358
The fiery-black clouds were still chasing each other over the factory.
We went down to the river and walked to the Gap, beside which a thin,
dark boy in a baggy trousers had once caught blue crabs with meat bait.
Time seemed to have stood still, waiting patiently for me on this bank,
between the two ancient towers at the confluence of the Peshchinka and
the Tikhaya-and here I was back again, and we looked into each other's
face. What lay ahead for me? What new trials, new labours, new dreams,
happiness or unhappiness? Who knows. But I did not lower my eyes
under that incorruptible gaze.
It was time to go back. Katya felt cold. We walked along the quayside,
which was cluttered with timber, and made our way home.
The town was quiet and somehow mysterious. We walked along in
silence, our arms round each other. I recollected our flight from Ensk.
The town had been just as dark and quiet, and we so small, unhappy and
brave, facing the unknown, frightening life that lay ahead of us.
My eyes were wet, but I did not wipe away those tears of joy. I was not
ashamed of them.
EPILOGUE
A lovely scene unfolds from this high cliff, at the foot of which wild
Arctic poppies thrust up their slender stems between the rocks. By the
shore one can still see the mirror-like water, and farther out, open lanes
amid the lilac-tinted icefields running out into the mysterious distance.
Here the Arctic air seems extraordinarily limpid. Silence and vast open
spaces. Only a hawk sometimes comes flying over the solitary grave.
The ice-floes drift past it, jostling and circling, some slowly, others
faster, assuming fantastic shapes.
There, sailing along, appears the head of a giant in a silver gleaming
helmet. One can make out everything-the green shaggy beard trailing in
the sea, the flattened nose and the narrowed eyes under grey, bushy
brows.
And here comes a house of ice from which the water rolls off with a
tinkle of innumerable little bells. And following it, great festive boards
covered with clean tablecloths.
They keep coming and coming without end!
Ships putting in at the Yenisei Bay can see this grave from afar. They
pass it with flags at half-mast and their guns fire a salute whose echo
rolls on and on.
The grave-stone is white, and it gleams dazzlingly in the beams of the
Arctic's midnight sun.
At the height of a man these words are carved upon it:
"Here rests the body of Captain I. L. Tatarinov, who made one of the
most daring voyages and perished in June 1915 on his way back from
Severnaya Zemlya, which he had discovered.
"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield!"
359
360