the expedition as a geologist, and not as your wife. By the way, I'm not
your wife yet, and if you're going to carry on in this silly way I'll go and
marry someone else. We haven't been to the registrar's yet, have we?'
I even began to feel sorry for him as he stood there blinking, laughing
awkwardly, taking off his cap and wiping his forehead with his hand.
'I'm sorry, Katya, honestly!' he muttered.
I gave him a quick kiss, though we happened to be standing in the
courtyard facing the building of the Arctic Institute, and said: 'Good
luck.'
He promised to ring me at six or drop in at Pyotr's place, if he could
manage it.
May 7, 1936. He returned that day not at six but at eleven, and not to
Pyotr's but to the Astoria and phoned demanding that we come down
straight away and have supper with him, as he had had nothing to eat
and was as hungry as a wolf, and wanted company.
But Pyotr felt done up after an anxious day, and besides, he had had
some vodka to buck him up and was now lying on the sofa, blinking
sleepily, and looking like Punch with that fantastic nose of his and
ungainly legs and arms.
I remember the dates of all my meetings with Sanya and of our letters
too. We met in the garden in Triumfalnaya Square on April 2 and
outside the Bolshoi Theatre on June 13. And that evening on May 4,
when he rang me up on his return from the Arctic Institute and I went
over to see him-that day, too, I shall remember as long as I live.
We have known each other since childhood and I thought that I knew
him better by now than he perhaps knew himself. But never before had I
seen him the way he was that evening. When we were having supper I
even told him as much.
His plan had been fully approved and he had received lots of
compliments. He had met Professor V., the man who had discovered the
island by tracing the drift of the St. Maria, and the Professor had been
very nice to him. And he was in Leningrad, that great, beautiful city,
241
which he had loved ever since his flying school days—in Leningrad after
the silences of the Arctic! Everything was fine!
This happiness of his, this success, showed so clearly in his face, in his
every gesture, even in the way he ate. His eyes shone, he sat erect and at
the same time at his ease. If I were not already in love with him I would
certainly have fallen in love with him that evening.
We sat eating and drinking for God knows how long, then we went for
a walk after I had mentioned that I hadn't yet seen the sights of
Leningrad. Sanya was all eagerness to show me himself 'what kind of a
city this was'.
It was past two, the darkest hour of the night, but when we came out
of the Astoria it was so light that I purposely stopped in Gogol Street to
read a newspaper in one of the wall stands.
Leningrad of the Midnight Sun! But Sanya said these white nights
were nothing new to him and the one good thing about the Leningrad
brand was that it did not last six months.
It grew cold and I was lightly clad, so we both wrapped ourselves in
Sanya's raincoat and sat for a long time in utter silence with our arms
round each other.
We were sitting on a semi-circular granite seat on the Neva
embankment, and somewhere down below a wave slapped gently
against the stone facing.
Then we went back to the Astoria and made coffee in Sanya's room.
Sanya always carried a coffee-pot and spirit lamp about with him when
travelling.
'Doesn't it frighten you to feel so happy?' he said, taking me in his
arms. 'Your heart's going pit-a-pat! So's mine, you just listen.'
He took my hand and placed it over his heart.
'We're terribly excited-isn't it funny?'
He was saying something, without hearing what he was saying, and
his voice grew strangely deep with emotion...
We did not go to the Skovorodnikovs until about one o'clock in the
afternoon. One of the elegant little old ladies opened the door and said
that Pyotr was not at home.
'He has gone to the Clinic.'
'So early?'
'Yes.'
She looked worried.
'What's the matter?'
'Nothing. He telephoned there and they told him that Alexandra was
slightly worse.'
May 21, 1936. Then began days which I shall probably remember all
my life with horror and impotent despair. We went to the Schroder
Clinic three times a day and stood for a long time in front of the board
which displayed the patients' temperature charts: 'Skovorodnikova-
98;99,2;101;103.8'.
Then the temperature dropped sharply and rose again after several
hours to as high as 104.9. I suspected that this was not a case of
pneumonia, as we had been told at the Clinic, and I called on the
professor at his flat. But he confirmed the diagnosis-the area of
inflammation could be clearly detected by auscultation, and there were
several areas in both lungs.
242
I hardly saw Sanya those days. He rang me up sometimes at night and
once I dropped in to see him at the Institute, in the little office set apart
for the organisation of the search party. He was sitting at a desk piled
with weapons, cameras, mittens and fur stockings. A man with a grave
whiskered face, wearing a leather coat, was assembling a double-
barrelled gun on his desk and swearing because the barrels would not fit
into the stock.
'Well, how is she? Did you see her? What do the doctors say?'
The telephone kept ringing every minute. Annoyed, he lifted the
