of the chair in which I am asleep, with her soft hand stroking my hair,
and I hear her beloved, well-known voice say in my ear:
"Get up, my darling. It is time to go by-by."
No envious gaze sees her now. She is not afraid to shed upon me the
whole of her tenderness and love. I do not wake up, yet I kiss and kiss
her hand.
"Get up, then, my angel."
She passes her other arm round my neck, and her fingers tickle me as
they move across it. The room is quiet and in half-darkness, but the
tickling has touched my nerves and I begin to awake. Mamma is sitting
near me--that I can tell--and touching me; I can hear her voice and
feel her presence. This at last rouses me to spring up, to throw my arms
around her neck, to hide my head in her bosom, and to say with a sigh:
"Ah, dear, darling Mamma, how much I love you!"
She smiles her sad, enchanting smile, takes my head between her two
hands, kisses me on the forehead, and lifts me on to her lap.
"Do you love me so much, then?" she says. Then, after a few moments'
silence, she continues: "And you must love me always, and never forget
me. If your Mamma should no longer be here, will you promise never to
forget her--never, Nicolinka? and she kisses me more fondly than ever.
"Oh, but you must not speak so, darling Mamma, my own darling Mamma!"
I exclaim as I clasp her knees, and tears of joy and love fall from my
eyes.
How, after scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the
ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, "God bless Papa and Mamma!" and
repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt
to lisp-the love of God and of her blending strangely in a single
emotion!
After saying my prayers I would wrap myself up in the bedclothes. My
heart would feel light, peaceful, and happy, and one dream would follow
another. Dreams of what? They were all of them vague, but all of them
full of pure love and of a sort of expectation of happiness. I remember,
too, that I used to think about Karl Ivanitch and his sad lot. He was
the only unhappy being whom I knew, and so sorry would I feel for him,
and so much did I love him, that tears would fall from my eyes as I
thought, "May God give him happiness, and enable me to help him and to
lessen his sorrow. I could make any sacrifice for him!" Usually, also,
there would be some favourite toy--a china dog or hare--stuck into the
bed-corner behind the pillow, and it would please me to think how warm
and comfortable and well cared-for it was there. Also, I would pray God
to make every one happy, so that every one might be contented, and also
to send fine weather to-morrow for our walk. Then I would turn myself
over on to the other side, and thoughts and dreams would become jumbled
and entangled together until at last I slept soundly and peacefully,
though with a face wet with tears.
Do in after life the freshness and light-heartedness, the craving for
love and for strength of faith, ever return which we experience in our
childhood's years? What better time is there in our lives than when
the two best of virtues--innocent gaiety and a boundless yearning for
affection--are our sole objects of pursuit?
Where now are our ardent prayers? Where now are our best gifts--the pure
tears of emotion which a guardian angel dries with a smile as he sheds
upon us lovely dreams of ineffable childish joy? Can it be that life has
left such heavy traces upon one's heart that those tears and ecstasies
are for ever vanished? Can it be that there remains to us only the
recollection of them?
XVI -- VERSE-MAKING
RATHER less than a month after our arrival in Moscow I was sitting
upstairs in my Grandmamma's house and doing some writing at a large
table. Opposite to me sat the drawing master, who was giving a few
finishing touches to the head of a turbaned Turk, executed in black
pencil. Woloda, with out-stretched neck, was standing behind the drawing
master and looking over his shoulder. The head was Woloda's first
production in pencil and to-day--Grandmamma's name-day--the masterpiece
was to be presented to her.
"Aren't you going to put a little more shadow there?" said Woloda to
the master as he raised himself on tiptoe and pointed to the Turk's
neck.
"No, it is not necessary," the master replied as he put pencil and
drawing-pen into a japanned folding box. "It is just right now, and
you need not do anything more to it. As for you, Nicolinka," he added,
rising and glancing askew at the Turk, "won't you tell us your great
secret at last? What are you going to give your Grandmamma? I think
another head would be your best gift. But good-bye, gentlemen," and
taking his hat and cardboard he departed.
I too had thought that another head than the one at which I had been
working would be a better gift; so, when we were told that Grandmamma's
name-day was soon to come round and that we must each of us have a
present ready for her, I had taken it into my head to write some
verses in honour of the occasion, and had forthwith composed two rhymed
couplets, hoping that the rest would soon materialise. I really do not
know how the idea--one so peculiar for a child--came to occur to me, but
I know that I liked it vastly, and answered all questions on the subject
of my gift by declaring that I should soon have something ready for
Grandmamma, but was not going to say what it was.
Contrary to my expectation, I found that, after the first two couplets
executed in the initial heat of enthusiasm, even my most strenuous
efforts refused to produce another one. I began to read different poems
in our books, but neither Dimitrieff nor Derzhavin could help me. On
the contrary, they only confirmed my sense of incompetence. Knowing,
however, that Karl Ivanitch was fond of writing verses, I stole softly
upstairs to burrow among his papers, and found, among a number of German
verses, some in the Russian language which seemed to have come from his
own pen.
To L
Remember near
Remember far,
Remember me.
To-day be faithful, and for ever--
Aye, still beyond the grave--remember
That I have well loved thee.
"KARL MAYER."
These verses (which were written in a fine, round hand on thin
letter-paper) pleased me with the touching sentiment with which they
seemed to be inspired. I learnt them by heart, and decided to take them
as a model. The thing was much easier now. By the time the name-day had
arrived I had completed a twelve-couplet congratulatory ode, and sat
down to the table in our school-room to copy them out on vellum.
Two sheets were soon spoiled--not because I found it necessary to alter
anything (the verses seemed to me perfect), but because, after the third
line, the tail-end of each successive one would go curving upward and
making it plain to all the world that the whole thing had been written
with a want of adherence to the horizontal--a thing which I could not
bear to see.
The third sheet also came out crooked, but I determined to make it do.
In my verses I congratulated Grandmamma, wished her many happy returns,
and concluded thus: