The Old Genie Hottabych

THE SHORTEST CHAPTER OF ALL

On a hot July noon, the ice-breaker “Ladoga,” carrying a large group of excursionists, left the Red Pier of the port of Arkhangelsk . The band on the pier was playing marches. People waved their handkerchiefs and shouted “Bon voyage!” Trailing white puffs of steam, the ship sailed cautiously out into the middle of the Severnaya Dvina, past the many Soviet and foreign ships at anchor there, and headed for the mouth of the river and the White Sea . Endless cutters, motor-boats, schooners, trawlers, gigs, and cumbersome rafts ploughed the calm surface of the great northern river.

The excursionists, who were now gathered on the top deck, were leaving Arkhangelsk and the mainland for a whole month.

“Volka!” one of the passengers shouted to another, who was anxiously darting about near the captain’s bridge, “Where’s Hottabych?”

The perceptive reader will gather from these words that our old friends were among the passengers.