PACCKA3bI O PEBOJIIOUHH
Ha an?Au£c
__TRANSL__ Translated from the Russian __DESIGNER__ Designed by V. Kuleshov __COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1967V. I. Lenin
The cruiser ``Aurora'', a shot from which signalled the start of the October Revolution. This picture was taken in April 1918
Red Guards
[5]
[6]
~
[7]
~
[8]
[9]
__ALPHA_LVL1__
SMOLNY ON THE NIGHT OF THE STORM
Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875--1933) joined a Social-- Democratic organisation in 1892, when he was 17 years old; he later contributed to the Bolshevik newspapers Vperyod and Proletary under Lenin's guidance. For many years after the October Revolution he was People's Commissar for Education of the R.S.F.S.R.
A brilliant speaker and journalist, a student of literature, he was the author of several plays and some penetrating studies in Soviet writing. Lenin had a very high opinion of Lunacharsky.
__*_*_*__ [10] __NOTE__ LVL1 moved from here to before name of author; *_*_* inserted, also.Smolny^^*^^ was brightly lit from top to bottom. Crowds of excited people were 'hurrying back and forth along its many corridors. There was great animation everywhere, but the most impetuous human stream, a real flood of impassioned people, was the one that made its way, towards the end of the corridor on the top floor, where, in the most remote back room of all, the Military Revolutionary Committee was in session. The girls in the outer room, worn out though they were, struggled heroically to deal with the unbelievable crush of people who came for explanations and instructions or with all sorts of requests and complaints.
Once you got caught up in this human maelstrom you found yourself surrounded by faces flushed with excitement and hands outstretched to receive some order or some mandate.
Instructions were given and appointments made there on the spot, all of them of the utmost importance; they were rapidly dictated to typists whose machines never ceased their clatter, were signed in pencil on an official's knee, and in a few minutes some young comrade, happy to have been entrusted with a task, would be racing through the night in a car driven at breakneck speed. In the room right at the back, several comrades sat at a table constantly telegraphing in all directions, to the insurgent towns of Russia, orders that were as electrical in their effect as the means by which they were sent~
I still recall in wonder the amazing amount of _-_-_
^^*^^ The Smolny Institute had been a school for the daughters of gentlefolk before the revolution. In 1917 it was taken over as the headquarters of the Petrograd Soviet, and various political parties, including the Bolsheviks, had their offices there.---Ed.
11 work done there and consider the activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee at the time of the October Revolution to be one of those manifestations of human energy that demonstrate the inexhaustible reserves stored up in the heart of a revolutionary, and what that heart is capable of when aroused by the thunderous voice of the revolution.The Second Congress of Soviets opened in the White Hall of th'e Smolny Institute that evening.
The deputies were in a triumphant, festive mood. There was tremendous excitement, but not the slightest sign of panic although fighting was going on round the Winter Palace and at times news of a most alarming nature was brought in.
When I say there was no panic I am referring to the Bolsheviks and the overwhelming majority of the Congress that was on their side. The malicious, confused, nervous Right ``socialist'' elements, on the contrary, were seized with panic.
When the session at last began, the mood of the Congress became quite clear. The speeches of the Bolsheviks were received with tremendous enthusiasm. The dashing young sailors who came to tell the truth about the fighting then going on around the Winter Palace were listened to in admiration.
What a never-ending storm of applause greeted the long-awaited news that the Soviets had, at last, captured the Winter Palace, and that the capitalist Ministers had been arrested! In the meantime a Menshevik, Lieutenant Kuchin, a man who at that time played an important part in the army organisation, got up on the rostrum and threatened to bring soldiers from his front to Petrograd immediately. He read out resolutions against Soviet power from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on up to the 12th Army ( including a Special Army) and ended with a direct threat to Petrograd that had dared risk ``such an adventure".
12His words did not frighten anyone. Nor was anyone frightened by the announcement that the whole sea of peasants would turn against us and swallow us up.
Lenin was in his element; he was happy, he worked without let-up, and in some far corner he wrote those decrees of the new government that were, as we know now, to become the most famous pages in the history of our age.
Let me add to these few scanty lines my reminiscences of the way the first Council of People's Commissars was formed. It took place in a little room in Smolny, where the chairs were hidden under the hats and coats thrown on to them, and everybody crowded round a badly lit table. We were then choosing the leaders of regenerated Russia. It seemed to me that the selection was often too casual and I was afraid that the people chosen, whom I knew well and who did not seem to me to have the training for the various specialities, were not up to the gigantic tasks ahead. Lenin waved me aside with a gesture of annoyance but at the same time smiled. "That's for the time being,'' he said, "then we'll see. We need people of responsibility for all posts; if they prove unsuitable we'll change them.''
How right he was! Some, of course, were replaced, others retained their posts. And how many there were who, though they began 'timidly, later proved fully capable of their assignments! Some people, of course (even some of those who had taken part in the insurrection and had not been mere onlookers), grew dizzy in face of tremendous prospects and of difficulties that seemed insurmountable. With amazing mental composure Lenin studied the way tasks had to be done and took them in hand in the same way as an experienced pilot takes over the wheel of a giant ocean liner.
Translated by George H. Hanna
[13] __ALPHA_LVL1__ TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLDJohn Reed (1887--1920), American journalist and writer, eyewitness of the Ocfober events in Russia, published his Ten Days That Shook the World in 1919. In his Preface to John Reed's book Lenin wrote (in English), ``With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed's book, Ten Days That Shook the World. Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the world. Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.'' Here we give two short excerpts from John Reed's book.
__*_*_*__ [14] __NOTE__ LVL1 moved from here to before name of author; *_*_* inserted, also.It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the entrance of the presidium,^^*^^ with Lenin---great Lenin---among them. A short, stocky figure, with a big head set down on his shoulders, bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide generous mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now but already beginning to bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in history have been. A strange popular leader---a leader purely by virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies--- but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual audacity....
Now Lenin, gripping the edge of the reading stand, letting his little winking eyes travel over the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it finished, he said simply, ``We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order!" Again that overwhelming human roar.
``The first thing is the adoption of practical measures to realise peace-----We shall offer peace to the peoples of all the belligerent countries upon the basis of the Soviet terms---no annexations, no indemnities, and the right to self-determination of peoples. At the same time, according to our promise, _-_-_
^^*^^ This refers to the presidium of the Second Session, Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, held November 8, 1917.---Ed.
15 we shall publish and repudiate the secret treaties----- The question of War and Peace is so clear that I think that I may, without preamble, read the project of a Proclamation to the Peoples of All the Belligerent Countries....''His great mouth, seeming to smile, opened wide as he spoke; his voice was hoarse---not unpleasantly so, but as if it had hardened that way after years and years of speaking---and went on monotonously, with the effect of being able to go on for ever----- For emphasis he bent forward slightly. No gestures. And before him, a thousand simple faces looking up in intent adoration.
``The Workers' and Peasants' Government, created by the revolution of November 6th and 7th and based on the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies, proposes to all the belligerent peoples and to their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just and democratic peace.
``The Government means by a just and democratic peace, which is desired by the majority of the workers and the labouring classes, exhausted and depleted by the war---that peace which the Russian workers and peasants, after having struck down the Tsarist monarchy, have not ceased to demand categorically--- immediate peace without annexations (that is to say without conquest of foreign territory, without forcible annexation of other nationalities), and without indemnities.
``The Government of Russia proposes to all the belligerent peoples immediately to conclude such a peace, by showing themselves willing to enter upon decisive steps of negotiations aiming at such a peace, at once, without the slightest delay, before the 16 definitive ratification of all the conditions of such a peace by the authorised assemblies of the people of all countries and of all nationalities. . . .''
It was exactly 10.35 when Kameniev asked all in favour of the proclamation to hold up their cards. One delegate dared to raise his hand against, but the sudden outburst around him brought it swiftly down. ... Unanimous.
Suddenly, by common impulse, we found ourselves on our feet, mumbling together into the smooth lifting unison of the Internationale. A grizzled old soldier was sobbing like a child. Alexandra Kollontai rapidly winked the tears back. The immense sound rolled through the hall, burst windows and doors and soared into the quiet sky. ``The war is ended! The war is ended!" said a young workman near me, his face shining. And when it was over, as we stood there in a kind of awkward hush, someone in the back of the room shouted, ``Comrades! Let us remember those who have died for liberty!" So we began to sing the Funeral March, (hat slow, melancholy and yet triumphant chant, so Russian and so moving. The Internationale is an alien air, after all. The Funeral March seemed the very soul of those dark masses whose delegates sat in this hall, building from their obscure visions a new Russia--- and perhaps more.
You fell in the fatal fight
For the liberty of the people, for the honour of the
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ people,
You gave up your lives and everything dear to you,
You suffered in horrible prisons,
You went to exile in chains....
Without a word you carried your chains because
~ ~ ~ ~ you could not ignore your suffering brothers.
Because you believed that justice is stronger than
the sword... .
17
The time will come when your surrendered life
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ will count.
That time is near; when tyranny falls the people
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ will rise, great and free!
Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
At your grave we swear to fight, to work for
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ freedom and the people's happiness-----
For this did they lie there, the martyrs of March,^^*^^ in their cold Brotherhood Grave on Mars Field; for this thousands and tens of thousands had died in the prisons, in exile, in Siberian mines. It had not come as they expected it would come, nor as the intelligentsia desired it; but it had come---rough, strong, impatient of formulas, contemptuous of sentimentalism; real. ...
__b_b_b__The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two sentinels tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to their indignant expostulations. Inside only a single arc lamp burned dimly, high up near the roof of the enormous hall, whose forty pilasters and rows of windows vanished in the gloom. Around dimly squatted the monstrous shapes of the armoured cars. One stood alone in the centre of the place, under the light, and round it were gathered some two thousand dun-coloured soldiers, almost lost in the immensity of that imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen of the Soldiers' Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the car, and from the central turret a soldier was speaking. This was Khanjunov, who had been president of last summer's all-Russian Congress of Bronneviki. A lithe, handsome figure in his leather coat with lieutenant's shoulder-straps, he stood, pleading eloquently for neutrality.
_-_-_^^*^^ February (O.S.) revolution.---Ed.
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---1417 18``It is an awful thing,'' he said, "for Russians to kill their Russian brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign enemy in battles which will go down in history! What have we, soldiers, got to do with these squabbles of political parties? I will not say to you that the Provisional Government was a democratic Government; we want no coalition with the bourgeoisie---no. But we must have a Government of the united democracy, or Russia is lost! With such a Government there will be no need for civil war, and the killing of brother by brother!''
This sounded reasonable---the great hall echoed to the crash of hands and voices.
A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained. ``Comrades!" he cried, ``I come from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all: there must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace, whether it be the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow. Peace! We at the front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight either Germans or Russians---" With that he leaped down, and a sort of confused agonised sound rose up from all that surging mass, which burst into something like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik oboronetz^^*^^ tried to say that the war must go on until the Allies were victorious.
``You talk like Kerensky!" shouted a rough voice.
A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to, muttering uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen men trying so hard to understand, to decide. They never moved, stood staring with a sort of terrible intentness at the speaker, their brows wrinkled with the effort of _-_-_
^^*^^ Menshevik defencists---supporters of the imperialist policy of the Provisional Government.---Ed.
19 thought, sweat standing out on their foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent clear eyes of children, and the faces of epic warriors. ...Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full of hate. They liked him no more than the other. It was not their mood. For the moment they were lifted out of the ordinary run of common thoughts, thinking in terms of Russia, of Socialism, the world, as if it depended on them whether the Revolution were to live or die.. ..
Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of approval, or anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned, persuasive and sympathetic. But wasn't he an officer, and an oboronetz, however much he talked of peace? Then a workman from Vasili Ostrov, but him they greeted with, ``And are you going to give us peace, workingman?" Near us some men, many of them officers, formed a sort of claque to cheer the advocates of Neutrality. They kept shouting, ``Khanjunov! Khanjunov!" and whistled insultingly when the Bolsheviki tried to speak.
Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile began to discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation. The audience shouted to know what was the matter, and all the great mass tossed and stirred. A soldier, held back by one of the officers, wrenched himself loose and held up his hand.
``Comrades!" he cried, ``Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to speak to us.'' An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of ``Ptosim! Prosim! Doloi! Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!" in the midst of which the People's Commissar for Military Affairs clambered up the side of the car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and pulled from below and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then walked out on the radiator, put his hands on his 20 hips and looked around smiling, a squat, shortlegged figure, bare-headed, without insignia on his uniform.
The claque near me kept up a fearful shouting. ``Khanjunov! We want Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!" The whole place seethed and roared. Then it began to move like an avalanche bearing down upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way through.
``Who is breaking up our meeting?" they shouted. ``Who is whistling here?" The claque, rudely burst asunder, went flying---nor did they gather again. ...
``Comrade soldiers!" began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue. ``I cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any sleep for four nights... .
``I don't need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don't need to tell you that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik Party, successful in the Workers' and Soldiers' Revolution, by the help of you and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down for ever the power of the bloodthirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to all the peoples, and that has already been done---to-day!" Tumultuous applause.
``You are asked to remain neutral---to remain neutral while the yunkers^^*^^ and the Death Battalions, who are never neutral, shoot us down in the streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky---or perhaps some other of the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don. Kerensky is coming from the front. Kornilov is raising the Tekhintsi to repeat his attempt of August. All these Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries who call upon you now to prevent civil war---how have they retained the power except by civil war, that civil war which has endured ever _-_-_
~^^*^^ Military cadets.---Tr.
21 since July, and in which they constantly stood on the side of the bourgeoisie, as they do now?``How can I persuade you, if you made up your minds? The question is very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov, the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers.. .. They tell us that their objects are good. On the other side are the workers, the soldiers and sailors, the poorest peasants. The Government is in your hands. You are the masters. Great Russia belongs to you. Will you give it back?''
While he spoke he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will, and as he went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke through the tired voice. At the end he tottered, almost falling; a hundred hands reached up to help him down, and the great dim spaces of the hall gave back the surf of sound that beat upon him.
Khanjunov tried to speak again, but ``Vote! Vote! Vote!" they cried. At length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the bronneviki withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary Committee, and declare their neutrality in the present civil war. All those in favour should go to the right, those opposed, to the left. There was a moment of hesitation, a still expectancy, and then the crowd began to surge faster and faster, stumbling over one another, to the left, hundreds of big soldiers, in a solid mass rushing across the dirt floor in the faint light-----Near us about fifty men were left stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the high roof shook under the shock of victorious roaring, they turned and rapidly walked out of the building---and, some of them, out of the Revolution. .. .
Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city, the district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless Krylenkos, watching 22 the regiments, hurrying from place to place, arguing, threatening, entreating. And then imagine the same in all the locals of every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on the battle-ships of the farflung Russian fleets; think of the hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at speakers all over the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensively---and deciding so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution.
[23] __ALPHA_LVL1__ HOW LENIN WROTE THE DECREE ON LANDVladimir Bonch-Bruyevich (1873--1955) was one of the oldest members of the Communist Party who took an active part in the February and October revolutions. He was closely acquainted with Lenin and worked with him for many years. From the first days of the October Revolution until 1920 he was the Executive Secretary of the Council- of People's Commissars. He later became the chief editor of the Zhizn i Znaniye (Life and Knowledge) State Publishing House and the organiser and director of the State Literary Museum. He was the author of many essays on the revolutionary movement in Russia, and of a number of literary studies and articles on ethnography.
__*_*_*__ [24] __NOTE__ LVL1 moved from here to before name of author; *_*_* inserted, also.Once the Bolshevik revolutionary forces had captured the Winter Palace, Lenin, who had been greatly disturbed at our military leaders' slowness in taking action, was at last able to breathe freely; he removed his simple disguise and, accompanied by political friends of long standing, made his way to where the session of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was awaiting the consummation of the revolutionary events.
``Thunderous applause" does not describe what happened when Lenin mounted the rostrum---it was much more than that, it was a truly colossal whirlwind of human feelings that swept through the hall. The meeting opened. Again shouts of greeting, slogans, jubilation. . .. And so that remarkable, historic meeting continued, stormy and enthusiastic to the end.
When, at last, the business for the evening had been done, we went to my apartment to spend the night. We supped off what we could find and after supper I did my best to ensure Vladimir Ilyich a good night's rest; although he was excited he was obviously greatly overtired. With difficulty I persuaded him to take my bed in a separate room where there was a desk, paper, ink and a library at his disposal.
I lay down on a sofa in the adjoining room, determined to stay awake until I was quite sure that Vladimir Ilyich was sleeping. For greater security I fastened all the locks, bolts and bars on the street door, loaded my revolvers, thinking there might be 'an attempt to break in and arrest or kill Vladimir Ilyich, for this was only our first night in power and anything was to be expected.
25In case of emergency I made a list on a separate sheet of paper of the telephone numbers of all the comrades I knew, of Smolny, and of workers' and trade union committees, so that I should not forget them in a moment of urgency.
Vladimir Ilyich had by that time switched off the light in his room. I listened but did not hear a sound. I was just dozing off, and in another moment I should have been asleep, when the light suddenly Hashed on in his room. I heard him leave his bed almost soundlessly, quietly open the door to satisfy himself that I was ``asleep'' (which, of course, I was not) and then go on tiptoe to the desk so as not to waken anyone; he sat down at the desk, opened the inkpot, spread out some papers and got down to work.
He wrote, crossed out, read, made notes, started writing again and then, at last, appeared to be rewriting the whole thing in a fair copy. It had begun to grow light, and the Petrograd late autumn dawn was tinging the sky with grey when Vladimir Ilyich at last put the light out and went to bed.
When it was time to get up next morning I asked everybody in the house to keep quiet, telling them that Vladimir Ilyich had been working all night and was no doubt tired out. Suddenly, long before anyone expected to see him, the door opened and he came out of 'his room fully dressed, energetic, fresh, happy and full of life and good humour.
``I congratulate you on the first day of the socialist revolution,'' he said in greeting to us all; not a trace of weariness could be seen on his face, he seemed to have had a good night's rest although actually he could not 'have slept for more than two or three hours after a hectic twenty-hour day. When we sat down to breakfast Nadezhda Krupskaya, who had also spent the night at our house, came out of her room and Vladimir Ilyich pulled his famous Decree on Land out of his pocket.
26``The thing now is to announce this, to publish it and ensure its distribution. Then let them try to take it back! Not likely---why, there is no power on earth that could take that decree away from the peasants and return the land to its former owners. This is one of the most important gains of our revolution. The agrarian revolution will be carried out and consolidated this very day.''
When somebody told him that in the provinces there would still be much confusion and conflict over the land, he immediately retorted that that was not important, that things would settle themselves once this programme had been understood and its significance grasped. Then he began to tell us in detail that the decree would be particularly welcomed by the peasants because it was based on the demands of all peasant conferences as expressed by their delegations to the Congress of Soviets.
``Yes, but these were the demands put forward by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and they'll say that we borrowed them from them,'' someone remarked.
Vladimir Ilyich smiled.
``Let them say it. The peasants will understand clearly that we shall always support their just demands. We must get properly in touch with the peasants, with their way of life and their aspirations. And if there are fools that laugh at us, let them laugh. We never did intend to give the Socialist-Revolutionaries a monopoly of the peasantry. We are the chief government party and after the dictatorship of the proletariat the peasant question comes next in importance.''
The Decree on Land had to be announced at the Congress on the .evening of that same day. It was decided to have it typed out immediately and sent to press so that it would be published in the newspapers the next day. It was then that Vladimir Ilyich got the idea of giving the Decree wide publicity, of 27 making the publication of all government communications obligatory for all newspapers.
It was decided to print the Decree on Land immediately as a separate booklet in an edition of no less than 50,000 copies and to distribute it primarily among soldiers returning to the rural areas so that it would become known, through them, to the greatest number of people. That was carried out splendidly within the next few days.
Soon we started out for Smolny on foot and then got on a tram; Vladimir Ilyich beamed when he saw the perfect order maintained in the streets. He waited impatiently for the evening. After the Second All-Russia Congress had adopted the Decree on Peace he read out the Decree on Land in a very clear voice and it was adopted unanimously with great enthusiasm.
As soon as the Decree had been adopted I sent it out by messenger to all Petrograd newspaper offices and to the post office for it to be telegraphed to other towns. Our newspapers had made it up beforehand and in the morning it was read by hundreds of thousands, even millions of people; the working population greeted it enthusiastically. The bourgeoisie howled and raved in all their newspapers. But who paid any attention to them at that time? Vladimir Ilyich was triumphant.
``That alone,'' he said, ``will leave a mark on our history for many long years.''
A period rich in creative revolutionary activity had begun very successfully. Vladimir Ilyich's interest in the Decree lasted a long time and he always wanted to know how many copies of it had been distributed among soldiers and peasants in addition to the newspaper publications of it. It was printed and reprinted many times as a booklet and many copies were sent gratis to even the smallest district centres in Russia.
28The Decree on Land really did become universally known; probably no other law has ever been published as widely as that Law on the Land, one of the really fundamental laws of our new, socialist legislation. It was a law to which Vladimir Ilyich devoted much strength and effort and which he regarded as being of tremendous significance.
Translated by George H. Hanna
[29] __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE ARMS OF THE SOVIET STATEThe designing of the arms of the Soviet state was a task of outstanding importance since it had to be a coat of arms that differed substantially in its implications from anything that had ever been in the arms of capitalist states.
The office of the Council of People's Commissars received a design for the arms done in water colours. It was round in shape and bore the same emblems as the present coat of arms, but through the centre ran a long, unsheathed sword. The sword seemed to cover the entire design; its hilt rested in the joined sheaves of corn at the base and the blade narrowed to a point in the sun's rays that filled the entire upper part of the ornament.
Vladimir Ilyich was in his office talking to Yakov Sverdlov, Felix Dzerzhinsky and several other comrades when the design was laid on his desk.
``What's that, a coat of arms? .. . Let's have a look at it!" He bent over the desk and peered closely at the drawing. We all stood round Vladimir Ilyich, interested to see this design for a coat of arms that had been sent in by an engraver employed at Goznak, the printing works that produced banknotes.
Outwardly the arms had been well done. The rays of the rising sun, surrounded by a semicircle of sheaves of wheat, gleamed against a red background; the hammer and sickle stood out clearly in this semicircle but the entire design was dominated by the sharpened steel blade that ran right through it from bottom to top, as though to put everyone on his guard.
``Interesting! ...'' exclaimed Vladimir Ilyich. ``The idea is there, but what is the sword for?" He turned and looked at us.
30``We are battling, we are fighting and will continue to fight until we have consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat and have driven the Whiteguards and interventionists out of our country, but that does not mean that war, war lords and violence will ever take the lead with us. We do not need any conquests. A policy of conquest is alien to us; we are not attacking but are defending ourselves against internal and external enemies; our war is defensive and the sword is not our emblem. We must hold it firmly to protect our proletarian state as long as we have enemies, as long as we are. attacked, as long as we are threatened, but that does not mean for ever. ...
``Socialism will triumph in all countries, there is no doubt about that. The brotherhood of the peoples will be proclaimed and will become reality throughout the world, and we do not need the sword. It is not our emblem ...'' Vladimir Ilyich repeated.
``We must remove the sword from the arms of our socialist state,'' Vladimir Ilyich continued. He took a black-lead pencil with a sharp point and made the proof-reader's sign for ``delete'' over the sword, repeating it in the right-hand margin.
``In other respects the design is a good one. Let us approve the sketch and then we can see it again arid discuss it at the Council of People's Commissars; it must be done soon, however....''
And he put his signature to the sketch.
I returned the sketch to the Goznak engraver, who was in the building, and asked him to amend it.
When the sketch was returned without the sword we decided to show it to the sculptor Andreyev. He. found it necessary to make some technical corrections, drew it again, made the sheaves of grain thicker, made the gleaming rays of the sun stand 31 out more clearly and, in general, produced the entire coat of arms in relief, making it more expressive. The coat of arms of the R.S.F.S.R. was approved at the very beginning of 1918.
Translated by George H. Hanna
[32] __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE FIRST BENEFITAlexandra Kollontai (1872--1952) joined the revolutionary movement in the nineties; she took an active part in the battles of the October Revolution in 1917. She was a close friend of Lenin's.
After the October Revolution she became People's Commissar for Social Security, then secretary of the International Women's Secretariat of the Comintern and, later, Soviet Ambassador to Norway, Mexico and Sweden.
Alexandra Kollontai's reminiscences of the 1917 revolution have been published several times in the U.S.S.R. They provided the writer Daniil Granin with material for his script of the film The First Visitor, produced by the Leningrad Studio.
__*_*_*__ [33] __NOTE__ LVL1 moved from here to before name of author; *_*_* inserted, also.October 1917 was windy, the sky grey and overcast. The wind thrashed the tops of the trees in the garden of the Smolny Institute, and in the building with the endless maze of passages and its big, light, scantily furnished halls, the work going on was of an intensity such as the world had never before witnessed.
Two days before, power had passed into the hands of the Soviets. The Winter Palace was occupied by workers and soldiers. Kerensky's government no longer existed. We all realised, however, that this was only the first rung of that difficult ladder leading to the emancipation of the working people and to the creation of a new, hitherto unknown, republic of labour.
The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party was squeezed into a little side room with a plain table in the middle, newspapers on the windows and on the floor, and a few chairs. I do not remember what brought me there, but I do remember that Vladimir Ilyich did not even given me a chance to ask my question. When he saw me he decided immediately that I ought to do something far more useful than I had intended to.
``Go immediately and take over the Ministry of Social Security. That has to be done at once.''
Vladimir Ilyich was quite calm, almost merry. He joked about something and then straight away began talking to some other people.
I do not remember why I went there alone; but I remember very well the damp October day when I drove up to the doors of the Ministry of Social Security in Kazanskaya Street. A tall, grey-bearded, impressive-looking porter with lots of gold braid __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---1417 34 opened the door and looked me over from head to foot.
``Who's in charge here?" I asked him.
``Reception hours for applicants are over,'' snapped the important-looking, gold-braided old man.
``I'm not here about any application for aid. Which of the chief clerks are here?''
``I told you in plain Russian---applicants are received from one to three; look, it's past four already.''
I insisted and he reiterated his refusal. Nothing was any help. Reception hours were over. He had been ordered not to let anyone in.
I tried to go upstairs despite the prohibition, but the stubborn old man stood like a wall in front of me and would not allow me to take a step forward.
And so I went away empty-handed. I had to hurry to a meeting. In those days meetings were the most important thing, they were basic. There, among the urban poor and the soldiers the question of "to be or not to be" was being decided, whether the workers and peasants in army uniforms would be able to maintain Soviet power or whether the bourgeoisie would gain the upper hand.
Very early the next morning there came a ring at the door of the flat in which I had been staying after my release from Kerensky's prison. It was an insistent ring. The door was opened. There stood a typical peasant---sheepskin coat, bast shoes, beard, all complete.
``Is it here that Kollontai, commissar from the people, lives? I have to see him. I have a note-to him from their chief Bolshevik, from Lenin.''
I looked at the scrap of paper and saw that it really was written in Lenin's hand.
``Pay him out of the social security fund whatever is due to him for his horse.''
35In his unhurried, peasant way he told me the whole story. At the time of the tsar, just before the February Revolution, his horse had been requisitioned for war purposes. He had been promised ``good value" for his 'horse. But time passed and there was no sign of any recompense. So the peasant came to Petrograd and for two months had been haunting the institutions of the Provisional Government. No results. The old man was chased here and there, from one office to another, he had no patience and no money left. Then he suddenly heard about some people called Bolsheviks, heard that they were giving back to the workers and peasants everything the tsar and the landowners had taken away from them and everything the people had been robbed of during the war. The only thing you needed was a note from the chief Bolshevik, from Lenin. And our peasant found Vladimir Ilyich in Smolny, woke him up long before dawn and managed to get a note from him. It was this note that he had shown me, but he had no intention of giving it up.
``I'll give it to you when I get the money. In the meantime I'll keep it---that's the surer way.''
What was I to do with that peasant and his horse? The ministry was still in the hands of the Provisional Government's civil servants. Those were strange times---^power was in the hands of the Soviets', the Council of People's Commissars was a Bolshevik body, but the government institutions continued to run on the political rails of the Provisional Government, like railway coaches running away downhill.
How were we to take over the ministry? By force? The clerks would run away and I would be kft without any staff.
We arrived at a different decision. We summoned a delegate meeting of the trade union of junior (technical) employees under the chairmanship of Ivan Yegorov, a mechanic. This was rather a special 36 trade union. It consisted of people of different trades, of all those who were employed at the ministry in a purely technical capacity---messengers, nurses, stokers, book-keepers, copyists, mechanics, printers and care-takers.
They discussed the situation. They discussed it in a businesslike manner. They elected a council and next morning went to occupy the ministry.
We went in. The porter in gold braid did not sympathise with the Bolsheviks and had not attended the meeting. He disapproved but allowed us to pass. As we went upstairs, we were met by a flood of people coming down---clerks, typists, accountants, heads of departments-----What a hurry they were in! They would not even spare us a glance. We came in and the staff went out. The sabotage by officials of the civil service had begun. Only a few people remained. They said they were prepared to work with us, with the Bolsheviks. We entered the ministerial offices and the general offices. All empty. Typewriters had been abandoned, papers were lying about everywhere. The books had been cleared away. Locked up. And no keys. No keys to the safes, either.
Who had them? How could we work without money? Social security is an institution whose work cannot be held up; it includes orphanages, and disabled soldiers, and artificial limb factories, and hospitals, and sanatoriums, and leper colonies, and reformatories, and girls' institutes, and homes for the blind.... A tremendous field of work! Demands and complaints come in from all sides-----And no keys! The most persistent of all was that peasant with a note from Lenin. Every morning he was at the door by daybreak.
``What about paying me for me horse? A fine animal, it was. If it hadn't been so strong and hardworking I wouldn't have taken so much trouble over getting paid.''
37Two days later the keys turned up. The first payment made from the social security fund by the People's Commissariat of Social Security was compensation for a horse that the tsarist government had confiscated from a peasant by force and by deception and for which that persistent peasant received payment in full in accordance with his note from Lenin.
Translated by George H. Hanna
[38]``Have you volunteered?' A Civil War foster by D. Moor, Merited Artist
To the front
The First Cavalry Army
[39]
[40]
[41]
[42]
~
[43]
__ALPHA_LVL1__
THE BASTARD
The Tales of the Don, of which this story is one, were written in the twenties, at the beginning of Mikhail Sholokhov's career as a writer, and even at that early stage showed their author to be the great artist we were to know later from And Quiet Flows the Don, Virgin Soil Upturned and The Fate of a Man.
``Sholokhov's stories stand out like a flower in the steppe,'' wrote Alexander Serafimovich as far back as 1926. "They are simple and vivid and you feel every word of them---they live before your eyes. Their language is the colourful language of the Cossacks. Everything is compressed, hut they are full of life, intensity and truthfulness.''
__*_*_*__ [44] __NOTE__ LVL1 moved from here to before name of author; *_*_* inserted, also.Misha dreamed that Grandad was coming towards him, angrily swinging a long cherry switch he had cut in the orchard.
``Come along, come along, Mikhailo Fomich,'' Grandad said sternly. "You've got a good hiding due to you.''
``What for, Grandaddy?''
``For stealing all the eggs out of the tufted hen's nest to pay for the merry-go-round.''
``But Grandaddy,'' Misha protested desperately, "I never went near the merry-go-round all summer.''
But Grandad only smoothed his beard, and stamped his foot, and said.
``Come along, you scamp. And let your pants down.''
Misha cried out in his sleep, and that woke him. His heart was thumping as if he'd really had a taste of the switch. He opened one eye, just wide enough to peep around him. It was already light. Outside the window spread the warm glow of dawn. Out in the entrance voices sounded. Misha lifted his head. He could hear his Mother's voice, shrill, excited, and half choked with laughter. And Grandad kept coughing. There was someone else there, too, someone with a booming voice.
Misha rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The outside door opened and shut. Grandad came trotting into the room, his spectacles bobbing up and down. For a minute Misha thought the priest must have come, with the choristers, because Grandad had fussed around just that way when they'd come at Easter. But it wasn't the priest that came pushing into the room behind Grandad. It was a stranger, a great big soldier in a black greatcoat and a 45 ribboned cap with no peak. And Mother with her arms around his neck, squealing with excitement.
The man shook Mother off, and yelled out, ``Where's my offspring?''
Misha was scared, and hid under the blanket.
``Minyushka,'' Mother called, ``wake up, Sonny. Here's your Daddy, back from the wars.''
And before Misha knew it the soldier had pulled him out of bed and thrown him up as high as the ceiling, and caught him again, and pressed him close, poking that prickly red moustache of his at Misha's lips, and cheeks, and eyes. It was wet, too, that moustache, and it tasted of salt. Misha tried to wriggle free, but that didn't work.
``What a fine big Bolshevik I've got me,'' Daddy roared. ``The boy will soon outgrow his Dad! Ha, ha!''
He couldn't stop playing with Misha. One minute he'd sit the boy on his palm and twirl him like a baby, and the next throw him up again as high as the ceiling beams.
Misha stood it as long as he could. But finally he made a stern face, pulling his eyebrows together the way Grandad did, and grabbed his father's moustache in both hands.
``Put me down, Daddy.''
``Oh, no, I won't.''
``Put me down. I'm no baby for you to play around with.''
Daddy sat down, and set Misha on his knee.
``How old are you, then, big boy?" he asked, smiling.
``Getting on for eight,'' Misha answered sullenly.
``Well, and do you remember, Sonny, those steamboats I made for you, the year before last? And how we floated them in the pond?''
46``I remember,'' Misha cried, and his arms went timidly up around his father's neck.
And that was when the fun began. With Misha riding pickaback on his shoulders, Daddy pranced round and round the room, kicking out suddenly and neighing, just like a real horse. Misha could hardly catch his breath, it was all so exciting. Only Mother kept pulling at his sleeve.
``Misha!" she cried. ``Go and play in the yard. Clear out, I tell you, you young rascal.''
She pestered Daddy, too.
``Put the boy down, Foma. Do put him down. Let me have my fill of you, my own dear love! Two whole years we've been apart, and you spend your time playing with the child!''
Daddy set Misha down.
``Run and play with the boys awhile,'' he said, ``and later on I'll show you what I've brought you.''
Misha's first impulse, as he shut the door behind him, was to stay right there in the entrance and listen in on what the grown-ups were talking about. But then it occurred to him that not one of the village youngsters knew his Dad was back. And off he went, across the yard and straight through the kitchen garden, trampling through the potato plants, and down to the pond.
He splashed about a while in the evil-smelling, stagnant water, then rolled in the sand until he was coated with it, and took a last dip in the pond. Hopping first on one foot, then on the other, he got into his trousers. As he was thinking of starting for home, Vitya came along---the priest's youngster.
``Don't go, Misha. Let's have a dip, and then come to my place to play. Mother says you can come.''
With his left hand, Misha hoisted his trousers up .and adjusted the only remaining strap of his braces over his shoulder.
47``I don't want to play with you,'' he said. ``Your ears stink.''
``That's the scrofula,'' Vitya said, pulling his knitted shirt off over his skinny shoulders. And maliciously screwing up one eye, he went on, ``And you're no Cossack. Your mother got you in the gutter.''
``A lot you know about it!''
``I heard our cook telling my mother.''
Misha's bare toes dug into the sand.
``Your mother's a liar,'' he declared, looking down at Vitya from his superior height. ``And anyway, my Daddy fought in the war, and your Dad's a bloodsucker, gobbling other people's bread.''
``And you're a bastard,'' the priest's boy retorted, on the verge of tears.
Misha stooped and picked up a big smooth pebble. But the priest's boy, controlling his tears, gave him a honey-sweet smile.
``Don't get mad, now, Misha,'' he said. ``There's no sense in fighting. I'll give you my dagger, if you want it, that I made out of a piece of iron.''
Misha's eyes gleamed, and he threw away his pebble. But then he remembered Daddy and retorted scornfully.
``My Daddy brought one home from the wars. It's far better than yours.''
``You're making it up,'' Vitya drawled, unconvinced.
``Making it up yourself! If I say he did, that means he did. And a good gun, too.''
``Umph! Rich, ain't you!" Vitya snorted, with a wry, envious grin.
``And he's got a cap with ribbons on it, and gold letters on the ribbon like in those books of yours.''
It took Vitya some minutes to think up an answer to that. His forehead went all wrinkly, and he scratched absently at the white skin of his belly.
``My Daddy is going to be a bishop, one of these 48 days,'' he said finally. ``And your Dad's nothing but a herdsman. There!''
But Misha was tired of standing there, arguing. He turned away and made for home.
``Misha! Misha!" the priest's boy called after him. ``I've got something to tell you.''
``Go on then.''
``Come nearer.''
Misha came nearer, his eyes screwed up suspiciously.
``Well, what is it?''
Dancing around in the sand on his skinny bowlegs, the priest's boy cried, with a gloating smile,
``Your Dad's a Commie. And the minute you die, and your soul flies up to heaven, God will say to you, 'Your Dad was a Communist, so you must go straight down to Hell.' And down there, the devils will roast you in their frying-pans.''
``Well, and they'll roast you too.''
``My Daddy's a priest. Ah, you're just an ignorant fool. What's the sense of talking to you?''
That frightened Misha. Silently, he turned and ran for home.
By the fence he looked back and shook his fist at the priest's boy.
``I'm going to ask my Grandaddy. If you've been lying, you'd better keep away from our yard.''
He climbed the fence and ran for the house. He could just imagine that frying-pan, with him, Misha, frying in it. Scorching hot, and the sour cream bubbling and foaming all around him. A shiver went down his back. He must find Grandad, quick, and ask him all about it.
Just then he saw the sow. It had got its head stuck through the wicket gate and all the rest of it was outside. It was pushing with all its might, waggling its little tail and squealing desperately. Misha flew to the rescue. But when he tried to open 49 the gate, the sow began to wheeze. So he climbed on its back, and then, with a final effort, the animal tore the gate off its hinges and made off across the yard as fast as it could go. Misha dug his heels into its sides, and it carried him along so fast that his hair streamed in the wind. By the threshing-floor he jumped off. And when he looked around, there was Grandad, on the house porch, beckoning.
``Come here, young man!''
It never occurred to Misha what Grandad was after. The vision of the frying-pan filled his mind again, and he ran straight to the porch.
``Grandaddy, Grandaddy, do they have devils in Heaven?''
``I'll show you where they have devils. Just you wait. A proper whipping---that's what you want, you little scamp! What do you mean, riding horseback on the sow?''
Grandad grabbed Misha by the forelock, so he couldn't make off, and called into the house to Mother, ``Come, have a look at this smart son you've reared.''
And out came Mother.
``What's he been up to now?''
``Why, what's he been up to but riding around the yard astride the sow, raising the dust behind him!''
``The sow that's due to litter?''
Mother's hands flew up in horror.
Before Misha could so much as say a word in selfdefence, Grandad had undone his belt and, holding up his trousers with one hand, pushed Misha's head between his knees with the other. He gave Misha a thorough strapping, to the stern refrain of, "Don't ride that sow again. Don't ride that sow.''
Misha began to bawl, but Grandad quickly put a stop to that.
``Is that how you love your father, you young __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---1417 50 brat? Here he's just come home, all tired out, and trying to sleep, and you raise such a howl!''
So Misha had to keep quiet. He aimed a kick at Grandad, but couldn't reach far enough. Then Mother grabbed him and pushed him indoors.
``Sit still, child of a hundred devils! If I take my hand to you, I won't be as soft as Grandad.''
Grandad sat on the kitchen bench, glancing now and again at Misha who stood with his face to the wall.
Misha swung around rubbing away one last tear with his fist.
``Just you wait, Grandaddy,'' he said, his back pressed to the door.
``Threatening your Grandad, are you?''
Grandad started to undo his belt again. Misha pushed against the door until it swung a little open.
``Threatening me, are you?" Grandad repeated.
Misha disappeared outside the door. But he peeped in again, on the alert for Grandad's slightest movement, and shouted, ``Just you wait, Grandaddy. When all your teeth are gone don't ask me to chew for you, because I won't.''
Grandad came out on the porch just in time to see Misha's head and his blue trousers flash in shaggy hemp in the garden. The old man shook his stick menacingly, but his lips, in the shelter of his beard, were smiling.
__*_*_*__Father called him Minka. Mother called him Minyushka. Grandad, when peacefully inclined, called him a scamp; but at other times, when Grandad's bushy grey eyebrows drew together in a frown, it would be, "Come here, Mikhailo Fomich. Your ears want pulling.''
Everyone else---gossipy neighbours, children, the 51 whole village---called him Mishka when they didn't call him Bastard.
Mother had borne him out of wedlock. True, she had been married to his father, herdsman Foma, only a month later. But the bitter nickname, Bastard, stuck to Misha for life.
Misha was a smallish child. His hair, in early spring the colour of sunflower petals, had been bleached by the June sun into a rough, streaky mop. His cheeks were freckled like a sparrow's egg, and his nose was always peeling from exposure to the sun and frequent dips in the pond. He had only one good point, this bow-legged little Misha: his eyes, blue and mischievous, peeping out of their narrow slits like bits of half-thawed river ice.
It was for those eyes that Misha's father loved him, yes, and for his active, restless temperament. From the wars, Dad had brought his son home a honey cake, stone-hard with age, and a pair of slightly worn top-boots. Mother wrapped the boots in a towel and put them away in the chest, and as for the cake, Misha pounded it with a hammer, that very evening, and ate it to the very last crumb.
Next morning Misha woke at sunrise. He scooped a bit of tepid water from the pot, smeared his grimy face with it, and ran out of doors to dry.
Mother was in the yard, busy with the cow. Grandad, sitting on the earth bank which surrounded the house, beckoned to Misha.
``Dive under the barn, little scamp. I heard a hen clucking in there. It must have laid an egg.''
Oh, Misha was always ready to oblige his Grandad. He crawled under the barn, crawled out on the other side, and off he ran, kicking up his heels, through the kitchen garden---glancing back now and then to see if Grandad was watching. By the time he got to the fence, his legs were all stung up by nettles. Grandad waited and waited, until he lost 52 patience and crawled under the barn himself. He got all smeared with chicken droppings, and half blind in the damp darkness, bumped his head painfully against all the floor beams before he got through to the other side.
``Aren't you stupid, Misha, searching all this time for one little egg! As if a hen would lay anything out there! Right by this stone, that egg ought to be. Misha! Where are you, anyway?''
Grandad got no answer. Brushing the dirt from his trousers, he crept out from under the barn and peered towards the popd. Sure enough, Misha was there. He shrugged and turned away.
By the pond, the village youngsters were crowding around Misha.
``Where was your Dad?" someone asked. ``At the wars?''
``That's right.''
``Doing what?''
``Fighting---what else?''
``Come off it. All he fought was lice. And the rest of the time he sat by the kitchen door, gnawing bones.''
The youngsters screamed with laughter, hopping up and down and pointing at Misha. Tears of bitter resentment filled Misha's eyes. And to top it all, Vitya, the priest's boy, had a dig at him.
``Your Dad's a Communist, ain't he?''
``I don't know.''
``Well, I know. He's a Communist. He sold his soul to the Devil, that's what my Daddy told me this morning. Yes, and pretty soon all the Communists are going to be strung up.''
A hush fell over the youngsters. Fear clutched at Misha's heart. His Dad strung up? For what crime? Through clenched teeth, he retorted,
``My Dad's got a great big gun, and he'll kill off all the bourjoos.''
53``Oh, no, he won't,'' Vitya declared triumphantly. ``My Daddy won't give him the holy blessing, and if he has no blessing he can't do anything at all.''
Proshka, the shopkeeper's son, jabbed Misha in the chest.
``Don't you talk too big about that Dad of yours,'' he cried, his nostrils twitching. ``He grabbed all my Dad's goods when the Revolution came. And my Dad, he says, 'Just you wait till the tables turn. First thing I do, I'll kill that herdsman Foma.'~"
And Natasha, Proshka's sister, stamped her foot and yelled,
``Beat him up! What are you waiting for, boys?''
``Beat the Communist brat!" someone-else cried.
``Bastard!''
``Give it to him, Proshka!''
Proshka swung a stick, and struck Misha across the shoulder. The priest's boy, Vitya, hooked Misha's leg and brought him down heavily, flat on his back in the sand.
Yelling, the boys threw themselves upon him. Natasha, squealing shrilly, tore at his neck with her sharp nails. Someone kicked him painfully in the belly.
Misha shook Proshka off, struggled to his feet, and made for home, zigzagging like a hunted hare. Loud whistles followed him, and someone threw a stone, but no one gave chase.
Only in the prickly green shelter of the hemp in the kitchen garden did Misha stop for breath. He sank down on the damp, fragrant soil, and wiped the blood away where his neck had been scratched. And then he began to cry. The sunlight, working its way down through the dense leafage, tried its best to peep into his eyes. It dried the tears on his cheeks, and tenderly kissed his curly, reddish crown, as Mother sometimes did.
54Misha sat among the hemp for a long time---until the tears stopped flowing. Then he got up and went slowly into the yard.
His father was there, in the shed, tarring the wagon wheels. His cap had slipped to the back of his head, and its ribbons hung free. He was wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt. Misha sidled up to the wagon and stood silently watching. After a while, when he had summoned up the courage, he touched Daddy's hand, and asked, in a whisper,
``What did you do at the war, Dad?''
``Why, I fought, Son,'' Daddy returned, smiling under his red moustache.
``The boys. ... The boys say all you fought was lice.''
Again Misha choked with tears. But Daddy only laughed and swept Misha up in his arms.
``They're lying, Son. I was on board a ship. A big ship, that sailed the seven seas. And then I fought in the wars.''
``Who did you fight?''
``I fought the bosses, Son. You see, you're still too small, so I had to go to the wars and fight for you. Why, there's even a song they sing about it.''
His father smiled again, and, tapping out the time with his foot, sang softly:
Oh, my little Minka, Misha, mine,
Don't you go to the wars. Let your Daddy go.
Daddy's old. He's lived his life.
And you're still too young to take a wife!
Misha forgot all about his troubles, and laughed aloud---laughed at the way his Dad's red moustache bristled just like those plants Mother made brooms out of, and the way his lips smacked under the moustache,, opening and shutting the round black hole of his mouth.
55``Run along now, Minka,'' Daddy said. ``I have to put the wagon to rights. In the evening, when you go to bed, I'll tell you all about the war.''
__*_*_*__The day dragged like a lonely road across the endless steppe. At long last, the sun went down. The herd swept through the village. The dust clouds settled, and the first star peeped out shyly down from the darkened sky.
Misha got awfully tired of waiting. Mother took so much time milking, and then straining the milk! And then she went down into the cellar and fooled around there for what must have been an hour! Misha hung around her, squirming with impatience.
``Mother! Ain't it supper-time yet?''
``Hungry? You'll just have to wait.''
But Misha gave her no peace. He followed her everywhere ... down to the cellar, and up again to the kitchen---clinging like a leech, hanging to her skirts.
``Mo-o-other! Su-upper!''
``Get out of my way, you little nuisance. If you're so hungry, you can take a hunk of bread.''
There was no quieting him. Even the slap his mother finally gave him did no good.
When supper came, he gobbled his food down hastily and dashed away to the other room. He flung his trousers behind the chest and dived straight into bed, under Mother's bright patchwork quilt. He lay very still, waiting for Daddy to come and tell him about the wars.
Grandad knelt before the icons, whispering prayers, bowing to the very floor. Misha lifted his head to watch. Bracing himself against the floor with his left hand, Grandad bent painfully forward until his forehead bumped the floor. At the 56 same instant, Misha banged his elbow against the wall.
Again Grandad whispered his prayers awhile, and then again he bowed his head to the floor--- bump! And Misha banged his elbow against the wall ---bang! Grandad got angry.
``I'll teach you, you imp, the Lord forgive me! Bang the wall again, and I'll bang you plenty!''
There would surely have been trouble, only just then Daddy came into the room.
``What are you doing here, Minka?" Daddy asked.
``I always sleep with Mother.''
Daddy sat down on the edge of the bed. He didn't say anything for a while, just sat there twisting his moustache. Finally, he suggested,
``I thought you'd sleep with Grandad, in the kitchen.''
``I don't want to sleep with Grandad.''
``Why?''
``Because his moustache---it just stinks with tobacco.''
Daddy sighed, and twisted his own moustache again.
``All the same, Son, you'd better sleep with Grandad.''
Misha pulled the blanket up over his head, then peeped out again to mumble sulkily, "You slept in my place yesterday, and now you want it again. Go and sleep with Grandad yourself.''
Sitting up suddenly, he pulled Daddy's head down and whispered in his ear, "You'd better go and sleep with Grandad, because Mother won't want to sleep with you anyway. You stink of tobacco too.''
``All right, then, I'll go and sleep with Grandad. Only then I won't tell you about the wars.'' Daddy got up and headed for the kitchen.
``Daddy!''
``Well?''
57``Sleep here, if you want to,'' Misha said resignedly, getting out of bed. ``Now will you tell me about the wars?''
``Yes, now I will.''
Grandad got into bed first, leaving room ior Misha on the outside. And after a while Daddy came into the kitchen, moved a bench up to the bed, and sat down. He had lit one of his evil-smelling cigarettes.
``Well, then, it was this way-----Do you remember when the field next to our threshing-floor belonged to the shopkeeper?''
Yes, Misha remembered that---remembered how he had liked to run up and down between the rows of tall, fragrant wheat. He had only to climb the stone fence of the threshing-floor, and there he was, right in the wheat. It was taller than he was, and hid him entirely. The heavy, black-bearded ears tickled his cheeks, and there was a smell of dust, and daisies, and the steppe wind.
``Misha,'' Mother would call after him, "don't go too far in the wheat. You'll lose your way.''
``Well,'' Daddy went on after a while, gently stroking Misha's hair, "and do you remember the time we rode out past Sandy Hill, you and me, to the field where our wheat grew?''
Misha remembered that too: the narrow, crooked little plot beside the road, out past Sandy Hill, and the day he'd been there with Daddy and they'd found the wheat all trampled by somebody's cattle. Headless stalks, swaying in the wind; and scattered, broken ears on the ground, mixed with the dirt. Daddy's face had twisted terribly, and a few tears had rolled down his dust-grimed cheeks---Daddy's cheeks, Misha's big, strong Daddy! And that had made Misha cry, too.
On the way home, Daddy had asked Fedot, the watchman at the melon patch,
``Who spoiled my field?''
58And Fedot had spat and answered, ``The shopkeeper went past, driving some cattle to market, and he drove them through your field. On purpose.''
Daddy drew his bench up closer.
``The shopkeeper and the other big-bellies, they grabbed all the land, and there was no place left for the poor people to grow their grain. And that's how things were everywhere---not only here in our village. Oh, but they were hard on us, in those days. We'd nothing to live on. So I got a job herding the village cattle. And then I was drafted to the army. Things were bad in the army, too. The officers would beat us for the least little thing. Well, and then the Bolsheviks came along, and they had a leader by the name of Lenin. Not a big man to look at, but terribly learned, for all that he comes of peasant stock---just like you and me. And those Bolsheviks, they said such things, all we could do was stand and gape. 'What are you thinking of, workers and peasants?' they would say. 'Take a broom to all the lords and officials, and drive them out for good. Everything belongs to you.'
``That was the way they talked to us, and we couldn't say a thing. Because, when we thought it over, we saw they were right. So we took the land and the estates away from the masters. Only the masters, they didn't like it. They couldn't be happy without their land. And they got just bristly mad, and went to war against us---against the workers and the peasants. So you see, Sonny, how it was.
``And that same Lenin, the Bolsheviks' leader, he roused the people up the way you turn up the soil with a plough. He roused the workers and the soldiers, and didn't they go for those masters! And didn't the feathers fly! The soldiers and the workers got to be called the Red Guard. And I was in the Red Guard too. We lived in a huge big house, the Smolny it was called. You should see the great long halls 59 there, Sonny, and the rooms---so many rooms, you could lose yourself there.
``I was on sentry duty one day, by the front door. It was bitter cold, and all I had to keep me warm was my army coat. The wind seemed to blow right through me. And then two men came out of the door. And as they passed, I saw that one of them was Lenin. And he came right up to me ana asked in such a friendly way,
``~`Aren't you cold, Comrade?'
``And I said to him,
``~`No, Comrade Lenin, the cold can't beat us, nor no enemy neither. Once we've got the power in our own hands, we'll never give it back to those bourgeoises.'
``He laughed, and shook my hand warmly, and then he went on towards the gate.''
His father fell silent. He got out his tobacco pouch and a bit of paper, and rolled himself a new cigarette. When he struck a match to light it Misha saw, on his bristly red moustache, a glittering tear-drop ---like the drops of dew you can see of a morning, hanging from the nettle leaves.
``That's the sort he is. Everyone matters to him. He worries over every soldier, with all his heart. I saw him often after that day. He'd be going by, and recognise me from afar, and he'd smile and say,
``~`So the bourgeois won't beat us, eh?'
``~`Not they, Comrade Lenin,' I'd say to him.
``And things turned out just as he said, Sonny. We seized the land and the factories, and threw out the big-bellies the bloodsuckers. Don't you forget, when you grow up, that your Dad was a sailor and fought four long years for the Commune. I'll die, some day, and Lenin will die too, but the things we fought for will live for ever. Will you fight for the Soviets too, when you grow up, like your Daddy?''
60``I will,'' Misha cried, and sprang up in bed to throw his arms around Daddy's neck. Only he forgot about Grandad, lying there beside him, and thrust his foot against the old man's belly.
Grandad let out an awful grunt, and tried to catch Misha by his forelock. But Daddy took Misha in his arms and carried him into the other room.
After a while, still in Daddy's arms, Misha fell asleep. But first he thought deeply about that extraordinary man, Lenin, and about the Bolsheviks, and the wars, and the great ships. Half dozing, he heard low voices, and breathed the sweetish smell of sweat and makhorka. And then his eyes shut tight, and wouldn't open any more---as if someone had pressed a hand over them.
Hardly was he asleep, when a city rose before him. The streets were wide, with chickens wallowing in scattered ash-heaps everywhere you turned. There were ever so many chickens at home in the village, but in the city there were ever so many more. And the houses---they were just as Dad had said. You'd see a great big house, roofed with fresh reeds---and on its chimney another house, and on that one's chimney another still. And the top chimney of all reached right up to the sky.
And as Misha walked along the street, his head tilted back to see better, who should come striding up to him but a great, tall man in a red shirt.
``Why do you hang around doing nothing, Misha?" the man asked, in such a friendly way.
``Grandaddy said I could go out and play,'' Misha answered.
``Well, and do you know who I am?''
``No, I don't.''
``I'm Comrade Lenin.''
Misha was so scared, his knees began to shake. He'd have made off, only the man in the red shirt took hold of his sleeve and said,~
61``You've got no conscience, Misha---not a farthing's worth. You know perfectly well I'm fighting for the poor folk. Why don't you join my army?''
``My Grandaddy won't let me,'' Misha explained.
``That's as you please,'' Comrade Lenin said. ``Only there's no getting things straight without you. You've just got to join my army, that's all there is to it.''
Misha took Comrade Lenin by the hand and said, most resolutely, ``All right, then, I'll join your army without asking Grandad, and fight for the poor folk. Only if Grandaddy tries to whip me, you must stand up for me.''
``I certainly will,'' Comrade Lenin said, and went off down the street. And Misha was so happy, he couldn't catch his breath. He wanted to shout, but his tongue went dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Misha twitched suddenly in bed, bumped into Grandad---and woke.
Grandad's lips were moving, mumbling something through his sleep. Outside the window Misha could see the pale blue of the sky beyond the pond, and against it a pink foam of clouds floating across from the east.
__*_*_*__Every evening, now, Daddy would tell Misha more tales about the wars, and about Lenin, and about all the different places he had seen.
Saturday evening the watchman from the village Soviet brought a stranger to the house---a squat little man in an army greatcoat, with a leather brief case under his arm.
``Here's a comrade Soviet official,'' the watchman said to Grandad. ``Come from the town, he is, and he'll stay the night with you. Give him some supper, Grandad.''
62``We can do that,'' Grandad said. ``Only, Mister Comrade, what are your credentials?''
Amazed at Grandad's erudition, Misha paused, finger in mouth, to listen.
``All the credentials you want, Grandad,'' the man with the leather brief case answered, smiling. And he turned to go into the house.
Grandad followed him, and Misha followed Grandad.
``What brings you to our village?" Grandad asked.
``I'm in charge of the new elections. You're to have new elections here, for the chairman and members of the village Soviet.''
After a while Daddy came in from the threshingfloor. He shook hands with the stranger and told Mother to get supper ready.
After supper Daddy and the stranger sat down together on the kitchen bench and the stranger opened his leather brief case and got out a bunch of papers and showed them to Daddy. Misha hung around as close as he dared, trying to get a glimpse. Daddy took one of the papers and held it out to Misha.
``Look, Minka,'' he said, ``this is Lenin.''
Misha seized the photograph---and, as he stared at it, his mouth fell open in surprise. The man in the photograph was not tall, and he had no red shirt on either---just an ordinary jacket. He had one hand in his trouser pocket, and the other flung forward, as though pointing out the way. Eagerly, Misha examined the photograph, indelibly printing on his memory the arched brows, the smile that lurked in the eyes and lips, every detail of the pictured face.
The stranger reached for the photograph, locked it away in his brief case, and went to the other room to bed. He undressed and got into the bed, with his 63 greatcoat for blanket; but just as he was falling asleep the door suddenly creaked.
``Who's there?" he asked, lifting his head.
Bare feet came pattering across the floor.
``Who's there?" the stranger asked again. And then he saw that it was Misha, standing beside the bed.
``What is it, boy?" he asked.
For a moment Misha did not answer. Finally, summoning up his courage, he whispered, ``Look, Mister---give me your Lenin.''
The stranger did not say a word, just looked steadily down from his bed at Misha.
Misha was terribly frightened. Suppose the man was mean? Suppose he refused? Stumbling over the words in his eagerness, trying hard to stop his voice from trembling, Misha whispered,
``Give him to me, for keeps. I'll give you my tin box, a real good box, and every single knucklebone I've got, and''---with a desperate sweep of the arm ---``yes, and the boots Daddy brought me, too!''
``But what do you want Lenin for?" the stranger asked, smiling.
He wouldn't agree, Misha thought. Bowing his head to hide the tears, he said heavily, "I want him, that's all.''
The stranger laughed, pulled his brief case out from under the pillow and gave Misha the photograph. Misha hid it under his shirt, pressing it tight against his heart, and raced back to the kitchen. Grandad woke up and grumbled,
``What's wrong with you, running around in the middle of the night? I told you not to drink that milk at bedtime. If you've got to go that bad, you can pee in the slop pail. I'm not getting up to take you out of doors.''
Misha got into bed without answering. He lay very still, afraid to move for fear of crumpling the 64 photograph, which he still held with both hands, pressed close to his heart. He fell asleep without changing his position.
It was scarcely light when he woke. Mother had just finished milking, and sent the cow off with the herd. At the sight of Misha she threw up her hands.
``What's bitten you? Why are you up so early?''
Holding the photograph tightly under his shirt, Misha slipped past his mother, across the threshingfloor and under the barn.
Coarse burdock grew around the barn, and a thick, bristly green wall of nettles. Under the barn, Misha cleared a little space by brushing away the dust and chicken droppings. He wrapped the photograph in a big, yellowed burdock leaf, laid it in the cleared space, and weighted it down with a stone, so the wind could not blow it away.
It rained all day. Grey cloud banks hid the sky. The yard was full of puddles, and swift rivulets raced one another down the street.
Misha had to stay indoors. But as evening fell Daddy and Grandad went off to the Soviet to attend the village meeting, and Misha, with Grandad's cap on his head, slipped out and followed them. The Soviet had its headquarters in the church lodge. Not without effort, Misha scrambled up the rickety, mudcaked porch steps. Inside, the place was packed. High up under the ceiling hung a cloud of tobacco smoke. At a table by the window sat the stranger, explaining something to the meeting.
Misha slipped stealthily to the back of the room and sat down on the last bench.
``Comrades, those voting for Foma Korshunov as chairman of the Soviet please raise your hands.''
Prokhor Lysenkov, the shopkeeper's son-in-law, sitting right in front of Misha, shouted,
``Citizens! I object! He's no honest man. We found him out long ago, when he herded for the village.''
65Then Fedot, the shoemaker, jumped up from his seat on the window-sill and shouted too, waving his arms excitedly,
``Comrades! The big-bellies do4M want a herdsman for chairman. But herdsman Foma, he's one of the proletariat, he'll stand up for Soviet power.''
The wealthy Cossacks, bunched together by the door, began stamping and whistling. The room was filled with noise.
``Down with the herdsman!''
``Now he's back from the army, he can hire himself out again to be herdsman.''
``To hell with Foma Korshunov!''
Misha looked around for Daddy, and found him standing right near by. Daddy's face was white, and Misha turned white too, out of fear for him.
``Order, comrades,'' the stranger yelled banging his fist down on the table. ``Or we'll throw out the rowdies!''
``Give us a real Cossack for chairman!''
``Down with Foma!''
``Down with him! ...''
All the richer Cossacks were shouting now, and loudest of all the shopkeeper's son-in-law, Prokhor.
A huge, red-bearded Cossack with a ring in his ear climbed on a bench. His jacket was all patched and tattered.
``Brothers!" he cried. ``See what they're trying to do! The big-bellies, they want a man of their own for chairman. And then they can have things the way they were before-----"
He snouted and shouted, the big Cossack with the ring in his ear, but through the din Misha could only make out a word or two here and there:
``The land.... New share-out.... Clay and sand __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---1417 66 for the poor folk, and the good black soil for themselves.''
``Prokhor for chairman!" the group at the door was yelling. ``Pro-kho-or! Kho-or! Kho-or!''
It was a long time before the din could be checked. The stranger shouted and shouted, frowning and spluttering. Cursing, most likely, Misha reflected.
When it got quieter, the stranger put the question loudly,
``Who votes for Foma Korshunov?''
A great many hands were raised. Misha raised his, too. Someone started counting, striding from bench to bench.
``Sixty-three ... sixty-four.. .''---and, pointing to Misha's hand---``sixty-five.''
The stranger wrote something on a sheet of paper, and then shouted, ``Who votes for Prokhor Lysenkov?''
Up went the hands of twenty-seven of the richer Cossacks and one more---miller Yegor's. Misha also raised his hand. But this time the man counting the votes, when he reached the back bench, happened to look down.
``Of all the little rascals!" he cried, grabbing Misha painfully by the ear. ``Get out of here, before I thrash you! Voting---and how do you like that?''
Laughter broke out. The man who had counted the votes dragged Misha to the door and pushed him out. Tumbling down the slippery porch steps, Misha recalled what Daddy had once said, arguing with Grandad.
``Who gave you the right?" he shouted,
``I'll show you who!''
Injustice is always a bitter thing!
When Misha got home he snivelled a bit, and complained to Mother. But she was cross, and said,~
67``Well, don't go where you're not wanted. Poking your nose in everywhere---you're a real trial to me!''
Next morning, while the family were still at breakfast, the sound of far-away music was heard. Daddy put down his spoon and said wiping his moustache,
``That's a military band.''
Misha was off like the wind. The door banged to behind him, and tap-tap-tap went his light footsteps across the yard.
Dad and Grandad went out too, and Mother leaned out of the window.
Rank upon rank of Red Army men were swinging up the village street like a surging greenish wave. The band marched in the lead, and the whole village rang to the blowing of its huge trumpets and the banging of its drum.
Misha was ready to burst with excitement. He spun around wildly on his heels, and ran to meet the marchers. A strange, sweet tingling filled his chest and rose to his throat. He looked up at the Red Army men's jolly, dust-grimed faces, at the musicians, with their cheeks puffed up so importantly. And he made up his mind, once and for all: he was going with them to fight in the war.
The dream he had had came back and, somehow mustering up the courage, he tugged at the cartridge pouch of one of the Red Army men.
``Where are you going? To fight in the war?''
``Where else? In the war, of course.''
``Who will you fight for?''
``For the Soviets, youngster. Here---get in the lines.''
He pulled Misha into the ranks. One of the men, grinning, flicked his finger against the boy's tousled head. Another fumbled in a pocket, got out a grimy lump of sugar, and pressed it into the boy's mouth. 68 When they reached the square, the order was shouted down the lines, ``Halt!''
The Red Army men fell out, and threw themselves down to rest in the cool shade of the schoolhouse fence. A tall, clean-shaven fellow with a sabre hanging from his belt, lounged up to Misha, twisting his lips in a smile.
``Where d'you come from?" he demanded.
Misha squared his shoulders importantly, and hitched up his trousers.
``I'm going to fight in the wars with you,'' he declared.
``Comrade Battalion Commander!" one of the Red Army men called. ``Take him along to be your adjutant!''
Everyone roared with laughter. Misha was close to tears; but the man they called so strangely, " battalion commander'', frowned at the noise and answered sternly,
``What are you laughing at, blockheads? Of course we'll take him. Only on one condition.'' Here he turned to Misha. ``Those pants of yours---they've only got one strap. We can't take you that way. You'd disgrace us. Look---I've got two straps to mine, and so have all the others. Just you run home as fast as you can, and get your mother to sew you on another strap. We'll be waiting for you here.'' And, with a wink at the men resting in the shade of the fence, he shouted, ``Tereshchenko! Go and fetch a gun and an army coat for our new Red Army man.''
One of the men got up and touched his hand to the peak of his cap.
``Right away,'' he said.
And off he went, at the double.
``Double quick, now,'' the battalion commander said to Misha. ``Ask your mother to sew you on another strap, just as fast as she can.''
69Misha looked up at him sternly.
``You won't go back on your word, will you?"
``Don't you worry.''
It was a long way home from the village square. By the time Misha reached the gate he was completely out of breath. He wriggled out of his trousers as he ran and tore barelegged into the house, crying,
``Mother! My pants! A strap!" But the house was still and empty. A black swarm of flies hung, buzzing around the stove. Misha looked everywhere---the yard, the threshing-floor, the kitchen garden---but there was nobody anywhere--- neither Mother, nor Dad, nor Grandaddy. He ran back to the house. Looking around, he spied an empty sack. With a knife, he cut a long strip of sacking. He had no time to waste on sewing, and anyway, he had never learned to sew. He tied the strap hastily to the back of his trousers, threw it over his shoulder, and tied it to the front. That done, he flew out of the house and dived under the barn.
Still puffing for breath, he rolled the stone away, and glanced at the photograph. Lenin's outstretched hand pointed straight at Misha.
``There!" Misha whispered. ``Now I've joined your army.''
He wrapped the picture carefully in its burdock leaf, thrust it under his shirt, and rushed off down the street---holding the photograph safely in place with one hand, and hitching up his trousers with the other. Running past the neighbours' fence, he called, ``Anisimovna!''
``What's up?" Anisimovna asked.
``Tell my folks not to wait dinner for me.''
``Where are you off to, little scamp?"
``To the wars!"---and Misha waved a hand in farewell.
70But when Misha reached the square he stopped short, petrified. There was not a living soul in sight. The ground along the fence was littered with cigarette ends, and empty tins, and somebody's torn puttees. The band was playing again, away down at the end of the village, and you could hear the tramp of marching feet on the hard-packed dirt road.
One despairing cry, and Misha ran after them, just as fast as his legs would carry him. And he'd have surely caught them up, if it hadn't been for a big yellow dog sprawled right across the road by the tannery, its teeth bared in a snarl. By the time Misha had got round the dog, the music and the tramp of feet had died away.
__*_*_*__A day or two later a detachment of some forty men arrived at the village. These soldiers were not in uniform. They wore grease-stained work clothes, and shabby felt boots. When Daddy came home from the village Soviet for his dinner, he told Grandad,
``Get our wheat ready in the barn. There's a food detachment come, to collect the grain surplus.''
The soldiers went from house to house, testing the earthen floors of the sheds with their bayonets, digging up buried grain, and loading it on carts to be taken to the communal granary.
The chairman's turn also came. One of the soldiers, puffing at a tobacco pipe., asked Grandad,
``Well, Grandad, tell us the truth. How much grain have you buried?''
But Grandad only stroked his beard.
``My son is a Communist,'' he answered proudly.
They went to the barn. The soldier with the pipe glanced at the bins, and smiled.
71``Cart one binful to the granary,'' he said, ``and keep the rest for yourself, for food and seed.''
Grandad hitched old Savraska to the cart. He sighed once or twice, and grumbled to himself, but he loaded the wheat---it filled eight sacks---and, with a helpless shrug, drove off to the granary. Mother wept a little, sorry to part with the wheat. Misha, after helping Grandad to fill the sacks, went over to the priest's, to play with Vitya.
The two boys settled down on the kitchen floor, with some horses they had cut out of paper. But just then the soldiers came---the same group that had been to Misha's home. The priest went scurrying out to meet them, stumbling over his cassock hem in his nervous haste, and invited them into the parlour. But the soldier with the pipe said sternly,
``It's your barn we want to see. Where do you keep your grain?''
The priest's wife came hurrying into the kitchen, her hair all in a mess.
``Would you believe it, gentlemen,'' she said, with a foxy smile, ``we haven't any grain at all. My husband hasn't made his rounds of the parish yet.''
``Have you got a cellar anywhere?''
``No, no cellar. We've always kept our grain in the barn.''
Misha remembered very well how he and Vitya had played in a spacious cellar opening from the kitchen.
``What about the one under the kitchen where me and Vitya played?" he said, turning to face the priest's wife. ``You must have forgotten.''
The priest's wife laughed, but her face turned pale.
``You're imagining things, child,'' she said. ``Vitya, why don't you two go and play in the orchard?'
72The soldier with the pipe smiled at Misha, screwing up his eyes.
``How do you get to that cellar, youngster?" he asked.
``Don't you believe that silly child,'' the priest's wife said, clenching her hands until the knuckles cracked. ``We have no cellar, gentlemen, I assure you.''
``Perhaps the comrades would like a bite to eat?" the priest suggested, smoothing the folds of his cassock. ``Just come into the parlour.''
Moving past the boys, the priest's wife pinched Misha painfully, but said, with the kindliest of smiles,
``Go out into the orchard, children. You're in the way.''
The soldiers exchanged glances and set about a careful examination of the kitchen, tapping the floor with the butts of their rifles. They shoved aside a table that stood by the wall, and lifted the sacking that lay under it. The soldier with the pipe pulled up one of the floor boards and looked down in the cellar.
``You ought to be ashamed,'' he said, shaking his head. ``Telling us you have no grain, when your cellar's piled to the top with wheat.''
The priest's wife threw Misha such a look that he was frightened and wanted to get home just as fast as he could. He got up and made for the door. In the entrance the priest's wife caught up with him, seized him by the hair, and began shaking him. She was crying.
He jerked himself free and ran for home. Choking with tears, he told his mother what had happened. Her hands flew up in horror.
``What am I to do with you?" she cried. ``Get out of Iny sight before I thrash you!''
73After that, when Misha's feelings were hurt, he would go straight under the barn, roll aside the stone, undo the burdock leaf, and, his tears rolling down on to the photograph, he would confide all his troubles to Lenin.
A week passed. Misha was very lonely. He had no one to play with. None of the youngsters round about would have anything to do with him. It was not only ``bastard'' that they yelled after him now. There were new names the boys had picked up from their elders.
``Communist brat!" they would cry, and ``Dirty Commie!''
Coming home from the pond late one afternoon, Misha heard his father's voice in the house, sounding very loud and stern. Mother was wailing as people do over the dead. Misha went inside. His father sat pulling on his boots. His army coat lay beside him already rolled.
``Where are you going to, Daddy?''
His father laughed.
``Quiet your mother, Sonny, if you can. She's breaking my heart with her crying. I have to go to the wars again, and she won't let me go.''
``Take me along with you, Daddy.''
Daddy pulled his belt tight, and put on his cap with the ribbons to it.
``Now, aren't you silly? How can we both go off together? You mustn't go till I get back. Or else who's to get the wheat in, when harvest comes? Mother has the house to tend to, and Grandad---he's getting old.''
Misha kept back his tears, and even managed to smile as he said good-bye to his father. Mother hung on Daddy's neck, as she had when he came home, and he had a hard time making her let go. Grandad sighed and, kissing Daddy good-bye, whispered in his ear, "Look, Foma---what if you stayed home? 74 Can't they get along without you? What will we do if you get killed?''
``Drop it, Dad. That's no good. Who's to fight for the Soviets, if the men all hide behind their women's skirts?''
``Ah well, go, then, if you're fighting for what's right.''
Turning away, Grandad furtively wiped away a tear.
They went as far as the village Soviet with father, to see him off. A score or so of men were waiting there, all of them with rifles. His father took a rifle too. And then he kissed Misha good-bye again and marched away with the other men, down the road leading out of the village.
Misha walked home with Grandad. Mother dragged unsteadily behind. Here and there in the village dogs were barking. Here and there, a light showed in someone's window. The village had wrapped itself in the dark of night, as an old woman wraps herself in her black shawl. A light rain was falling, and somewhere out in the steppe lightning kept flashing, followed by the dull rumble of thunder.
They walked home in silence. But as they reached the gate Misha asked,
``Grandaddy, who's my Daddy gone to fight against?''
``Don't bother me.''
``Grandaddy!''
``Well?''
``Who's my Daddy going to fight?''
Bolting the gate, Grandad answered, "There's some wicked men gathered together, right near the village. A band, people call them. Only to my mind they're just plain robbers. That's who your Dad's gone off to fight.''
``How many of them, Grandad?''
75``Two hundred maybe---so people say. Off with you! It's high time you were in bed.''
In the night, Misha was wakened by the sound of voices. He reached over to wake Grandad, but Grandad wasn't in the bed.
``Grandaddy! Where are you?''
``Shhh! Lie still and sleep.''
