The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

During the senior-year exams we were allowed to smoke. To do this we would ask permission and, one by one, to go to the smoking room at the end of the corridor. There the decrepit watchman Kazimir was on duty—the same one who had once brought me here to the preparatory classes.

On the way to the smoker I rolled the outline up into a thin tube and stuck it into my cigarette holder. I smoked the cigarette and laid the cardboard holder on the windowsill, in the place we’d agreed on. Kazimir noticed nothing. He was sitting on a chair and chewing a sandwich.

Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry

105

My job was finished. After me, Littauer went off to the smoker. He flipped his cigarette butt containing an outline on the windowsill, got the crib-sheet out of mine, and, returning to his place by way of the aisle, tossed it on Bo-gushevich’s desk. After Littauer, Stanishevskii, Regamé, and two other boys pulled the same trick. Their work required adroitness and an accurate eye.

I had already begun to write my own essay when Littauer returned to the hall. I followed him with my eyes. I wanted to watch how, and to whom, he would toss my crib-sheet. But he did it so quickly that I didn’t notice a thing. Only by the fact that one of the girls began to write spasmodically did I understand that the deed was done and Bogushevich was saved.

But it wasn’t the girl with the thick braids who began to write; it was a completely different one. I could see only her thin back, crisscrossed by the straps of her white, dress apron and the reddish curls on her neck.

Four hours were allowed for the essay. Most of us finished it sooner. Only the girls still sat suffering at their desks.

We went out into the garden. That day such a multitude of birds was singing that they might have assembled from all over Kiev.

A quarrel almost erupted in the garden between Littauer and Stanishevskii. Littauer said that Stanishevskii’s organization of all this help for the girls had been stupid. Stanishevskii flared up. He was radiant with the success of his enterprise and was expecting praise, not criticism.

“So, what was the matter?” he asked Littauer in a challenging tone that boded no good.

“The matter was that there was no damn need for us to know the last names of the girls we were writing for. Six girls—six crib-sheets. Any girl could get any crib-sheet. Why do I need to know that I’m writing for Bogushevich or for Iavorskaia? As if it made any difference! It only made things more complicated when we were dropping them.”

“My God!” Stanishevskii shook his head sorrowfully. “You utter cretin! You have no powers of imagination. So get this: I did it on purpose.”

“What for?”

“It just seemed more INTERESTING to me!” Stanishevskii said weightily. “Maybe a passionate love between the saver and the saved will blaze up out of this! Did you think about that?”

“No.”

“What a dolt,” Stanishevskii snapped. “But now—to François’. For some ice cream.” After every exam we would binge on our modest means and go to François’ confectionery shop, where we would eat as many as five servings of ice cream each.

The most difficult exam for me was trigonometry. Anyhow, I passed it. The exam stretched on into the evening. Afterwards we waited for the school

106

Chapter Ten

inspector to announce the grades, and overjoyed by the fact that no one had flunked we burst noisily out into the street.

Stanishevskii hurled a tattered textbook into the air with all his strength. The pages sifted down from the sky onto the pavement, dipping and fluttering from side to side. That pleased us. All of us on signal threw our textbooks skyward. A minute later the pavement was white with rustling paper. Behind us a policeman whistled.

We turned off into Fundukleev Street, then onto narrow Nesterov Street. Gradually everyone trailed off in various directions, and only five of us were left: Stanishevskii, Fitsovskii, Schmuckler, Khorozhevskii, and I.

We set off for Galitskii Market, where there were many small snack bars and beer parlors. We decided to get drunk, because we considered that the exams were already over. Latin was the only one remaining, but no one was afraid of it.

We joked and laughed. A devil, as the old expression goes, had possessed us; passers-by were turning to look at us. At Galitskii Market we dropped in at a beer parlor. The floor smelled of beer. Along the wall there were booths built of planks, wallpapered in pink. They were called “private chambers.” We occupied such a ‘chamber’ and ordered vodka and beef Stroganoff.

The owner foresightedly jerked the faded curtain closed. But we were making such a noise that from time to time one of the customers would open the curtain a bit and glance into our “chamber.” Everyone who looked in we treated to vodka. They drank it willingly and congratulated us on our “successful graduation.”