86
PARTISAN REVIEW
loudly, "Cave-nix!" it was already too late. Orlik had had time to fin–
ish his piece, and it was clear from the way the Newts had gone bright
pink that she had seen and heard everything. It would be impossible to
imagine a less suitable audience for this kind of joke: young, fresh from
from Training College, she blushed when the class clowns asked her to
explain the role of the male and female organs in the fertilization of
plants. Orlik, whose stock only yesterday had fallen so low that it
would be impossible for it to be any lower, today felt he was the hero of
the hour again. He kept asking Yura whether he had noticed just how
embarrassed and confused the Newts had looked-and how she had
nearly burst into tears when Zavadsky had asked her about the function
of the stamens and pistils. Even after they had arrived at Kish Lake, got–
ten as far as the lido, and changed, Orlik was still asking Yura: "But did
you notice the way she literally ran out of the classroom as soon as the
bell rang, clutching her handkerchief?"
Orlik could not swim, and because of that was afraid to venture too
far into the water. Yura realized this right away, although Orlik kept on
saying that the further you went the chillier the water was and anyway
he had a cold coming on. When they reached the slide, where the water
only came up as far as your armpits, he finally turned back. Yura started
climbing the stairs of the slide. Two girls were going up in front of him,
talking in Latvian. They must have been three or four years older than
Yura. The one who was in front was rather plain, short, and with some–
what horsey teeth. But her friend looked like a real beauty: tall, slender,
with brown eyes and long chestnut tresses. As he waited for her to go
down and prepared to follow her, Yura noticed a fellow standing at the
foot of the slide. Grasping the slide's rim, he floated on the water and
watched the bathers as they mounted to the top platform and glided
down the slide. He looked about twenty-five. Yura didn't care much for
his face: it was a heavy-jowled, unpleasant one.
Having rushed into the water and then come out, Yura noticed him
again: this time he was not looking up, but past Yura, at the circular rip–
ples spreading on the surface of the bathing-pool from the point where
it was already becoming paler and pinker. As soon as the more attrac–
tive of the two girls emerged, the unpleasant-looking young man swam
towards her. By the time they were joined by her friend (who had
emerged earlier but further away), Jowls-so Yura nicknamed him in
his mind-was already chatting her up. Russian was evidently jowls's
mother tongue, but the girl had a strongish Latvian accent. Her plain
friend quickly realized that she was in the way and went off to do her
