L. Kosmodemyanskaya

The Story of Zoya and Shura


Our Evenings

Some years ago I happened to read a letter written by a man who had spent a lot of time and trouble on his children, but who, when they grew up, had suddenly realized that he had brought them up badly. "What was my mistake?" he asked, turning the past over in his memory. And he recalled that he had not taken notice of a quarrel between the children; that he had done for the child things the child could well have done himself; that when he had brought them presents he had said, "This is for you, and that is for you," whereas it would have been better to say, "This is for both of you"; that he had often forgiven lies and carelessness, and had nagged at them for petty misdemeanours. "It seems I missed the moment when selfishness and the desire to avoid difficult tasks took root in my children," wrote this man. "Great harm grew out of mere trifles: my children did not grow up at all as I would have liked to see them. They are rude, selfish, lazy and do not get on with each other."

"What must I do?" he asked at the end of his letter. "Leave the rest to society, to the collective? But then, for one thing, the collective will have to divert some of its energy on correcting my mistakes. For another, it will be difficult for the children themselves in life. And thirdly, why have I failed so dismally?"

This letter was published in one of our big newspapers, in Pravda, I think. I sat for a long time over those sad lines, thinking and remembering things.

Anatoly Petrovich was a good teacher. I never heard him lecturing the children, or telling them off for long. He educated them by his own conduct, his own attitude towards work, his own personality. And I have realized that that is the very best kind of education.

"I have no time to educate my children, I am at work all day," I hear quite often. And I think: Should one really allot special hours to educating one's own children? Anatoly Petrovich taught me to understand that there is education in everything, in your every action, glance and word. Everything educates your child: how you work and how you rest, how you talk with your friends and with people you do not like, what you are like in good and in bad health, in sadness and in joy—your child notices everything and will imitate you in everything. But if you forget about him, about his keen observant eyes always searching for advice and example in every one of your actions, if your child grows up beside you fed, shod and clothed, but alone—then nothing can help to educate him: neither expensive toys, nor holiday outings, nor strict reasoning. You must be with your child always, and he must feel your nearness to him in everything, and never have cause to doubt it.

Anatoly Petrovich and I were very busy and could spend very little time with our children. While teaching at an elementary school I studied at a pedagogical institute. Anatoly Petrovich worked at the Timiryazev Academy, taking courses in shorthand and working hard to begin external studies at a technical institute—a long-treasured dream of his. We often arrived home so late that we found the children already asleep. But we had all the more pleasure from the off days and evenings which we spent together.

As soon as we appeared at the door the children would rush up to us and deluge us with everything they had been storing up during the day. It would not come out very coherently, but noisily and with feeling.

"Akulina Borisovna's puppy got into the larder and knocked the soup over! I've learnt the poem already! Zoya's been onto me again! Yes, and why doesn't he do his sums? Look what we've cut out. Lovely, isn't it? And I've taught the pup how to beg, he has nearly learnt already!"

Anatoly Petrovich would quickly sort everything out. He would discover why the sums had not been done, listen to the poem that Zoya had learnt, ask about the puppy and casually remark:

"That's a rude way of speaking, sonny. What kind of expression do you call that: 'Zoya's been onto me'? I can't stand people who talk like that."

Then we all have supper together, the children help me to clear away—and the long-awaited time arrives.

It would seem that there was nothing special to wait for. Everything was usual and ordinary. Anatoly Petrovich would be looking through his shorthand notes, I would be preparing tomorrow's lessons, Zoya and Shura had their drawing books in front of them.

The lamplight falls only on the table round which we are sitting, and the rest of the room is in darkness. The only sounds in the room are the creak of the chair under Shura and the rustle of a drawing book.

Zoya is drawing a house with a tall green roof. Smoke is coming out of the chimney. Nearby stands an apple tree with round apples on it, each the size of a football. Sometimes there are birds and flowers, and in the sky, in the region of the sun, a five-pointed star…Across the pages of Shura's album horses, dogs, cars, airplanes career in all directions. The pencil in Shura's hand never trembles —he draws sure, straight lines. The realization came to me early that Shura had a knack for drawing.

And so we sit, each of us occupied with his own work, and wait for Anatoly Petrovich to say:

"Well, now let's have a rest!"

That means that we shall now have a game of something. More often than not, we play at dominoes: Zoya and Father against Shura and me. Shura watches every move keenly, loses his temper, quarrels, and when losing flushes, gets angry and is ready to cry. Zoya too gets excited, but silently: she only bites her lip or doubles up her free hand into a fist.

Sometimes we play a game called "Up and Down." Here nothing depends on skill but only on how the die falls. If you are lucky you soar upwards on an airplane right to the goal, a many-coloured cupola, and if not, you slide down and lose. Easy, but oh, how thrilling! And how the children clap their hands when they are lucky enough to fly upwards, covering a dozen squares on the brightly coloured board.

Zoya and Shura were also fond of the game which I invented, and which we called simply "Scrawling": one of them would draw on a clean sheet of paper any zigzag, crooked line or scribble to represent a "scrawl," and I had to discover in the senseless jumble the seed of a future picture.

Now Shura has produced something like an elongated egg. I look at it, think for a moment, then add to it fins, a tail, scales, eyes and before us lies.

"A fish! A fish!" shout the children in delight.

And now Zoya drops the most ordinary of ink blots on the paper, and I turn it into a beautiful flower: a spreading mauve chrysanthemum.

When the children grew up a little we changed roles: I would supply the "scrawl," and they would think what to do with it. Shura was tirelessly inventive: out of a little squiggle he could build a fairy tower, from a few dots—a face, from a crooked line—a big branchy tree.

It was a very interesting and, I think, useful game: it developed observation, fantasy and imagination.

But the thing we loved most of all was when Anatoly Petrovich took up his guitar and began to play. I don't even know whether he played well, but we loved to listen to him and would forget time and all, when he played one Russian song after another.

Such evenings may have been few and far between, but they lighted up the other days, and we used to remember them with gratitude. A remark or a word of reproach spoken to the children during these hours left a deep impression in their hearts, while praise or a fond word would make them happy.

"Why, Shura, you have sat down in the best chair yourself and left Mummy the one with the broken back," said Anatoly Petrovich once, and after that I never noticed Shura take something better or more comfortable for himself and leave the worse thing for the other fellow.

Once Anatoly Petrovich came home looking sombre, and greeted the children more restrainedly than usual. "What did you beat Anyuta Stepanova for today?" he asked Shura.

"She's a sissy. . ." answered Shura sullenly, his eyes downcast.

"Let me never hear of such a thing again!" said Anatoly Petrovich clearly and sharply, and after a pause added a little softer: "A big boy like you, almost eight years old, and hitting a girl! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

But how the children's eyes would shine when Anatoly Petrovich praised Shura for his drawings or Zoya for a neat notebook or a well-done job in the house.

When we came back late the children would go to bed without waiting for us, and would leave their copybooks open on the table so that we could see how they had done their lessons. And even if we could spare the children only a few hours we always knew all about how they lived, what they did, what they thought and what happened to them when we were away. And the main thing was that everything we did together—whether it was a game, lesson or housework—brought us nearer to the children, and our friendship grew ever deeper and more tender.


Next: On the Way to School