The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers by Boris Pasternak

because it is the provincial capital. Yekaterinburg is only a district capital—a hole.”
    The narrow street led them past houses standing on their own plots of land; it was paved with red bricks and lined with bushes. Streaks of watery sunlight lay on the little street. Seryozha tried to stamp his feet as loudly as possible. “If you tickle this thorn bush in the spring, when it blossoms, its petals will go pop as if they were alive.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œAre you ticklish?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen you must be nervous. The Akhmedianovs say that’s so if you’re ticklish.”
    They walked on, Zhenya trotting, her coat swinging back and forth, Seryozha with his naturally long stride. They came upon Dikikh when they stopped at a small turnstile at the end of the narrow street. They saw him coming out of a shop half a block away. Dikikh was not alone. He was followed out of the shop by a little man who tried to conceal a limp as he walked. It seemed to Zhenya that she had seen him before. They passed each other without greeting, the other two moving off in a diagonal direction. Dikikh hadn’t noticed the children; he wore high rubbers and kept lifting his hands with fingers outstretched. He seemed not to agree with something his companion was saying and was trying to prove it with his ten fingers. Where had she seen the limping man? A long time ago. But where? Probably in Perm, in her childhood.
    â€œStop!” Something was bothering Seryozha—he dropped to his knees. “Wait!”
    â€œDoes it hurt?”
    â€œYes. These idiots, they can’t even drive a shoe nail properly.”
    â€œWell ...”
    â€œWait, I can’t find it ... I know the lame man ... Well, thank God!”
    â€œTom?”
    â€œNo, thank God. There’s a hole in the shoe lining, that’s what it is. I can’t help it now. Come on. Wait, I must brush my knees. All right, let’s go.
    â€œI know him. He’s staying with the Akhmedianovs. A friend of Negarat. Remember? I told you about him. He entertains people. They drink all night and there is light in the windows. You remember—when I stayed the night with the Akhmedianovs, on Samuel’s birthday. He is one of those. You remember now?”
    She remembered. She realized that she had been mistaken, that she hadn’t seen the lame man for the first time in Perm as she had thought. But she still felt as if she had seen him there. With this feeling nagging her, she explored her memory for everything she could remember from Perm, walking silently behind her brother. She made certain movements, took hold of something, made a turn and found herself in semidarkness among counters, boxes, shelves, servile bowings. . . and Seryozha was talking.
    The bookseller, who also dealt in all kinds of tobacco, didn’t have the book they asked for. But he tried to mollify them by assuring them that the Turgenev they ordered had been sent out from Moscow and was on the way and he had just this minute spoken of it to Mr. Tsvetkov, their tutor. His ingeniousness and his mistake amused the children; they said good-by and left the store empty-handed.
    As they were going out, Zhenya asked her brother, “Seryozha, I always forget. Do you know the street you can see from our woodpile?”
    â€œNo, I’ve never been there.”
    â€œThat’s not so. I’ve seen you there myself.”
    â€œOn the woodpile? No, you—”
    â€œNo, not on the logs, but in the street behind the Cherep-Savich garden.”
    â€œOh, you mean that! Yes, that’s right. Behind the garden, way back, beyond the sheds and firewood. Wait a minute. Is that our yard—that yard? Ours? That’s good. When I walk that way I always feel like climbing on the woodpile, and from there onto the storehouse. I’ve seen a ladder there. Is it really our yard?”
    â€œSeryozha, will you show me the way