Tonya stood at the open window and pensively surveyed the familiar garden bordered by the stately poplars now stirring faintly in the gentle breeze. She could hardly believe that a whole year had passed since she had been here where her childhood years had been spent. It seemed that she had left home only yesterday and returned by this morning's train.
Nothing had changed: the rows of raspberry bushes were as carefully trimmed as ever, and the garden paths, lined with pansies, mother's favourite flowers, were laid out with the same geometric precision. Everything in the garden was neat and tidy—evidence of the pedantic hand of the dendrologist. The sight of these clean-swept, neatly drawn paths bored Tonya.
She picked up the novel she had been reading, opened the door leading to the veranda and walked down the stairs into the garden; she pushed open the little painted wicket gate and slowly headed for the pond next to the station pump house.
She passed the bridge and came out on the tree-lined road. On her right was the pond fringed with willows and alders; on the left the forest began.
She was on her way to the ponds at the old stone-quarry when the sight of a fishing rod swung over the water made her pause.
Leaning over the trunk of a twisted willow, she parted the branches and saw before her a suntanned, barefoot boy with trouser legs rolled up above the knee. Next to him was a rusty can with worms. The lad was too engrossed in his occupation to notice her.
"Do you think you can catch fish here?"
Pavel glanced angrily over his shoulder.
A girl in a white sailor blouse with a striped blue collar and a short light-grey skirt stood on the bank, holding on to the willow and bending low over the water. Short socks with a coloured edging clung to her shapely suntanned legs. Her chestnut hair was gathered in a heavy braid.
A slight tremor shook the hand holding the fishing rod and the goose-feather float bobbed, sending circles spreading over the smoothness of the water.
"Look, look, a bite!" the excited voice piped behind Pavel.
He now lost his composure completely and jerked at the line so hard that the hook with the squirming worm on the end of it fairly leapt out of the water.
"Not much chance to fish now, damn it! What the devil brought her here," Pavel thought irritably and in order to cover up his clumsiness cast the hook farther out, landing it, however, exactly where he should not have—between two burdocks where the line could easily get caught.
He realised what had happened and without turning around, hissed at the girl sitting above him on the bank:
"Can't you keep quiet? You'll scare off all the fish that way."
From above came the mocking voice:
"Your black looks have scared the fish away long ago. No self-respecting angler goes fishing in the afternoon anyway!"
Pavel had done his best to behave politely but this was too much for him. He got up and pushed his cap over his eyes, as he usually did when roused.
"You'd do better, miss, if you took yourself off," he muttered through his teeth, drawing on the most inoffensive part of his vocabulary.
Tonya's eyes narrowed slightly and laughter danced in them.
Am I really interfering?"
The teasing note had gone from her voice and given way to a friendly, conciliatory tone, and Pavel, who had primed himself to be really rude to this "missy" who had sprung from nowhere, found himself disarmed.
"You can stay and watch, if you want to. It's all the same to me," he said grudgingly and sat down to attend to the float again. It had got stuck in the burdock and there was no doubt that the hook had caught in the roots. Pavel was afraid to pull at it. If it caught he would not be able to get it loose. And the girl would be sure to laugh. He wished she would go away.
Tonya, however, had settled more comfortably on the slightly swaying willow trunk and with her book on her knees was watching the sun-tanned, dark-eyed, rough-mannered young man who had given her such an ungracious reception and was now deliberately ignoring her.
Pavel saw the girl clearly reflected in the mirror-like surface of the pond, and when she seemed to be absorbed in her book he cautiously pulled at the entangled line. The float ducked under the water and the line grew taut.
"Caught, damn it!" flashed in his mind and at the same moment he saw out of the corner of his eye the laughing face of the girl looking up at him from the water.
Just then two young men, both seventh-grade Gymnasium students, were coming across the bridge at the pump house. One of them was the seventeen-year-old son of engineer Sukharko, the chief of the railway yards, a loutish, fair-haired, freckle-faced scapegrace whom his schoolmates had clubbed Pockmarked Shurka. He was carrying a fancy fishing rod and line and had a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. With him was Victor Leszczinski, a tall, effeminate youth.
"Now this girl is a peach, there's nobody like her about here," Sukharko was saying, winking significantly as he bent toward his companion. "You can take my word for it that she's chock-full of r-r-romance. She's in the sixth grade and goes to school in Kiev. Now she's come to spend the summer with her father—he's the chief forest warden here. My sister Liza knows her. I wrote her a letter once in a sentimental sort of vein. 'I love you madly'—you know the sort of thing—'and await your answer in trepidation'. Even dug up some suitable verses from Nadson."
"Well, what came of it?" Victor asked curiously.
"Oh, she was frightfully stuck up about it," Sukharko muttered rather sheepishly. "Told me not to waste paper writing letters and all that. But that's how it always is in the beginning. I'm an old hand at this sort of thing. As a matter of fact I can't be bothered with all that romantic nonsense— mooning about for ages, sighing. It's much simpler to take a stroll of an evening down to the repairmen's barracks where for three rubles you can pick up a beauty that'd make your mouth water. And no nonsense either. I used to go out there with Valka Tikhonov—do you know him?
The foreman on the railway."
Victor scowled in disgust.
"Do you mean to tell me you go in for foul stuff like that, Shura?"
Shura chewed at his cigarette, spat and replied with a sneer:
"Don't pretend to be so virtuous. We know what you go in for."
