But youth triumphed. Pavel did not succumb to the typhoid fever. For the fourth time he crossed the border line of death and came back to life. It was a whole month, however, before he was able to rise from his bed. Gaunt and pale, he tottered feebly across the room on his shaky legs, clinging to the wall for support. With his mother's help he reached the window and stood there for a long time looking out onto the road where pools of melted snow glittered in the early spring sunshine.
It was the first thaw of the year. Just in front of the window a grey-breasted sparrow perched on the branch of a cherry-tree was preening its feathers, stealing quick uneasy glances at Pavel.
"So you and I got through the winter, eh?" Pavel said, softly tapping on the window pane.
His mother looked up startled.
"Who are you talking to out there?"
"A sparrow.... There now, he's flown away, the little rascal." And Pavel gave a wan smile.
By the time spring was at its height Pavel began to think of returning to town. He was now strong enough to walk, but some mysterious disease was undermining his strength. One day as he was walking in the garden a sudden excruciating pain in his spine knocked him off his feet. With difficulty he got up and dragged himself back to his room. The next day he submitted to a thorough medical examination. The doctor, examining Pavel's back, discovered a deep depression in his spine.
"How did you get this?" he asked.
"That was in the fighting near Rovno. A three-inch gun tore up the highway behind us and a stone hit me in the back."
"But how did you manage to walk? Hasn't it ever bothered you?"
"No. I couldn't get up for an hour or two after it happened, but then it passed and I got into the saddle again. It has never troubled me till now,"
The doctor's face was very grave as he carefully examined the depression.
"Yes, my friend, a very nasty business. The spine does not like to be shaken up like that. Let us hope that it will pass."
The doctor looked at his patient with undisguised concern.

One day Pavel went to see his brother. Artem lived with his wife's people. His wife Styosha was aplain-featured young peasant woman who came from a poverty-stricken family. A grimy slant-eyed urchin playing in the small, filthy yard stared fixedly at Pavel, picking his nose stolidly.
"What d'ye want?" he demanded. "Maybe you're a thief? You'd better clear off or you'll get it from my Ma!"
A tiny window was flung open in the shabby old cottage and Artem looked out.
"Come on in, Pavel!" he called.
An old woman with a face like yellowed parchment was busy at the stove. She flung Pavel an unfriendly look as he passed her and resumed her clattering with the pots.
Two girls with stringy pigtails clambered onto the stove ledge and stared down from there at the newcomer with the gaping curiosity of little savages.
Artem, sitting at the table, looked somewhat uncomfortable. He was aware that neither his mother nor his brother approved of his marriage. They could not understand why Artem, whose family had been proletarian for generations, had broken off with Galya, the stonemason's pretty daughter and a seamstress by trade whom he had been courting for three years, to go and live with a dull,ignorant woman like Styosha and be the breadwinner in a family of five. Now, after a hard day's work at the railway yard he had to toil at the plough in an effort to revive the run-down farm.

