"Yes, it will be pleasant to have someone fresh to talk
to.
My tutor was looked upon among us as an exceptional nature. He was a young man of twenty, with a pimply face, shaggy locks, a low forehead, and an unusually long nose. His nose was so big that when he wanted to look close at anything he had to put his head to one side like a bird. To our thinking, in the whole province there was not a cleverer, more cultivated, or more fash- ionably dressed man. He had left high school a year be- fore he was due to graduate, and had then entered a veterinary college, from which he was expelled before the end of the first semester. The reason of his expulsion he carefully concealed, which enabled any one who wished to do so to look upon my instructor as an injured and to some extent mysterious person. He spoke little, and only on intellectual subjects; ate meat on fast days, and looked with contempt and condescension on the life around him, which did not prevent ^rn, how- ever, from taking presents, such as suits of clothes, from my mother, and drawing funny faces with red teeth on my kites. Mother disliked him for his "pride," but stood in awe of his brains.
Our visitor did not keep us long waiting. At the be- ginning of May two cart-loads of big trunks arrived from the station. These trunks looked so majestic that the drivers instinctively took off their hats as they lifted them down.
"There must be uniforms and gunpowder in those trunks," I thought.
Why "gunpowder"? Probably the conception of a General was closely connected in my mind with can- non and gunpowder.
When I woke up on the moming of the tenth of May, nurse told me in a whisper that "Uncle had arrived." I dressed rapidly and, washing after a fashion, flew out of my bedroom without saying my prayers. In the vesti- bule I came upon a tall, thick-set gentleman with fash- ionable whiskers and a foppish-looking overcoat. Half dead with religious awe, I went up to him and, remem- bering the ceremonial mother had impressed upon me, I scraped my foot before him, made a very low bow, and craned forward to kiss his hand; but the gentleman did not allow me to kiss his hand: he informed me that he was not my uncle, but my uncle's footman, Pyotr. The appearance of this Pyotr, who was far better dressed than Pobedimsky or me, filled me with utter astonish- ment, which, to tell the truth, has lasted to this day. Can such dignified, respectable people with stern and intel- lectual faces really be footmen? And what for?
Pyotr told me that my uncle was in the garden my mother. I rushed into the garden.
Nature, ignorant of the history of the Gundasov fam- ily and of my uncle's rank, felt far more at ease and un- constrained than I. There was a clamor going on in the garden such as one only hears at fairs. Masses of star- lings flitting through the air and hopping about the walks were noisily chattering as they hunted for May- bugs. There were swarms of sparrows in the lilac- bushes, which thrust their tender, fragrant blossoms straight in one's face. Wherever one turned, from every direction came the note of the oriole and the shrill cry of the hoopoe and the kestoel. At any other time I should have begun chasing dragon-flies or throwing stones at a crow which was sitting on a low rick under an aspen- tree, with its blunt beak turned away; but at that mo- ment I was in no mood for mischief. My heart was throbbing, and I felt a cold sinking at my stomach; I was preparing myself to confront a gentleman with shoulder- straps, a naked sword, and terrible eyes!
A
man in white silk trousers and with a white cap on his head was walking beside my mother in the garden. With his hands behind him and his head thrown back, every now and then running on ahead of mother, he looked quite young. There was so much life and move- ment in his whole ligure that I could only detect the treachery of age when I came close up behind and saw beneath his cap a fringe of close-cropped silver hair. Instead of the staid dignity and stolidity of a General, I saw an almost school-boyish nimbleness; instead of a collar sticking up to his ears, an ordinary light blue neck- tie. Mother and Uncle were walking in the alley talking. I went softly up to them from behind, and waited for one of them to look round.
"What a delightful place you have here, Klavdia!" said my uncle. "How charming and lovely it is! Had I known before that you had such a charming place, noth- ing would have induced me to go abroad all these years."
Uncle stooped down rapidly and sniffed at a tulip. Everything he saw moved him to rapture and curiosity, as though he had never been in a garden on a sunny day before. The queer man moved about as though he were on springs, and chattered incessantly, without al- lowing mother to utter a single word. Al of a sudden Pobedimsky came into sight from behind an elder-tree at the ^rn of the alley. His appearance was so unex- pected that my uncle positively started and took a step backward. On this occasion my tutor was attired in his best cape with sleeves, in which, especially from the back, he looked remarkably like a windmill. He had a solemn and majestic air. Pressing his hat to his bosom in Spanish style, he took a step towards my uncle and made a bow such as a marquis makes in a melodrama, kending forward, a little to one side.
"I have the honor to introduce myself to your High Excellency," he said aloud: "pedagogue and tutor of your nephew, formerly a student of the veterinary in- stitute, and a nobleman by birth, Pobedimsky!"
Such civility on the part of my tutor pleased my mother very much. She gave a smile, and waited in thrilled suspense to hear what clever thing he would say next; but my tutor, expecting his dignified address to be answered with equal dignity—that is, that my uncle would say "H'm!" like a general and hold out two fingers—was greatly embarrassed and abashed when the latter laughed genially and shook hands with him. He muttered something incoherent, cleared his throat, and walked away.
"Come! isn't that charming?" laughed my uncle. "Just look! he has put on his cape and thinks he's a very clever fellow! I do like that—I swear to God! What youthful aplomb, what life in that cape! And what boy is this?" he asked, suddenly turning and looking at me.
"That is my Andryushenka," my mother introduced me, flushing crimson. "My consolation. . . ."
I made a scrape with my foot on the sand and dropped a low bow.
"A fine feIlow . . . a fine fellow . . ." muttered my uncle, taking his hand from my lips and stroking me on the head. "So your name is Andrusha? Yes, yes. . . . H'ml ... I swear to God! . . . Do you do your les- sons?"
My mother, exaggerating and embellishing as all mothers do, began to describe my achievements in the sciences and the excellence of my behavior, and I walked round my uncle and, following the ceremonial laid down for me, I continued making low bows. Then my mother began throwing out hints that with my remark- able abilities it would not be amiss for me to get a gov- ernment scholarship in the Corps of Cadets; but at the point when I was to have burst into tears and begged for my uncle's patronage my uncle suddenly stopped and flung up his hands in amazement.
"My goo-oodness! What's that?" he asked.
Tatyana Ivanovna, the wife of our steward, Fyodor Petrovna, was coming straight toward us. She was car- rying a starched white skirt and a long ironing-board. As she passed us she looked shyly at the visitor through her eyelashes and flushed crimson.
"Wonders wiU never cease • . my uncle filtered through his teeth, looking after her with friendly inter- est. "You have a fresh surprise at every step, sister • • • I swear to God!"
"She's a beauty . . ." said mother. "They chose her as a bride for Fyodor, though she lived over seventy miles from here. . . ."
Not everyone would have called Tatyana a beauty. She was a plump little woman of twenty, with black eyebrows and a graceful figure, always rosy and attrac- tive-looking, but in her face and in her whole person there was not one striking feature, not one bold line to catch the eye, as though nature had lacked inspiration and confidence when it created her. Tatyana Ivanovna was shy, bashful, and modest in her behavior; she moved softly and smoothly, said little, seldom laughed, and her whole life was as regular as her face and as flat as her sleek hair. My uncle screwed up his eyes looking after her, and smiled. Mother looked intently at his smiling face and grew serious.