to your village and nearly froze to death on the way.'
That's when I learnt why he had stayed awake nights in our cottage.
He had left the black tube—the stethoscope-with me and my sister as a
keepsake. One word leading to another, I told him the story of when and
why I had run away from the Children's Home.
He heard me out attentively, and for some reason kept looking
straight in my mouth.
'Yes, wonderful,' he said thoughtfully. 'A rare case indeed.'
I thought he meant my running away from the Home being a rare case
and was about to tell him it wasn't such a rare thing as he thought, when
he said again:
'Not deaf and dumb, but dumb without being deaf. Stummheit ohne
Taubheir. To think that he couldn't say 'Mummy'! And now, a regular
orator!'
And he began telling the other doctors about me.
I was a bit disappointed that the doctor had not said a word about the
affair that had made me leave the Home, and if anything, had seemed to
let it drift past his ears. But I was mistaken, for one fine day the door of
our ward opened and the nurse said: 'A visitor for Grigoriev.'
And in came Korablev.
'Hullo, Sanya!'
'Hullo, Ivan Pavlovich!'
The whole ward stared at us with curiosity.
Perhaps that was why he started by only talking about my illness. But
when all had switched their attention back to their own affairs, he began
to scold me. And a good piece of his mind did he give me! He told me,
word for word, exactly what I had thought about him and said it was my
duty to go to him and tell him: 'Ivan Pavlovich, you're a cad' if I
thought he was one. But I had not done this, because I was a typical
individualist. He relented a bit when, completely crushed,. I asked:
'Ivan Pavlovich, what's an idividualist?'
In short, he kept going at me until visiting time was over. In taking his
leave, however, he shook my hand warmly and said he would come
again.
'When?'
'In a day or two. I'm going to have a serious talk with you.'
The next visiting day Valya Zhukov came to see me and for two
blessed hours talked about his hedgehog. On leaving he reminded
himself that Korablev sent me his regards and said he would call on me
one of these days.
I twigged at once that this was going to be the serious conversation.
Very interesting! Going to give me some more of his mind, I thought.
76
The talk started with Korablev asking me what I wanted to be.
'I don't know,' I said. 'An artist, perhaps.'
His eyebrows went up and he said:
'No good.'
Truth to tell, I had never thought of what I wanted to be. In my heart
of hearts I wanted to be somebody like Vasco Nufiez de Balboa. But Ivan
Pavlovich's 'no good' had been so positive that it put my back up.
'Why not?'
'For many reasons,' Korablev said firmly. 'For one thing because you
haven't enough character.'
I was dumbfounded. It had never occurred to me that I had no
character.
'Nothing of the sort,' I said sulkily. 'I have a strong character.'
'No you haven't. How can a man have a character when he doesn't
know what he'll be doing the next hour. If you had any character you'd
be doing better at school. But you were studying poorly.'
'Ivan Pavlovich,' I cried in despair, 'I only had one 'unsatisfactory'
mark.'
'But you could study very well if you wanted to.'
He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I was silent.
'You have more imagination than intelligence.'
He paused again.
'And generally, it's high time you figured out what you're going to
make of your life and what you are in this world for. Now you say, 'I
want to be an artist.' But to become that, my dear boy, you'd have to
become quite a different person.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
I START THINKING
It's all very well to say you've got to become quite a different person.
But how are you to do it? I didn't agree that I had done so badly in my
studies. Only one 'unsatisfactory', and in arithmetic at that, and only
because one day I had cleaned my boots and Ruzhichek had called me
out and said:
'What do you polish your boots with, Grigoriev? Bad eggs in paraffin
oil?'
I had answered him back, and from that day on he had kept giving me
'unsatisfactory' marks. Nevertheless, I felt that Korablev was right and
that I had to become quite a different person. Did I really lack
character? I'd have to check that. I must make a resolution to do
something and do it. For a start I resolved to read A Hunter's Sketches,
which I had started to read the year before and given up because I found
it very dull.
Strange! I took the book again from the hospital library, and after
some five pages I found it duller than ever. More than anything else in
the world now I wished I had not made that resolution. But I had to
keep my word, even if I had given it to myself, whispered it under my
blanket.
77
I waded through A Hunter's Sketches and decided that Korablev was
wrong. I did have character.
I ought to test my mettle again. Every morning, say, do the daily
