
wrong. I did have character.
     I ought to test my mettle again. Every morning, say, do the daily dozen
and then  take  a  sponge down with cold water straight from the tap. Or get
through  the  year in arithmetic with "excellent" marks. But  all this could
wait until I went back to school. Meanwhile I must think and think.
     At last Ivan Ivanovich examined me for the last time and said I was fit
to be discharged from hospital. What a glorious day that was! We parted, but
he gave me his address and told me to call on him.
     "Not later than the twentieth, mind," he said. "Or you  may not find me
in, old chap."
     I left the hospital, bundle in my  hand, and after walking a block, sat
down on a curbstone-I was  that weak. But how  good I felt! What a big place
Moscow was!  1  had forgotten  it.  And how  noisy the streets  were! I felt
dizzy, but I knew that  I wouldn't  fall. I was well and would  live.  I had
recovered. Goodbye, hospital! Hail, school!
     Truth to tell, I was a bit disappointed at  the rather cool reception I
was given at the school. Romashka was the only one to ask me: "Better?"  And
that in a tone of voice as though he was rather disappointed that I  had not
died.
     Valya  was glad to see  me, but he had  other  things on  his mind. His
hedgehog had got lost and he suspected that the cook, on Nikolai  Antonich's
orders, had thrown it into the dust-bin.
     Big changes  had taken place in the school during those six months. For
one thing  it  was half  its size, some of  the senior  classes  having been
transferred to other schools.
     Secondly, it had been painted and whitewashed-the once dirty rooms with
their grimy windows and black ceilings were simply unrecognisable.
     Third, the Komsomol Group was now the talk  of  the  school.  The tubby
Varya was now  its secretary.  She must have been a good secretary,  because
when I got back  I  found the  little room of  the  Komsomol office the most
interesting place in the school. Though I wasn't  a  member of the  Komsomol
yet, I was given an  assignment  by Varya only two days  after coming out of
the hospital. I was to draw an aeroplane soaring among the clouds and  write
over it  the motto: "Young people, join  the  S.F.A.F.!"(S.F.A.F.-Society of
Friends of the Air Force.-translator)
     My fingers were still stiff and not like my own, but I set to work with
a will

     CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     <I>THE SILVER FIFTY-KOPECK PIECE</I>
     The day  I intended  to  call on Doctor Ivan  Ivanovich the  school was
thrown into commotion first thing in the morning.
     Valya's  hedgehog  had  been found. It  appears that he had somehow got
into  the attic and landed inside an old  cabbage cask,  where  he had spent
over a fortnight. He was in very bad shape and there  was nothing for it but
to  take him  to  the  university,  where a laboratory  of some kind  bought
hedgehogs. Valya wrapped him up in an old pair of trousers and went off.  He
was back within an hour, looking sad, and sat down on his bed.
     "They'll cut him open," he said, fighting back his tears.
     "What d'you mean?"
     "What  I  said.  They'll slit  his belly open and rummage about inside.
Poor thing."
     "Never mind," I said. "You'll buy another one. How much did you get for
him?"
     Valya opened his  fist. The hedgehog had been more dead than  alive and
they had given him only twenty kopecks.
     "I  have  thirty,"  I  said.  "Let's  put  them   together  and  buy  a
spinning-tackle." I said that about the spinning-tackle on purpose, to cheer
him up.
     We put our money together and even exchanged our ten and fifteen-kopeck
coins for one new silver fifty-kopeck piece.
     This hedgehog business of  Valya's had detained me,  and by the time  I
started out for  the doctor's  place darkness had begun to fall. He lived  a
good distance away, on Zubovsky Boulevard, and the trams were no longer free
of charge like they were in 1920.1 wangled it, though, took a free ride.
     Only one window had a light in it in  the house on Zubovsky Boulevard-a
white house with columns, standing back in a garden- and I decided that this
must be the doctor's room. I was wrong. The doctor, as it happened, lived on
the first floor, whereas the light was burning on the ground floor. Flat No.
8. Here it was. Under the number was  scrawled in chalk: "Pavlov lives here,
not Levenson." Pavlov was my doctor Ivan Ivanovich.
     A woman with a  baby in her arms answered the door and  kept "shushing"
all the time  while she asked  me what I wanted. I told her. Still shushing,
she said the doctor was in, but she thought he was asleep.
