stop once, though Katya clutched my sleeve several times in horror and
amazement.
'Did you see this letter?' she asked, her face white. 'He was writing
about Father?' she asked again, as though there could be any doubt
about it.
'Yes. But that's not all.'
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And I told her how Aunt Dasha had one day come upon another letter
describing life aboard an icebound ship which was slowly drifting north.
' 'My darling, my own dear, sweet Maria,' ' I began reciting from
memory, then stopped.
A cold shiver ran up my spine and a choking sensation gripped my
throat as I suddenly saw before me, as in a dream, the bleak,
prematurely aged face of Maria Vasilievna, her brows puckered in
gloom. She had been about the same age as Katya was now when he
wrote her that letter, and Katya was a little girl always waiting for 'a
letter from Daddy'. That letter had come at last!
'Here it is,' I said, drawing it from my breast pocket wrapped up in
the piece of lint. 'Sit down and read it. I'll go away and come back when
you've finished.'
Needless to say, I didn't go anywhere. I stood under the tower of St.
Martin and watched Katya all the time while she was reading. I felt very
sorry for her and warm inside whenever I thought about her, but cold
when I thought how dreadful it must be for her to read those letters. I
saw her push her hair back with an unconscious gesture when it got into
her eyes, then stand up as if trying to make out some difficult word. I
wasn't sure till then whether it was a joy or sorrow to get a letter like
that. But looking at her now, I realised what grief, what terrible grief it
114
was. I realised that she had never given up hope. Thirteen years ago her
father had disappeared in the icy wastes of the Arctic, a thing that could
only mean death from cold and starvation. But for her he had died only
that day!
When I went back to her, Katya's eyes were red and she was sitting on
the garden seat with her hands in her lap, holding the letters.
'Not feeling cold?' I asked, at a loss for words.
'I haven't been able to make out some words... Here: 'I beg of you...
'Ah, that! It reads: 'I beg of you, do not trust that man.' '
Katya called on us that evening, but we did not speak about the old
letters—we had agreed on that beforehand. Katya was very sad.
Everyone was nice to her, especially Sanya, who had become attached to
her immediately as only girls know how. Afterwards Sanya and I saw
her home.
The old folks were still up when we got back. The judge, somewhat
belatedly, was scolding Aunt Dasha for not having delivered that mail—
'at least those letters where the address could be made out'— and could
find only one extenuating circumstance: that it had happened ten years
ago. Aunt Dasha was talking about Katya. My fate, she thought, was
decided.
'I think she's very nice,' she said, sighing. 'Beautiful and sad. Healthy
girl.'
I asked Sanya for the map of the Soviet North and showed her the
route which Captain Tatarinov was to have taken from Leningrad to
Vladivostok. Only then did I remind myself of his discovery. What land
could that be lying north of the Taimyr Peninsula? 'Why, that must be
Severnaya Zemlya!' Sanya said. What the devil! It was Severnaya
Zemlya (Northern Land) discovered in 1913 by Lieutenant Vilkitsky.
Latitude 79°35,' between 86 and 87 longitude. Very strange!
'Hold on!' I said, and must have gone a bit pale, because Aunt Dasha
looked at me anxiously. 'I've got it! First it was a silvery strip running
out from the very horizon. On April 3rd the strip became an opaque
patch. April 3rd!'
'Sanya,' Aunt Dasha began in alarm.
'Hold on! April 3rd. Now Vilkitsky discovered Severnaya Zemlya in
the autumn, I don't remember when, but it was in the autumn, some
time in September or October. In the autumn, six months later! That's
to say he discovered nothing at all, dammit, because it had already been
discovered.'
'Sanya!' It was the judge speaking now.
'Discovered and named after Maria Vasilievna,' I went on, pressing
my finger hard on Severnaya Zemlya as though afraid there might be
some other mistake about it. 'Named after Maria Vasilievna. Maria
Land, or something like that. Now sit down and I'll explain it all to you.'
Talk about sleep after a day like that! I drank water and studied the
map. The dining-room was hung with pictures of the town, and I
studied them, too, for a long time without realising that they were
Sanya's paintings and that she was studying painting and dreamt of
going to the Academy of Arts. I looked at the map again. I recollected
that the name Severnaya Zemlya had been given to these islands only
recently and that Vilkitsky had named them Nicholas II Land.
115
Poor Captain Tatarinov! He had been surprisingly, extraordinarily
unlucky. There was not a single mention of him in any geography book
and nobody in the world knew what he had done.
I felt a cold shiver of pity and rapture, and went to bed, as it had gone
five and from outside in the street came the sounds of a sweeping
broom. But I couldn't fall asleep. Disjointed phrases from the Captain's
letter haunted me, and I could hear Aunt Dasha's voice reading the
letter and see her peering over her spectacles, sighing and faltering. I
recollected a scene, which had once presented itself to my imagination-a
scene of white tents in the snow, huskies harnessed to sledges, a giant of