Victor interrupted him.
"Will you introduce me to this peach of yours?"
"Of course. Let's hurry or she'll give us the slip. Yesterday morning she went fishing by herself."
As the two friends came up to Tonya, Sukharko took the cigarette out of his mouth and greeted her with a gallant bow.
"How do you do, Mademoiselle Tumanova. Have you come to fish too?"
"No, I'm just watching," replied Tonya.
"You two haven't met, have you?" Sukharko hastened to put in, taking Victor by the arm. "This ismy friend Victor Leszczinski."
Victor, blushing, extended his hand to Tonya.
"And why aren't you fishing today?" Sukharko inquired in an effort to keep up the conversation.
"I forgot to bring my rod," Tonya replied.
"I'll get another one right away," Sukharko said. "In the meantime you can have mine. I'll be backin a minute."
He had kept his promise to Victor to introduce him to the girl and was now anxious to leave themalone.
"I'd rather not, we should only be in the way. There's somebody fishing here already," said Tonya.
"In whose way?" Sukharko asked. "Oh, you mean him?" For the first time he noticed Pavel who was sitting under a bush. "Well, I'll get rid of him in two shakes."
Before Tonya could stop him he had slipped down to where Pavel was busy with his rod and line.
"Pull in that line of yours and clear out," Sukharko told Pavel. "Hurry up now. . ." he added as Pavel continued fishing calmly.
Pavel looked up and gave Sukharko a glance that boded no good.
"Shut up. Who do you think you are!"
"Wha-at!" Sukharko exploded. "You've got the cheek to answer back, you wretched tramp! Clear out of here!" He kicked violently at the can of worms which spun around in the air and fell into the pond, splashing water in Tonya's face.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sukharko!" she cried.
Pavel leapt to his feet. He knew that Sukharko was the son of the chief of the railway yards where Artem worked, and that if he hit that flabby, mousy mug of his he would complain to his father and Artem would get into trouble. This alone prevented him from settling the matter then andthere.
Sensing that Pavel would hit out at him in another moment, Sukharko rushed forward and pushed him in the chest with both hands. Pavel, standing at the water's edge, teetered dangerously, but by frantically waving his arms regained his balance and saved himself from falling in.
Sukharko was two years older than Pavel and notorious as a troublemaker and bully. The blow in the chest made Pavel see red.
"So, that's what you want! Take this!" And with a short swing of his arm he punched Sukharko's face. Before the latter had time to recover, Pavel seized him firmly by his uniform blouse,clinched him and dragged him into the water.
Knee-deep in the pond, his polished shoes and trousers soaking wet, Sukharko struggled with all his might to wrench himself loose from Pavel's powerful grip. Having achieved his purpose, Pavel jumped ashore. The enraged Sukharko charged after him, ready to tear him to pieces.
As he spun around to face his opponent, Pavel remembered:
"Rest your weight on your left foot, with your right leg tense and right knee bent. Put the weight of your whole body behind the punch and strike upward, at the point of the chin."
Crack
Sukharko's teeth clicked as Pavel's fist struck. Squealing from the excruciating pain that shot through his chin and his tongue which was caught between the teeth, Sukharko flailed wildly with his arms and fell back into the water with a loud splash.
Up on the bank Tonya was doubled up with laughter.
"Bravo, bravo!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Well done!"
Seizing his entangled fishing line, Pavel jerked at it so hard that it snapped, and scrambled up the bank to the road.
"That's Pavel Korchagin, a rowdy if there ever was one," he heard Victor say to Tonya as he went.
There was trouble brewing at the station. Rumour had it that the railwaymen on the line were downing tools.
The workers of the yards at the next large station had started something big. The Germans arrested two engine drivers suspected of carrying proclamations with them. And among the workers who had ties with the countryside there was serious ferment because of the requisitioning and the
return of landlords to their estates.
The lashes of the Hetman's guards seared the backs of the peasants. The partisan movement was developing in the gubernia; the Bolsheviks had already organised nearly a dozen partisan detachments.
There was no rest for Zhukhrai these days. During his stay in the town he had accomplished a great deal. He had made the acquaintance of many railway workers, attended gatherings of young folk, and built up a strong group among the mechanics at the railway yards and the sawmill workers. He tried to find out where Artem stood, and he asked him once what he thought about the Bolshevik Party and its cause.
"I don't know much about these parties, Fyodor," the burly mechanic replied. "But if there's help needed, you can count on me."
Fyodor was satisfied, for he knew that Artem was made of the right stuff and would stand by his word. As for the Party, he wasn't ready for that yet. "Never mind," he thought, "in times like these he'll soon learn for himself."
Fyodor left the power station for a job at the railway yards, where it was easier for him to carry on his work. At the electric station he had been cut off from the railway.
Traffic on the railway was exceedingly heavy. The Germans were shipping carloads of loot by the thousand from the Ukraine to Germany: rye, wheat, cattle. . . .
One day the Hetman's guards arrested Ponomarenko, the station telegrapher. He was taken to the guardhouse and brutally beaten. It was he, evidently, who gave away Roman Sidorenko, a workmate of Artem's.
Two Germans and a Hetman's guard, the Station Commandant's Assistant, came for Roman during working hours. Without saying a word, the Assistant Commandant walked over to the bench where Roman was working and cut him across the face with his riding crop.
