and asked agitatedly: 'Well, how is she?'
And Pyotr had to explain to her again that he knew nothing and had
not been allowed to go in.
Sasha was expecting a child, that is why they had taken her to the
hospital.
'Why are you so upset, Pyotr? I'm sure everything will be fine.'
We were alone in his room and he was sitting opposite me hunched
up in an armchair. His face looked bleak and he clenched his teeth as if
in pain when I said that everything would be fine.
'You don't know. She's very ill, she has the flu and she's coughing. She
said it would be all right too.'
He introduced me to the family of the photographic artist—to his little
grey-haired, graceful wife and her as graceful little grey-haired sister.
The head of the family had moved to Moscow, for some reason, but they
showed me his portrait, that of a well-favoured man with a fine head of
hair wearing a velvet jacket-your true photographic artist, perhaps more
of an artist than a photographer.
I went to sleep in Sasha's bed, but Pyotr said he did not feel sleepy
and settled down with a book by the telephone. The nurse at the
239
hospital phoned regularly every half hour. I fell asleep after one of these
calls, but only for a minute I believe, because someone started knocking
on the wall with short, sharp raps, and I jumped up, not knowing where
I was and what was happening. There was a light in the passage and
voices sounded there, as of several people talking loudly all together.
The next moment Pyotr dashed into the room, looking like some
elongated monster, and started a wild dance.
Then he leaned over the table and began to take something off the
wall.
'Pyotr, what is it? What's happened?'
'A boy!' he yelled. 'A boy!'
All kinds of things started dropping around as he tried to take from
the wall a large portrait in a heavy frame. First he knelt on the table,
then stood on it, and tried to get between the wall and the picture.
'And Sasha? How's Sasha? You're crazy! Why are you taking that
picture down?'
'I promised to give it to Mrs Berenstein if everything went well.'
He clambered down from the table, kissed me and burst into tears.
And this morning I met Sanya.
When the train appeared a ripple of excitement ran down the
platform. Though there were not many people there, I stood well back
from them so that he could easily spot me. I was calm, I believe. Only it
seemed to me that everything was happening very slowly—the train
drew slowly alongside the platform, and the first passengers slowly
stepped down and came towards me ever so slowly. They came and
came, but there was no sign of Sanya, and my heart sank. He had not
arrived.
'Katya!'
I turned and saw him standing by the first carriage. I ran to him,
feeling everything within me quivering with excitement and happiness.
We, too, walked very slowly down the platform, stopping every
minute to look at each other. I don't remember what we talked about
those first few minutes. Sanya was asking me hurried questions and I
was answering almost without hearing myself.
We went to Astoria, as Sanya said it was more convenient for him to
stay at a hotel, and from there we phoned Pyotr. He let out a wild whoop
when I told him that Sanya was standing beside me and trying to snatch
the receiver out of my hand. They roared at each other disjointedly:
'Hey! How goes it, old chap, eh?' In the end they came to an
understanding-Sanya was to go to the clinic and together they would try
to get in to see Sasha. 'And me?' Sanya took me in his arms.
'From now on, where I go, you go!' he said. 'And that's that!' They did
not let us see Sasha, of course, but he sent her a note and received her
reply, begging us to keep Pyotr from going on the rampage.
Sanya had to go to the Arctic Institute, and I accompanied him there,
not only because I wanted to be with him, but because it was time, after
all, that we discussed the business that had brought us both to
Leningrad. My last letters had not reached him and he had not heard the
news about the Pakhtusov, which—it had just been decided— would go
through Matochkin Strait, and then, rounding Severnaya Zemlya, make
for the Lyashkov Islands.
'Well, we'll have more time, that's all,' Sanya said. 'It's the time
factor that worries me most.'
240
We talked about the make-up of the search party and he said that he
had recommended a radio man from Dikson, Doctor Ivan Ivanovich and
his mechanic Luri, about whom he had often written to me from
Zapolarie.
'The radio man's a splendid chap. Do you know who he is?' 'No.'
'Korzinkin,' Sanya solemnly announced. 'None other.' I had to confess
that I had never heard the name before, and Sanya explained that
Korzinkin was one of the two Russians who had gone with Amundsen to
the South Pole, and that Amundsen mentions him in his book.
'Ripping, eh? I'll be the fifth. And you the sixth. I suggested you as
being the daughter.'
'Oh, you did? I thought I was entitled to join the expedition not
merely as the daughter of Captain Tatarinov. Is that what you wrote-
'profession—daughter'?' Sanya was taken aback. 'I don't see that it
matters,' he muttered. 'D'you think it was silly?'
'Very silly.'
'Otherwise it would look as if I was trying to get my wife in. Rather
awkward.'
'I did not ask you to try to get me in, Sanya,' I said composedly.
'Daughter, wife! I'm a niece and granddaughter, too. I'm an old
geologist, Sanya, and I asked the Chief of the N.S.R.A. to include me in