Artem knew that Pavel disapproved of his desertion to what he called the "petty-bourgeois elements", and he now watched his brother take stock of his surroundings.
They sat for a while exchanging a few casual remarks. Presently Pavel rose to go, but Art emdetained him.
"Wait a bit, and have a bite with us. Styosha will bring the milk in soon. So you're going away again tomorrow? Are you sure you're quite strong enough, Pavka?"
Styosha came in. She greeted Pavel, and asked Artem to go with her to the barn and help her carry something. Pavel was left alone with the dour old woman. Through the window came the sound of church bells. The old woman laid down her pothook and began to mutter sourly:
"Lord above, with all this cursed housework a body can scarce find time to pray!" She took off her shawl and, eyeing the newcomer askance, went over to the corner where hung the holy images,dreary and tarnished with age. Pressing together three bony fingers she crossed herself.
"Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name!" she whispered through withered lips.
The urchin playing outside in the yard leapt astride a black lop-eared hog. He dug his small bare heels smartly into its sides, clung to its bristles and shouted to the running, snorting beast: "Geeup, gee-up! Whoa! Whoa!"
The hog with the boy on its back dashed madly about the yard in a desperate effort to throw him,but the slant-eyed imp kept his seat firmly.
The old woman stopped praying and stuck her head out of the window.
"Get off that pig this minute, you little beast, or I'll wring your neck!"
The hog finally succeeded in shaking his tormentor off his back, and the old woman, mollified,returned to her icons, composed her features into a pious expression and continued:
"Thy kingdom come. . . ."
At that moment the boy appeared in the doorway, his face grimy with tears. Wiping his smarting nose with his sleeve and sobbing with pain, he whined:
"Gimme a pancake, Mummy!"
The old woman turned on him in a fury.
"Can't you see I'm praying, you cross-eyed devil, you? I'll give you pancakes, you limb of satan!..." And she snatched a whip from the bench. The boy was gone in a flash. The two little girls on top of the stove snickered.
The old woman returned to her devotions for the third time.
Pavel got up and went out without waiting for his brother. As he closed the gate behind him he noticed the old woman peering suspiciously out at him through the end window of the house.
"What evil spirit lured Artem out here?" he thought bitterly. "Now he's tied down for the rest of his life. Styosha will have a baby every year. And Artem will be stuck like a beetle on a dunghill.
He may even give up his work at the railway." Thus Pavel reflected gloomily as he strode down the deserted streets of the little town. "And I had hoped to be able to interest him in political work."
Pavel rejoiced at the thought that tomorrow he would be leaving this place and going to the big town to join his friends and comrades, all those dear to his heart. The big city with its bustling life and activity, its endless stream of humanity, its clattering trams and hooting automobiles drew him like a magnet. But most of all he yearned for the large brick factory buildings, the sootyworkshops, the machines, the low hum of transmission belts. He yearned for the mad spinning of the giant flywheels, for the smell of machine oil, for all that had become so much a part of him.

This quiet provincial town whose streets he now roamed filled him with a vague feeling of depression. He was not surprised that he felt a stranger here now. Even to take a stroll through the town in daytime had become an ordeal. Passing by the gossiping housewives sitting on their stoops, he could not help overhearing their idle chatter.
"Now who could that scarecrow be?"
"Looks like he had the consumption, lung trouble, that is."
"A fine jacket he's got on. Stolen, I'll be bound."
And plenty more in the same vein. Pavel was disgusted with it all.
He had torn himself away from all this long ago. He felt a far closer kinship now with the big city to which he was bound by the strong, vitalising bonds of comradeship and labour.
By now he had reached the pine woods, and he paused a moment at the road fork. To his right stood the old prison cut off from the woods by a high spiked fence, and beyond it the white buildings of the hospital.
It was here on this broad common that the hangman's noose had choked the warm life out of Valya and her comrades. Pavel stood in silence on the spot where the gallows had been, then walked over to the bluff and down to the little cemetery where the victims of the Whiteguard terror lay in their common graves. Loving hands had laid spruce branches on the graves and built a neat green fence around the graveyard. The pines grew straight and slender on the top of the bluff and the young grass spread a silky green carpet over the slopes.
There was a melancholy hush here on the outskirts of the town. The trees whispered gently and the fresh scent of spring rose from the regenerated earth. On this spot Pavel's comrades had gone bravely to their deaths that life might be beautiful for those born in poverty.
Slowly Pavel raised his hand and removed his cap, his heart filled with sadness.
Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world
— the fight for the Liberation of Mankind. And one must make use of every moment of life, lestsome sudden illness or tragic accident cut it short.
With these reflections, Korchagin turned away from the cemetery.
At home his mother was unhappily preparing for her son's departure. Watching her, Pavel saw that she was hiding her tears from him.
"Perhaps you'll stay, Pavel dear?" she ventured. "It's hard for me to be left alone in my old age. It doesn't matter how many children you have, they all grow up and leave you. Why must you run off to the city? You can live here just as well. Or perhaps some bob-haired magpie there has caught your fancy? You boys never tell your old mother anything. Artem went and got married without a word to me and you're worse than him in that respect. I only see you when you get yourself crippled," his mother grumbled softly as she packed his meagre belongings into a clean bag.
Pavel took her by the shoulders and drew her towards him.
"No magpies for me, Mother! Don't you know that birds choose mates of their own species? And would you say I was a magpie?"

