"Endeavouring you to please and cheer,
We love you like our Mother dear."
This seemed to me not bad, yet it offended my ear somehow.
"Lo-ve you li-ike our Mo-ther dear," I repeated to myself. "What other
rhyme could I use instead of 'dear'? Fear? Steer? Well, it must go at
that. At least the verses are better than Karl Ivanitch's."
Accordingly I added the last verse to the rest. Then I went into
our bedroom and recited the whole poem aloud with much feeling and
gesticulation. The verses were altogether guiltless of metre, but I
did not stop to consider that. Yet the last one displeased me more than
ever. As I sat on my bed I thought:
"Why on earth did I write 'like our Mother dear'? She is not here, and
therefore she need never have been mentioned. True, I love and respect
Grandmamma, but she is not quite the same as--Why DID I write that?
What did I go and tell a lie for? They may be verses only, yet I needn't
quite have done that."
At that moment the tailor arrived with some new clothes for us.
"Well, so be it!" I said in much vexation as I crammed the verses
hastily under my pillow and ran down to adorn myself in the new Moscow
garments.
They fitted marvellously-both the brown jacket with yellow buttons (a
garment made skin-tight and not "to allow room for growth," as in
the country) and the black trousers (also close-fitting so that they
displayed the figure and lay smoothly over the boots).
"At last I have real trousers on!" I thought as I looked at my legs with
the utmost satisfaction. I concealed from every one the fact that the
new clothes were horribly tight and uncomfortable, but, on the contrary,
said that, if there were a fault, it was that they were not tight
enough. For a long while I stood before the looking-glass as I combed
my elaborately pomaded head, but, try as I would, I could not reduce the
topmost hairs on the crown to order. As soon as ever I left off combing
them, they sprang up again and radiated in different directions, thus
giving my face a ridiculous expression.
Karl Ivanitch was dressing in another room, and I heard some one
bring him his blue frockcoat and under-linen. Then at the door leading
downstairs I heard a maid-servant's voice, and went to see what she
wanted. In her hand she held a well-starched shirt which she said she
had been sitting up all night to get ready. I took it, and asked if
Grandmamma was up yet.
"Oh yes, she has had her coffee, and the priest has come. My word, but
you look a fine little fellow!" added the girl with a smile at my new
clothes.
This observation made me blush, so I whirled round on one leg, snapped
my fingers, and went skipping away, in the hope that by these manoeuvres
I should make her sensible that even yet she had not realised quite what
a fine fellow I was.
However, when I took the shirt to Karl I found that he did not need it,
having taken another one. Standing before a small looking-glass, he tied
his cravat with both hands--trying, by various motions of his head, to
see whether it fitted him comfortably or not--and then took us down to
see Grandmamma. To this day I cannot help laughing when I remember what
a smell of pomade the three of us left behind us on the staircase as we
descended.
Karl was carrying a box which he had made himself, Woloda, his drawing,
and I my verses, while each of us also had a form of words ready with
which to present his gift. Just as Karl opened the door, the priest put
on his vestment and began to say prayers.
During the ceremony Grandmamma stood leaning over the back of a chair,
with her head bent down. Near her stood Papa. He turned and smiled at us
as we hurriedly thrust our presents behind our backs and tried to remain
unobserved by the door. The whole effect of a surprise, upon which we
had been counting, was entirely lost. When at last every one had made
the sign of the cross I became intolerably oppressed with a sudden,
invincible, and deadly attack of shyness, so that the courage to, offer
my present completely failed me. I hid myself behind Karl Ivanitch, who
solemnly congratulated Grandmamma and, transferring his box from his
right hand to his left, presented it to her. Then he withdrew a few
steps to make way for Woloda. Grandmamma seemed highly pleased with
the box (which was adorned with a gold border), and smiled in the most
friendly manner in order to express her gratitude. Yet it was evident
that, she did not know where to set the box down, and this probably
accounts for the fact that she handed it to Papa, at the same time
bidding him observe how beautifully it was made.
His curiosity satisfied, Papa handed the box to the priest, who also
seemed particularly delighted with it, and looked with astonishment,
first at the article itself, and then at the artist who could make
such wonderful things. Then Woloda presented his Turk, and received a
similarly flattering ovation on all sides.
It was my turn now, and Grandmamma turned to me with her kindest smile.
Those who have experienced what embarrassment is know that it is a
feeling which grows in direct proportion to delay, while decision
decreases in similar measure. In other words the longer the condition
lasts, the more invincible does it become, and the smaller does the
power of decision come to be.
My last remnants of nerve and energy had forsaken me while Karl and
Woloda had been offering their presents, and my shyness now reached its
culminating point, I felt the blood rushing from my heart to my head,
one blush succeeding another across my face, and drops of perspiration
beginning to stand out on my brow and nose. My ears were burning, I
trembled from head to foot, and, though I kept changing from one foot to
the other, I remained rooted where I stood.
"Well, Nicolinka, tell us what you have brought?" said Papa. "Is it a
box or a drawing?"
There was nothing else to be done. With a trembling hand held out the
folded, fatal paper, but my voiced failed me completely and I stood
before Grandmamma in silence. I could not get rid of the dreadful idea
that, instead of a display of the expected drawing, some bad verses of
mine were about to be read aloud before every one, and that the words
"our Mother dear" would clearly prove that I had never loved, but had
only forgotten, her. How shall I express my sufferings when Grandmamma
began to read my poetry aloud?--when, unable to decipher it, she stopped
half-way and looked at Papa with a smile (which I took to be one of
ridicule)?--when she did not pronounce it as I had meant it to be
pronounced?--and when her weak sight not allowing her to finish it, she
handed the paper to Papa and requested him to read it all over again
from the beginning? I fancied that she must have done this last because
she did not like to read such a lot of stupid, crookedly written stuff
herself, yet wanted to point out to Papa my utter lack of feeling. I
expected him to slap me in the face with the verses and say, "You bad
boy! So you have forgotten your Mamma! Take that for it!" Yet nothing
of the sort happened. On the contrary, when the whole had been read,
Grandmamma said, "Charming!" and kissed me on the forehead. Then our
presents, together with two cambric pocket-handkerchiefs and a snuff-box
engraved with Mamma's portrait, were laid on the table attached to the