"Come along, you sonofabitch!" he said. "You've got some explaining to do!" With an ugly leer he seized hold of the mechanic's arm and wrenched it violently. "We'll teach you to go around agitating!"
Artem, who had been working at the vice next to Roman, dropped his file and came at the Assistant Commandant, his massive frame menacingly poised.
"Keep your fists off him, you bastard!" Artem spoke hoarsely, doing his best to restrain his rising fury.
The Assistant Commandant fell back, unfastening his holster as he did so. One of the Germans, a short-legged man, unslung his heavy rifle with the broad-bladed bayonet from his shoulder and sharply clicked the bolt.
"Halt!" he barked, ready to shoot at another move.
The tall, brawny mechanic stood helpless before the puny soldier; he could do nothing.
Both Roman and Artem were placed under arrest. Artem was released an hour later, but Roman was locked up in a luggage room in the basement.
Ten minutes after the arrest not a single man was working. The railway yard workers assembled in the station park where they were joined by the switchmen and the men employed at the supply warehouses. Feeling ran high and someone drafted a written demand for the release of Roman and
Ponomarenko.
Indignation rose higher still when the Assistant Commandant rushed into the park at the head of a group of guards brandishing a revolver and shouting:
"Back to work, or we'll arrest every last man of you on the spot! And put some of you up against the wall!"
The infuriated workers replied with a bellow that sent him running for cover to the station. In the meantime, however, the Station Commandant had summoned German troops from the town and truckloads of them were already careering down the road leading to the station.
The workers dispersed and hurried home. No one, not even the stationmaster, remained on the job.
Zhukhrai's work was beginning to make itself felt; this was the first time the workers at the station had taken mass action.
The Germans mounted a heavy machine gun on the platform; it stood there like a pointer that has spotted a quarry. Next to it squatted a German corporal, his hand resting on the trigger grip.
The station grew deserted.
At night the arrests began. Artem was among those taken. Zhukhrai escaped by not going home that night.
All the arrested men were herded together in a huge freight shed and given the alternative of either returning to work or being court-martialled.
Practically all the railwaymen were on strike all along the line. For a day and a night not a single train went through, and one hundred and twenty kilometres away a battle was being fought with a large partisan detachment which had cut the railway line and blown up the bridges.
During the night a German troop train pulled in but was held up because the engine driver, his helper and the fireman had deserted the locomotive. There were two more trains on the station sidings waiting to leave.
The heavy doors of the freight shed swung open and in walked the Station Commandant, a German lieutenant, his assistant, and a group of other Germans.
"Korchagin, Polentovsky, Bruzzhak," the Commandant's Assistant called out. "You will make up an engine crew and take a train out at once. If you refuse, you will be shot on the spot. What do you say?"
The three workers nodded sullen consent. They were escorted under guard to the locomotive while the Commandant's Assistant went on to call out the names of the driver, helper and fireman for the next train.
The locomotive snorted angrily, sending up geysers of sparks. Breathing heavily it breasted the gloom ahead as it pounded along the track into the depths of night. Artem, who had just shovelled coal into the firebox, kicked the door shut, took a gulp of water from the snubnosed teapot
standing on the toolbox, and turned to Polentovsky, the old engine driver.
"Well, pa, are we taking it through?"
Polentovsky's eyes blinked irritably under their overhanging eyebrows.
"You will when there's a bayonet at your back."
"We could chuck everything and make a dash for it," suggested Bruzzhak, watching the German soldier sitting on the tender from the corner of his eye.
"I think so too," muttered Artem, "if it wasn't for that bird behind our backs."
"That's right," Bruzzhak was noncommittal as he stuck his head out of the window.
Polentovsky moved closer to Artem.
"We can't take the train through, understand?" he whispered. "There's fighting going on ahead.
Our fellows have blown up the track. And here we are bringing these swine there so they can shoot them down. You know, son, even in the tsar's time I never drove an engine when there was a strike on, and I'm not going to do it now. We'd disgrace ourselves for life if we brought destruction down on our own kind. The other engine crew ran away, didn't they? They risked their
lives, but they did it. We just can't take the train through. What do you think?"
"You're right, pa, but what are you going to do about him?" and he indicated the soldier with a glance.
The engine driver scowled. He wiped his sweating forehead with a handful of waste and stared with bloodshot eyes at the pressure gauge as if seeking an answer there to the question tormenting him. Then he swore in fury and desperation.
Artem drank again from the teapot. The two men were thinking of one thing, but neither could bring himself to break the tense silence. Artem recalled Zhukhrai's question: "Well, brother, what do you think about the Bolshevik Party and the Gommunist idea?" and his own reply: "I am always ready to help, you can count on me. . . ."
"A fine way to help," he thought, "driving a punitive expedition. . . ."
Polentovsky was now bending over the toolbox next to Artem. Hoarsely he said:
"That fellow, we've got to do him in. Understand?"
Artem started. Polentovsky added through clenched teeth:
"There's no other way out. Got to knock him over the head and chuck the throttle and the levers into the firebox, cut off the steam and then run for it."
Feeling as if a heavy weight had dropped off his shoulders Artem said: "Right!" Leaning toward Bruzzhak, Artem told him of their decision.
Bruzzhak did not answer at once. They all were taking a very great risk. Each had a family at home to think of. Polentovsky's was the largest: he had nine mouths to feed. But all three knew that they could not take the train to its destination.
"Good, I'm with you," Bruzzhak said. "But what about him? Who's going to. . . ." He did not finish the sentence but his meaning was clear enough to Artem.