His mother smiled in spite of herself.
"No, Mother, I've given my word to keep away from the girls until we've finished with all the bourgeois in the world. Bit long to wait, you say? No, Mother, the bourgeoisie can't hold out very long now. Soon there will be one big republic for all men, and you old folk who've worked all your lives will go to Italy, a beautiful warm country by the sea. There is no winter there, Mother. We'll install you in the rich men's palaces, and you'll lie about in the sun warming your old bones while we'll go and finish off the bourgeois in America." "That's a lovely fairy-tale, Son, but I shan't live to see it come true. . . . You're just like your grandad, the sailor, always full of ideas he was. A regular brigand, God forgive him! Finished up at Sevastopol and came home with one arm and one leg missing and two crosses and two silver medals on his chest. But he died poor. Bad-tempered too, he was. Hit some official over the head with his crutch once and was sent to jail for about a year. Even his military crosses didn't help him then. Yes, it's your grandad you take after and no mistake."
"Now then, Ma, we can't have such a sorrowful farewell, can we? Let me have my accordion. I haven't touched it for a long time."
He bent his head over the mother-of-pearl rows of keys and began to play. His mother, listening, caught a new quality in his music. He never used to play like this. The dashing, rollicking tunes with the trills and runs, the intoxicating rhythms for which the young accordionist had once been famed, were gone. His fingers had lost none of their power or skill, but the melody that flowed from under them now was richer and deeper.
Pavel went to the station alone.
He had persuaded his mother to stay at home for he knew that the final parting would upset her too much.
The waiting crowd piled pell-mell into the train. Pavel climbed onto one of the topmost shelves and sat there watching the shouting, excited passengers arguing and gesticulating down below.
As usual everyone carried packs and bundles which they shoved under the seats.
As soon as the train got into motion the hubbub subsided somewhat and the passengers settled down to the business of stuffing themselves with food.
Pavel soon fell asleep.

On his arrival in Kiev, Pavel set out at once for Kreshchatik Street in the heart of the city. Slowly he climbed onto the bridge. Everything was as it had been, nothing had changed. He walked across the bridge, sliding his hand over the smooth railings. There was not a soul on the bridge. He paused before descending to admire the majesty of the scene. The horizon was wrapped in the velvety folds of darkness, the stars sparkled and glittered with a phosphorescent glow. And down below, where the earth merged with the sky at some invisible point, the city scattered the darkness with a million lights. . . .
Voices raised in argument invaded the stillness of the night and roused Pavel from his reverie.
Someone was coming this way. Pavel tore his eyes away from the city lights and descended the stairs.
At the Area Special Department the man on duty informed Pavel that Zhukhrai had left town a long time ago.