     "Knock at the door, though," she whispered. "He may be awake."
     "I'm not asleep," the doctor called out from somewhere. "Who is it?"
     "A boy."
     "Let him in."
     This was my  first  visit to the doctor and I was surprised to find his
room in such disorder. On the floor,  amidst a jumble of packets  of tea and
tobacco, lay  leather  gloves and curious but  handsome fur  high boots. The
whole room was cluttered with open  suitcases and rucksacks. And amidst this
chaos, a tripod in his hand, stood Doctor Ivan Ivanovich.
     "Ah, Sanya," he said cheerfully. "You've come. Well, how goes it? Alive
and kicking?"
     "Fit as a fiddle."
     "Fine! Do you cough?"
     "No."
     "Good lad! I've written an article about you, old chap."
     I thought he was joking.
     "A rare case  of dumbness," said the doctor. "You can read it  yourself
in number seventeen of <i>The Medical Journal.</i> Patient G. That's you, old chap.
You've made a  name  for yourself. Only  as a  patient, though,  so far. The
future is still yours."
     He started  to  sing: "The future is  still yours, still  yours,  still
yours!"  then suddenly pounced on one  of the largest suitcases, slammed the
lid down and sat down on it the better to shut it.
     The doctor spoke  quite a lot that  day. I had never seen him so jolly.
Suddenly  he decided that I had to be given something as  a present and gave
me the leather gloves. Though they were old ones, they were still very  good
and  did up  by means of  a strap. I was on  the  point of refusing,  but he
didn't give me a chance. He  thrust them at me, saying:  "Take them and shut
up."
     I ought  to have thanked him for the present,  but instead I said: "Are
you going away?"
     "Yes," the doctor said. "I'm  going to the Far North, inside the Arctic
Circle. Heard of it?"
     I vaguely recalled the letter of the navigating officer.
     "Yes."
     "I left my fiancee there, old chap. Know what that is?"
     "Yes."
     "No you don't. At least you know, but don't understand."
     I began to examine the various queer things he was taking with him: fur
trousers  with triangular  leather seats, metal boot  soles  with  straps to
them, and so  on. And the doctor kept talking all the  time while he packed.
One suitcase refused  to stay shut. He took it by the lid and tipped it  out
onto  the  bed. A  large photograph fell  at  my  feet. It  was  a  yellowed
photograph, pretty old, bent in a number of places. On  the back was written
in a large round hand: "Ship's company of the schooner <i>St. Maria".</i> I started
to examine the photograph, and to my  surprise I found Katya's father on it.
Yes, it was  him all right. He was sitting right in the middle of the  crew,
his arms folded across his chest, exactly as in the portrait hanging  in the
Tatarinovs'  dining-room.  I  couldn't  find  the doctor  on the photograph,
though, and asked him why this was.
     "The reason  is,  old  chap,  that  I didn't sail in  the schooner  <i>St.
Maria,"</i> the doctor said, puffing mightily as he strapped down the suitcase.
     He took the photograph from me and looked round where to put it.
     "Somebody left it as a keepsake."
     I wanted to ask who that person was, whether it was Katya's father, but
he had already slipped the photograph into a book and put the book in one of
the rucksacks.
     "Well, Sanya," he said, "I've  got to be going. Write and  tell me what
you're doing  and  how  you're getting on. Don't forget, old chap,  you're a
rare specimen!"
     I wrote down his address and we said goodbye.
     It  had gone  ten  by the time I reached the  Home and  I  was a little
afraid the doors would be locked. But they  weren't. They were open  and the
lights were on in all the rooms. What could it be?
     I  tore pell-mell  into  the  dormitory. Empty! The beds were made- the
boys must have been preparing to turn in.
     "Uncle Petya!" I yelled and saw the cook coming out of the kitchen in a
new suit, with his hat in his hand. "What's happened?"
     "I'm invited to the meeting," he informed me in a mysterious whisper. I
heard no more, as I was running upstairs into the school.
     The assembly hall  was packed to overflowing and boys and girls crowded
round the doorway and in the corridor. But I got in all right. 1 sat down in
the front  row, not  on  a seat,  but  on  the floor right in front  of  the
platform.
     It was an important meeting chaired by Varya.  Very red, she sat  among
the platform party with a pencil  in her hand, tossing  back  a lock of hair
which kept  tumbling over her nose.  Other boys and girls  from the Komsomol
Group sat on either side of her, busily writing something down. And over the
heads of the platform party,  facing the hall,  hung my poster. I caught  my
breath. It was my poster-an  aeroplane soaring among the clouds, and over it
the words: "Young  People, Join the S.F.A.F.!" What my poster had to do with
it I couldn't make out  for quite a  time, because all the speakers to a man
were  talking  about some ultimatum  or other. It wasn't until Korablev took
the floor that the thing became clear to me.
     "Comrades!" he said quietly  but distinctly. "The Soviet Government has
had an ultimatum  presented to it. On the whole, you  have  taken the proper
measure of this document. We must give our own answer to that ultimatum.  We
must set up at our school a local group of the Society of Friends of the Air
Force!"
     Everyone  clapped,  and thereafter clapped after each  phrase  Korablev
uttered. He ended up by pointing to my poster and it made me feel proud.
     Then Nikolai Antonich  took the  floor,  and  he, too, made a very good
speech,  and after that Varya announced that the Komsomol Group were joining
the S.F.A.F.  in a body. Those  who  wished to sign on could  do  so at  her
office tomorrow from  ten to ten, meanwhile she proposed taking a collection
for Soviet aviation and sending the money in to <i>Pravda.</i>
     I must have been  very excited, because Valya, who was  also sitting on
the  floor a little way off, looked at me in surprise. I got out the  silver
fifty-kopeck piece and showed it  to  him. He  twigged.  He wanted to ask me
something, probably something about the spinning-tackle, but checked himself
and just nodded.
     I jumped up on to the platform and gave the coin to Varya.
     "Ivan Pavlovich," I said to Korablev, who was standing in  the corridor
smoking a cigarette in a long holder, "at what age do they take on airmen?"
     He looked at me gravely.
     "I don't know, Sanya. I don't think they'd take you yet."
     Not take me? I thought  of the oath  Pyotr and I had once sworn to each
other in Cathedral Gardens: "To strive, to seek, to  find and not to yield".
I  did not  say it out  loud, though.  Korablev  would not  have  understood
anyway.


     PART THREE
     <I>OLD LETTERS</I>
     <I>CHAPTER ONE</I>
     <I>FOUR YEARS</I>
     As  in the old silent films, I see a  big clock  with  the hand showing
years instead of hours. One-full circle and I see myself at lesson-time with
Korablev, sharing  the same desk with  Romashka. We have made a bet,  a  bet
that I will not cry  out or pull my hand away if  Romashka slashes me across
the  fingers  with a penknife. It is a  test  of willpower. According to the
"rules  for developing  willpower"  I  must learn  "not to give  vent  to my
feelings". Every evening I repeat these rules over and over, and now at last
I have a chance of putting myself to the test.
     The whole class is watching us. Nobody is listening to Korablev, though
today's lesson is an interesting one; it's a lesson  about  the  manners and
customs of the Chukchi people. "Come on!" I say to Romashka.
     And that  cold-blooded beast saws at my finger with his  penknife. I do
not cry out, but I can't help pulling my hand away and I lose the bet.
     A gasp and a whisper ran round the desks.  Bleeding, I purposely give a
loud  laugh  to  show  that I  don't feel the slightest pain,  and  suddenly
Korablev  orders  me  out of  the classroom.  I leave the room with  my hand
thrust in my pocket. "You needn't come back."
     But I do come  back. It  is an interesting  lesson and I listen  to  it
outside the door, sitting on the floor.
     Rules for developing willpower! I had spent a  whole year over  them. I
had tried  not  only to "conceal  my feelings", but  "not  to  care  for the
opinion of people I disdain". I don't remember which of  these rules was the
harder-the first one, probably, because my face always gave me away.
     "Sleep as little as possible, for in sleep the will  is  absent  - this
was no hard task either, not for a man like me. I leamt to make my "plan for
the whole day first thing in the morning", and have been following this rule
all my life. As for the main rule, "remember the purpose of your existence",
I did  not  have to repeat  that too  often, as this purpose was clear to me
even in those days.