Artem turned to Polentovsky, who was now busy with the throttle, and nodded as if to say that Bruzzhak agreed with them, but then, tormented by a question still unsettled, he stepped closer to the old man.
"But how?"
Polentovsky looked at Artem.
"You begin, you're the strongest. We'll conk him with the crowbar and it'll be all over." The old man was violently agitated.
Artem frowned.
"I can't do it. I can't. After all, when you come to think of it, the man isn't to blame. He's also been forced into this at the point of the bayonet."
Polentovsky's eyes flashed.
"Not to blame, you say? Neither are we for being made to do this ]ob. But don't forget it's a punitive expedition we're hauling. These innocents are going out to shoot down partisans. Are the partisans to blame then? No, my lad, you've mighty little sense for all that you're strong as an ox. . . ."
"All right, all right," Artem's voice cracked. He picked up the crowbar, but Polentovsky whispered to him:
"I'll do it, be more certain that way. You take the shovel and climb up to pass down the coal from the tender. If necessary you give him one with the shovel. I'll pretend to be loosening up the coal."
Bruzzhak heard what was said, and nodded. "The old man's right," he said, and took his place at the throttle.
The German soldier in his forage cap with a red band around it was sitting at the edge of the tender holding his rifle between his feet and smoking a cigar. From time to time he threw a glance at the engine crew going about their work in the cab.
When Artem climbed up on top of the tender the sentry paid little attention to him. And when Polentovsky, who pretended he wanted to get at the larger chunks of coal next to the side of the tender, signed to him to move out of the way, the German readily slipped down in the direction of the door leading to the cab.
The sudden crunch of the German's skull as it caved in under the crowbar made Artem and Bruzzhak jump as if touched by red-hot iron. The body of the soldier rolled limply into the passage leading to the cab.
The blood seeped rapidly through the grey cloth forage cap and the rifle clattered against the iron side of the tender.
"That's that," Polentovsky whispered as he dropped the crowbar. "No turning back for us now," he added, his face twitching convulsively.
His voice broke, then rose to a shout to repel the silence that descended heavily on the three men.
"Unscrew the throttle, quick!" he shouted. In ten minutes the job was done. The locomotive, now out of control, was slowly losing speed.
The dark ponderous shapes of trees on the wayside lunged into the radius of light around the engine only to recede into the impenetrable gloom behind. In vain the engine's headlights sought to pierce the thick shroud of night for more than a dozen metres ahead, and gradually its stertorous breathing slowed down as if it had spent the last of its strength.
Jump, son!" Artem heard Polentovsky's voice behind him and he let go of the handrail. The momentum of the train sent his powerful body hurtling forward until with a jolt his feet met the earth surging up from below. He ran for a pace or two and tumbled heavily head over heels.
Two other shadows left the engine simultaneously, one from each side of the cab.
Gloom had settled over the Bruzzhak house. Antonina Vasilievna, Sergei's mother, had eaten her heart out during the past four days. There had been no news from her husband; all she knew wasthat the Germans had forced him to man an engine together with Korchagin and Polentovsky. And yesterday three of the Hetman's guards had come around and questioned her in a rough, abusive manner.
From what they said she vaguely gathered that something had gone wrong and, gravely perturbed,she threw her kerchief over her head as soon as the men left and set out to see Maria Yakovlevna in the hope of learning some news of her husband.
Valya, her eldest daughter, who was tidying up the kitchen, noticed her slipping out of the house.
"Where're you off to, Mother?" the girl asked.
"To the Korchagins," Antonina Vasilievna replied, glancing at her daughter with eyes brimming with tears. "Perhaps they know something about father. If Sergei comes home tell him to go over to the station to see the Polentovskys."
Valya threw her arms around her mother's shoulders.
"Don't worry, Mum," she said as she saw her to the door.
As usual, Maria Yakovlevna gave Antonina Vasilievna a hearty welcome. Each had hoped that the other would have some news to tell, but the hope vanished as soon as they got talking.
The Korchagins' place had also been searched during the night. The soldiers had been looking for Artem, and had told Maria Yakovlevna on leaving to report to the Kommandantur as soon as her son returned.
The coming of the patrol had frightened Pavel's mother almost out of her wits. She had been homealone, for Pavel as usual was on the night shift at the power plant.
When Pavel returned from work early in the morning and heard from his mother about the search,he was much troubled. He feared for his brother's safety. Despite differences in character and Artem's seeming hardness, the two brothers were deeply attached to one another. It was a stern,undemonstrative affection, but Pavel knew that there was no sacrifice he would not make for his brother's sake,
Without stopping to rest, Pavel ran over to the station to look for Zhukhrai. He could not find him,and the other workers he knew could tell him nothing about the missing men. Engine driver Polentovsky's family too was completely in the dark; all he could learn from Polentovsky's youngest son, Boris, whom he met in the yard, was that their house too had been searched that night. The soldiers had been looking for his father.
Pavel came back to his mother with no news to report. Exhausted, he threw himself on the bed and dropped instantly into fitful slumber.
Valya looked up as the knock came at the door.
"Who's there?" she asked, unhooking the catch.
The dishevelled carroty head of Klimka Marchenko appeared in the open door. He had evidently been running, for he was out of breath and his face was red from exertion.
"Is your mother home?" he asked Valya.
"No, she's gone out."
"Where to?"
