TWO CAPTAINS
By
VENIAMIN KAVERIN
Translation from the Russian
Translated by Bernard Isaacs
/Abridged by the Author/
THE FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE
MOSCOW
1945
Two captains by Veniamin Kaverin , translated by Bernard Isaacs
BOOK ONE
PART ONE.
Childhood
AUTHOR 'S PREFACE
I recall a spring day in 1921, when Maxim Gorky first invited to his
home a group of young Leningrad writers, myself among them. He lived
in Kronwerk Street and the windows of his flat overlooked
Alexandrovsky Park. We trooped in, so many of us that we took quite a
time getting seated, the bolder ones closer to the host, the more timid
on the ottoman, from which it was a job getting up afterwards—it was so
soft and sagged almost to the floor. I shall always remember that
ottoman of Gorky's. When I lowered myself on to it I saw my
outstretched feet encased in shabby soldier's boots. I couldn't hide them
away. As for getting up-it was not to be thought of. Those boots worried
me until I noticed a pair just as bad, if not worse, on Vsevolod Ivanov,
who was sitting next to Gorky.
Alice in her wonderland underwent strange transformations on
almost every page of Carroll’s book. At one moment she becomes so
small that she freely goes down a rabbit's hole, the next so tall that she
can speak only with birds living in the tree-tops. Something like that
was happening to me at Gorky's place. At one moment I thought I ought
to put in a word of my own in the conversation that had started between
Gorky and my older companions, a word so profound that it would
make them all sit up. The next minute I shrank so small on that low
uncomfortable ottoman that I felt a sort of Tom Thumb, not that brave
little fellow we all know, but a somewhat timorous Tom Thumb, at once
timorous and proud.
Gorky began to speak with approval about Ivanov's latest short story
'The Brazier of Archangel Gabriel'. It was this that started me on my
transformations. Ivanov's story was far removed from anything that
interested me in literature, and I took Gorky's high opinion of it as a
harsh verdict on all my hopes and dreams. Gorky read the story out
aloud. His face softened, his eyes grew tender and his gestures betrayed
that benign mood so familiar to everyone who had seen Gorky in
moments of pure rapture.
He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief and began to speak about
the story. His admiration for it did not prevent him from seeing its
shortcomings. Some of his remarks applied even to the choice of words.
'What is the work of a writer?' he asked, and for the first time I heard
some very curious things. The work of a writer, it appeared, was simply
work, the daily, maybe hourly work of writing, writing on paper or in
one's mind. It meant piles of rough copies, dozens of crossed-out
versions. It meant patience, because talent imposed upon the writer a
peculiar pattern of life in which patience was the most important thing
of all. It was the life of Zola, who used to strap himself to his chair; of
Goncharov, who took about twenty years writing his novel Obryv
(Precipice); of Jack London, who died of fatigue, whatever his doctors
may have said. It was hard life of self-dedication, full of trials and
disappointments. 'Don't you believe those who say that it is easy bread,'
Gorky said.
To describe a writer's work in all its diversity is no light task. I may
get nearest to doing this by simply answering the numerous letters I
have received in connection with my novel Two Captains and thus
telling the story of how this one novel at least came to be written.
5
The questions my correspondents ask chiefly concern the two heroes
of my novel—Sanya Grigoriev and Captain Tatarinov. Many of them ask
whether it was my own life that I described in Two Captains. Some
want to know whether the story of Captain Tatarinov was invented by
me. Others search for the name in books of geography and
encyclopaedias and are surprised to find that the activities of Captain
Tatarinov have left no visible traces in the history of Arctic exploration.
Some want to know where Sanya Grigoriev and Katya Tatarinova are
living at present and what rank Sanya was promoted to after the war.
Others ask the author's advice as to what job they should devote their
lives. The mother of a boy, known as the terror of the town, whose
pranks often verged on hooliganism, wrote me that after reading my
novel her son had become a different person, and shortly afterwards I
received a letter from Alexander Rokotov himself which showed that the
boy was intelligent and talented as well as mischievous. Some years
have passed since then, and student Rokotov of the Aviation Institute
has acquired expert knowledge in aircraft construction.
It took me about five years to write this novel. When the first book
was finished the war started, and it was not until 1944 that I returned to