     Another full circle: an early winter  morning in 1925. I wake up before
anyone else, and I lie there thinking,  not quite sure whether I am awake or
still  asleep. I am thinking of  the Tatarinovs. I had not been to see  them
for  two  years. Nikolai Antonich  still  hates me.  There  isn't  a  single
sibilant in  my name, yet he contrives  to hiss  it. Nina Kapitonovna  still
loves  me;  the  other  day  Korablev  passed  on  to me  her  "regards  and
greetings". I  wonder how Maria Vasilievna is getting  on?  Still sitting on
the couch and smoking? And Katya?
     I look at the clock. Getting on for seven. Time to get up. I had made a
vow to get up before the bell goes. I run on  tiptoe to the washroom  and do
my  exercises in front of the open  window. It is cold, snowflakes fly in at
the window, whirling, settling  on my shoulders, melting. I wash down to  my
waist, then start reading my book. That  wonderful book of Amundsen's  about
the South Pole, which I am reading for the fourth time.
     Yet another full circle, and I see  myself in a small  familiar room in
which, for three years, I have  spent nearly all  my  evenings. I  have been
given my  first assignment by  the  Komsomol  Group-to  take  charge  of the
collective reading of the newspapers.  The first time  is rather terrifying,
because  you have to answer  questions too. I know "the  present situation",
"the national policy"  and "world problems". Best of all, though, I know the
world flying records  for altitude,  endurance  and duration.  What  if I am
suddenly asked about price cuts? But everything goes off smoothly.
     Another full circle, and I am seventeen.
     The whole school is assembled in the hall.  Behind a long red table sit
the members of the court. On the left-counsel for the defence;
     on the right-the public prosecutor. In the dock-the defendant.
     "Defendant, what is your first name?"
     "Eugene."
     "Surname?"
     "Onegin."
     That was a memorable day.

     CHAPTER TWO
     <i>THE TRIAL OF EUGENE ONEGIN*
     (Tr.Eugene Onegin-the</i> title and principal character of Pushkin's poem)
     At first no one in the school took any  interest in the  idea. But when
one of the actresses of our school  theatre  suggested staging "The Trial of
Eugene Onegin" in costume, the whole school started talking about it.
     Grisha Faber was invited to play the leading role. He was studying  now
at the Theatrical School, but would sometimes come to see  our first  nights
for old times' sake. Our own actors  were to play the part of  witnesses. No
period  costume could  be found for  the  Larin's nurse and so we had to let
ourselves be persuaded that nurses in Pushkin's day dressed much the same as
they did  in ours. The  defence was entrusted to Valya, our tutor Sutkin was
to be the public prosecutor and I the judge.
     The offender, wearing a wig, a blue tail-coat,  shoes with bows on them
and knee-length stockings, sat in the dock, coolly cleaning his nails with a
broken  pencil.  Every now and then  he would pass a remote supercilious eye
over the public  and the members  of the court. That must have been his idea
of how Eugene Onegin would have borne himself in similar circumstances.
     Old Mrs Larina and her  daughters and  the nurse sat in  the witnesses'
room (what  used to be the teachers' room).  They, on the contrary, were all
in a dither, especially  the nurse, who was remarkably  youthful and  pretty
for her years.  Counsel for  the defence was excited too. He  kept nervously
tapping  a  bulky   file  with  documents.  The  material  evidence-two  old
pistols-lay on the table before  me. At my  back I  could hear the producers
whispering hurriedly among themselves.
     "Do you plead guilty?" I asked Grisha. "Guilty of what?"
     "Of murder under guise of a duel," the producers prompted in a whisper.
     "Of murder under guise of a duel," I said, adding, after consulting the
charge-sheet, "of the poet Vladimir Lensky, aged eighteen."
     "Never!" Grisha said haughtily. "One has to  distinguish between a duel
and murder."
     "In  that case,  we  shall proceed  to examine  the witnesses," I said.
"Citizeness Larina, what evidence can you give in this affair?"
     At rehearsal this had gone off smoothly, but here everyone felt that it
did not work. Everyone except Grisha, who was quite in  his  element. At one
moment  he produced a comb and started to groom his side-burns, the  next he
tried to stare at the members of the court out of countenance, or tossed his
head proudly with a  defiant smile. When the witness,  old Mrs Larina, spoke
about Onegin  having  been treated in  their  home like  one of  the family,
Grisha covered his eyes with one hand and placed  the  other on his heart to
show  how he  was suffering. He  acted  wonderfully  and I noticed that  the
female witnesses, especially Tatiana and Olga, just couldn't keep their eyes
off  him. I don't blame Tatiana-after all, she was in love with  him  in the
story-but Olga, now, she was completely out of character. The audience, too,
had eyes only for Grisha and no one paid the slightest attention to us.
