'Maybe the wolves have eaten him up,' but she knew that would make
Mother angry, so she didn't.
Father was 'wintering'. Here in town summer had come long since,
while he was still 'wintering'. This was very odd, but Katya asked no
questions. She had heard Grandma one day say to a neighbour: 'We
keep saying he's wintering, but God knows whether he's alive or not.'
Then Mother wrote a petition to 'His Most Gracious Majesty'. Katya
remembered that petition very well—she was a big girl by now. The wife
of Captain Tatarinov petitioned that an auxiliary expedition be fitted out
to rescue her unfortunate husband. She pointed out that the main
reason for the voyage 'was undoubtedly national pride and our
country's honour'. She hoped that 'His Most Excellent Majesty' would
not leave without support a brave explorer, always ready to give his life
for the sake of the 'nation's glory'.
Katya thought of 'His Most Gracious Majesty' as some sort of
religious procession led by a bishop in a crimson hat. It turned out to be
simply the Tsar. For a long time the Tsar did not answer and Grandma
used to scold him every evening. At last a letter came from his
chancellery. Very politely, the chancellery advised Mother to apply to
the Minister of Marine. But it wasn't worthwhile applying to him. The
92
matter had already been reported to him and he had said: 'It's a pity
Captain Tatarinov has not returned. I should have had him prosecuted
for negligence in the handling of government property.'
Then Nikolai Antonich had come to Ensk and new words had
appeared in the house: 'No hope whatever.' He had said this to
Grandma in a whisper. But everyone got to know about it somehow—
Grandma's relations, the Bubenchikovs, and Katya's friends. Everyone
except Mother.
No hope whatever. He would never come back. Never say something
funny, never argue with Grandma about it being 'good for you to drink
a glass of vodka before dinner and if it didn't do you good, it did not
harm either, and since it did no harm it was nice'. Never again would he
make fun of Mother for taking so long to dress when they went to the
theatre. No one would hear him sing in the mornings as he dressed:
'What is our life? A game!'
No hope whatever! He had remained somewhere far away, in the Far
North, amid the snow and ice, and no one from his expedition had come
back.
Nikolai Antonich said Father himself was to blame. The expedition
had been fitted out excellently. There had been five tons of flour alone,
over a ton and a half of Australian tinned meat, and twenty hams; more
than a hundredweight of Skorikov's beaf-tea cubes, and biscuits,
macaroni and coffee galore. Half the mess room had been partitioned
off and biscuit stowed away in it. They had even taken asparagus—
eighty pounds of it. Jam and nuts. And all this bought with Nikolai
Antonich's money. Eighty splendid huskies, so that in case of an
emergency they could return home by dog-teams.
In short, if Daddy had lost his life it was undoubtedly his own fault.
One could imagine him, for instance, being in a hurry where he should
have bided his time. According to Nikolai Antonich, he had always done
things in a hurry. However that may be, he had remained out there in
the Far North and nobody knew whether he was alive or dead, because
none of the crew of thirty had come back.
But in their own home he was still alive and had remained so for a
long time. Who knows but that the door might suddenly open and he
would walk in! Just as he had been that last day at the Ensk railway
station. In his blue uniform, and stiff collar open at the throat. Cheerful,
with big hands.
A good many things in the house were still associated with him.
Mother smoked, and everyone knew she had started to smoke when he
was lost. Grandma chased Katya out of the house-and that was him
again, for he had given orders that Katya was to have plenty of fresh air.
The learned books with the queer titles in the narrow glass-fronted
bookcase, which were lent to nobody, were his books. Then they had
moved to Moscow, to Nikolai Antonich's flat, and everything was
changed. No one now hoped that the door would suddenly open and he
would come in. For this was a strange house, in which he had never
been.
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CHAPTER SIX
MORE CHANGES
Maybe I would not have gone to the Tatarinovs had not Katya
promised to show me the Captain's books and maps. I looked up the
route and found it to be that famous Northeast Passage for which men
had been searching for three hundred years. Finally, the Swedish
explorer Nordenskiold navigated it in 1878. It was no easy job, no
doubt, because it was a full quarter of a century before another explorer,
Vilkitsky, repeated the journey, only in the opposite direction. In short,
all this was so interesting that I decided to go.
Nothing had changed in the Tatarinovs' flat, except that there were
noticeably fewer things about. Among others, the Levitan, which I had
liked so much, had gone-that picture of a straight wide garden path and
pine trees lit up by the sun. I asked Katya what had happened to it.
'Given away,' was Katya's curt reply.
I said nothing.
'Presented to Nikolai Antonich,' she added with sudden venom. 'He
adores Levitan.'
It looked as if other things besides the Levitan had gone to Nikolai
Antonich, because the dining-room had an empty sort of look. The
ship's compass, though, stood in its old place with the needle still
pointing North.
Nobody was at home, neither Maria Vasilievna nor the old lady.
Afterwards the old lady came in. I heard her taking her things off in
the hall and complaining to Katya that everything had got so dear again-
