II
One day, quite unexpectedly, a huge, old-fashioned, unusually dirty Italian steamer, the Genova, entered the bay. It happened late in the evening, during that part of autumn when all the summer visitors have left for the north, but the sea is still so warm that real fishing has not yet begun, and the fishermen mend their nets in leisurely fashion and prepare hooks, play dominos in the coffeehouses, drink wine, and, in general, enjoy their temporary leisure.
The evening was quiet and dark, with big calm stars twinkling both in the sky and in the slumbering water of the bay. Along the embankment the lanterns began to gleam, forming a chain of yellow dots. The bright rectangles of the stores were disappearing. Light, black silhouettes were slowly moving along the streets and sidewalks. … And then, I do not know who, perhaps the boys who were playing at the Genoese tower, brought the news that a steamer had turned in from the sea and was heading for the bay.
In a few minutes the entire native male population was on the quay. It is well known that a Greek is always a Greek, and, therefore, is curious first of all. It is true that in the Balaklava Greeks one senses, in addition to later admixtures of Genoese blood, some mysterious, immemorial, probably Scythian strain—the blood of the aboriginal inhabitants of this nest of freebooters and fishermen. You will notice many tall, robust, and dignified figures; at times you run across regular, noble features; there are many fair-headed and even blue-eyed specimens among them. The Balaklava Greeks are neither greedy nor obsequious; they carry themselves with dignity; at sea they are daring, but without silly bravado; they are good comrades and keep their word. Really, they are a separate, exclusive branch of the Hellenic race, which has preserved itself mainly because of the fact that for many generations their ancestors came to life, lived, and died in their tiny town, marriages taking place among neighbors only. But the Greek colonizers had left in the psychic organization of the present-day inhabitants of Balaklava their own most typical trait which distinguished them even in the time of Pericles—curiosity and eagerness for news.
Slowly, at first showing its tiny front light, the steamer turned the sharp bend and headed for the bay. In the thick, warm darkness of the night its outlines were invisible from a distance, but the lights high on the masts, the signal-lamps on the bridge, and a row of round lighted bull’s-eyes along the rail allowed one to guess at its size and shape. In the sight of hundreds of boats and smacks, which stood along the quay, the steamer was moving toward the beach almost imperceptibly, with that careful and awkward cautiousness with which a huge and powerful man passes through a nursery room with frail toys scattered all around it.
The fishermen were making guesses. Many of them had sailed on traders and, more frequently, on men-of-war.
“What are you talking about? Don’t I see? Of course, it is a freighter of the Russian Company.”
“No, it isn’t a Russian steamer.”
“Something must have gone wrong with the engine, and she is turning in for repairs.”
“Maybe it’s a battleship?”
“Bosh!”
Only Kolya Konstandi, who had sailed a long time on a gunboat on the Black Sea and on the Mediterranean, guessed correctly, declaring it an Italian vessel. And he did so only when the steamer had come very near the beach, and it was possible to make out her faded, peeled-off boards, the dirty streams running from the hatches, and the motley crew on the deck.
The end of a rope shot from the steamer in a spiral, and, uncoiling like a snake in the air, it flew at the spectators’ heads. To hurl the end from the steamer adroitly, and to catch it as skilfully, is, as everybody knows, the first requirement of sea chic. Young Apostolidi, without removing his cigarette from his mouth, caught the end of the rope with an air as if he were doing it for the hundredth time that day, and carelessly to all appearances, but firmly, he wound it around one of the two cast-iron cannon which, from time immemorial, have been standing on the embankment, dug upright in the ground.
A boat pulled off from the steamer. Three Italians leaped ashore and busied themselves with ropes. One of them wore a cloth biretta, the other, a cap with a straight quadrangular visor, the third had on a nondescript knitted cap. They were all small, robust, alert, and wiry, like monkeys. Unceremoniously they shoved the crowd with their shoulders, babbled something in their rapid, musical, tender Genoese dialect, and exchanged remarks with the men on the steamer. And all the time their big, black eyes smiled kindly and pleasantly, and their white, young teeth flashed from their sunburnt faces.
“Bona sera. … Italiano. … Marinaro!” said Kolya approvingly.
“Oh! Bona sera, signore!” answered the Italians gayly in a chorus.
The anchor chain rumbled and screamed. Something inside the steamer began to gurgle and hiss. The lights went out in the lanterns. In half an hour the Italian sailors were sent ashore.
The Italians, short, swarthy, and young, proved to be sociable and gay fellows. Full of light, charming ease, they made overtures that evening to the fishermen in the beer-halls and rathskellers. But the local people met them dryly and with reserve. They wanted, probably, to show these strangers that the visit of a foreign vessel was no rarity to them, that such things happened daily, and that, therefore, there was no reason for undue excitement or joy. Was it the voice of their local patriotism that spoke in them?
And—oh! it was an unseemly trick that they played that evening on the good, gay, trusting Italians, when the latter pointed at bread, wine, cheese, and other objects and asked the Russian words for them, blandly showing their magnificent teeth. Such were the words which the fishermen taught their guests, that later on, whenever the Genoese tried to make themselves understood in Russian in the stores or on the marketplace, the salesmen roared with laughter and the women fled, covering up their faces in shame. That same evening the rumor spread all over the town with the speed of an electric message (the Lord knows how) that the Italians had come for the express purpose of raising the sunken frigate The Black Prince with its cargo of gold, and that the work was going to last the entire winter.