     I  called the  next witness-Tatiana.  My,  she talked nineteen  to  the
dozen! She  was absolutely unlike Pushkin's  Tatiana, and the only  point of
resemblance, if there was  one, were the curls falling to her  shoulders and
the heel-length gown. To my question whether she considered Onegin guilty of
murder, she gave the evasive reply that Onegin was an egoist.
     I  called  on the  defence counsel, and from  then  on  everything  was
topsy-turvy. For one thing, because the defence counsel talked sheer drivel.
Secondly, because I had caught sight ofKatya.
     Of course, in four  years she  had changed a lot. But her hair, worn in
plaits, had the same ringlets  on the forehead. She  screwed her eyes up  in
the same old  independent way  and had  the  same purposeful  nose-I think I
should have recognised her by that nose if she lived to a hundred.
     She  was listening attentively  to Valya. It  was  our biggest mistake,
giving  the defence to Valya, whose only  interest in  life was zoology.  He
started off with the very strange statement  that duels were  to be observed
also  in the animal kingdom, but nobody considered them  as murder. Then  he
warmed to the subject  of rodents and became so  carried  away that you kept
wondering how he would  find his way back to the defence  of Eugene  Onegin.
Katya, though, was listening to him with interest.  I knew from former years
that when she began to  chew on her plait, it meant she was interested.  She
was the only girl who took no notice of Grisha.
     Valya finished rather abruptly, and then came the prosecutor's turn. He
was as dull as ditch-water. He  spent  a  whole blessed hour trying to prove
that although  it  was  the  nineteenth-century society  of  landowners  and
bureaucrats  who had killed Lensky,  nevertheless  Eugene  Onegin was  fully
responsible  for this murder,  "since  all duels  are  murder,  premeditated
murder".
     To cut a long story  short,  the  prosecutor  held that  Eugene  Onegin
should  be sentenced  to  ten years'  imprisonment with confiscation  of his
property.
     Nobody had expected such a demand, and laughter broke out in  the hall.
Grisha sprang to his feet proudly, I gave him permission to speak.
     Actors are said  to feel the mood of  an  audience. That is what Grisha
must have felt,  because he led off, shouting at the  top of his  voice,  in
order, as he afterwards explained, to "enthuse the audience". This he failed
to  do. His speech had one  fault-you couldn't tell whether  he was speaking
for himself or for  Onegin. Onegin would hardly  have said that "even  today
his hand would not falter in sending a bullet into Lensky's heart".
     Anyway,  everyone drew  a sigh  of relief when  he sat down, wiping his
brow and very pleased with himself.
     "The court is retiring to confer."
     "Hurry up, you fellows."
     "What a bore."
     "Dragging it out."
     These  comments  were  perfectly justified, and  we decided,  by  tacit
consent,  to rush through  our verdict. To  my astonishment, the majority of
the members of  the court agreed with the public prosecutor. Ten years  with
confiscation  of property. It was clear that Eugene Onegin had nothing to do
with  it.  The sentence was  intended for Grisha, who had  bored everyone to
death, everyone except  the witnesses Tatiana and Olga. But I said  that  it
was not  fair: Grisha had acted well  and without him  the  whole show would
have been a wash-out. We agreed on five years.
     "Stand!" the usher called. The members of the court filed in.
     Everyone stood up. I read the sentence.
     "It isn't right!" .
     "Acquit him!"
     "Shame!"
     "All  right, comrades,"  I said morosely.  "I think it's  wrong  too. I
consider that Eugene Onegin should be  acquitted,  and Grisha should have  a
vote of thanks. Who's in favour?"
     All raised their hands, laughing.
     "Adopted unanimously. The meeting is closed."
     I was  furious. I shouldn't have taken on this thing. Perhaps we should
have  treated  the whole trial  as a joke. But how? I felt that everyone saw
how lacking in resource and wit I was.
     It was in this bad humour that I went out  into the cloakroom, and whom
should I meet but Katya. She had just got her coat and was making her way to
a clear space near the exit.
     "Hullo!"  she  said with a laugh. "Hold  my  coat, will you. Some trial
that was!"
     She spoke this as if we had parted only the day before.
     "Hullo!" I answered sullenly.
