Veniamin Kaverin - Two Captains

I hesitated for a moment, as I wished to speak of how Ledkov and I had surveyed the Arctic region, but this was remote from the subject, so I switched over, none too skilfully, to the Captain's life story.

I spoke about him with an indescribable feeling. As if it were I, not he, who had been that boy, the son of a poor fisherman, born on the shores of the Sea of Azov. As if it were I, not he, who had sailed before the mast in oil-tankers plying between Batum and Novorossiisk. As if it were I, not he, who had passed his examination for sub-lieutenant and had then served in the Hydrographical Board, suffering the slighting arrogance of the aristocratic officers with proud indifference. As if it were I, not he, who had made notes in the margins of Nansen's books and by whose hand was written down that brilliant idea: "The ice itself will solve the problem." As if his was not a story of ultimate defeat and obscure death, but, on the contrary, of victory and joy. The story of friends, enemies, and love was repeated, but life was different now, and it was friends and love, not enemies, who had won the day.

As I spoke I experienced a mounting sense of exhilaration verging

on inspiration. It was as though I were looking at a distant screen and had sighted beneath the open sky a dead schooner buried in snow. But was she dead? No, there was a sound of hammering: skylights were being boarded up and ceilings covered with tarred felt in preparation for wintering.

Naval men standing in the aisle made way for Katya as she passed

to her seat, and I thought it was only right that they should make way respectfully for the daughter of Captain Tatarinov. Besides, she was the best one there, especially in that simple tailored suit. She was the best, and she, too, in a manner of speaking, had a share in that fervour and exhilaration with which I spoke about the voyage of the St. Maria.

But it was time I passed on to the scientific aspects of the drift, and I prefaced it with the statement that the facts established by Captain Tatarinov's expedition had lost none of their significance today. Thus, from a study of the drift, Professor V., the well-known Arctic scientist, deduced the existence of an unknown island between the 78th and 80th parallels, and this island was actually discovered in 1935 just where V. had figured it should be. The constant drift-current shown by Nansen was confirmed by the voyage of Captain Tatarinov, whose formulae of the comparative movement of ice and wind were a notable contribution to Russian science.

A stir of interest ran through the hall when I began to relate how we had developed the expedition's photographic films, which had lain in the earth for nearly thirty years.

The light went out, and on the screen appeared a tall man in a fur cap and fur boots strapped under the knees. He stood with head doggedly bent, leaning on his rifle, and at his feet lay a dead bear, its paws folded like a kitten's. It was as though he had stepped into that hall-a strong intrepid soul, who had been content with so little! Everyone stood up when he appeared on the screen, and the hush that fell upon the hall was so deep and solemn that not a soul dared breathe, let alone utter a word. And in this solemn silence I read out the Captain's report and his letter of farewell:

" 'It makes me feel bitter to think of all I could have accomplished if I had been-I would not say helped-but at least not hindered. What's done cannot be undone. My one consolation is that through my labours Russia has discovered and acquired large new territories…'

"But there is a passage in this letter," I continued when everybody had sat down, "to which I want to draw your attention. Here it is:

'I know who could help you, but in these last hours of my life I do not want to name him. I didn't have a chance to tell him to his face everything that had been rankling in my breast all these years. He personified for me all that force that kept me bound hand and foot…' Who is that man whose name the Captain did not want to utter at his dying hour? It was to him that he referred in another letter: 'It can positively be said that we owe all our misfortunes to him alone.' It was of him that he wrote: 'We were taking a chance, we knew that we were running a risk, but we did not expect such a blow.' It was of him that he wrote: 'Our main misfortune was the mistake for which we are now having to pay every hour, every minute of the day-the mistake I made in entrusting the fitting out of our expedition to Nikolai…'"

Nikolai! But there are many Nikolais in the world!

There were even no few in this auditorium, but only one of them suddenly stiffened and looked round him when I uttered that name in a loud voice; and the stick on which he was leaning dropped with a clatter. Someone picked it up and gave it to him.

"If today I am going to give the full name of that man it is not because I wish to clinch an old argument between him and me. Life itself has settled that argument long ago. But he continues to claim in his articles that he has always been Captain Tatarinov's benefactor, and that even the idea itself of 'following in the steps of Nordenskjold', as he writes, was his. He is so sure of himself that he had the audacity to come here today and is now in this hall."

A whisper ran through the hall, then there was a hush, followed by more whispering. The chairman rang his little bell.

"Strangely enough, he has gone through life without ever having had his name spelled out in full. But among the Captain's farewell letters we found some business papers. There was one, which the Captain evidently never parted with. It was a duplicate of a bond under which: (1) On the expedition's return to the mainland all the spoils of their hunting and fishing belonged to Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov – named in full. (2) The Captain renounced in advance any claims whatever to any remuneration. (3) In the event of the loss of the vessel the Captain forfeited all his property to Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov-named in full. (4) The ship itself and the insurance belonged to Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov-named in full.

"Once, in conversation with me, this man said that he recognised only one witness-the Captain himself. Let him deny those words now before all of us here, because the Captain himself now names him-in full!"

Pandemonium broke loose in the hall the moment I finished my speech. People in the front row stood up and those behind shouted at them to sit down, because they could not see him. He was standing, holding up his hand with the stick in it, and shouting: "I ask for the floor, I ask for the floor!"

He got the floor, but the audience would not let him speak. Never in my life had I heard such a furious uproar as that which broke out the moment he opened his mouth. Nevertheless he did say something, though nobody caught what it was, and then, thumping the floor with his stick, he stepped down from the platform and made for the exit. He passed down the hall in an utter emptiness, and the space through which he passed remained empty for a long time, as if nobody wanted to go where he had just passed, thumping his stick.

The carriage in this train was going only as far as Ensk, and that meant that all these people in the crowded, dimly lit carriage, who occupied every inch of free space, including the floor and the upper berths, would be getting out at Ensk. In the old days this would nearly have doubled its population.

We made the acquaintance of our travelling companions. They were girl students from Moscow colleges, who said they were going to Ensk to work.

"What sort of work?"

"We don't know yet. In the mines."

Not counting the old tunnel in Cathedral Gardens, which Pyotr had once assured me ran under the river with "skeletons at every step", I had never heard of anything like a mine there. But the girls were quite definite about their going to the mines.