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went to see her; her door was locked. I begged her to open it; she refused to let me in and said that she was ill, that I was no friend of hers, but a heartless boy. I wrote her a note and besought her to forgive me ; after tea \Ve made it up, I kissed her hand, she embraced me and at once explained the full importance of the matter. A year before the hussar had dined with them and after dinner played battledore and shuttlecock with her
-it was his shuttlecock that had been marked with a pin. I had pangs of conscience: I thought that I had committed a real sacrilege.
My cousin stayed until October. Her father sent for her to come home, promising to let her come to us at Vasilevskoye the following year. \Ve were horrified at the idea of parting, but so it was: one autumn day a brichka came for her; her maid carried off boxes and baskets to pack in it, and our servants put in all sorts of provisions for a full week's journey, and crowded at the entrance to say good-bye. We hugged each other hard, she wept and I wept-the brichka drove out into the street, turned into a side-street near the very place where the buckwheat cakes and pease-pudding were sold, and vanished. I walked about in the courtyard: and there it was rather cold and nasty; I went up into my room-and there it seemed cold and empty. I set to work on my lesson for Protopopov, while I \vondered where the brichka was now, and whether it had passed the town-gate or not.
My only comfort was the thought of our being together again at Vasilevskoye the following June!
For me the country was always a time of renewa l ; I was passionately fond of country life. The forest, the fields, and the freedom-it was all so new for me who had been brought up in cotton-wool, within brick walls, not daring on any pretext to go out beyond the gate without asking leave and being accompanied by a footman. . . .
'Are we going to Vasilevskoye or not?' From early spring I was quite engrossed by this question. My father invariably said that this year he was going away early, that he longed to see the leaves come out; but hP could never be ready before July. Some years he was so much behiml that we never went at all. He VHote to the country every winter that the house was to be ready and thoroughly warmed, but this was done from deep considerations of policy rather than quite seriously, in order that the village head-man and the clerk to the Zcmstvo might be afraid he would soon be coming and look after their work more carefully.
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It seemed that we were going. My father told the Senator that he was longing to rest in the country and that the estate needed his inspection, but again weeks went by.
Little by little there seemed more ground for hope: provisions began to be sent off, sugar, tea, all sorts of cereals, and wine
-and again there was a pause ; then at last an order was despatched to the village elder to send so many peasants' horses by such a day-and so we were going, we \vere going!
I did not think then hO\v onerous the loss of four or five days, when work in the fields was at its height, must have been to the peasants, but rejoiced with all my heart and hastened to pack my lesson-books and exercise books. The horses were brought, and with inward satisfaction I heard their munching and snorting in the courtyard, and took great interest in the bustle of the coachmen, and the wrangling of the servants as to who should sit in which cart and where each should put his belongings. In the servants' quarters lights were burning until daybreak, and all were packing, dragging sacks and bags from place to place, and dressing for the journey (\vhich was fifty miles at most ! ) . My father's valet was the most exasperated of all, for he realised how important it was to stow things properly; with intense irritation he fiercPly ejected Pwrything which had been put in by others, ton' his hair with vexation and was quite unapproachable.
My father did not get up a hit earlier next day; in fact I think he got up later than usual, and drank his coffee just as slowly, but at last, at eleven o'clock, he ordered the horses to be put to.
Behind the carriage, which had four seats and was drawn by six of my father's own horses, there came three and sometimes four conveyances-a barouche, a brichka, a wagon or, instead of it, two carts; all these \vere filled with the house-serfs and their belongings and, although wagon-loads had been sent on beforehand, everything was so tightly packed that no one could sit with comfort.
\Ve stopped half-way to have dinner and to feed the horses in the big village of Perkhushkovo, the name of \vhich occurs in Napoleon's bulletins. This village belonged to the son of that elder brother of my father's of whom I have spoken in connection with the division of the property. The neglected house I'Jf the owner stood on the high-road, surrounded by flat, cheerlesslooking fiPlds ; but even this dusty vista delighted me after the cramped life of town. In the house the warped floors and stairs shook, noises and footsteps resounded loudly, and the walls echoed them as it were with astor.ishmcnt. The old-fashioned furniture from the former owner's cabinet of curiosities was
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living out its day here in exile; I wandered with curiosity from room to room, went upstairs and downstairs and finally into the kitchen. There our man-cook, with a cross and ironical expression, was preparing a hasty dinner. The steward, a grey-haired old man with a swelling on his head, was usually sitting in the kitchen; the cook addressed his remarks to him and criticised the stove and the hearth, while the steward listened to him and from time to time answered laconically: 'May-be; perhaps it's so,' and looked disconsolately at all the upset, wondering when the devil would carry us off again.
The dinner was served on a special English service, made of tin or some composition, bought ad hoc. Meanwhile the horses had been put in; in the hall and vestibule people who were iond of watching meetings and leave-takings of the gentry were gathering together: footmen who were finishing their lives on bread and pure country air, old women who had been prepossessing maids thirty years before, all the locusts of a landowner's household who through no fault of their own eat up the peasants' labour like real locusts. With them came children with flaxen hair; barefooted and dirty, they kept poking forward while the old women pulled them back. The children screamed and the old women screamed at them ; and they caught me at every opportunity, and marvelled every year that I had grown so much. My fathPr said a few \vords to them ; some went up to kiss his hand, which he never gave them, others bowed, and we set off.
A few miles from Prince Golitsyn's Pstate of Vyazma the headman of Vasilevskoye was waiting for us on horseback at the edge of the forest, and he escorted us on a by-road. In the village by the big house, approached by a long avenue of limes, we were met by the priest, his wife, the church servitors, the house-serfs, several pPasants, and Pronka, the fool, the only one with any fePling of human dignity, for he did not take off his greasy hat, but stood smiling at a little distance and took to his heels as soon as anyone from the town servants tried to come near him.