"To the Korchagins, I think." Valya seized hold of Klimka's sleeve as the boy was about to dash off.
Klimka looked up at the girl in hesitation.
"I've got to see her about something," he ventured.
"What is it?" Valya would not let him go. "Out with it, you red-headed bear you, and stop keeping me in suspense," she commanded.
Klimka forgot Zhukhrai's warnings and his strict instructions to deliver the note into Antonina Vasilievna's hands, and he pulled a soiled scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the girl.
He could not refuse anything to Sergei's pretty fair-haired sister, for truth to tell he had a soft spot in his heart for her. He was far too timid, however, to admit it even to himself. The girl quickly read the slip of paper he had handed to her.
"Dear Tonya! Don't worry. All's well. They're safe and sound. Soon you will have more news. Let the others know that everything is all right so they needn't worry. Destroy this note. Zykhar"
Valya rushed over to Klimka.
"My dear little brown bear, where did you get this? Who gave it to you?" And she shook Klimka so violently that he quite lost his presence of mind and made his second blunder before he knew it.
"Zhukhrai gave it to me down at the station." Then, remembering that he should not have said it,
he added: "But he told me not to give it to anybody but your mother."
"That's all right," Valya laughed. "I won't tell anybody. Now you run along like a good little bear to Pavel's place and you'll find mother there." And she gave the lad a light push in the back.
A second later Klimka's red head disappeared through the garden gate.
None of the three railwaymen returned home. In the evening Zhukhrai came to the Korchagins and told Maria Yakovlevna what had happened on the train. He did his best to calm the fear-stricken mother, and assured her that all three were safe with Bruzzhak's uncle who lived in an out-of-theway village; they could not come back now, of course, but the Germans were in a tight fix and the situation was likely to change any day.
The disappearance of the three men brought their families closer together than ever. The rare notes that were received from them were read with rejoicing, but home seemed an empty and dreary place without them.
One day Zhukhrai dropped in to see Polentovsky's wife as if in passing, and gave her some money.
"Here's something from your husband to keep you going," he said. "Only see you don't mention it to anyone."
The old woman gratefully clasped his hand.
"Thanks. We need it badly. There's nothing to give the children to eat."
The money came from the fund left by Bulgakov.
"Well, now we'll see what comes next," said Zhukhrai to himself as he walked back to the station.
"Even if the strike's broken under the threat of shooting, even if the workers are back at the job,the fire has been kindled and it can't be put out any more. As for those three, they're stout fellows,true proletarians,"
In a little old smithy whose soot-blackened front faced the road in the outskirts of the village of Vorobyova Balka, Polentovsky stood before the glowing forge, his eyes narrowed from the glare, and turned over a red-hot piece of iron with a pair of long-handled tongs.
Artem pumped the bellows suspended from a crossbeam overhead.
"A skilled worker won't go under in the villages these days—there's as much work to be had as you might want," chuckling good-naturedly in his beard the engine driver said. "A week or two like this and we'll be able to send some fatback and flour home to the folks. The peasant always respects a smith, son. You'll see, we'll feed ourselves up like capitalists, ha-ha! Zakhar's a bit different from us—he hangs on to the peasantry, has his roots in the land through that uncle of his.
Well, I can't say as I blame him. You and me, Artem, we've got neither harrow nor barrow, so to say, nought but a strong back and a pair of hands—what they call eternal proletarians, that's us— ha-ha—but old Zakhar's kind of split in two, one foot in the locomotive and the other in the village." He shifted the red-hot metal with the tongs and continued in a more serious vein: "As for us, son, things look bad. If the Germans aren't smashed pretty soon we'll have to get through to Yekaterinoslav or Rostov; otherwise we might find ourselves nabbed and strung up between heaven and earth before we know it." "You're right there," Artem mumbled. "I wish I knew how our people are getting on out there. Are the Haidamaks leaving them alone, I wonder."
"Yes, pa, we're in a mess. We'll just have to give up thinking of going home."
The engine driver pulled the hot piece of glowing blue metal from the forge and with a dexterous movement laid it on the anvil.
"Lay on to it, son!"
Artem seized the sledge-hammer, swung it high above his head and then brought it down on the anvil. A fountain of bright sparks spurted with a hiss in all directions, lighting up for a moment the darkest corners of the smithy. Polentovsky turned over the red-hot slab under the powerful blows and the iron obediently flattened out like so much soft wax.
Through the open doors of the smithy came the warm breath of the dark night.
Down below lay the lake, dark and vast. The pines surrounding it on all sides nodded their lofty heads.
"Like living things," thought Tonya looking up at them. She was lying in a grass-carpeted depression on the granite shore. High above her beyond the hollow the woods began, and below, at the very foot of the bluff, was the lake. The shadows of the cliffs pressing in on the lake gave the dark sheet of water a still darker fringe.
This old stone quarry not far from the station was Tonya's favourite haunt. Springs had burst forth in the deep abandoned workings and now three lakes had formed there. The sound of splashing from where the shore dropped into the water caused Tonya to raise her head. Parting the branches in front of her, she looked in the direction of the sound. A supple, sun-tanned body was swimming away from the shore with strong strokes. Tonya caught sight of the swimmer's brown back and dark head; he snorted like a walrus, cut through the water with brisk strokes, somersaulted and dived, then turned over on his back and floated, squinting in the bright sun, his arms stretched out and his body slightly bent.