     She looked at me with interest.
     "You've changed."
     "Why?"
     "Stuck-up. Well, get your coat and let's go!"
     "Where?"
     "Oh, where, where!  To the comer, if that  suits you.  You're  not very
polite."
     I went downstairs with her without my coat, but she sent me back.
     "It's cold and windy."
     This  is how  I  remember her when I caught up with her  at  the street
corner:  she was wearing a grey  fur cap  with  the  earflaps  down, and the
ringlets on her forehead had come covered with hoarfrost while I ran back to
the school.  The  wind  whipped  back the skirt of  her coat and she  leaned
slightly forward, holding it down with her  hand. She was  of medium height,
slim and, I believe, very pretty. I say "I  believe" because at that  time I
did not think about  it. Certainly no girl at our school would have dared to
order me about like that:
     "Get your coat and let's go!"
     But then this was Katya, the kid whose hair I had pulled and nose I had
poked into the snow. Yes, it was Katya all right!
     "I say,  why do they all call you 'Captain'? Is it because  you want to
go to nautical school?"
     "I don't know yet," I said, though I had long  ago made up my mind that
I would go not to a nautical school but to a flying school.
     I saw her to the gate of the familiar house and she asked me in.
     "It's awkward."
     "Why? Your  being on  bad terms with Nikolai Antonich is  no concern of
mine. Grandma was talking about you the other day too. Come in."
     "No, it's awkward."
     Katya shrugged coldly.
     "Just as you please."
     I caught up with her in the yard.
     "How silly  of  you,  Katya!  I'm telling you  it's  awkward. Let's  go
somewhere together, eh? What about the skating-rink?"
     Katya looked at me, then  suddenly cocked up her nose, the way she  did
when a child.
     "I'll see,"  she  said importantly. "Phone me up tomorrow  round  about
four. Ouch, how cold it is! Even your teeth freeze."

     CHAPTER THREE <I>A T THE SKAT1NG-RINK</I>
     Back in those  years when  I was mad on Amundsen,  a simple thought had
occurred to me. It was this: if Amundsen had used an aeroplane he would have
reached the South Pole in  a  fraction of the time. What a hard  time he had
had, fighting  his way day  after  day through the endless snowy wilderness!
For two months he had trudged behind his dogs, who had ended by  eating each
other. But in  an aeroplane he could have reached  the  Pole  in twenty-four
hours. He would not have had friends enough and acquaintances whose names he
could use  for all the mountain peaks, glaciers and  plateaux he  would have
discovered during the flight.
     Every  day  I  copied   out  long   passages  from  accounts  of  polar
expeditions. I cut out from  the newspapers paragraphs concerning  the first
flights to the North and pasted  them into an old ledger. On the first  page
of  this ledger  was  written:  <i>"From</i> (Forward)  is  the name  of  his ship.
'Forward' he says, and forward he strives. Nansen about  Amundsen." This was
my motto too. Mentally, in an aeroplane, I  followed  Scott, and Shackleton,
and Robert Peary. Along all their routes. And since I had an aeroplane at my
disposal, I had to study its design.
     Following point 3 of my Rules: "Wilful will do't", I read <i>The Theory of
Aircraft Construction.</i> Ugh, what  agony  it was! If there was anything I did
not understand, I just learnt it off by heart to be on the safe side.
     Every day I took my imaginary aeroplane to pieces. I studied the engine
and airscrew.  I fitted it  with  the most up-to-date instruments. I knew it
like the back of my own hand. The only thing I  didn't know about it was how
to fly it. And that was just what I wanted to learn.
     I kept  my  resolution a secret, even  from  Korablev.  At  school they
considered  that I  had  too many irons in  the fire as it was and I did not
want them to say of my interest  in aviation: "The latest  fad!" This was no
fad.
     Then suddenly I revealed my secret. To whom? To Katya.
     That day we had  arranged to go to the skating-rink first  thing in the
morning, but  something kept cropping up to prevent  us.  First Katya put it
off, then  I. At  last we  started out, but our skating  started off on  the
wrong foot. For one thing, we had to wait half an hour in the frost, because
the rink was snowed  up  and closed while  they  were clearing it. Secondly,
Katya's heel broke off the first time round and we had to tie the skate down
with  a strap, which I had brought with  me just  in case. But my strap kept
coming  undone. We had  to go back to the cl