He questioned Pavel searchingly and, satisfied that the young man really was a personal friend of Zhukhrai, finally told him that Fyodor had been sent to work in Tashkent on the Turkestan front.
Pavel was so upset by the news that he turned and walked out without asking for further details. A sudden weariness made him sink down onto the doorstep to rest.
A tramcar clattered by, filling the street with its din. An endless stream of people flowed past him.
Pavel caught snatches of gay women's laughter, a rumbling bass, the high-pitched treble of a youth, the wheezy falsetto of an old man. The ebb and flow of hurrying crowds never ceased.
Brightly-lit trams, glaring automobile headlights, electric lights ablaze over the entrance to a cinema near by.... And everywhere — people, filling the street with their incessant hum of conversation.
The noise and bustle of the avenue dulled the edge of the pain caused by the news of Fyodor's departure. Where was he to go now? It was a long way to Solo-menka where his friends lived.
Suddenly he remembered the house on University Street. It was not far from here. Of course he would go there! After all, the first person he longed to see, after Fyodor, was Rita. And perhaps he could arrange to spend the night at Akim's place.
He saw a light in the end window from afar. Controlling his emotion with an effort he pulled open the heavy oaken outer door. For a few seconds he paused on the landing. Voices issued from Rita's room and someone was strumming on a guitar.
"Oho, so she allows guitars nowadays. Must have relaxed the regime," he said to himself. He tapped lightly on the door, biting his lip to quell his inner excitement.
The door was opened by a young woman with corkscrew curls. She looked questioningly at Korchagin.
"Whom do you want?"
She held the door ajar and a brief glance within told Pavel that his errand was fruitless.
"May I see Rita Ustinovich?"
"She's not here. She went to Kharkov last January and I hear she's in Moscow now."
"Does Comrade Akim still live here or has he left as well?"
"No, he isn't here either. He is Secretary of the Odessa Gubernia Komsomol now."
There was nothing to do but turn back. The joy of his return to the city had faded.
The problem now was to find somewhere to spend the night.
"You can walk your legs off trying to look up old friends who aren't there," he grumbled to himself, swallowing his disappointment. Nevertheless he decided to try his luck once more and see whether Pankratov was still in town. The stevedore lived in the vicinity of the wharves and that was nearer than Solomenka.
By the time he reached Pankratov's place he was utterly exhausted. "If he isn't here either I'll give up the search," Pavel vowed to himself as he knocked at a door that had once been painted yellow.
"I'll crawl under a boat and spend the night there."
The door was opened by an old woman with a kerchief tied under her chin. It was Pankratov's mother.
"Is Ignat home, Mother?"
"He's just come in."
She did not recognise Pavel, and turned round to call: "Ignat, someone to see you!"
Pavel followed her into the room and laid his knapsack on the floor. Pankratov, sitting at the table eating his supper, glanced quickly at the newcomer over his shoulder.
"If it's me you want, sit down and fire away, while I get some borshch into my system," he said.
"Haven't had a bite since morning." And he picked up a giant wooden spoon.
Pavel sat on a rickety chair to one side. He took off his cap and, relapsing into an old habit, wiped his forehead with it.
"Have I really changed so much that even Ignat doesn't recognise me?" he asked himself.
Pankratov dispatched a spoon or two of borshch, but since his visitor said nothing, he turned his head to look at him.
"Well, come on! What's on your mind?"
His hand with the piece of bread remained suspended in mid air. He stared at his visitor blinking with astonishment.
"Hey.... What's this? ... Well, of all the! ..."
The sight of the confusion and bewilderment on Pankratov's red face was too much for Pavel and he burst out laughing.
"Pavka!" cried the other. "But we all thought you were a goner! Wait a minute, now? What's your name again?"
Pankratov's elder sister and his mother came running in from the next room at his shouts. All three began showering Pavel with questions until at last they finally satisfied themselves that it really was Pavel Korchagin and none other.
Long after everyone in the house was fast asleep Pankratov was still giving Pavel an account of all that had happened during the past four months.
"Zharky and Mityai went off to Kharkov last winter. And where do you think they went, the beggars? To the Communist University! Got into the preparatory course. There were fifteen of us at first. I also got into the spirit of the thing and applied. About time I got rid of some of the sawdust in my noodle, I thought. And would you believe it, that examination board flunked me!"
Pankratov snorted at the memory and went on: "At first everything was fine. I fitted in on all counts: I had my Party card, I'd been in the Komsomol long enough, nothing wrong with my background and antecedents, but when it came to political knowledge I got into hot water.
"I got into an argument with one of the chaps on the examining board. He comes at me with a nasty little question like this: 'Tell me, Comrade Pankratov, what do you know about philosophy?'
Well, the fact is I didn't know a damned thing about philosophy. But there was a fellow used to work with us at the wharves, a grammar school student turned tramp, who had taken a job as a stevedore for the fun of it. Well, I remember him telling us about some brainy fellows in Greece who knew all the answers to everything, philosophers they called them, he said. Well, there was one chap, can't remember his name now, Diogineez or something like that, he lived all his life in a barrel. .. . The smartest of them all was the one who could prove forty times over that black was white and white was black. A lot of spoofers, you see? So I remembered what that student told me and I says to myself: 'Aha, he's trying to trip me up.' I see that examiner looking at me with a twinkle in his eye and I let him have it.

'Philosophy,' I says, 'is just poppycock, and I'm not going to have any truck with it, Comrades. The history of the Party, now, that's another matter. I'll be
only too glad to have a crack at that.' Well, they went for me good and proper, wanted to know where I'd gotten those queer ideas of mine. So I told them about that student fellow and some of the things he'd said and the whole commission nearly split their sides. The laugh was on me all right. But I got sore and walked out.
"Later on that examiner fellow got hold of me in the Gubernia Committee and lectured me for a good three hours. It turns out that the student down at the docks had got things mixed up. It seems philosophy is all right, dashed important, as a matter o' fact.
"Dubava and Zharky passed the exams. Mityai was always good at studies, but Zharky isn't much better than me. Must have been his Order that got him by. Anyway I was left back here. After they went I was given a managing job at the wharves — assistant chief of the freight wharves. I always used to be scrapping with the managers about the youth and now I'm a manager myself. Nowadays if I come across some slacker or nitwit I haul him over the coals both as manager and Komsomol secretary. He can't throw dust in my eyes! Well, enough about me. What else is there to tell you?
You know about Akim already; Tufta is the only one of the old crowd left on the Gubernia Committee. Still on his old job. Tokarev is Secretary of the District Committee of the Party at Solomenka. Okunev, your fellow commune member, is on the Komsomol District Committee.
Talya works in the Political Education Department. Tsvetayev has your job down in the repair shops. I don't know him very well. We only meet occasionally in the Gubernia Committee; he seems to be quite a brainy fellow, but a bit standoffish. Remember Anna Borhart? She's at Solomenka too, head of the Women's Department of the District Party Committee. I've told you about all the others. Yes, Pavel, the Party's sent lots of folk off to study. All the old activists attend the Gubernia Soviet and Party School. They promise to send me too next year."
It was long past midnight when they retired for the night. By the time Pavel awoke the next morning, Pankratov had gone to the wharves. Dusya, his sister, a strapping lass closely resembling her brother, served Pavel tea, keeping up a lively patter of talk all the while. Pankratov the elder, a ship's engineer, was away from home.
As Pavel was preparing to go out, Dusya reminded him:"Don't forget now, we're expecting you for dinner."

The Gubernia Committee of the Party presented the usual scene of bustling activity. The front door opened and closed incessantly. The corridors and offices were crowded, and the muffled clicking of typewriters issued from behind the door of the Administration Department.
Pavel lingered in the corridor for a while in search of a familiar face, but finding no one he knew,went straight in to see the secretary. The latter, dressed in a blue Russian shirt, was seated behind a large desk. He looked up briefly as Pavel entered and went on writing.
Pavel took a seat opposite him and studied the features of Akim's successor.
"What can I do for you?" the secretary in the Russian shirt asked as he finished his writing.
Pavel told him his story.
"I want you to restore my membership and send me to the railway workshops," he wound up.
"Please issue the necessary instructions."
The secretary leaned back in his chair.
"Well put you back on the lists, of course, that goes without saying," he replied with some hesitation. "But it'll be a bit awkward to send you to the workshops.

Tsvetayev is there. He's a member of the Gubernia Committee. We'll have to find something else for you to do."
Korchagin narrowed his eyes.

"I don't intend to interfere with Tsvetayev's work," he said. "I'm going to work at my trade and not as secretary. And since my health is rather poor I would ask you not to assign me to any other job."
The secretary agreed. He scribbled a few words on a slip of paper.
"Give this to Comrade Tufta, he'll make all the arrangements."
In the Personnel Department Pavel found Tufta giving a dressing down to his assistant. Pavel stood for a minute or two listening to the heated exchange, but since it threatened to last for a long time, he broke in.
"You'll finish the argument another time, Tufta. Here's a note for you about fixing up my paper."
Tufta stared. He looked from the paper to Korchagin, until at last it dawned on him, "I'll be damned! So you didn't die after all? Tut, tut, what are we going to do now? You've been struck off the lists. I myself turned in your card to the Central Committee. What's more, you've missed the census, and according to the circular from the Komsomol C.C. those who weren't registered in the census are out. So the only thing you can do is to file an application again in the regular way." Tufta's tone brooked no argument.
Pavel frowned.
"I see you haven't changed, Tufta. The same musty old bureaucrat. When will you learn to be human?"
Tufta sprang up as if a flea had bitten him.
"I would thank you not to lecture me. I am in charge here. Circular instructions are issued to be obeyed and not violated. And you'd better be careful with your accusations!"
With these words, Tufta sat down and demonstratively drew the pile of unopened mail toward him.
Pavel walked slowly to the door, then remembering something, he went back to the desk and picked up the secretary's slip that lay before Tufta. The latter watched him closely. He was a mean spiteful person, with nothing youthful about him, a trifle ridiculous with his big ears that seemed forever on the alert.
"All right," Pavel said in a calm mocking voice. "You can accuse me of disorganising statistics if you like, but, tell me, how on earth do you manage to wangle reprimands for people who go and die without giving formal notice in advance? After all, anyone can get sick if he wants to, or die if he feels like it, there's nothing in the instructions about that, I bet."
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" roared Tufta's assistant, no longer able to preserve his neutrality.
The point of Tufta's pencil broke and he flung it on the floor, but before he had time to retort several people burst into the room, talking and laughing. Okunev was among them. There was much excitement when Pavel was recognised and endless questions were fired at him. A few minutes later another group of young people came in, Olga Yureneva with them. Dazed by the shock and delight of seeing Pavel again, Olga clung to his hand for a long time.
Pavel had to tell his story all over again. The sincere joy of his comrades, their undisguised friendship and sympathy, the warm handclasps and friendly slaps on the back made Pavel forget about Tufta for the moment.
But when he had finished his account of himself and told his comrades about his talk with Tufta there was a chorus of indignant comments. Olga, with an annihilating look at Tufta, marched off to the secretary's office.