Tonya let the branch fall back into place. "It's not nice to look," she smiled to herself and returnedto her reading.
She was so engrossed in the book which Leszczinski had given her that she did not noticesomeone climb over the granite rocks that separated the hollow from the pine woods; only when apebble, inadvertently set into motion by the intruder, rolled onto the book did she look up with a start to see Pavel Korchagin standing before her. He too was taken aback by the encounter and in his confusion turned to go.
"It must have been him I saw in the water," Tonya thought as she noticed his wet hair.
"Did I frighten you? I didn't know you were here,"
Pavel laid his hand on the rocky ledge. He had recognised Tonya.
"You aren't interfering at all. You may stay and talk with me for a while if you like."
Pavel looked at Tonya in surprise.
"What could we talk about?"
Tonya smiled.
"Why don't you sit down—here, for instance?" She pointed to a stone. "What is your name?"
"Pavka Korchagin."
"My name's Tonya. So now we've introduced ourselves."
Pavel twisted his cap in embarrassment.
"So you're called Pavka?" Tonya broke the silence. "Why Pavka? It doesn't sound nice, Pavel would be ever so much better. That's what I shall call you—Pavel. Do you come here often. .. ."
She wanted to say "to swim", but not wishing to admit having seen him in the water, she said instead: "for a walk?"
"No, not often. Only when I've got time off," Pavel replied.
"So you work somewhere?" Tonya questioned him further.
"At the power plant. As a stoker."
"Tell me, where did you learn to fight so skilfully?" Tonya asked unexpectedly.
"What's my fighting to you?" Pavel blurted out in spite of himself.
"Now don't be angry, Korchagin," said Tonya hastily, seeing that her question had annoyed him.
"I'm just interested, that's all. What a punch that was! You shouldn't be so merciless." She burst out laughing.
"Sorry for him, eh?" Pavel asked.
"Not at all. On the contrary, Sukharko only got what he deserved. I enjoyed it immensely. I hear you get into scraps quite often."
"Who says so?" Pavel pricked up his ears.
"Well, Victor Leszczinski declares you're a professional scrapper."
Pavel's features darkened.
"Victor's a swine and a softy. He ought to be thankful he didn't get it then. I heard what he said about me, but I didn't want to muck up my hands."
"Don't use such language, Pavel. It's not nice," Tonya interrupted him.
Pavel bristled.
"Why did I have to start talking to this ninny?" he thought to himself. "Ordering me about like this: first it's 'Pavka' doesn't suit her and now she's finding fault with my language."
"What have you against Leszczinski?" Tonya asked.
He's a sissy, a mama's boy without any guts! My fingers itch at the sight of his kind: always trying to walk all over you, thinks he can do anything he wants because he's rich. But I don't give a damn for his wealth. Just let him try to touch me and he'll get it good and proper. Fellows like that are only asking for a punch in the jaw," Pavel went on, roused.
Tonya regretted having mentioned Leszczinski. She could see that this young man had old scores to settle with the dandified schoolboy. To steer the conversation into more placid channels she began questioning Pavel about his family and work.
Before he knew it, Pavel was answering the girl's questions in great detail, forgetting that he had wanted to go.
"Why didn't you finish school?" Tonya asked.
"Got thrown out."
"Why?"
Pavel blushed.
"I put some tobacco in the priest's dough, and so they chucked me out. He was mean, that priest;he'd worry the life out of you." And Pavel told her the whole story.
Tonya listened with interest. Pavel got over his initial shyness and was soon talking to her as if she were an old acquaintance. Among other things he told her about his brother's disappearance.
Neither of the two noticed the hours pass as they sat there in the hollow engrossed in friendly conversation. At last Pavel sprang to his feet.
"It's time I was at work. I ought to be firing the boilers instead of sitting here gassing. Danilo is sure to raise a fuss now." Ill at ease once more he added: "Well, good-bye, miss. I've got to dash off to town now."
Tonya jumped up, pulling on her jacket.
"I must go too. Let's go together."
"Oh no, couldn't do that. I'll have to run."
"All right. I'll race you. Let's see who gets there first."
Pavel gave her a disdainful look. "Race me? You haven't a chance!"
"We'll see. Let's get out of here first." Pavel jumped over the ledge of stone, then extended a hand to Tonya, and the two trotted through the woods to the broad, level clearing leading to the station.
Tonya stopped in the middle of the road. "Now, let's go: one, two, three, go! Try and catch me!" She was off like a whirlwind down the track, the soles of her shoes flashing and the tail of her blue jacket flying in the wind. Pavel raced after her.
"I'll catch up with her in two shakes," thought Pavel as he sped after the flying jacket, but it was only at the end of the lane quite close to the station that he overtook her. Making a final spurt, he caught up with her and seized her shoulders with his strong hands.
"Tag! You're it!" he cried gaily, panting from the exertion.
"Don't! You're hurting me!" Tonya resisted. As they stood there panting, their pulses racing,Tonya, exhausted by the wild chase, leaned ever so lightly against Pavel in a fleeting moment of sweet intimacy that he was not soon to forget.
"Nobody has ever overtaken me before," she said as she drew away from him.
At this they parted and with a farewell wave of his cap Pavel ran toward town.
When Pavel pushed open the boiler-room door, Danilo, the stoker, was already busy firing the boiler.
