The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

It was already late evening when the owner came into our chamber and, glancing sideways at the curtain, said in a low voice,

“There’s a shamus hanging around outside.”

“What shamus?” said Stanishevskii.

“One from Criminal Investigation. You have to get out into the courtyard as slick as you can through the back door. From the courtyard there’s a passage to Kudriavskii Boulevard.”

We attached no particular importance to the owner’s words, but all the same, we went out through the back door into the dark, stinking courtyard. Past the trash bins and the wooden sheds, bending low so as not to snag our heads on the clotheslines, we made our way out to Kudriavskii Boulevard. No one was coming after us.

We came out through a passageway onto the dimly lit sidewalk. There, waiting for us, stood a stooped man wearing a derby.

“Good evening!” he said in an ominous voice and raised his derby. “Have you had a nice party, young gentlemen?”

Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry

107

We didn’t answer and set off up Kudriavskii Boulevard. The man in the derby started after us.

“Mothers’ milk not dry on their lips yet,” he said with malice, “and they’re crawling around back alleys!”

Stanishevskii stopped. The man in the derby also stopped and stuck his hand into the pocket of his long jacket.

“What do you want?” asked Stanishevskii. “You can go straight to hell!”

“Grubbing around in taverns,” the man in the derby began, “and you— pupils of the Imperial Gimnazium! The penalty for visiting taverns is a citation for political unreliability, a wolf“s passport.1 Did you know that?”

“Let’s go,” Stanishevskii said to us. “He’s an idiot and this is boring.”

We started off. The man in the derby moved after us.

“I’m not the idiot,” he said. “You’re the idiots. I went to gimnazium myself.”

“Oh, we can see that,” said Schmuckler.

“See what?” the man yelled hysterically. “I was thrown out of the gimnaz-ium for drinking and got a wolf’s passport. And am I going to pardon your drinking party? No! I’m going to get even. I’m not going to rest until they hand you a wolf’s passport apiece. Too bad about your exams. You’re going to get a big nothing, not a university education. Were you talking against the government in the tavern? You were! Were you mocking the tsar’s family? You were! I can put you away, easier than spit. I don’t advise you to fool with me. I’ll have you in front of the secret police.”

We turned off down empty streets towards Sviatoslavskii Ravine. We thought the detective would be afraid to follow us into the dead-end ravine. But he stubbornly followed along.

“Surely the five of us can deal with him?” Stanishevskii asked quietly.

We stopped. The detective pulled a revolver out of his pocket. He showed it to us and gave a muffled laugh.

We led him around the streets for a long time, avoiding the intersections where there were police. Fitsovskii suggested splitting off one at a time and disappearing. In that case the detective would always follow the larger group—first four, then three, then two, then finally one. Instead of five, he could catch only one. But none of us agreed with Fitsovskii. It wouldn’t have been comradely.

We jeered at the detective. Each of us made up a biography for him and recounted it loudly. The biographies were monstrous and offensive. The detective was wheezing with rage. He was clearly getting tired, but came dawdling along behind us with the persistence of a madman.

The east was beginning to pale. It was time to act. We agreed on a plan and, circling through alleys, came to the building where Stanishevskii lived.

108

Chapter Ten

The building was shielded from the street by a stone wall about half again as high as a man. A ledge ran along its base. At a single command we jumped on the ledge and whipped ourselves up over the wall. The gymnastics classes had done us some good.

A heap of broken bricks lay in a fenced flowerbed behind the wall. A hail of bricks rained down on the detective, left behind on the other side of the wall. He shrieked, jumped back to the middle of the street, and fired. A bullet whined inanely through the air.

We hurled ourselves through the flower bed and through the passageway to the second courtyard, ran up to the fourth floor into Stanishevskii’s apartment, and in a few minutes were all lying around on the couches and hassocks in our shirtsleeves and intensely listening to the action out on the street. Stan-ishevskii’s father, a bristly gray-haired lawyer, was pacing the rooms in his dressing-gown. He was in just as militant a mood as we were, but he implored us to lie calmly, and not jump up and go to the windows.