girls--particularly Sonetchka--were anything but displeased at the
spectacle of the governess angrily departing to the maidservants' room
to have her dress mended, I resolved to procure them the satisfaction
a second time. Accordingly, in pursuance of this amiable resolution, I
waited until my victim returned, and then began to gallop madly round
her, until a favourable moment occurred for once more planting my
heel upon her dress and reopening the rent. Sonetchka and the young
princesses had much ado to restrain their laughter, which excited my
conceit the more, but St. Jerome, who had probably divined my tricks,
came up to me with the frown which I could never abide in him, and said
that, since I seemed disposed to mischief, he would have to send me away
if I did not moderate my behaviour.
However, I was in the desperate position of a person who, having staked
more than he has in his pocket, and feeling that he can never make up
his account, continues to plunge on unlucky cards--not because he hopes
to regain his losses, but because it will not do for him to stop and
consider. So, I merely laughed in an impudent fashion and flung away
from my monitor.
After "cat and mouse", another game followed in which the gentlemen sit
on one row of chairs and the ladies on another, and choose each other
for partners. The youngest princess always chose the younger Iwin,
Katenka either Woloda or Ilinka, and Sonetchka Seriosha--nor, to my
extreme astonishment, did Sonetchka seem at all embarrassed when her
cavalier went and sat down beside her. On the contrary, she only laughed
her sweet, musical laugh, and made a sign with her head that he had
chosen right. Since nobody chose me, I always had the mortification of
finding myself left over, and of hearing them say, "Who has been left
out? Oh, Nicolinka. Well, DO take him, somebody." Consequently, whenever
it came to my turn to guess who had chosen me, I had to go either to
my sister or to one of the ugly elder princesses. Sonetchka seemed so
absorbed in Seriosha that in her eyes I clearly existed no longer. I do
not quite know why I called her "the traitress" in my thoughts, since
she had never promised to choose me instead of Seriosha, but, for all
that, I felt convinced that she was treating me in a very abominable
fashion. After the game was finished, I actually saw "the traitress"
(from whom I nevertheless could not withdraw my eyes) go with Seriosha
and Katenka into a corner, and engage in secret confabulation.
Stealing softly round the piano which masked the conclave, I beheld the
following:
Katenka was holding up a pocket-handkerchief by two of its corners, so
as to form a screen for the heads of her two companions. "No, you have
lost! You must pay the forfeit!" cried Seriosha at that moment, and
Sonetchka, who was standing in front of him, blushed like a criminal
as she replied, "No, I have NOT lost! HAVE I, Mademoiselle Katherine?"
"Well, I must speak the truth," answered Katenka, "and say that you HAVE
lost, my dear." Scarcely had she spoken the words when Seriosha embraced
Sonetchka, and kissed her right on her rosy lips! And Sonetchka smiled
as though it were nothing, but merely something very pleasant!
Horrors! The artful "traitress!"
XIV. THE RETRIBUTION
Instantly, I began to feel a strong contempt for the female sex in
general and Sonetchka in particular. I began to think that there was
nothing at all amusing in these games--that they were only fit for
girls, and felt as though I should like to make a great noise, or to do
something of such extraordinary boldness that every one would be forced
to admire it. The opportunity soon arrived. St. Jerome said something to
Mimi, and then left the room, I could hear his footsteps ascending the
staircase, and then passing across the schoolroom, and the idea occurred
to me that Mimi must have told him her story about my being found on the
landing, and thereupon he had gone to look at the register. (In those
days, it must be remembered, I believed that St. Jerome's whole aim in
life was to annoy me.) Some where I have read that, not infrequently,
children of from twelve to fourteen years of age--that is to say,
children just passing from childhood to adolescence--are addicted to
incendiarism, or even to murder. As I look back upon my childhood, and
particularly upon the mood in which I was on that (for myself) most
unlucky day, I can quite understand the possibility of such terrible
crimes being committed by children without any real aim in view--without
any real wish to do wrong, but merely out of curiosity or under the
influence of an unconscious necessity for action. There are moments when
the human being sees the future in such lurid colours that he
shrinks from fixing his mental eye upon it, puts a check upon all his
intellectual activity, and tries to feel convinced that the future will
never be, and that the past has never been. At such moments--moments
when thought does not shrink from manifestations of will, and the carnal
instincts alone constitute the springs of life--I can understand that
want of experience (which is a particularly predisposing factor in
this connection) might very possibly lead a child, aye, without fear
or hesitation, but rather with a smile of curiosity on its face, to set
fire to the house in which its parents and brothers and sisters (beings
whom it tenderly loves) are lying asleep. It would be under the same
influence of momentary absence of thought--almost absence of mind--that
a peasant boy of seventeen might catch sight of the edge of a
newly-sharpened axe reposing near the bench on which his aged father was
lying asleep, face downwards, and suddenly raise the implement in order
to observe with unconscious curiosity how the blood would come spurting
out upon the floor if he made a wound in the sleeper's neck. It is under
the same influence--the same absence of thought, the same instinctive
curiosity--that a man finds delight in standing on the brink of an abyss
and thinking to himself, "How if I were to throw myself down?" or in
holding to his brow a loaded pistol and wondering, "What if I were
to pull the trigger?" or in feeling, when he catches sight of some
universally respected personage, that he would like to go up to him,
pull his nose hard, and say, "How do you do, old boy?"
Under the spell, then, of this instinctive agitation and lack of
reflection I was moved to put out my tongue, and to say that I would not
move, when St. Jerome came down and told me that I had behaved so badly
that day, as well as done my lessons so ill, that I had no right to be
where I was, and must go upstairs directly.
At first, from astonishment and anger, he could not utter a word.
"C'est bien!" he exclaimed eventually as he darted towards me. "Several
times have I promised to punish you, and you have been saved from it by
your Grandmamma, but now I see that nothing but the cane will teach you
obedience, and you shall therefore taste it."
This was said loud enough for every one to hear. The blood rushed to
my heart with such vehemence that I could feel that organ beating
violently--could feel the colour rising to my cheeks and my lips
trembling. Probably I looked horrible at that moment, for, avoiding
my eye, St. Jerome stepped forward and caught me by the hand. Hardly
feeling his touch, I pulled away my hand in blind fury, and with all my