"Come on, let's all go to Nezhdanov," cried Okunev. "He'll take care of him." And with these words he took Pavel by the shoulders and the whole group of young friends trooped after Olga into the office of the secretary.
"That Tufta ought to be taken off the job and sent down to the wharves to work under Pankratov for a year. He's a hidebound bureaucrat!" stormed Olga.
The Gubernia Committee secretary listened with an indulgent smile when Okunev, Olga and the others demanded that Tufta be dismissed from the Personnel Department.
"Korchagin will be reinstated without question," he assured Olga. "A new card will be issued him at once. I agree with you that Tufta is a formalist," he went on. "That is his chief failing. But it must be admitted that he has not done so badly on the job. Komsomol personnel statistics wherever I have worked have always been in a state of indescribable chaos, not a single figure could be relied on. In our Personnel Department the statistics are in good order. You know yourselves that Tufta often sits up nights working. Here's how I look at it: he can always be removed, But if his place is taken by some free and easy chap who knows nothing about keeping records, we may not have any bureaucracy, but neither will we have any order. Let him stay on the job. I'll give him a good talking to. That will help for a while and later on we'll see."
"All right, let him be," Okunev agreed. "Come on, Pavel, let's go to Solomenka. There's a meeting at the club tonight. Nobody knows you're back yet. Think what a surprise they'll get when we announce: 'Korchagin has the floor!' You're a great lad, Pavel, for not dying. What good would you be to the proletariat dead?" And Okunev threw his arm around his friend and piloted him down the corridor.
"Will you come, Olga?"
"Of course I will."
Korchagin did not return to the Pankratovs for dinner, in fact he did not go back there at all that day. Okunev took him to his own room in the House of Soviets. He gave him the best meal he could muster, then placed a pile of newspapers and two thick files of the minutes of the District Komsomol Bureau meetings before him with the advice: "Glance through this stuff. Lots of things happened while you were frittering away your time with the typhus. I'll come back toward evening and we'll go to the club together. You can lie down and take a nap if you get tired."
Stuffing his pockets full with all kinds of papers and documents (Okunev scorned the use of a portfolio on principle and it lay neglected under his bed), the District Committee secretary said good-bye and went out.
When he returned that evening the floor of his room was littered with newspapers and a heap of books had been moved out from under the bed. Some of them were piled on the table. Pavel was sitting on the bed reading the last letters of the Central Committee which he had found under his friend's pillow.
"A fine mess you've made of my quarters, you ruffian!" Okunev cried in mock indignation. "Hey, wait a minute, Comrade! Those are secret documents you're reading! That's what I get for letting a nosy chap like you into my den!"
Pavel, grinning, laid the letter aside.
"This particular one doesn't happen to be secret," he said, "but the one you're using for a lampshade is marked 'confidential'. Look, it's all singed around the edges!"

Okunev took the scorched slip of paper, glanced at the title and struck himself on the forehead in dismay.
"I've been looking for the damn thing for three days! Couldn't imagine where it had got to. Now I remember. Volyntsev made a lampshade out of it the other day and then he himself searched for it high and low." Okunev folded the document carefully and stuffed it under the mattress. "We'll put everything in order later on," he said reassuringly. "Now for a bite and then off to the club. Pull up to the table, Pavel!"
From one pocket he produced a long dried roach wrapped in newspaper and from the other, two slices of bread. He spread the newspaper out on the table, took the roach ............