better, and that croaked.'
'You know, Aunt Dasha, I was looking for you at the old place. The
houses have been pulled down I see?'
'Yes,' Aunt Dasha said with a sigh.
'Aunt Dasha, do you know the Bubenchikovs?'
The Bubenchikovs were relations of Nina Kapitonovna, and I had no
doubt that Katya had gone to them.
'The people who were pronounced? Who doesn't know them?'
'Pronounced?'
'The priest pronounced the ban on them,' said Aunt Dasha. 'They
sent him packing, so he pronounced 'em. That was a long time ago,
before the Revolution. You were a little boy then. Why do you ask?'
'People in Moscow asked me to give them their regards,' I lied.
Aunt Dasha shook her head doubtfully.
'Ah, I see...'
109
I asked Aunt Dasha for an envelope and some paper and sat down to
write a letter. 'I'll write to Katya and Sanya will deliver it.'
'Katya,' I wrote. 'As you see, I am back in Ensk, and I'm dying to see
you. Come down to Cathedral Gardens at four. This note will be
delivered to you—guess by whom? By my sister. A. Grigoriev.'
'Aunt Dasha, Pyotr used to have some interesting books. Where are
they? Where do you keep books, anyway?'
Pyotr's books were discovered in Sanya's room, on a bric-a-brac
stand. Evidently no great store was set by them, because they stood on
the bottom shelf among all sorts of junk. I felt a bit sad when I picked up
The Ghastly Night or the Most Marvellous Adventures of a Don
Cossack in the Caucasus Mountains. Dammit, what a wretch of a little
fellow I was then!
A package wrapped in a yellowed newspaper dropped on the floor
during my energetic search for A Guide To Letter Writing. It was the
batch of old letters. I recognised them immediately. They were letters
which the river had one day washed up into our yard in a post bag.
Those long winter evenings, when Aunt Dasha used to read them to us,
came back to me. How wonderful, how delightful those readings had
seemed to me!
Other people's letters! And who knows where these people now were?
This letter, for instance, in its thick yellowed envelope. Maybe
somebody had not slept nights, waiting for it?
Mechanically I opened the envelope and read several lines:
'Dear Maria Vasilievna,
'I hasten to inform you that Ivan Lvovich is alive and well. Four
months ago, on his orders, I left the schooner along with thirteen of the
crew...'
I read on and could not believe my eyes. It was the letter of the
navigating officer, which I used to know by heart and which I had
recited on the trains on my way to Moscow! But it was not this that
struck me.
'The St. Maria,' I read on, 'became icebound in the Kara Sea and
since October 1912 has been drifting steadily north with the Arctic
icefields.'
The St. Maria'. Why, that was the name of Captain Tatarinov's
schooner! I turned back the sheet and read the letter again.
'Dear Maria Vasilievna'—Maria Vasilievna! I hasten to inform you
that Ivan Lvovich...' Ivan Lvovich! Katya was called Katerina
Ivanovna—the patronymic was from the name Ivan!
Aunt Dasha decided that I had gone crazy, because I suddenly emitted a
yell and started frantically to search among the old letters.
I knew what I was after, though. Aunt Dasha had once read to me
another of those letters describing the life amid the icefloes and about
the sailor who had fallen to his death and how they had to chop the ice
away in the cabins.
'Aunt Dasha, are they all here?' 'Goodness gracious, what's happened?'
'Nothing, Aunt Dasha. There should be one particular letter here.' I
didn't hear myself speak. Ah, here it was! 'My darling, my own dear,
sweet Maria,
'It's nearly now two years since I sent you a letter through the telegraph
dispatch office on Yugorsky Shar. And what a lot of changes ' there have
been since then, I can't tell you! To begin with, we were standing on a
110
straight set course, but since October 1912 have been drifting slowly
north with the Arctic ice. Willy-nilly, we had to abandon our original
plan of making Vladivostok along the coast of Siberia. But this proved to
be a blessing in disguise. It has given me quite a new idea. I hope it does
not strike you, as it does some of my companions, as childish or
foolhardy...'
The first sheet ended here. I turned it over, but could make out
nothing except a few disconnected words which stood out amid the
smudges and stains.
The second sheet started with a description of the schooner:
'...in some places reaching a considerable depth. Amid one such icefield
stands our St. Maria snowed up to the gunwale. At times a garland of
hoarfrost breaks off the rigging and comes down with a soft swishing
sound. As you see, dear Maria, I've become a poet. We have a real poet
on board, though—our cook Kolpakov. A cheerful soul! He goes about
all day long singing his poem. Here are four lines from it for a keepsake:
Under the flag of Mother Russia,
In the good ship Saint Maria,
We shall sail the Siberian coast along
With our Captain brave and strong.
'I read this endless letter of mine over and over again, and find that I
am simply gossiping when I have so many important things to tell you. I
am sending with Klimov a packet addressed to the head of the
Hydrographical Board, containing my observations, official letters and a
