A White Sail Gleams
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VALENTIN KATAYEV A WHITE SAIL GLEAMS PROGRESS PUBLISHERS MOSCOW Ocr: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2 Translated from the Russian by Leonard Stoklitsky Illustrated by Vitali Goryaev Валентин Катаев Белеет парус одинокий На английском языке First printing 1954 Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics CONTENTS A Few Words About Myself 1. The Farewell 2. The Sea 3. In the Steppe 4. The Watering 5. The Runaway 6. The Turgenev 7. The Photograph 8. "Man Overboard!" 9. Odessa by Night 10. At Home 11. Gavrik 12. "Call That a Horse?" 13. Madam Storozhenko 14. "Lower Ranks" 15. The Boat at Sea 16. "Turret Gun, Shoot!" 17. The Owner of the Shooting Gallery 18. Questions and Answers 19. A Pound and a Half of Rye Bread 20. Morning 21. Word of Honour 22. Near Mills 23. Uncle Gavrik 24. Love 25. "I Was Stolen" 26. The Pursuit 27. Grandpa 28. Stubborn Auntie Tatyana 29. The AleXandrovsky Police Station 30. The Preparatory Class 31. The BoX on the Gun Carriage 32. Fog 33. Lugs 34. In the Basement 35. A Debt of Honour 36. The Heavy Satchel 37. The Bomb 38. HQ of the Fighting Group 39. The Pogrom 40. The Officer's Uniform 41. The Christmas Tree 42. Kulikovo Field 43. The Sail 44. The May Day Outing 45. A Fair Wind A FEW WORDS ABOUT MYSELF Looking back on my life, I recall to mind some episodes that were instrumental in shaping my understanding of the writer's mission. The power of the printed word was first really brought home to me when I landed at the front during the First World War. I mentally crossed out nearly all I had written up until then and resolved that from now on everything I write should benefit the workers, peasants and soldiers, and all working people. In 1919, when I was in the ranks of the Red Army and was marching shoulder to shoulder with revolutionary Red Army men against Denikin's bands, I vowed to myself that I would dedicate my pen to the cause of the revolution. Many Soviet writers took part in the Civil War, and their words and their actions inspired the fighting men. AleXander Serafimovich was a war correspondent. AleXander Fadeyev shared the privations of the Far Eastern partisans. Dmitry Furmanov was the Commissar of Chapayev's division. Nikolai Ostrovsky fought the interventionists in the Ukraine. Mikhail Sholokhov took part in the fighting against Whiteguard bands. Eduard Bagritsky went to the front as a member of a travelling propaganda team. More than 400 Soviet writers gave their lives on the battlefronts of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Their names are inscribed on a marble memorial plaque in the Writers Club in Moscow. At the time of the Russian revolution of 1905 I was just a boy of eight, but I clearly remember the battleship Potemkin, a red flag on her mast, sailing along the coast past Odessa. I witnessed the fighting on the barricades, I saw overturned horse-trams, twisted and torn street wires, revolvers, rifles, dead bodies. Many years later I wrote A White Sail Gleams ( Written in 1936.—Ed.) a novel in which I tried to convey the invigorating spirit that had been infused into the life of Russia by her first revolution. A Son of the Working People is a reminiscence of the First World War, in which I fought. When construction of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station began I went there together with the poet Demyan Bedny. Afterwards we visited collective farms in the Don and Volga areas and then set out for the Urals. I remember that when our train stopped at Mount Magnitnaya in the Urals I was so impressed by what I saw that I decided to leave the train at once and remain in the town of Magnitogorsk. I said good-bye to Demyan Bedny and jumped down from the carriage. "Good-bye and good luck!" he called out. "If I were younger and didn't have to get back to Moscow I'd stay here with pleasure." I was struck by all I saw in Magnitogorsk, by the great enthusiasm of the people building for themselves. This was a revolution too. It inspired my book Time, Forward! During the last war, as a correspondent at the front, I saw a great deal, but for some reason it was the youngsters that made the biggest impression on me—the homeless, destitute boys who marched grimly along the war-torn roads. I saw eXhausted, grimy, hungry Russian soldiers pick up the unfortunate children. This was a manifestation of the great humanism of the Soviet man. Those