The frightened pigeons rushed into the air, filling it with the hurried flapping of their wings. And now, outlining big circles, they easily soar upwards, into the blue depths of the sky; they float higher and higher, their silver and snow-white feathers flashing. Some of them are striving to reach the dome of the skies with the light soaring of the falcon, their wings outstretched wide and almost motionless; others play, turn over in the air, now dropping downward in a snowy lump, now darting up like an arrow. Now the entire flock seems as though hanging motionless in the desert of the sky, and, growing smaller and smaller, seems to sink in it. With heads thrown back, the boys admire the birds in silence, without taking their eyes from them--their tired eyes, so radiant with calm joy, not altogether free from envying these winged creatures, which so freely took flight from earth up into the pure and calm atmosphere full of the glitter of the sun. The small group of scarcely visible dots, now mere specks in the azure of the sky, leads on the imagination of the children, and Yozhov expresses their common feeling when, in a low voice, he says thoughtfully:
"That's the way we ought to fly, friends."
While Foma, knowing that human souls, soaring heavenward, oftentimes assume the form of pigeons, felt in his breast the rising of a burning, powerful desire.
Unified by their joy, attentively and mutely awaiting the return of their birds from the depths of the sky, the boys, pressing close to one another, drifted far away from the breath of life, even as their pigeons were far from earth; at this moment they are merely children, knowing neither envy nor anger; free from everything, they are near to one another, they are mute, judging their feelings by the light in their eyes--and they feel as happy as the birds in the sky.
But now the pigeons come down on the roof again, and, tired out by their flight, are easily driven into the pigeon-house.
"Friends, let's go for apples?" suggests Yozhov, the instigator of all games and adventures.
His call drives out of the children's souls the peacefulness brought into them by the pigeons, and then, like plunderers, carefully listening for each and every sound, they steal quietly across the back yards toward the neighbouring garden. The fear of being caught is balanced by the hope of stealing with impunity.
But stealing is work and dangerous work at that, and everything that is earned by your own labour is so sweet! And the more effort required to gain it, the sweeter it is. Carefully the boys climb over the fence of the garden, and, bending down, crawl toward the apple trees and, full of fright, look around vigilantly.
Their hearts tremble and their throbbing slackens at the faintest rustle. They are alike afraid of being caught, and, if noticed, of being recognised, but in case they should only see them and yell at them, they would be satisfied. They would separate, each going in a different direction, and then, meeting again, their eyes aglow with joy and boldness, would laughingly tell one another how they felt when they heard some one giving chase to them, and what happened to them when they ran so quickly through the garden, as though the ground were burning under their feet.
Such invasions were more to Foma's liking than all other adventures and games, and his behaviour during these invasions was marked with a boldness that at once astounded and angered his companions. He was intentionally careless in other people's gardens: he spoke loud, noisily broke the branches of apple trees, and, tearing off a worm-eaten apple, threw it in the direction of the proprietor's house.
The danger of being caught in the act did not frighten him; it rather encouraged him--his eyes would turn darker, his teeth would clench, and his face would assume an expression of anger and pride.
Smolin, distorting his big mouth contemptibly, would say to him:
"You are making entirely too much fuss about yourself.""I am not a coward anyway!" replied Foma.
"I know that you are not a coward, but why do you boast of it?
One may do a thing as well without boasting."Yozhov blamed him from a different point of view:
"If you thrust yourself into their hands willingly you can go to the devil! I am not your friend. They'll catch you and bring you to your father--he wouldn't do anything to you, while I would get such a spanking that all my bones would be skinned.""Coward!" Foma persisted, stubbornly.
And it came to pass one day that Foma was caught by the second captain, Chumakov, a thin little old man. Noiselessly approaching the boy, who was hiding away in his bosom the stolen apples, the old man seized him by the shoulders and cried in a threatening voice:
"Now I have you, little rogue! Aha!"
Foma was then about fifteen years old, and he cleverly slipped out of the old man's hands. Yet he did not run from him, but, knitting his brow and clenching his fist, he said threateningly:
"You dare to touch me!"
"I wouldn't touch you. I'll just turn you over to the police!
Whose son are you?"
Foma did not expect this, and all his boldness and spitefulness suddenly left him.
The trip to the police station seemed to him something which his father would never forgive him. He shuddered and said confusedly:
"Gordyeeff."
"Ignat Gordyeeff's?"
"Yes."
Now the second captain was taken aback. He straightened himself, expanded his chest and for some reason or other cleared his throat impressively. Then his shoulders sank and he said to the boy in a fatherly tone:
