IV
“I RAN AWAY, that is, I wanted to run away to you, very simply. Tatyana Pavlovna, you remember how Touchard wrote you a letter two weeks after I was installed there, don’t you? Marya Ivanovna showed me the letter later, it also wound up among the late Andronikov’s papers. Touchard suddenly thought he had asked too little money, and in his letter announced to you ‘with dignity’ that, in his institution, princes and senators’ children were educated, and that he considered it beneath his institution to keep a pupil with such an origin as mine, unless he was paid extra.”
“ Mon cher, you might . . .”
“Oh, never mind, never mind,” I interrupted, “I’ll tell only a little about Touchard. You replied to him from the provinces, Tatyana Pavlovna, two weeks later, and sharply refused. I remember him then, all purple, coming into our classroom. He was a very short and very stocky little Frenchman of about forty-five, and indeed of Parisian origin, from cobblers, of course, but from time immemorial he had held a government post in Moscow as a teacher of French, and even had some rank, which he was extremely proud of—a profoundly uneducated man. We, his pupils, were only six in number; among us there was indeed some nephew of a Moscow senator, and we all lived there in a completely family situation, more under the supervision of his wife, a very affected lady, the daughter of some Russian official. During those two weeks I put on airs terribly in front of my comrades, boasting of my dark blue frock coat and my papa, Andrei Petrovich, and their questions—why was I Dolgoruky and not Versilov—didn’t embarrass me in the least, precisely because I didn’t know why myself.”
“Andrei Petrovich!” cried Tatyana Pavlovna in an almost threatening voice. My mother, on the contrary, could not tear her eyes from me, and obviously wanted me to continue.
“ Ce Touchard. . . indeed, I recall him now, was small and fidgety,” Versilov said through his teeth, “but he was recommended to me then from the best side . . .”
“ Ce Touchardcame in holding the letter, went over to our big oak table, at which all six of us were grinding away at something, seized me firmly by the shoulder, raised me from my chair, and told me to pick up my notebooks.
“‘Your place is not here, but there.’ He pointed to a tiny room to the left of the front hall, in which stood a simple table, a wicker chair, and an oilcloth sofa—exactly as I have now in my little room upstairs. I went there with astonishment and greatly intimidated; never before had I been treated rudely. Half an hour later, when Touchard left the classroom, I began exchanging glances and laughter with my comrades; they, of course, were laughing at me, but I didn’t guess that and thought we were laughing because we were having fun. Here Touchard fell on me all at once, seized me by the forelock, and started pulling.
“‘You dare not sit together with noble children, you’re of mean origin and the same as a lackey!’
“And he hit me painfully on my plump red cheek. He liked that at once and hit me a second and a third time. I wept and sobbed, I was terribly astonished. For a whole hour I sat, covering my face with my hands, and wept and wept. Something had taken place that I could in no way understand. I don’t understand how someone like Touchard, a foreigner, who was not a wicked man, who even rejoiced at the emancipation of the Russian peasants, could beat such a stupid child as I. However, I was only astonished, not insulted; I was still unable to be insulted. It seemed to me that I had done some mischief, but when I improved, I’d be forgiven, and we’d all suddenly become merry again, go and play in the yard, and have the best possible life.”
“My friend, if I’d only known . . .” Versilov drawled with the careless smile of a somewhat weary man. “What a scoundrel this Touchard was, though! However, I still haven’t lost hope that you’ll somehow gather your strength and finally forgive us for it all, and again we’ll have the best possible life.”
He decidedly yawned.
“But I’m not accusing anybody, not at all, and, believe me, I’m not complaining about Touchard!” I cried, somewhat thrown off. “And he beat me only for two months or so. I remember I kept wanting to disarm him in some way, rushed to kiss his hands, and kissed them and kept weeping and weeping. My comrades laughed at me and despised me, because Touchard started using me as a servant, ordered me to hold his clothes while he dressed. Here my lackey character was instinctively of use to me. I tried as hard as I could to cater to him, and wasn’t insulted in the least, because I understood none of it yet, and I’m even astonished to this day that I was so stupid then as not to understand how unequal I was to them all. True, my comrades had already explained a lot to me—it was a good schooling. Touchard ended by preferring to kick me from behind with his knee, rather than slap my face; and six months later he even began to be gentle with me at times; only now and then, but once a month for certain, he would give me a beating, so that I wouldn’t forget myself. Soon I was also seated together with the other children and allowed to play with them, but not once in two and a half years did Touchard forget the difference in our social position, and he still went on using me as a servant, though not too much—I think precisely as a reminder to me.
“As for my running away, that is, my wanting to run away, that was five months after those first two months. And generally all my life I’ve been slow to make decisions. When I went to bed and covered myself with the blanket, I at once began dreaming of you, Andrei Petrovich, of you alone; I don’t know at all why it worked out that way. I even saw you in my sleep. Above all, I dreamed passionately that you would suddenly walk in, and I’d rush to you, and you would take me out of that place and bring me to your house, to that study, and we’d go to the theater again, well, and so on. Above all, we wouldn’t part—that was above all! And when I had to wake up in the morning, then suddenly the boys’ mockery and scorn would begin. One of them would begin straight off by beating me and making me bring him his boots; he would abuse me in the nastiest terms, especially trying to explain my origin to me, to the delight of all the listeners. And when Touchard himself suddenly appeared, something unbearable started in my soul. I felt that I’d never be forgiven here—oh, I was gradually beginning to understand precisely what would not be forgiven and precisely where my fault lay! And so I finally resolved to run away. I dreamed of it terribly for a whole two months, and finally decided; it was September then. I waited till all my comrades went away for the weekend, and meanwhile, on the sly, I carefully tied myself up a little bundle of the most necessary things. I had two roubles. I was going to wait till it got dark. ‘I’ll creep down the stairs,’ I thought, ‘and go out, and then go on.’ Where? I knew that Andronikov had already been transferred to Petersburg, so I decided to find Mme. Fanariotov’s house on the Arbat. ‘I’ll spend the night walking or sitting somewhere, and in the morning I’ll ask somebody in the courtyard: where is Andrei Petrovich now, and if not in Moscow, then in what city or country? They’ll surely tell me, I’ll leave, and then in another place somewhere I’ll ask somebody which gate to take in order to go to such and such city, and so I’ll go out, and go on, go on. I’ll keep on going; I’ll spend the nights somewhere under the bushes, and I’ll eat nothing but bread, and for two roubles I’ll have enough bread for a very long time.’ On Saturday, however, I didn’t manage to run away; I had to wait for the next day, Sunday, and, as if on purpose, Touchard and his wife went somewhere on Sunday; Agafya and I were the only ones left in the whole house. I waited for night in terrible anguish, I remember, sitting in our classroom by the window and looking at the dusty street with its little wooden houses and the rare passersby. Touchard lived on the outskirts, and the city gate could be seen from the windows: is that the one? I kept imagining. The setting sun was so red, the sky was so cold, and a sharp wind, just like today, blew the sand about. It finally became completely dark. I stood in front of an icon and began to pray, only quickly, quickly, I was in a hurry; I seized my little bundle and tiptoed down the creaky stairs, terribly afraid that Agafya would hear me from the kitchen. The door was locked, I opened it, and suddenly—dark, dark night stood black before me like an endless and dangerous unknown, and the wind tore at my visored cap. I went out; from across the pavement came the hoarse, drunken bellowing of an abusive passerby; I stood, looked, and quietly turned back, quietly went upstairs, quietly undressed, put down my bundle, and lay facedown, without tears and without thoughts, and it was from that very moment, Andrei Petrovich, that I began to think! From that very moment, when I realized that, besides being a lackey, I was also a coward, my real and correct development began!”