would leave my lessons and run to her room, where, sitting down, I
would begin to muse aloud as though she were not there. She was forever
mending something, or tidying the shelves which lined her room,
or marking linen, so that she took no heed of the nonsense which I
talked--how that I meant to become a general, to marry a beautiful
woman, to buy a chestnut horse, to, build myself a house of glass, to
invite Karl Ivanitch's relatives to come and visit me from Saxony, and
so forth; to all of which she would only reply, "Yes, my love, yes."
Then, on my rising, and preparing to go, she would open a blue trunk
which had pasted on the inside of its lid a coloured picture of a hussar
which had once adorned a pomade bottle and a sketch made by Woloda, and
take from it a fumigation pastille, which she would light and shake for
my benefit, saying:
"These, dear, are the pastilles which your grandfather (now in Heaven)
brought back from Otchakov after fighting against the Turks." Then she
would add with a sigh: "But this is nearly the last one."
The trunks which filled her room seemed to contain almost everything in
the world. Whenever anything was wanted, people said, "Oh, go and ask
Natalia Savishna for it," and, sure enough, it was seldom that she did
not produce the object required and say, "See what comes of taking care
of everything!" Her trunks contained thousands of things which nobody in
the house but herself would have thought of preserving.
Once I lost my temper with her. This was how it happened.
One day after luncheon I poured myself out a glass of kvass, and then
dropped the decanter, and so stained the tablecloth.
"Go and call Natalia, that she may come and see what her darling has
done," said Mamma.
Natalia arrived, and shook her head at me when she saw the damage I had
done; but Mamma whispered something in her car, threw a look at myself,
and then left the room.
I was just skipping away, in the sprightliest mood possible, when
Natalia darted out upon me from behind the door with the tablecloth in
her hand, and, catching hold of me, rubbed my face hard with the stained
part of it, repeating, "Don't thou go and spoil tablecloths any more!"
I struggled hard, and roared with temper.
"What?" I said to myself as I fled to the drawing-room in a mist of
tears, "To think that Natalia Savishna-just plain Natalia-should say
'THOU' to me and rub my face with a wet tablecloth as though I were a
mere servant-boy! It is abominable!"
Seeing my fury, Natalia departed, while I continued to strut about and
plan how to punish the bold woman for her offence. Yet not more than a
few moments had passed when Natalia returned and, stealing to my side,
began to comfort me,
"Hush, then, my love. Do not cry. Forgive me my rudeness. It was wrong
of me. You WILL pardon me, my darling, will you not? There, there,
that's a dear," and she took from her handkerchief a cornet of pink
paper containing two little cakes and a grape, and offered it me with
a trembling hand. I could not look the kind old woman in the face, but,
turning aside, took the paper, while my tears flowed the faster--though
from love and shame now, not from anger.
XIV -- THE PARTING
ON the day after the events described, the carriage and the luggage-cart
drew up to the door at noon. Nicola, dressed for the journey, with his
breeches tucked into his boots and an old overcoat belted tightly about
him with a girdle, got into the cart and arranged cloaks and cushions on
the seats. When he thought that they were piled high enough he sat down
on them, but finding them still unsatisfactory, jumped up and arranged
them once more.
"Nicola Dimitvitch, would you be so good as to take master's
dressing-case with you?" said Papa's valet, suddenly standing up in the
carriage, "It won't take up much room."
"You should have told me before, Michael Ivanitch," answered Nicola
snappishly as he hurled a bundle with all his might to the floor of the
cart. "Good gracious! Why, when my head is going round like a whirlpool,
there you come along with your dressing-case!" and he lifted his cap to
wipe away the drops of perspiration from his sunburnt brow.
The courtyard was full of bareheaded peasants in kaftans or simple
shirts, women clad in the national dress and wearing striped
handkerchiefs, and barefooted little ones--the latter holding their
mothers' hands or crowding round the entrance-steps. All were chattering
among themselves as they stared at the carriage. One of the postillions,
an old man dressed in a winter cap and cloak, took hold of the pole of
the carriage and tried it carefully, while the other postillion (a
young man in a white blouse with pink gussets on the sleeves and a black
lamb's-wool cap which he kept cocking first on one side and then on the
other as he arranged his flaxen hair) laid his overcoat upon the box,
slung the reins over it, and cracked his thonged whip as he looked now
at his boots and now at the other drivers where they stood greasing the
wheels of the cart--one driver lifting up each wheel in turn and the
other driver applying the grease. Tired post-horses of various hues
stood lashing away flies with their tails near the gate--some stamping
their great hairy legs, blinking their eyes, and dozing, some leaning
wearily against their neighbours, and others cropping the leaves and
stalks of dark-green fern which grew near the entrance-steps. Some of
the dogs were lying panting in the sun, while others were slinking under
the vehicles to lick the grease from the wheels. The air was filled with
a sort of dusty mist, and the horizon was lilac-grey in colour, though
no clouds were to be seen, A strong wind from the south was raising
volumes of dust from the roads and fields, shaking the poplars and
birch-trees in the garden, and whirling their yellow leaves away. I
myself was sitting at a window and waiting impatiently for these various
preparations to come to an end.
As we sat together by the drawing-room table, to pass the last few
moments en famille, it never occurred to me that a sad moment was
impending. On the contrary, the most trivial thoughts were filling my
brain. Which driver was going to drive the carriage and which the cart?
Which of us would sit with Papa, and which with Karl Ivanitch? Why must
I be kept forever muffled up in a scarf and padded boots?
"Am I so delicate? Am I likely to be frozen?" I thought to myself.
"I wish it would all come to an end, and we could take our seats and
start."
"To whom shall I give the list of the children's linen?" asked Natalia
Savishna of Mamma as she entered the room with a paper in her hand and
her eyes red with weeping.
"Give it to Nicola, and then return to say good-bye to them," replied
Mamma. The old woman seemed about to say something more, but suddenly
stopped short, covered her face with her handkerchief, and left the
room. Something seemed to prick at my heart when I saw that gesture of
hers, but impatience to be off soon drowned all other feeling, and
I continued to listen indifferently to Papa and Mamma as they talked
together. They were discussing subjects which evidently interested
neither of them. What must be bought for the house? What would Princess
Sophia or Madame Julie say? Would the roads be good?--and so forth.