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YURI GERMAN

Yuri German (1910-67) first made an impression on the reading public in the thirties with his successful Our Acquaintances. After the war he wrote Young Russia and LieutenantColonel, Medical Corps. His popular trilogy about Doctor Vladimir Ustimenko (The Cause You Serve, The Staunch and The True, Eternal Battle) has been translated into many European languages. Among German’s best known works are his stories about that splendid revolutionary Felix Dzerzhinsky, one of which is published here.

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p In Sedlece prison his cell-mate was Anton Rossol. Consumption was doing its work with ruthless speed and Anton was dying. He hardly ever got up from his plank bed and at night he was racked with fits of coughing, during which he spat blood; and although he was rapidly losing what little strength he had, he felt no desire to eat. For hours he would lie staring at the dirty wall of the cell with only one thought in his mind, "It is hard to die at twenty.”

p It is indeed terrible to die in prison, far away from family and friends, to die behind iron bars, with the clank of fetters, the harsh voices of the gaolers and the cries of one’s comrades being led away to execution ringing in one’s ears. But how much more terrible it is to die there in spring, when beyond the iron grille of the window the chestnuts are in bloom, when every day the sky grows bluer and more transparent, and when you know that the air out there must be so fresh and pure. To die in prison at a time like that!

p There is nothing to equal man’s cruelty to man. Rossol could, of course, have been let out on bail and, who knows, out in the country, with the grass and trees all round, and fresh milk to drink, he might have recovered, might have cheated death, and even had he not recovered, he would have been able to hope for recovery. But he was not released, on the grounds that there was no hope left and, even, if he were given his liberty, he would die all the same. So he might just as well die in prison. And this would be not "just as well”, but much better for the state, because before he died he would probably get frightened and begin to talk about things he refused to discuss at present. He might mention certain people’s names, give the gendarme 312 captain in charge of the case a chance to distinguish himself, and help to put safely away in gaol another dozen or so of those who hated the autocracy.

p So, they kept him in prison.

p His legs had given up and he was too weak to move, but still they kept him behind bars. A big padlock hung on the door of his cell and several times a day the gaoler looked in through the peephole—just to see whether everything was all right, to make sure the bed-ridden Rossol was not digging an escape tunnel or filing through the window bars.

p And though Rossol had so little strength, the gendarme interrogator never questioned him except in the presence of a warder, because prisoners of this kind had nothing to lose, they were capable of anything, and you could not be too careful.

p Those exhausting fits of coughing at night were torture, but the prison doctor Oberyukhtin, who wrote articles on malingering for some professional journal, tried to detect malingering in this case, too, and, having failed to do so, lost interest in his patient and stopped visiting him.

p Rossol did not want to go to the prison hospital. He had been there for two weeks already and returned to prison at his own wish. The hospital was even more terrifying than his cell. It was so terrifying that Anton simply refused to answer when Dzerzhinsky asked why he had come back. Dismissing the question with a wave of his hand, he lay down on the plank bed, closed his eyes and said, “This is paradise.”

Dzerzhinsky could imagine what the hospital must be like if this was “paradise”.

p One day towards evening Rossol said, “It must have been flogging that did it.”

p “What flogging?”

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p “Didn’t I ever tell you?"

p “No, never.”

p “Some time ago, before you arrived,” Rossol began unhurriedly, “I had a visit from the prison governor. He sat down and started talking. Wanted to know how I was and all that. I just kept quiet and listened. He went on about the autocracy and the tsar being a good thing, and revolution a bad thing—you know the kind of talk. I didn’t argue with him. Go and stuff yourself, I thought. But on he went and eventually he asked me what we intended to do with him if the revolution was victorious. I thought he was joking, just making conversation, so to speak. But when I looked at him I saw he was quite serious. There was a real look of interest in his eyes. Well, I tried to put him off with a joke. But how could we do anything to you, I said. You’re much too high in rank and position. ’None of that,’ he says, Tm asking seriously. You never know what may happen and my future is a matter of great interest to me. I have a wife and children. I must know what the prospects are.’ Yes, that’s how he put it—’I must know what the prospects are.’ "

p “Well? And what then?" Dzerzhinsky asked.

p “I went on trying to laugh it off, but the more I joked, the more I wanted to say what I really thought. Know the feeling?”

p “Indeed, I do,” Dzerzhinsky replied with a chuckle.

p “Well, we went on talking. I told him to ask the others, because I shouldn’t be alive to see the day. But I knew I was going to say it, I could feel it in my bones. I longed for that pleasure, though I knew it was going to cost me quite a lot. Still, >I thought, I’ll give myself that one little pleasure, then come what may. And so I did.”

p “How did you put it?”

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p “Oh, very politely. In a very gentle, tactful, almost friendly way. ’Well, Your Honour,’ I said to him, ’if you really want to know, the one thing we certainly shall do is to shoot you. But it was you who asked me. I didn’t force you into this intimate conversation.’ But, can you imagine, even after that he wouldn’t leave me alone. Is that your personal opinion, he asked, or is it shared by your comrades?”

p ‘And then in conclusion you got a flogging?”

p “No, we went on talking for a bit,” Rossol replied, "on all kinds of learned prison subjects. Quite a long time, in fact. It wasn’t until we said good-bye that he told me he would put me down for a hundred strokes, just to stop me getting cocky and thinking too much about the nearness of the revolution and our getting even with certain people. And he finished up with a Russian proverb he said I ought always to remember, ’Don’t spit in the well—you may need the water for drinking.’ And I said I knew another one just as good, ’Spit in the well and it will be no use for drinking.’ "

p Dzerzhinsky laughed.

p “Did they flog you?”

p “Of course.”

p “A hundred?”

p “Don’t know, don’t remember, I started counting, but then I fainted.”

p They were silent for a while. Then Rossol said suddenly: "Perhaps it was that flogging that did it. It may have been that and not the illness. Perhaps they caused some internal injury. It may not be T.B. at all. What do you think?”

p He hoped and believed that perhaps, if they let him out, if he could have plenty of fresh, clean air, plenty of milk and vegetables, good care and sunshine, he would get well again and live for a long time, perhaps even to be a hundred. And with all 315 the strength and fervour he could command Dzerzhinsky encouraged his cell-mate’s dream of recovery. He encouraged it so forcefully and seriously that at times he even found himself believing that they would both live long and would go on working right up to the time of the revolution and afterwards, when the revolution was victorious and everything would be different, when there would be freedom and justice.

p He talked to Rossol about science and about the tremendous progress that was being made in medicine. He said that Pasteur’s discovery might well be followed by other equally great discoveries. Any day some scientist might learn how to rid the world of consumption and make it just as much a ghost of the past as smallpox was now. Then they would soon get Rossol on his feet and he would start working for the revolution again and getting put in prison and escaping and having rows with the prison governors, in other words, start living the life he had chosen for himself. Rossol listened doubtfully but with attention. He wanted to be convinced of something he did not believe but very much wanted to believe.

p The usual effect of such conversations was to put Rossol in a much better and more confident mood. A smile would appear on his pale lips and his eyes would recover the challenging, boyish expression that Dzerzhinsky loved so much.

p Dzerzhinsky gave all the energy and strength of mind he possessed to helping Rossol.

p He would stay awake at night if he heard in the darkness of the cell that Anton was awake. Pretending that he couldn’t sleep either, he would try to divert the sick man with some amusing tale, laughing at it himself although he had no desire to laugh or tell stories. He wanted to sleep. He was exhausted by the wearisome days in prison, by the 316 irritability that Anton sometimes directed unjustly against him, by the efforts it cost him to obtain in this barbarously run prison a piece of ice for the sick man, some salt water or boiled water, a little of the right medicine, or a clean cloth.

p But what was the alternative?

p How could he leave a dying man to his fears, to despair and suffering?

p So, Dzerzhinsky would sit down at the foot of Anton’s plank bed, in that dark, evil-smelling cell, and launch into cheerful conversation.

p “What a good thing you’re not asleep! I can’t sleep either. I’ve been lying awake all this time, couldn’t get a wink of sleep.”

p “Why can’t you sleep?" Anton would ask suspiciously.

p “I don’t know,” Dzerzhinsky replied. “You know yourself what sleeping in prison is like.”

p “Before I got ill I slept very well in prison.”

p There would often be irritation in Rossol’s voice and Dzerzhinsky would feel he was looking for something to pick on, an excuse to let off steam.

p “I could sleep anywhere,” Rossol would go on, getting more and more worked up with every word. “But when I’m ill, then I really can’t sleep—-But I’m not asking anyone,” his voice began to crack, "I’m not asking anyone to stay awake because of me. On the contrary, please go to sleep and don’t spoil your night’s rest, and your temper for the whole of tomorrow. All I want is to be left in peace. Yes, left in peace! That’s all!”

p Rossol’s voice would rise until it broke off suddenly on a high note. Sometimes there would be tears in his voice, resentment because he had not been able to get to sleep, while Dzerzhinsky had slept on and not heard him trying to reach for water, not heard him drop the mug, and had left him with nothing to drink all this time.

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p “Why didn’t you give me a shout?"

p “Because I know you’re fed up with me. I wear you out, worry you to death, but I can’t help it, I haven’t the strength—"

p “But that’s nonsense, Anton—"

p “It’s not nonsense! I am unbearable with my moods and fault-finding, but if you only knew how terrible I feel, how much I want to stay alive, how sick and tired I am of these thoughts of death, of the thought that I shall die soon, very soon, and leave nothing behind, that I shall have achieved nothing, nothing at all—-"

p And in his weakened state Rossol would break down and sob bitterly with his face buried in the hard straw bolster and, while he choked with tears, his hot wet hand would reach out for Dzerzhinsky’s in the darkness and, squeezing it, he would whisper: “Tell me what to do! How can I go on? How? What hope is there? Help me!... And don’t despise me. Don’t think I’m a coward, a poor beaten wretch. I’m ill. It’s this illness. It isn’t my fault. It isn’t my fault at all. Answer me! You understand it’s not my fault, don’t you?”

p “Yes, I understand,” Dzerzhinsky replied in all sincerity. “Of course, I understand. This will pass when you get better.”

p And again, just as he had done the day before, and the day before that, he talked of what would happen when Anton got better, of how they would come out of prison together and go and swim in the river, then go off through the forest and have supper in some forest inn. He knew just the one, at a cross-roads—a real old inn.

p As he talked he saw Rossol’s eyes shining in the darkness, burning with the desire to live, to walk in the forest, to go to the river, to the inn, to town, anywhere where there were people and music playing, where there were no iron bars, through 318 which even the dawning spring day looked grey and sad, where there were no fetters, no gaolers and no endless, exhausting prison nights.

p “We’d go to a café together,” Rossol would say, adding to the dream. “You’ve forgotten about the cafe. We’d choose a really smart cafe, one with a full orchestra playing. And we’d sit there like a couple of gentlemen and order God knows what. I just can’t imagine what we’d order.”

p And Dzerzhinsky would listen to his friend and talk all sorts of nonsense just to bring some sort of smile to those parched lips. And while he talked he would be thinking of something quite different. Weak, consumptive, dying Rossol was stronger than hundreds or even thousands of perfectly healthy people. What tremendous, superhuman strength of will Anton must have, loving freedom and life as he did and knowing that he need only drop a hint to his interrogator, just the smallest hint, just a clue for the gendarme to pick up, and he would be released the very same day and be able to go to the forest, to the river, to the forest inn, anywhere he liked....

p He was being kept here without trial because they hoped he would suddenly lose his nerve and start giving away everything he knew for the sake of freedom.

p After all, how could they try him? They couldn’t very well carry him into court on a stretcher, as they did to interrogation.

p And it would be awkward to send him to Siberia after the court had passed sentence. And what was more, the court might not reach the right kind of verdict.

p So they were keeping him here, hoping that he would talk.

p But he wouldn’t talk.

p No matter what threats they made, he would just 319 give them his fierce, stubborn smile and answer, “I don’t care! I don’t care a damn.”

And his eyes would blaze like a young wolf’s.

p One stuffy evening, when the first thunder of the year was in the air, Rossol said sadly, "Tomorrow you’ll be out strolling through the puddles. How I’d love to do that!”

p He said it half seriously, half in jest, then fell silent for the rest of the evening, listening to the patter of the rain, staring at the rusty window bars and coughing. And when Dzerzhinsky returned the following day, after the exercise period, Rossol asked:

p “Well, had your stroll through the puddles?”

p “Yes,” Dzerzhinsky replied, feeling guilty.

p “Were they big ones?”

p “No, not very.”

p “Were they deep?" Rossol persisted.

p “Just puddles,” Dzerzhinsky replied and, to change the subject, related how offended the new warder had been when the prisoners thought he intended shutting them up before the exercise period was over.

p But Rossol was not listening.

p “I’ve got to get my freedom,” he said in a strange voice. “No matter how, I must get out. Understand, Yatsek? I can’t stick it any longer. I’ve got to get out!”

p Dzerzhinsky looked at Rossol without speaking.

p “They’ve got to let me out,” Rossol said. “They’ve got to. D’you hear!”

p There was such despair in his voice that Dzerzhinsky felt his throat tighten.

p “I want to be free,” Rossol shouted, raising himself on his elbow and staring into Dzerzhinsky’s face with eyes that were near to madness. “I want freedom no matter what it costs. There’s a limit to 320 any man’s endurance. Say what you like, Yatsek, but I can’t go on. Let me out of prison. To hell with—”

p Dzerzhinsky had to bring him round with water. He was hardly in his right mind. And Dzerzhinsky, quite overwhelmed with pity and compassion, suddenly found himself saying that he would try to arrange things, so that Anton could go for a walk tomorrow with the rest.

p “Me? Go for a walk?" Rossol repeated, unbelievingly.

p “Yes, you,” Dzerzhinsky replied.

p He knew full well that Rossol could not possibly go out for a walk, but now it was too late. He had given his word in desperation and Rossol had taken him seriously; he wanted to believe that he would go out for a walk, that he would see the sky, the sun, the trees, the grass, the puddles—-

p “But the puddles will be dry by tomorrow,” Dzerzhinsky said.

p Rossol was not listening. He talked but asked no more questions. He was afraid to ask because he knew he would discover there could be no walk, that it was all a dream. “A walk? What are you talking about?" Dzerzhinsky would say, and that would be that.

p So, instead of asking questions, he talked of the outing he would have tomorrow.

p Of course, it wouldn’t actually be a walk, but it didn’t matter what you called it. He would be outside, sitting in the fresh air, in the sunshine, in the yard, and, just to celebrate, he would make himself a makhorka cigarette and have a few puffs, come what may. Let the others go plodding round in a circle, like fools. He would sit and look at the sky. Or—no, he wouldn’t smoke a cigarette, it wquld be silly to smoke in the fresh air. Just a waste! He would pick a blade of grass and chew that. My God, 321 but it was a long time since he had chewed grass. And some people were so lucky they could chew it every day....

p He would sit on the ground—yes, on the bare ground—and let the others walk around in a circle. Let them walk, he didn’t mind.

If only he had a little while in the fresh air, it would give him an appetite. And as soon as he began to eat properly his illness would go away of its own accord. It was all a matter of appetite, wasn’t it? You had to smother T.B. in fats, in milk and cream. It was afraid of food. And after a good outing in the fresh air....

p The next day, as the time for exercise drew near, Rossol turned his face to the wall and covered his head with the blanket. The excitement of the previous evening had .given way to apathy. He obviously realised that there could be no question of his going for a walk, that the chestnut-trees were not for him, that it had all been a dream.

p Several times during the morning Dzerzhinsky spoke to him, but he pretended to be asleep, though sleep was the last thing he was interested in.

p A little while before the time for exercise arrived, Dzerzhinsky came over and pulled back the blanket. Anton opened his eyes and stared angrily.

p “Get your clothes on, or we’ll be late.”

p “Why should I get my clothes pn?”

p “We’re going out for a walk.”

p For a second Rossol stared at Dzerzhinsky, trying to understand whether he was joking or serious. But, of course, he was serious. Who could joke about such things?

p “But my legs won’t hold me,” he said. "I’ll fall.” And he added guiltily: "I’m very weak now, Yatsek. My legs are no good.”

p “You won’t have to use your legs,” Dzerzhinsky 322 replied. “Why should you, if I carry you? I’ll be your legs. See?”

p “I see,” Rossol replied in the same subdued tone. “But I’ll be too heavy for you.”

p “Get dressed and stop talking,” Dzerzhinsky ordered. “Then we’ll see how heavy you are.”

p Rossol sat up on the bed and reached for his boots, but the effort made his head swim and he fell back on the pillow. Dzerzhinsky picked up the boots, sat down on the bed beside Rossol and put his arm round his shoulder.

p “Never mind about that,” Rossol muttered, trying to pull on a boot. “That’ll go off. I just got up a bit too suddenly. I’m better now.”

p But his forehead was already damp from agitation and weakness. He was unable to get a grip on his boot tabs and push his foot into the boot. He had no strength left for anything.

p “Now don’t get excited,” Dzerzhinsky said as gently and cheerfully as he could. “You’re not so weak really. It’s just excitement, that’s the trouble. Take it easy! Don’t hurry! Now grip those tabs and pull. Got them? There, see how easy it was! Now the other boot! And that’s on too. Easy, isn’t it? Now let’s have your jacket. Where’s that jacket of yours?”

p While he dressed Rossol, he pretended that Rossol was dressing himself. He appeared only to be calming his friend, handing him his clothes and chatting to him.

p “There, that’s fine,” he said. “Now you’re ready. Now stand up. Don’t be in a hurry. Just hold on to me and stand up. That’s it, that’s fine—"

p “My legs won’t hold me,” Rossol said weakly. “I just can’t stand—"

p The door swung open with a crash and Zakharkin, the senior warder, entered the cell.

p “Time for exercise! Look lively!”

p Then he caught sight of Rossol.

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p “Where’s he going? For a walk?!”

p “Yes,” Dzerzhinsky replied.

p “Has to be carried to interrogation but can go for walks,” Zakharkin snapped and walked out of the cell, leaving the door open behind him.

p Rossol was far too dizzy and weak to stand. Dzerzhinsky’s plan to hold him up as they walked along together was a failure from the start. Another solution had to be found, and found quickly. Zakharkin was already forming up the prisoners in the corridor. Any delay would mean being late for exercise.

p Rossol’s lips were trembling. For the second time since yesterday he was being cheated of his dream.

p “Steady, Anton,” Dzerzhinsky told him. “ Everything is going to be all right. Sit down on the bed.”

p “What for?”

p “Sit down, I tell you!”

p There was a note of command in his voice. It had to be obeyed

p “Now put your arms over my shoulders. No, not round my neck—over my shoulders! And give me your legs. Got a good grip?”

p “Yes.”

p “Well, hold on then. I’m getting up.”

p “I’m holding.”

p Dzerzhinsky straightened up. Now he had Rossol on his back.

p “You’ll strain yourself, Yatsek,” Rossol told him. “You’re mad! What are you doing!”

p “Sit tight!”

p Dzerzhinsky went out into the corridor with Rossol, chalk-faced but completely happy, on his back. The prisoners were already lined up in two grey ranks. In the gloom of the corridor they did not at once notice Dzerzhinsky’s burden, but when they did notice, there was a general stir and for a moment some of them fell out of line, only to form 324 up again immediately as Zakharkin appeared round the corner and shouted an order.

p “Atten-shun! Right dress!”

p The senior warder was followed by the prison governor and his deputy. This was a fresh complication. The governor and his deputy hardly ever put in an appearance at this time.

p Dzerzhinsky had fallen in on the left; the governor began inspecting the ranks from the right.

p “Don’t worry, comrade,” Dzerzhinsky’s neighbour, a doctor, with broad shoulders and a big drooping moustache, told him. “They won’t say anything. They won’t dare!”

p “They probably will,” Dzerzhinsky replied with a smile. “But I’m not worried. I’ll manage somehow.”

p It was a big strain to carry Rossol. Thin though he was, his big, broad-boned frame weighed a lot. Dzerzhinsky’s own strength had been sapped by the long months in prison and with this additional burden he was having difficulty in keeping his feet. The sweat was running down his face and his heart was thumping wildly. But the governor moved so slowly that it seemed as if the ordeal of standing in this dark, damp corridor with Anton on his back would never end. And what hell his nerves were giving him!

p T.he governor was personally inspecting and searching every prisoner. During the exercise period the prisoners often passed notes, letters and even books to one another and the governor had declared war on this practice. So far, to his chagrin, he had found nothing. If the whole search yielded no result, he would look a fool.

p The governor’s irritation increased as fewer and fewer prisoners remained to be searched. Now he was near enough for Dzerzhinsky to see his pale clean-shaven face with its large nose, angular eyebrows and heavy jaw, and the points of the starched white collar peeping out from under his uniform.

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p “Why, may I ask, have you a button missing?" the governor asked the next prisoner in his affected accent. “Don’t you know the rules? Well we’ll soon teach you! Zakharkin! Three days in the punishment cell for him!”

p Now he was finding fault with every prisoner; one was not standing properly, another had dared to smile, another had his hands in his pockets, another had dared to ask for his spectacles that had been confiscated during an interrogation.

p “Confiscated? What do you mean?”

p “My interrogator confiscated them to make me confess sooner,” the prisoner four places away from Dzerzhinsky, a man with fine, intelligent features, replied. “I can’t see anything at all without spectacles. I request to have them back.”

p But the prison governor was no longer listening. He had just noticed Dzerzhinsky. He advanced upon him with his assistant, a pimply-faced young man.

p “What’s this?" the governor exclaimed, screwing up his eyes. “Is this supposed to be a joke? Both of you, stand to attention at once!" he snapped. “At once!”

p “My comrade is ill, as you know,” Dzerzhinsky said. “He can’t stand.”

p “I order you to stop this,” the governor roared. “I order you to stand to attention!”

p “But he can’t,” Dzerzhinsky repeated.

p “Silence!" the governor bellowed, turning purple and losing all control of himself. “Back to your cell! I forbid this! Zakharkin! For carrying ... for conveyance ... for unauthorised transportation from a cell—"

p But unable to find the right word, he became confused and forgot what he had been going to say. And suddenly a ringing cry from Rossol himself filled the corridor.

p “You hangman! We’ll shoot you in the end, you hangman!”

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p What would have happened if Rossol had not burst out coughing at that moment, no one knows. He began to cough so violently that he let go of Dzerzhinsky’s shoulders and fell backwards in a faint, his face deathly pale. He would have struck his head on the rough stone floor of the corridor, had it not been for their neighbour, the doctor, who caught him as he fell and relieved Dzerzhinsky of his burden.

p Zakharkin ran forward and tried to pull away the doctor’s hand, but the doctor resisted. Rossol was still coughing and a thin stream of scarlet blood was trickling from h,is mouth.

p “Back everybody! Keep in line!" the governor roared and unbottoned his revolver holster. “Keep your ranks!”

p By this time the doctor was kneeling over Rossol.

p Zakharkin again attempted to pull him away.

p “Move aside!" Dzerzhinsky said. “Leave us alone!”

p “Who are you talking to?" Zakharkin gasped in amazement. He, too, had drawn his revolver.

p “Everyone back in line,” the governor was still shouting. “Back in line or I fire!”

p But there was no line left. It had broken up and the governor was encircled by one group of prisoners, while his pimply assistant was trapped by another. Another group had surrounded Zakharkin and someone was shouting in a voice of frenzy:

p “Kill the hangmen, comrades!”

p Zakharkin’s face turned grey.

p “Put your gun away, you swine,” Dzerzhinsky told him. "Put it away before they kill you.”

p And from somewhere over on the lett the frenzied, high-pitched voice went on shouting:

p “Kill ’em, comrades! Kill the hangmen!”

p But no one was killed. The prison governor, his assistant and Zakharkin made off. They were 327 allowed to go and they went. Dzerzhinsky persuaded the prisoners to return to their cells. Rossol was carried back to his bed and the doctor seated himself at his bedside. A hush fell over the prison.

p Until evening they waited for retribution, but no retribution came. Zakharkin appeared on the scene and was as nice as pie. He had suddenly become so polite that he actually inquired after Rossol’s health through the peep-hole.

p “He’s feeling better now, thank you,” Dzerzhinsky replied with equal politeness.

p But Zakharkin still did not go away. Only his shaggy mouth could be seen through the peep-hole.

p “Terrible how ill people can get,” said the mouth.

p To this Dzerzhinsky could find no answer.

p By nightfall Rossol recovered consciousness. His thin face was now quite gaunt and tinged with blue. His dark eyes were sunken, his lips furred.

p “That was a good walk we had, eh?" he said, trying hard to smile.

p “We’ll have one tomorrow,” Dzerzhinsky replied calmly.

p “You think so?”

p “I’m sure of it.”

He stood over Rossol, a tall, straight figure, and the calm strength of his personality was such that Rossol believed him. Yes, tomorrow they really would have their walk. The decision had been taken and no one could prevent it.

p That night, for the first time in many months, Rossol slept soundly. In the morning Dzerzhinsky calmly helped him to get dressed and, when Zakharkin opened the door and announced that it was time for exercise, he hoisted Rossol on to his back and fell in line with the other prisoners.

p There was no sign of the prison governor. No one had seen him since the previous day.

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p Zakharkin pretended to have nothing to do with Dzerzhinsky or his burden or anything else, except organising the exercise period. In fact, he hardly dared look the prisoners in the face.

p “Keep in step there!" he shouted now and then, his eyes on the ground. “Hold up those chains! No talking! No hurrying on the stairs!”

p With a tramping of boots and a clanking of chains, the prisoners marched along the corridors, down the stairs, and along more corridors.

p “Heavy?" the doctor asked Dzerzhinsky.

p “I’ll get used to it,” Dzerzhinsky replied.

p They descended the last flight of steps, marched along the last corridor and came out into the cobbled yard. It was a warm, sunny day, almost hot. The chestnuts were still in bloom, their branches bright with pyramids of blossoms, like thick candles on a Christmas-tree. At the head of the column Zakharkin was walking backwards in front of the leading pair, shouting and waving his arms like the leader of a regimental band.

p “Keep your distance! One full arm’s length! Three paces between each pair! Keep in line there! Otherwise there’ll be trouble! No talking!”

p But it was so good in the yard that even Zakharkin’s stupid bawling could not spoil it.

p The sun was beating down.

p Pigeons were cooing and strutting in the middle of the yard. And there was a breeze, a real spring breeze.

p The sweat was pouring down Dzerzhinsky’s face, but he scarcely noticed it.

p Above the clanking of fetters and the tramp of hundreds of pairs of boots he could hear Rossol’s gasping, delighted voice.

p “Yatsek, look at the chestnuts! Can you see them! And the grass! Look, it’s coming up through the cobbles. Look over there, on the left—it’s quite 329 green! You must be tired, Yatsek! Is it too much for you? Look, what a fat pigeon! Like a barrel! How can it fly when it’s as fat as that?”

p Rossol sounded years younger.

p And the other prisoners also seemed to be infected with the light-heartedness of youth. Delighted shouts could be heard on all sides.

p “This is the life!”

p “Nature’s blessings!”

p “Oh, mother dear, the sun’s hot!”

p “But it isn’t shining for you and me!”

p “What weather, eh!”

p Dzerzhinsky was sobbing for breath. There was a mist before his eyes. He could hear nothing but the thumping of his own heart and the words Rossol was whispering in his ear.

p I must keep going, he told himself. I mustn’t fall down here in the middle of the yard with Anton on my back.

p He did not fall. The fifteen minutes came to an end. Zakharkin blew his whistle and gave the order to dismiss to the cells. Dzerzhinsky still had to carry Anton up to the third floor and along the corridors.

p From then on he carried Rossol every day. In the course of the summer he did his heart a lot of harm.

p But had he ever bothered about such trifles!

p Someone is said to have made the following remark:

p “Even if throughout his life Dzerzhinsky had never done anything else besides what he did for Rossol, he would still have deserved to have a monument erected in his memory.”

p Translated by Robert Daglish

330

p The memorial to revolutionary fighters on the Field of Mars,
Leningrad. The words carved in the granite mean:
Immortal is he
Who dies for
A great cause
He who gives
His life
For the people
Who works and fights
And dies
For the common good
Lives for ever
Among the people

Children in Leningrad, 1967

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