"Valentin Katayev. A White Sail Gleams (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

carrying his tub on his head.
Judging by the sun, it was already past one o'clock. The Turgenev was
to sail at two.
Father told the driver to go directly to the wharf without stopping at
a hotel. At the wharf, the steamer had just let out a very long and deep
hoot.

6

THE TURGENEV

Even in the early years of this century the Turgenev was considered
quite out of date.
With her gather long but narrow hull, her two paddle-wheels-their red
float-boards could be seen through the slits of the round paddle-box-and her
two funnels she looked more like a big launch than a small steamer.
To Petya, however, the Turgenev was always one of the miracles of
shipbuilding, and the trip between Odessa and Akkerman seemed no less than a
voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
A second-class ticket cost a goodly sum: one ruble and ten kopeks. Two
tickets were bought. Pavlik travelled free.
Still, travelling by steamer was much cheaper, and much pleasanter,
besides, than bouncing along in the dust for thirty miles in an Ovidiopol
carriage. This was a rattling vehicle with a Jewish driver in a tattered
gaberdine belted swaggeringly with a coachman's red girdle; a
despondent-looking fellow with red hair and with eyes always pink and
ailing, who tested the five-ruble piece with his teeth. He would drag the
very heart out of his passengers by stopping every two miles to feed oats to
his decrepit nags.
No sooner had they settled themselves in a second-class cabin than
Pavlik, worn out by the heat and the drive, became drowsy. He had to be put
to bed at once on the black oilcloth bunk; the bunk was burning hot from the
sun beating through the rectangular windows.
The windows were framed in highly polished brass, true, but they
spoiled the fun all the same.
Everyone knew that a ship was supposed to have round portholes which
were screwed down when a storm blew up.
In this respect the third-class quarters in the bow of the ship were
much better, for they had real portholes, even though instead of soft bunks
there were only plain wooden plank-benches, like in the horse-trams.
Travelling third class, however, was looked upon as "improper", in just
the same degree as travelling first class was "exorbitant".
By social standing, it was to the middle category of passengers, to the
second class, that the family of the Odessa schoolmaster Batchei belonged.
That was as pleasant and convenient in some cases as it was inconvenient and
humiliating in others. It all depended upon which class their acquaintances
were travelling in.
For that reason Mr. Batchei, so as to avoid unnecessary indignities,
made it a point never to depart from the summer resort in the company of
wealthy neighbours.