now," said Katenka, colouring slightly, and regarding Philip's back with
a grave expression on her face. "My Mamma was able to live with your
mother because she was her friend; but will a similar arrangement always
suit the Countess, who, they say, is so easily offended? Besides, in
any case, we shall have to separate SOME day. You are rich--you have
Petrovskoe, while we are poor--Mamma has nothing."
"You are rich," "we are poor"--both the words and the ideas which they
connoted seemed to me extremely strange. Hitherto, I had conceived that
only beggars and peasants were poor and could not reconcile in my mind
the idea of poverty and the graceful, charming Katenka. I felt that Mimi
and her daughter ought to live with us ALWAYS and to share everything
that we possessed. Things ought never to be otherwise. Yet, at this
moment, a thousand new thoughts with regard to their lonely position
came crowding into my head, and I felt so remorseful at the notion
that we were rich and they poor, that I coloured up and could not look
Katenka in the face.
"Yet what does it matter," I thought, "that we are well off and they are
not? Why should that necessitate a separation? Why should we not share
in common what we possess?" Yet, I had a feeling that I could not talk
to Katenka on the subject, since a certain practical instinct, opposed
to all logical reasoning, warned me that, right though she possibly was,
I should do wrong to tell her so.
"It is impossible that you should leave us. How could we ever live
apart?"
"Yet what else is there to be done? Certainly I do not WANT to do it;
yet, if it HAS to be done, I know what my plan in life will be."
"Yes, to become an actress! How absurd!" I exclaimed (for I knew that to
enter that profession had always been her favourite dream).
"Oh no. I only used to say that when I was a little girl."
"Well, then? What?"
"To go into a convent and live there. Then I could walk out in a black
dress and velvet cap!" cried Katenka.
Has it ever befallen you, my readers, to become suddenly aware that your
conception of things has altered--as though every object in life
had unexpectedly turned a side towards you of which you had hitherto
remained unaware? Such a species of moral change occurred, as regards
myself, during this journey, and therefore from it I date the beginning
of my boyhood. For the first time in my life, I then envisaged the idea
that we--i.e. our family--were not the only persons in the world; that
not every conceivable interest was centred in ourselves; and that there
existed numbers of people who had nothing in common with us, cared
nothing for us, and even knew nothing of our existence. No doubt I had
known all this before--only I had not known it then as I knew it now; I
had never properly felt or understood it.
Thought merges into conviction through paths of its own, as well as,
sometimes, with great suddenness and by methods wholly different from
those which have brought other intellects to the same conclusion. For me
the conversation with Katenka--striking deeply as it did, and forcing me
to reflect on her future position--constituted such a path. As I gazed
at the towns and villages through which we passed, and in each house of
which lived at least one family like our own, as well as at the women
and children who stared with curiosity at our carriages and then became
lost to sight for ever, and the peasants and workmen who did not even
look at us, much less make us any obeisance, the question arose for the
first time in my thoughts, "Whom else do they care for if not for us?"
And this question was followed by others, such as, "To what end do
they live?" "How do they educate their children?" "Do they teach their
children and let them play? What are their names?" and so forth.
IV. IN MOSCOW
From the time of our arrival in Moscow, the change in my conception of
objects, of persons, and of my connection with them became increasingly
perceptible. When at my first meeting with Grandmamma, I saw her thin,
wrinkled face and faded eyes, the mingled respect and fear with which
she had hitherto inspired me gave place to compassion, and when, laying
her cheek against Lubotshka's head, she sobbed as though she saw before
her the corpse of her beloved daughter, my compassion grew to love.
I felt deeply sorry to see her grief at our meeting, even though I knew
that in ourselves we represented nothing in her eyes, but were dear to
her only as reminders of our mother--that every kiss which she imprinted
upon my cheeks expressed the one thought, "She is no more--she is dead,
and I shall never see her again."
Papa, who took little notice of us here in Moscow, and whose face was
perpetually preoccupied on the rare occasions when he came in his black
dress-coat to take formal dinner with us, lost much in my eyes at this
period, in spite of his turned-up ruffles, robes de chambre, overseers,
bailiffs, expeditions to the estate, and hunting exploits.
Karl Ivanitch--whom Grandmamma always called "Uncle," and who (Heaven
knows why!) had taken it into his head to adorn the bald pate of my
childhood's days with a red wig parted in the middle--now looked to me
so strange and ridiculous that I wondered how I could ever have failed
to observe the fact before. Even between the girls and ourselves there
seemed to have sprung up an invisible barrier. They, too, began to have
secrets among themselves, as well as to evince a desire to show off
their ever-lengthening skirts even as we boys did our trousers and
ankle-straps. As for Mimi, she appeared at luncheon, the first Sunday,
in such a gorgeous dress and with so many ribbons in her cap that it was
clear that we were no longer en campagne, and that everything was now
going to be different.
V. MY ELDER BROTHER
I was only a year and some odd months younger than Woloda, and from the
first we had grown up and studied and played together. Hitherto, the
difference between elder and younger brother had never been felt between
us, but at the period of which I am speaking, I began to have a
notion that I was not Woloda's equal either in years, in tastes, or in
capabilities. I even began to fancy that Woloda himself was aware of
his superiority and that he was proud of it, and, though, perhaps, I
was wrong, the idea wounded my conceit--already suffering from frequent
comparison with him. He was my superior in everything--in games, in
studies, in quarrels, and in deportment. All this brought about an
estrangement between us and occasioned me moral sufferings which I had
never hitherto experienced.
When for the first time Woloda wore Dutch pleated shirts, I at once said
that I was greatly put out at not being given similar ones, and each
time that he arranged his collar, I felt that he was doing so on purpose
to offend me. But, what tormented me most of all was the idea that
Woloda could see through me, yet did not choose to show it.
Who has not known those secret, wordless communications which spring
from some barely perceptible smile or movement--from a casual glance
between two persons who live as constantly together as do brothers,
friends, man and wife, or master and servant--particularly if those