soldiers were fighting against fascism, and therefore they, too, were beacons of the revolution. This prompted me to write Son of the Regiment. When I look around today I see the fruits of the events of 1917, of our technological revolution, of the construction work at Magnitogorsk. I see that my friends did not give their lives on the battlefronts in vain. What does being a Soviet writer mean? Here is how I got the answer. Returning home one day, a long time ago, I found an envelope with foreign stamps on it in my letter-boX. Inside there was an invitation from the Pen Club, an international literary association, to attend its neXt conference, in Vienna. I was a young writer then, and I was greatly flattered. I told everyone I met about the remarkable honour that had been accorded me. When I ran into Vladimir Mayakovsky in one of the editorial offices I showed him the letter from abroad. He calmly produced an elegant envelope eXactly like mine from the pocket of his jacket. "Look," he said. "They invited me too, but I'm not boasting about it. Because they did not invite me, of course, as Mayakovsky, but as a representative of Soviet literature. The same applies to you. Understand? Reflect, Kataich (as he called me when he was in a good mood), on what it means to be a writer in the Land of Soviets." Mayakovsky's words made a lasting impression on me. I realised that I owed by success as a creative writer to the Soviet people, who had reared me. I realised that being a Soviet writer means marching in step with the people, that it means being always on the crest of the revolutionary wave. In my short story The Flag, which is based on a wartime episode, the nazis have surrounded a group of Soviet fighting men and called on them to give up. But instead of the white flag of surrender they ran up a crimson flag which they improvised from pieces of cloth of different shades of red. Similarly, Soviet literature is made up of many works of different shades which, taken together, shine like a fiery-red banner of the revolution. Once, walking round Shanghai I wandered into the market where the so-called "Temple of the City Mayor" stood. Here they sold candles for church-goers. An old Chinese woman was standing at a table giving out some strange sticks from two vases. For ten yuans you were allowed to take one of these sticks with hieroglyphics on it. Then the woman would ask you what number page was marked on the stick, and turning to her book for reference, she would find the appropriate page, tear it out and give it to you. On my piece of paper was written: "The PhoeniX sings before the sun. The Empress takes no notice. It is difficult to alter the will of the Empress, but your name will live for centuries." We haven't got an Empress, and so that part of the prophecy does not apply. It's highly unlikely that my name will live for centuries, and so that part doesn't apply either. All that remains is the phrase "The PhoeniX sings before the sun". I can agree with that since the sun is my homeland. 1 THE FAREWELL The blast of the horn came from the farmyard at about five o'clock in the morning. A piercing, penetrating sound that seemed split into hundreds of musical strands, it flew out through the apricot orchard into the deserted steppe and towards the sea, where its rolling echo died mournfully along the bluff. That was the first signal for the departure of the coach. It was all over. The bitter hour of farewell had come. Strictly speaking, there was no one to bid farewell to. The few summer residents, frightened by recent events, had begun to leave in mid-season. The only guests now remaining at the farm were Vasili Petrovich Batchei, an Odessa schoolmaster, and his two sons, one three and a half years old and the other eight and a half. The elder was called Petya, and the younger Pavlik. Today they too were leaving for home. It was for them the horn had been blown and the big black horses led out of the stable. Petya woke up long before the horn. He had slept fitfully. The twittering of the birds roused him, and he dressed and went outside. The orchard, the steppe, and the farmyard all lay in a chill shadow. The sun was rising out of the sea, but the high bluff still hid it from view. Petya wore his city Sunday suit, which he had quite outgrown during the summer: a navy-blue woollen sailor blouse with a white-edged collar, short trousers, long lisle stockings, button-shoes, and a broad-brimmed straw hat.