Sivtsev, who was nearby and eavesdropped on this conversation, suddenly remembered how he saw a bear on the front who was trained by the artillerymen to pass artillery rounds to the gunners. But Vasilii Petrovich didn’t make a spot for him on the berry brigade, nor did Burstev continue on the theme of bears.
Listening quietly to the unhurried speech of Burstev, Artiom learned that cloudberry ripens backwards — from red to amber-yellow, while its masculine flowers gave more berries than the feminine parts. Also, lingonberry can live longer than an oak, because it can live up to three hundred years.
Artiom would have found the conversation about Briusov and Balmont even more interesting than the one about the berries. Balmont was the only poet that his mother liked; however, he hadn’t yet