Misha got up and groped his way across the dark kitchen to the window. Grandad was there, sitting on the bench in nothing but his underclothes, his head poked out through the open window---- listening. Misha listened too. Through the still night, he clearly heard the shooting, somewhere beyond the village. Scattered shots at first, and then regular volleys.
Bang! Bang-bang!
Like somebody hammering nails.
Misha was frightened. He moved up close to Grandad.
``Is that my Daddy shooting?" he asked.
Grandad did not answer. And Mother was crying again.
The shooting went on all night. At daybreak, all fell silent. Misha curled up on the bench and dropped into heavy, unrefreshing sleep. Soon a group of riders galloped down the street towards the village Soviet. Grandad woke Misha, and hurried out into the yard.
Smoke rose in a black pillar over the village Soviet. Flames licked at the near-by buildings and horsemen charged up and down the streets. One of them shouted to Grandad,~
``Got a horse, old man?''
``Yes.''
``Hitch up, then, and go fetch your Communists. They're piled up in the brushwood. Tell their folks to bury them.''
Grandad quickly harnessed Savraska to the cart, 76 took the reins with trembling hands, and drove off at a trot.
Shouts and screams rose over the village. The bandits were dragging hay from the lofts, and slaughtering sheep. One of them dismounted by Anisimovna's fence and ran into her house. Misha heard Ahisimovna scream. The bandit came out, his sabre clattering in the doorway. He sat down on the porch, pulled off his boots, discarded his filthy footwrappings and replaced them with Anisimovna's bright Sunday shawl, torn roughly into two.
Misha climbed into Mother's bed and hid his head under the pillow. There he stayed until he heard the gate creak. Then he ran out of doors and saw Grandad, his beard all soaked with tears, leading the horse into the yard.
On the cart lay a man, barefoot, his arms flung wide. The man's head kept bumping against the back of the cart, and on the boards lay great, dark pools of blood.
Swaying slightly, Misha went up to the cart and gazed into the man's face. It was criss-crossed with sabre cuts. The teeth were bared. One cheek had been sliced off, and hung by a shred of skin. A huge green fly sat on one bloodshot, goggling eye.
Misha was shivering with horror; but realisation did not come at once.- He tried to turn away, and then his eyes fell on the blue-and-white striped sailor's shirt, all bespattered with blood. He started violently, as though someone had struck him, and turned again to stare, wide-eyed, at the dark, unmoving face.
``Daddy!" he cried, jumping up on to the cart. ``Daddy, get up! Daddy!''
He fell from the cart, and tried to run. But his legs buckled under him. On all fours, he crawled as far as the porch. And there he dropped, hiding his face in the sand.
77 __*_*_*__Grandad's eyes had sunk deep, deep into their sockets. His head was shaking, and his lips moved soundlessly.
For a long time he sat stroking Misha's hair, without a word. And then, with a glance at Mother, prostrate on the bed, he whispered, ``Come, Grandson, let's get out of here.''
He took Misha by the hand and led him out on the porch. As they passed the open door of the other room, Misha shuddered and dropped his eyes. There, on the table, lay Daddy, so stern and still. The bloodstains had been washed away, but Misha could not forget that glassy, bloodshot eye, and the green fly on it.
At the well, Grandad fumbled endlessly, undoing the bucket rope. Then he led Savraska out of the barn, brushed the foam from the horse's lips with his sleeve, and slipped on the bridle. He stood listening a moment. The village rang with shouts and laughter. Two of the bandits rode by, their cigarette ends glowing through the dusk.
``Well, we showed them what's what with their surplus,'' one of them said. ``They'll know better in the next world than to go grabbing people's grain.''
When the hoofbeats had died away Grandad bent down and whispered in Misha's ear,
``I'm too old. I can't get up on the horse. I'll put you up, Grandson, and you ride straight to Pronin Farm. I'll show you the way. The soldiers are there, the ones that passed through the village with the drums and the bugles that time. Tell them to come quickly, because the bandits are here. Will you remember what to say?''
Misha nodded. And Grandad lifted him on to the horse's back, and tied his legs to the saddle with 78 the rope from the bucket, so he wouldn't fall off, and led the horse across the threshing-floor and past the pond, past the bandits' pickets, and out to the open steppe.
``See,'' Grandad said, ``that gully cutting into the hill. Keep to the edge of the gully, and don't turn off anywhere. It will bring you straight to the farm. Well---good luck, my boy!''
Grandad kissed Misha, and slapped Savraska lightly on the haunch.
It was a clear and moonlit night. Savraska jogged along at an easy trot, snorting now and again. The weight of the rider bumping up and down in the saddle was so small that the horse often slackened its pace. Then Misha would give the reins a shake, or slap the horse's neck.
Out in the fields, where the ripening grain stood thick and green, the quail were calling cheerfully. A tinkle of spring water rose up from the gully. A cool breeze blew.
Misha felt frightened, all alone in the steppe. He threw his arms around Savraska's neck---a shivering human morsel, clinging to the warm flesh of the horse.
The track crawled uphill, then down a bit, then up again. Misha kept whispering to himself, afraid to look back, afraid even to think. He shut his eyes, and his ears were blocked by the stillness.
Suddenly Savraska tossed his head, snorted, and quickened his pace. Misha opened his eyes. Down below, at the foot of the hill, lights were faintly twinkling. Carried by the wind came the sound of dogs barking.
For a moment. Misha's chilled heart warmed with joy.
``Gee up!" he cried, banging his heels against the horse's sides.
79The barking was nearer now, and up the slope the outlines of a windmill stood out faintly in the night.
``Who goes there?" came the call from the mill.
Misha silently urged Savraska on. Cocks were crowing.
``Halt! Who goes there? Stop, before I fire!''
That frightened Misha, and he tugged at the reins. But Savraska, sensing other horses near, neighed loudly and burst forward.
``Halt!''
Shots rang out from somewhere by the windmill. Misha's scream was drowned in the thudding of hooves. Savraska wheezed, reared, and fell heavily on his right side.
Pain shot through Misha's leg, pain so fearful, so utterly unbearable, that he could not even cry out. And Savraska's weight pressed down, heavier and heavier, on the aching leg.
The sound of hooves came nearer, nearer. Two riders appeared. With a clatter of sabres, they dismounted, and bent over Misha.
``God save us! Why, it's just a youngster!''
``Not killed?''
A hand was thrust under Misha's shirt, and warm, tobacco-laden breath brushed his face.
``Alive,'' the first voice said, with evident relief. ``Looks like the horse hurt his leg.''
Half-fainting, Misha managed to whisper, ``There's bandits in the village. They killed my Daddy. And burnt down the Soviet. And Grandad says for you to come, as fast as you can.''
Then everything went dimmer and dimmer, and rings of colour began to swirl before Misha's eyes.
Daddy went by, laughing, twisting his red moustache, and a big green fly balanced, swaying, on his eyeball. And there went Grandad, shaking his 80 head reproachfully. And Mother. And then a little man with a high forehead, his arm pointing straight
"Comrade Lenin! '' Misha cried in a stilled voice and with a great effort raised his head, smiling and holding out his arms.
Translated by Helen Altschuler [81] __ALPHA_LVL1__ METELITSA GOES ON RECONNAISSANCE``We were privileged to be the first to tell people about the socialist way of life and about how it was achieved,'' said Alexander Fadeyev, speaking of that generation of writers who entered the literary field at the time of the October Revolution.
Alexander Fadeyev (1901--1956) took part in the revolution and the Civil War in the Far East, where he, a seventeenyear-old lad, covered thousands of kilometres of forest paths with a partisan column. From these years of fighting Fadeyev gained many unforgettable impressions, both heroic and tragic. Sergei Lazo, leader of the Far East partisans, and F.acleyev's own cousin, Vsevolod Sibirtsev, were burned alive in a locomotive fire-box by the Japanese intervention forces.
Fadeyev's novels, The Rout and The Last of the Udegeh, and also a large number of short stories deal with the Civil War in the Far East. The story which follows is a chapter from The Rout.
__*_*_*__ [82] __NOTE__ LVL1 moved from here to before name of author; *_*_* inserted, also.When Levinson, who commanded the partisan column, sent Metelitsa out to reconnoitre, he ordered him to be sure and return that night. The village he sent him to, however, was much farther away than Levinson had thought; Metelitsa left the column at four in the afternoon and rode his stallion hell for leather, crouched over its neck like a bird of prey. There was something both cruel and joyful in the way he distended his delicate nostrils, as though he were intoxicated by that mad ride after five slow, dull days on the march. When twilight fell, he was still hemmed in by the autumnal taiga, which showed no signs of thinning out, and could still hear nothing but the endless rustle of the grass in the cold, mournful light of the dying day. It was quite dark when he eventually got out of the forest and pulled the stallion up beside an old rotting log shed where beehives had been kept in winter; the roof had fallen in and it looked as if it had been abandoned long ago.
He tethered the horse, and, holding on to the edge of the woodwork, which crumbled under his hands, worked his way up to the roof at the risk of falling into a dark pit from which came the sickening stench of rotten wood and rancid grass. Rising on his strong legs to a half crouch, he stood motionless for about ten minutes, peering keenly into the night and listening, invisible against the dark background of the forest and more like a bird of prey than ever. Below lay a gloomy valley full of dark haystacks and small clumps of trees squeezed between two rows of hills that stood out black against an unfriendly, starlit sky.
Metelitsa leaped into the saddle and made for the road. It was a long time since carts had passed 83 that way and the ruts were scarcely visible in the grass. The slender trunks of birch-trees gleamed calm and white in the darkness, like extinguished candles.
He rode on to a low hill; to his left there was still the row of black hills that curved like the backbone of some gigantic animal. He could hear the sound of a stream. About two versts away, probably by the stream, a fire was burning and it reminded Metelitsa of the damp, lonely life of the herdsman; further on the unwinking lights of the village straddled the road. The line of hills to his right turned away and disappeared in the blue darkness; in that direction the terrain was much lower, probably an old watercourse; the slope was edged with black, gloomy timber.
``There must be a swamp down there,'' Metelitsa thought. He was beginning to feel the cold. His quilted jacket was unbuttoned and his army shirt, which had no buttons on it at all, was also open at the neck. He decided to go to the fire first. By way of precaution he pulled his revolver from its holster and stuck it in his belt under the jacket, putting the holster away in his saddle pouch. He had no rifle with him. Now he looked like a peasant riding in from the fields; since the war against the Germans many of them had been wearing soldiers' jackets.
He was quite close to the fire when the anxious neighing of horses broke out in the darkness. The stallion leaped forward, its mighty body trembling, its ears pressed back, and neighed in passionate and plaintive response. At that moment a shadow moved in front of the fire, and with a crack of his whip Metelitsa made the stallion rear.
Beside the fire stood a skinny, black-haired boy, his frightened eyes starting out of his head; in one hand he held a whip, while the other, in a ragged 84 sleeve, was lifted as though to protect himself. He was dressed in torn trousers, bast shoes and a jacket far too long for him, belted round with a hemp rope. Metelitsa brought his horse down savagely right in front of the boy, only just missing him. He wanted to shout a rough command but hesitated as he saw the frightened eyes looking at him over the dangling sleeve, the bare knees showing through the torn trousers, and the old jacket that must have belonged to the boy's employer. That childish neck was so absurdly thin and it protruded so guiltily and pitifully from the jacket-----
``What are you standing there for? Scared, eh? You're a fool, my little sparrow, that's what you are!'' Metelitsa was embarrassed and he spoke with a rough tenderness that he used when speaking to horses but never to people. ``Wouldn't budge a step! Suppose I'd crushed you?... Silly little fool," he repeated, softening completely, feeling that the sight of this boy and his poverty had awakened something within him that was just as pitiful, funny and childish___The boy could scarcely catch his breath from fright; he dropped his hand.
``Why did you come flying at me like a madman?" he said, trying to speak sensibly and independently like a grown-up, but nevertheless timidly. "Who wouldn't be scared? I've got horses here-----"
``Horses?" Metelitsa drawled sarcastically. ``You don't say!" He leaned back, arms akimbo, and looked again at the lad, screwing up his eyes and slightly raising his silky eyebrows, and suddenly he burst out laughing so honestly loud and in such kindly, merry tones that he himself wondered how he could produce such sounds.
The boy sniffed, still embarrassed and mistrustful, but then realised that there was nothing to be afraid of but, on the contrary, everything was turning out to be real fun. He wrinkled his nose so hard that 85 even its tip turned up, and also burst into thin, cheeky, childish laughter. It was so sudden that Metelitsa laughed still louder and the two of them, unwittingly egging each other on, continued laughing for several minutes---one of them rocking back and forth in his saddle, his teeth reflecting the light from the fire, and the other sitting on the ground, holding himself up with his hands as his body shook with each burst of laughter.