Couldn't you make it any later?" he growled. "Expect me to do your work for you?" Pavel patted his mate on the shoulder placatingly. "We'll have the fire going full blast in a jiffy, old man," he said cheerfully and applied himself to the firewood.
Toward midnight, when Danilo was snoring lustily on the woodpile, Pavel finished oiling the engine, wiped his hands on waste, pulled out the sixty-second instalment of Giuseppe Garibaldi from a toolbox, and was soon lost in the fascinating adventures of the Neapolitan "Redshirts' "
legendary leader.
"She gazed at the duke with her beautiful blue eyes. . . ."
"She's also got blue eyes," thought Pavel. "And she's different, not at all like rich folk. And she can run like the devil."
Engrossed in the memory of his encounter with Tonya during the day, Pavel did not hear the rising whine of the engine which was now straining under the pressure of excess steam; the huge flywheel whirled madly and a nervous tremor ran through the concrete mounting.
A glance at the pressure gauge showed Pavel that the needle was several points above the red warning line.
"Damn it!" Pavel leapt to the safety valve, gave it two quick turns, and the steam ejected through the exhaust pipe into the river hissed hoarsely outside the boiler room. Pulling a lever, Pavel threw the drive belt onto the pump pulley.
He glanced at Danilo, but the latter was fast asleep, his mouth wide open and his nose emitting fearful sounds.
Half a minute later the pressure gauge needle had returned to normal.
After parting with Pavel, Tonya headed for home, her thoughts occupied by her encounter with the dark-eyed lad; she felt happy, though she did not know why.
"What spirit he has, what grit! And he isn't at all the ruffian I imagined him to be. At any rate he's nothing like all those silly schoolboys. . . ."
Pavel was of another mould, he came from an environment to which Tonya was a stranger.
"But he can be tamed," she thought. "He'll be an interesting friend to have."
As she approached home, she saw Liza Sukharko and Nelly and Victor Leszczinski in the garden.
Victor was reading. They were obviously waiting for her.
They exchanged greetings and she sat down on a bench. In the midst of the empty small talk,Victor sat down beside her and asked:
"Have you read the novel I gave you?"
"Novel?" Tonya looked up. "Oh, I. . . ." She almost told him she had forgotten the book on the lakeshore.
"Did you like the love story?" Victor looked at her questioningly.
Tonya was lost in thought for a moment, then, slowly tracing an intricate pattern on the sand of the walk with the toe of her shoe, she raised her head and looked at Victor.
"No. I have begun a far more interesting love story." "Indeed?" Victor drawled, annoyed. "Who's the author?"
Tonya looked at him with shining, smiling eyes.
"There is no author. . . .
Tonya, ask your visitors in. Tea's served," Tonya's mother called from the balcony.
Taking the two girls by the arm, Tonya led the way to the house. As he followed them, Victor puzzled over her words, unable to guess their meaning.
This strange new feeling that had imperceptibly taken possession of him disturbed Pavel; he did not understand it and his rebellious spirit was troubled.
Tonya's father was the chief forest warden, which, as far as Pavel was concerned, put him in the same class as the lawyer Leszczinski.
Pavel had grown up in poverty and want, and he was hostile to anyone whom he considered to be well off. And so his feeling for Tonya was tinged with apprehension and misgiving; Tonya was not one of his own crowd, she was not simple and easy to understand like Galochka, the stonemason's daughter, for instance. With Tonya he was always on his guard, ready to rebuff any hint of the mockery or condescension he would expect a beautiful and cultivated girl like her to show towards a common stoker like himself.
He had not seen her for a whole week and today he decided to go down to the lake. He deliberately chose the road that took him past her house in the hope of meeting her. As he walked slowly past the fence, he caught sight of the familiar sailor blouse at the far end of the garden. He picked up a pine cone lying on the road, aimed it at the white blouse and let fly.
Tonya turned, saw him and ran over to the fence, stretching out her hand with a warm smile.
"You've come at last," she said and there was gladness in her voice. "Where have you been all this time? I went down to the lake to get the book I had left there. I thought you might be there. Won't you come in?"
Pavel shook his head.
"No."
"Why not?" Her eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Your father wouldn't like it, I bet. He'd likely give you hell for letting a ragamuffin like me into the garden."
"What nonsense, Pavel," Tonya said in anger. "Come inside at once. My father would never say anything of the kind. You'll see for yourself. Now come in."
She ran to open the gate for him and Pavel followed her uncertainly.
"Do you like books?" she asked him when they were seated at a round garden table.
"Very much," Pavel replied eagerly.
"What book do you like best of all?"
Pavel pondered the question for a few moments before replying: "Jeezeppy Garibaldi."
"Giuseppe Garibaldi," Tonya corrected him. "So you like that book particularly?"
"Yes. I've read all the sixty-eight instalments. I buy five of them every pay day. Garibaldi, that's a man for you!" Pavel exclaimed. "A real hero! That's what I call the real stuff. All those battles he had to fight and he always came out on top. And he travelled all over the world! If he was alive today I would join him, I swear I would. He used to take young workers into his band and they all fought together for the poor folk."
"Would you like me to show you our library?" Tonya said and took his arm.
"Oh no, I'm not going into the house," Pavel objected.
Why are you so stubborn? What is there to be afraid of?"
Pavel glanced down at his bare feet which were none too clean, and scratched the back of his head.
"Are you sure your mother or your father won't throw me out?"
"If you don't stop saying such things I'll get really annoyed with you," Tonya flared up.
"Well, Leszczinski would never let the likes of us into his house, he always talks to us in the kitchen. I had to go there for something once and Nelly wouldn't even let me into the room—must have been afraid I'd spoil her carpets or something," Pavel said with a grin.
"Come on, come on," she urged him, taking him by the shoulder and giving him a friendly little push toward the porch.
She led him through the dining room into a room with a huge oak bookcase. And when she opened the doors Pavel beheld hundreds of books standing in neat rows. He had never seen such wealth in his life.
"Now we'll find an interesting book for you, and you must promise to come regularly for more.
Will you?"
Pavel nodded happily.
"I love books," he said.
They spent several pleasant hours together that day. She introduced him to her mother. It was not such a terrible ordeal after all. In fact he liked Tonya's mother.
Tonya took Pavel to her own room and showed him her own books.
On the dressing table stood a small mirror. Tonya led Pavel up to it and said with a little laugh:
"Why do you let your hair grow wild like that? Don't you ever cut it or comb it?"
"I just shave it clean off when it grows too long. What else should I do with it?" Pavel said,embarrassed.
Tonya laughed, and picking up a comb from the dressing table she ran it quickly a few times through his unruly locks.
"There, that's better," she said as she surveyed her handiwork. "Hair ought to be neatly cut, you shouldn't go around looking like an oaf."
She glanced critically at his faded brown shirt and his shabby trousers but made no further comment.
Pavel noticed the glance and felt ashamed of his clothes.
When they said good-bye, Tonya invited him to come again. She made him promise to come in two days' time and go fishing with her.
Pavel left the house by the simple expedient of jumping out of the window; he did not care to go through the other rooms and meet Tonya's mother again.
With Artem gone, things grew hard for the Korchagins. Pavel's wages did not suffice.
Maria Yakovlevna suggested to Pavel that she go out to work again, especially since the Leszczinskis happened to be in need of a cook. But Pavel was against it.
"No, mother, I'll find some extra work to do. They need men at the sawmill to stack the timber. I'll put in a half a day there and that'll give us enough to live on. You mustn't go to work, or Artem
will be angry with me for not being able to get along without that."
His mother tried to insist, but Pavel was adamant.
The next day Pavel was already working at the sawmill stacking up the freshly sawn boards to dry.
There he met several lads he knew, Misha Levchukov, an old schoolmate of his, and Vanya Kuleshov. Misha and he teamed together and working at piece rates they earned quite well. Pavel spent his days at the sawmill and in the evenings went to his job at the power plant.
On the evening of the tenth day Pavel brought his earnings to his mother.
As he handed her the money, he fidgeted uneasily, blushed and said finally:
"You know what, mother, buy me a sateen shirt, a blue one—like the one I had last year,remember? It'll take about half the money, but don't worry, I'll earn some more. This shirt of mine is pretty shabby," he added, as if apologising far his request.
"Why, of course I'll buy it for you," said his mother, "I'll get the material today, Pavlusha, and tomorrow I'll sew it. You really do need a new shirt." And she gazed tenderly at her son.
Pavel paused at the entrance to the barbershop and fingering the ruble in his pocket turned into the doorway.
The barber, a smart-looking young man, noticed him entering and signed toward the empty chair with his head.
"Next, please."
As he settled into the deep, soft chair, Pavel saw in the mirror before him a flustered, confused face.
"Clip it close?" the barber asked.
"Yes, that is, no—well, what I want is a haircut—how do you call it?" Pavel floundered, making a despairing gesture with his hand.
"I understand," the barber smiled.
A quarter of an hour later Pavel emerged, perspiring and exhausted by the ordeal, but with his hair neatly trimmed and combed. The barber had worked hard at the unruly mop, but water and the comb had won out in the end and the bristling tufts now lay neatly in place.
Out in the street Pavel heaved a sigh of relief and pulled his cap down over his eyes.
"I wonder what mother'll say when she sees me?" he thought.
Tonya was vexed when Pavel did not keep his promise to go fishing with her.
"That stoker boy isn't very considerate," she thought with annoyance, but when several more days passed and Pavel failed to appear she began to long for his company.
One day as she was about to go out for a walk, her mother looked into her room and said:
"A visitor to see you, Tonya. May he come in?"
Pavel appeared in the doorway, changed so much that Tonya barely recognised him at first.
He was wearing a brand-new blue sateen shirt and dark trousers. His boots had been polished until they shone, and, as Tonya noted at once, his bristly mop had been trimmed. The grimy young stoker was transformed.
Tonya was about to express her surprise, but checked herself in time for she did not want to embarrass the lad, who was uncomfortable enough as it was. So she pretended not to have noticed the striking change in his appearance and began scolding him instead.
"Why didn't you come fishing? You should be ashamed of yourself! Is that how you keep your promises?"
"I've been working at the sawmill these days and just couldn't get away."
He could not tell her that he had been working the last few days to the point of exhaustion in order to buy himself the shirt and trousers.
Tonya, however, guessed the truth herself and her annoyance with Pavel vanished.
"Let's go for a walk down to the pond," she suggested, and they went out through the garden onto the road.
Before long Pavel was telling Tonya about the revolver he had stolen from the Lieutenant, sharing his big secret with her as with a friend, and promising her that some day very soon they would go deep into the woods to do some shooting.
"But see that you don't give me away," Pavel said abruptly.
"I shall never give you away," Tonya vowed.