scraps of paper if you ever let yourself slide, if you say to yourself: 'Enough! I've got everything I want, now I'll sit back and take it easy!' Don't give up, I repeat, when you meet with failure. Don't take it lying down. Clench your teeth and go on ahead again!... You are transformers of the world, remember that! To whom, if not to you, the youth of the Soviet land, does the future belong! You, my boys, are the first shoots of the Revolution. The great Lenin was deeply interested in your future. Be proud of it! You spent your childhood in the old world. Many of you still remember the policeman—that symbol of the past— who used to stand at the corner of Post Street. That past will still try to trip you up. But you must cast off that old rottenness. You have a great future before you, you are in step with the youth of the whole country. Be proud of it!
'I should very much like to meet you, my friends, ten years from now, when instead of young workers you will have become skilled craftsmen, engineers, commanders of production, and what is more—Communists.
'Prepare yourselves for entering the Party right from the start, as soon as you begin work at the new factories. In moments of difficulty and joy rally round the Party. Even before you are Party members, foster in yourselves the qualities of Bolsheviks...
'Yesterday you read the speech made by Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin to the graduates of Sverdlovsk
University. That speech contained a splendid phrase: 'The most valuable thing for a Party worker is that he should be able to work joyfully and well under ordinary, everyday circumstances, that he should be able to conquer one difficulty after another, day in day out, that the difficulties which practical life sets before him every day, every hour, that those difficulties should not swallow up his enthusiasm, that those dragging, everyday difficulties should develop and strengthen his will, that he should see in this everyday work the final aims, and never lose sight of those final aims for which communism is fighting.'
'And repeating those words to you, I, for my part, advise you, lads, to work joyfully and well, regardless of obstacles, always seeing before you the bright future—communism.
'At the new places where you are going to work, always foster in yourselves a great desire to find out things that you did not know before. Don't stop. Never stop! Fear only two words: 'slackness' and 'complacency.'
'Others will come after you. It will be far easier for them, but they will envy you, for none of them will see the things that you are now to see and experience... Soon, very soon, you will leave this school. We shall give you travel warrants and you will go away to the big factories. There a great task awaits you. Love your work, carry out your responsibilities honestly. . . Good luck! ...'
As we listened to Polevoi's warm speech, we realized that he was very sorry to part with us. His words were slow and halting, as if he were thinking aloud, and sometimes his voice trembled, but we knew he was speaking from the heart. The words that stuck in my memory were: 'You are the first shoots of the Revolution!' There was something wonderfully beautiful about that. Before me there seemed to stretch, as far -as the eye could see, a broad green field of wheat, sown in early spring by the hand of some great man. The first spring storms had swept over it, the ears were beginning to form on the slender supple stems, and now they were shooting up higher and higher towards the sun shining overhead in a deep-blue sky. . .
The meeting was soon over.
Now that Polevoi had told us the glad news that the passes had been received, only one riddle remained to be solved: who was to go where?
Too excited to stay indoors, we again went out for a last wander round the town. Already, it seemed, we could hear the whistle of the train that was to carry us away...
IN THE NEW TOWN
We walked out on to the station square and at that moment a strong gust of wind carried away the straw cap of a cabman who had been sitting on his break waiting for passengers from the station. The cap bowled away across the square like a little wooden hoop.
In a flash the stocky sunburnt cabman had leapt down from his seat and was chasing after it.
'Go it, Volodya! Catch it!' the other cabmen shouted laughing.
Driven by the gusty wind, the cap zigzagged across the square and Volodya had to pounce for it, like a man after a chicken.
Although it was nearly the end of May, the weather here was unusually grim and cold. A damp sea wind slashed across the puddles that gleamed on the square. The low, white-trunked acacia-bushes bowed in the wind and black, rain-filled storm-clouds raced low across the sky, almost touching the station roof.
In these first minutes of getting to know the new town, I remembered very clearly our little border
town, now so far away, with its steep cliffs and mantle of green, and its warm sunshine tempered by the breezes from the Carpathian Mountains. I remembered our final preparations for the journey, the station platform, the meeting we had held there, and the farewell words of our Komsomol secretary Nikita Kolomeyets: 'Before you lie the broad vistas of the bright future. Stick to the Party, chaps, as you always have done, and do all you can to help the cause.'
Nikita's words were drowned by the squealing whistle of the engine. All the chaps from the factory-training school stuck their heads out of the carriage windows and, squeezed between other passengers, struck up our favourite song: 'When we're watching on the border. . .'
How clear the sky had been as we watched the familiar station buildings gliding past. How sunny !... And now, here we were—tossed into the middle of autumn all of' a sudden. And we were supposed to be in the South!
The cabman Volodya ran up to us, shaking drops of water from his cap.
'What about a ride, lads?' he shouted. 'Count of Bengal's carriage at your service!' And he slapped the varnished hand-rail of his break.
No one had mentioned taking a cab in the train. We glanced at one another.
Making little puzzled noises with his lips, Petka, our treasurer, kept his hand in his trousers' pocket where the public money was stored. Sasha Bobir, of course, was ready to go without giving the matter a second thought, and eyed the break with pleasure. Breaks of this kind were unknown in our little town, where we only had old-fashioned phaetons.
Tiktor stood a little apart from the rest of us, holding a heavy suit-case. Wrinkling his eyes, he surveyed the square in front of him, pretending that the cabman's proposal was no concern of his.
'Well, what about it, Vasil?' Petka said rather timidly.
'Shall we take it?'
'P'raps we could walk?' I said.
'Walk where?' Sasha burst out indignantly. 'It's a long way.'
'All right, let's ride,' I agreed. 'I wonder how much he'll charge though. Ask him, Petka.'
'What's the fare?' Petka inquired.
'Nothing to worry about!' the driver grunted and, running up the steps, grasped Petka's basket and white tin kettle. 'Jump in, jump in, lads! I won't skin you. Is this all the stuff you've got?' And he pointed to the rest of our things.
'No, hold on, we're not going like that!' I said, stopping the driver. 'Tell us how much first.' And I thought to myself: 'We know your games!. You're nice and kind now, wouldn't think of skinning us, but wait until we get there —then we'll be in for it!'
'Four of you?' the driver asked, glancing round. 'Where are you bound—for the holiday resort or Kobazova Hill?'
'The centre,' I said firmly. 'How much will you charge for four?'
'Count me out, I'm not coming,' said Tiktor.
'Why not?' Petka asked.
'Driving in cabs is a bourgeois luxury. We ought to find somewhere to live first, then think about riding around,' Tiktor snapped. And swinging his suit-case on to his shoulder, he walked slowly down the steps on to the square.
'Wait, Tiktor, let's. . .' Petka began, but I checked him: 'Let him go... He's up to his old game again.' 'Bit of a