``You certainly made me laugh, boss!" Metelitsa said at last, kicking his feet out of the stirrups. ``You're a queer chap, you are.. ..'' He jumped to the ground and held his hand out to the fire.
The lad stopped laughing and looked at him in serious and joyful astonishment, as though waiting for further amazing eccentricities.
``You're a merry devil, aren't you?" the boy said at last, very clearly, as though summing up his deepest convictions.
Metelitsa grinned. ``Me? Yes, I am, lad.. ..''
``And I was scared out of my skin,'' the boy admitted. ``I've got the horses here. I was baking some spuds....''
``Spuds? That's good! ...'' Metelitsa sat down beside him but kept hold of the reins of his horse. ``Where do you get 'em?''
``Over there-----There are plenty of them!" The boy waved his arm in a circle.
``So you steal them?''
``Yes. Let me hold the horse. It's a stallion, isn't it? I won't let it go, don't worry-----It's a good one, isn't it?" he added, casting an experienced glance at the animal's fine lines. ``Where are you from?''
``Yes, not a bad animal,'' Metelitsa agreed. ``And where are you from?''
``Over there.'' The boy nodded in the direction of the lights. ``Khanikheza, that's our village. . . . 86 Hundred and twenty farms, no more'n no less,'' he said, repeating someone else's words, and spat on the ground.
``Oh-----And I'm from Vorobyovka across the mountains. Perhaps you've heard of it?''
``From Vorobyovka? No, I've never heard of it. Must be a long way off. ...''
``It is.. . .''
``What are you doing here?''
``Well, how shall I put it? It's a long story.... I thought of buying some horses here, they tell me you have a lot. ... You know, boy, I'm very fond of horses,'' said Metelitsa confidentially, ``I've been looking after horses all my life, only not my own.''
``D'you think these are mine? They're the boss's. . ..''
The boy pulled a thin, dirty hand out of the dangling sleeve and began raking in the ashes with the whip handle; blackened potatoes rolled out alluringly.
``Want some?" the boy asked. ``I've got some bread, too. Not much, though.''
``Thanks, but I've just eaten---I'm full up!" Metelitsa lied, putting his hand to his throat; only then did he feel how hungry he really was.
The boy broke open a potato, blew on it, put one half in his mouth with the skin on, rolled it over with his tongue and began to chew it with great gusto, his pointed ears moving in unison with his jaws. When he had eaten that piece, he looked up at Metelitsa and spoke again, as clearly and distinctly as when he had pronounced him a merry devil.
``I'm an orphan, I've been an orphan for six months. The Cossacks killed my Dad, and they raped Mum and killed her, too, and my brother as well....''
87``Cossacks?" asked Metelitsa, on the alert.
``Who else? And for no reason. And they set fire to the farm, and not only to ours, to about a dozen at least, and they come every month and raid us. About forty of them are there now. The volost centre, Rakitnoye, isn't far away. There's been a whole regiment there all summer. Savages, they are. ... Have a spud. ...''
``Why haven't your people run away? ... You've got plenty of forests here.. ..'' Metelitsa even sat up.
``What use is the forest? You can't hide there for ever. And there are swamps there, such bogs that you'd never get out.. ..''
``Just as I thought,'' Metelitsa said to himself, remembering his recent assessment of the terrain.
``D'you know what,'' he said, rising to his feet, ``you put my horse to pasture and I'll go to the village on foot. I see there's nothing to be bought here. They're more likely to take the last shirt off your back....''
``What's the hurry? Sit down!" said the young herdsman, disappointedly. He also got up. "It's lonely here,'' he explained in a plaintive voice looking at Metelitsa with his big, moist, pleading eyes.
``I can't stay, old chap.'' Metelitsa indicated inevitability with his outspread arms. ``I must see for myself while it's still dark.. .. I'll soon be back and we'll hobble the stallion meanwhile. Where's the chief of these Cossacks staying?''
The lad explained how to find the house in which the squadron commander was living and how to get there by back ways.
``Are there many dogs?''
``Plenty, but they're not savage.''
Guided by the boy's description, Metelitsa passed through a number of lanes, turned by the church and eventually reached the painted fence of the 88 priest's garden. (The squadron commander was staying with the priest.) Metelitsa looked into the place and all round it and listened carefully and, not finding anything suspicious, climbed soundlessly over the fence.
He found himself in a densely planted orchard, but the wide-spreading branches were already leafless. Metelitsa made his way forward, holding his breath and trying to restrain the powerful beating of his heart. Suddenly he found that the orchard was intersected by a path, and about twenty yards up it to the left he saw a lighted window; it was open and there were people in the room. An even light spread over the dead leaves and the apple trees looked strangely golden where the light fell on their boughs.
``So there they are!" thought Metelitsa, his cheek twitching nervously as he felt himself fired by the grim, inescapable urge of fearless desperation that usually drove him to the most reckless exploits; while he was still wondering whether anybody required him to listen to the conversation of these people in the lighted room, he realised that actually he would not go away from there until he had. A few minutes later he was standing behind an apple tree right under the window, listening eagerly and remembering everything that was happening there.
There were four of them playing cards at a table on the other side of the room. On the right sat a little old priest with his hair slicked back and keen eyes darting here and there as he dealt the cards skilfully with his tiny hands, trying so hard to get a glimpse of each of them that his neighbour, whose back was towards Metelitsa, took the cards as they were dealt and concealed them under the table, giving them no more than a hurried, apprehensive glance. Facing Metelitsa sat a handsome, stout, lazylooking and apparently good-humoured officer with 89 a pipe between his teeth---Metelitsa took him for the squadron commander, probably because he was so stout. But Metelitsa, although he could not have explained why, paid most attention to the fourth player, a man with a pale, puffy face and unwinking eyes; he was wearing a black sheepskin cap and a Caucasian goatskin cloak without shoulder-straps, which he wrapped closer round himself every time he played a card.
Contrary to Metelitsa's expectations, they spoke of the commonest and most uninteresting things; at least half their talk revolved around the cards.
``Eighty,'' said the player whose back was towards Metelitsa.
``Too low, Your Excellency,'' said the one in the black sheepskin cap. ``A hundred blind,'' he added carelessly.
The stout, handsome officer examined his cards with narrowed eyes and, taking the pipe out of his mouth, raised the betting to a hundred and five.
``Pass,'' said the first, turning to the priest, who was holding the remainder of the pack.
``That's what I thought,'' grinned the sheepskin cap.
``Is it my fault if I don't get any cards?" answered the other, turning to the priest for sympathy.
``Every little helps,'' joked the priest, closing his eyes and giving a tiny little laugh, as though by such an insignificant laugh he wished to stress.the insignificance of his companion's play. ``Two hundred points and two already down to you---we know you! ...''
He wagged a threatening finger and pretended to smile with affectionate slyness.
What a louse, thought Metelitsa.
``And you pass, too?" the priest asked the lazylooking officer. "And these go to you.'' The last 90 remark was addressed to the sheepskin cap, to whom the priest passed additional cards face down.
For a minute they slapped their cards frantically on the table until at last the sheepskin cap lost. You boasted too much, fishy eyes, Metelitsa thought disdainfully; he did not know whether he ought to go or wait a little longer. But he could not have gone in any case, because the loser had now turned to the window and Metelitsa felt that piercing stare fixed on him in unwinking precision.
In the meantime the player with his back to the window began shuffling the cards. He did it carefully and with a strange economy of movement, like an old lady praying.
``Nechitailo isn't back yet,'' said the lazy one, yawning. ``Seems to have had some luck. Pity I didn't go with him-----"
``Two of you?" asked the sheepskin cap, turning away from the window. ``Why not, she's a sturdy wench,'' he added, with a grimace.
``Vasenka?" enquired the priest. ``Uh, uh___She certainly is. ... We had a big, hefty singer here---I think I told you about him.. . . Only Sergei Ivanovich wouldn't have agreed. Never. ... D'you know what he told me yesterday in secret? Til take her with me,' he said, 'and I,' he said, 'won't be afraid to marry her.' .. . Oh!" the priest stopped short and covered his mouth with his hand, a cunning twinkle in his crafty little eyes. ``There's a memory for you. I've let the cat out of the bag, although I didn't intend to. Don't give me away!" And he waved his hands in mock fright. Although they all, like Metelitsa, could see the insincerity and covert obsequiousness in his every word and gesture, nobody referred to it and all laughed.
Metelitsa, still crouching, backed away from the window. He had just turned into the path running across the orchard when he ran into a man with a 91 Cossack greatcoat thrown over one shoulder; behind him were two more.
``What are you doing here?" the man asked him in surprise, hitching up the greatcoat, which had almost fallen when Metelitsa ran into him.
Metelitsa leapt back and made for the bushes.
``Stop! Hold him! Hold him! There he is! Hi!" several voices shouted. A few sharp shots rang out behind him. Metelitsa got tangled in the bushes and lost his cap, then went forward by guesswork; but voices were now yelling and howling ahead of him and the angry barking of a dog came from the street.
``There he is! Hold him!" someone shouted, jumping at him with one hand outstretched. A bullet hummed past Metelitsa's ear.. Metelitsa fired back. The man running after him stumbled and fell.
``You won't catch me!" Metelitsa exclaimed triumphantly; and up to the very last minute he really did not believe they could capture him.
But someone big and heavy jumped on him from behind and crushed him to the ground. He tried to get his hand free, but a cruel blow on the head dazed him.. ..
Then they all took turns at beating him, and even as he lost consciousness he could still feel blow after blow on his helpless body....
__b_b_b__Metelitsa regained consciousness in a big, dark shed. He was lying on the damp ground and his first sensation was of the cold, earthy dampness striking through him. He immediately recalled what had happened. The blows he had received still rang in his head, there was clotted blood in his hair and he could feel the dried blood on his cheeks and forehead.
92The first thought that took clear shape in his mind was---could he get away? It was incredible to him that after everything he had experienced in life, after all his exploits, all the successes that had made his name famous, he would in the end lie and rot like everyone else. He went over the whole shed, feeling every tiny crack, and even tried to break open the door, but to no effect. On all sides there was nothing but cold, dead wood, and the cracks were so hopelessly small that he could not so much as see through them; they scarcely let in the light of the dull autumn dawn.
He kept feeling his way about, however, until at last he realised with deadly, implacable certainty that this time there was no getting away. When he was finally convinced of this the question of his own life and death immediately ceased to interest him. All his spiritual and physical strength was now concentrated on something that was actually insignificant when compared with his own life and death but which now mattered to him more than anything else---the problem of how he, Metelitsa, the famous daredevil, could show the people who would kill him that he was not afraid of them and utterly despised them.
He had not had time to give the matter sufficient thought when he heard a noise outside the door, bolts were pushed back and two Cossacks, armed and in uniform, entered the shed together with the pale, quivering light. Metelitsa, standing with his feet astride, stared at them with narrowed eyes.
When they saw him, they hesitated in the doorway, and the one who was behind sniffed uncomfortably.
``Come on out, boy,'' said the one in front mildly, in an almost guilty tone.
93Metelitsa, his head lowered stubbornly, went out of the shed.
He was soon standing in front of a familiar figure ---the man in the black sheepskin cap and Caucasian cloak---in the room he had watched during the night from the priest's orchard. There, too, sitting erect in an armchair, was the handsome, stout and goodnatured officer whom Metelitsa had taken for the squadron commander; he looked at Metelitsa in surprise but not sternly. As Metelitsa now surveyed the pair of them he realised by certain barely perceptible signs that the man in the cloak and not the kindly-looking officer was the commander.
``You may go,'' snapped the commander to the two Cossacks who were standing in the doorway.
They .stumbled awkwardly against each other as they left the room.
``What were you doing in the orchard yesterday?" the commander asked rapidly, standing in front of Metelitsa and looking at him with his precise, unwinking glance.
Without answering Metelitsa stared at him derisively, standing up to the officer's glance; his silky black eyebrows quivered slightly and his whole pose showed that irrespective of what questions were put to him and what they did to make him answer them he would not tell them anything that could satisfy his inquisitors.
``Drop that nonsense, said the commander, not in the least angrily; he did not raise his voice but spoke in tones that showed he understood exactly what was going on inside Metelitsa at the moment.
``Why talk for nothing?" Metelitsa said, condescendingly.
For several seconds the squadron commander studied the motionless, pock-marked face, smeared with dried blood.