the bottom of my heart for all that you have done. But I hope to do that
publicly.'
This meant that he was coming to hear me read my paper and would
try to make out that we were lifelong friends, he and I. He was holding
out the olive branch. Very good. I must pretend that I am accepting it.
'Yes, I think I have been more or less successful.' I said nothing more.
But a faint touch of colour had come into his pale, plump cheeks-a sign
of animation. The past was all forgotten, he was now an influential man,
why should I not keep on good terms with him? Probably I had changed
- after all, didn't life change people? I had become like him—I had
decorations, I had made a success, and he could judge of me from his
own experience, his own success.
'-An event, which at any other time, the whole world would have been
talking about,' he continued, 'and the remains of the national hero-for
such would have been the recognition my cousin merited-would have
been brought in state to the capital and interred amid a vast concourse
of people.'
I said that Captain Tatarinov's remains rested on the shore of the
Yenisei Bay, and that he himself would probably not have wished for a
better resting place.
'Without a doubt. But I did not mean that, I meant the exclusiveness
of his destiny. The fact that oblivion had been dogging his steps all his
life, and but for us'-he said 'us'-'there would hardly be a person in the
world who would have known who he was and what he had done for his
country and for science.'
This was about the limit, and I was on the point of saying something
rude to him, when the door opened and a girl came out of the
interrogating officer's room and invited me in.
I had a feeling all the time that if the examiner had not been so young
and attractive, she (for it was a woman) would not have questioned me
350
in such a pointedly dry manner. But then, her interest stimulated as I
gave my story, she eventually dropped her official tone.
'Are you aware. Comrade Grigoriev,' she began after I had told her
my age, occupation, whether I had ever stood trial before, and so on,
'what business I have summoned you on?' I answered that I was.
'You once made a deposition.' Evidently she meant my interrogation
at N. Base. 'Some things there are not quite clear, and I want to talk to
you first about this.' 'I'm at your service,' I said. 'Here, for example.'
She read out several passages in which I had given my conversation
with Romashov at his flat word for word.
'Am I to understand that when Romashov wrote his statement
against you he was a tool in the hands of some other person?'
'That person has been named,' I said. 'It is Nikolai Antonich
Tatarinov, who is waiting outside to see you. As to who was the tool and
who the hands, I cannot say. That's your problem, not mine.'
I lost my temper a bit, probably because she had politely referred to
Romashov's denunciation as a statement.
'Well then, it is not quite clear what purpose Professor Tatarinov
could have had in trying to stop the search party. He is an Arctic
scientist and you would expect any plan for the search of his lost cousin
to have his deepest sympathy.'
I said that Professor Tatarinov could have pursued a number of ends.
First of all, he was afraid that a successful search for the remains of the
St. Maria expedition would confirm my accusations. Then, he was no
Arctic scientist, but simply a type of pseudo-scientist who had built his
career on the books dealing with the story of the St. Maria expedition.
Therefore, any competition in this field affected his vital interests.
'Did you have serious reasons for hoping that a search would confirm
your accusations?'
I answered that I did. But that no longer came into question, as I had
found the remains of the expedition, and among them direct proofs
which I intended to make public.
It was after this reply that my interrogator quickly climbed down from
her official perch.
'Found the proofs?' she queried with genuine astonishment. 'After so
many years? Twenty, or even more, I believe?'
'Twenty-nine.'
'What could have been preserved after twenty-nine years?'
'A good deal,' I said.
'Did you find the Captain too?'
'Yes.'
'Alive?'
'Of course not. We know exactly when he died-it was between the
18th and 22nd of June, 1915.'
'Tell me about it.'
I couldn't tell her everything, of course. But Professor Tatarinov
waited long to be received, and no doubt had plenty of time to think
things over and talk things over with himself before taking my place at
the desk of this handsome, inquisitive woman.
I told her of things indictable and things non-indictable because of
the offence having been committed so long ago. An old story! But old
stories live long, much longer than appears at first sight.
351
She listened to my story, and though still an interrogator, she was
now an interrogator who, together with me, read the letters which had
been carried into our yard with the spring freshet, who together with me
had copied out passages from polar exploration reports, and together
with me had flown teachers, doctors and party functionaries out to
remote Nenets areas. Navigator Klimov's diaries had already been
perused and the old boat-hook found-the final touch, as I had then
believed, completing the picture of evidence. Then I came to the war and
fell silent, because everything we had lived through rose before me in a
boundless panorama, in the depths of which there just glimmered that
idea which had stirred me so strongly all my life. It was hard to explain
