'What has happened here?" asked mother. "Why has my brother been taken ill? What's the matter?"
Looking at Tatyana's pale, frightened face and at her infuriated husband, mother probably guessed what was the matter. She sighed and shook her head.
"Cornel Quit banging on the table!" she said. "Leave off, FyodorI And why are you thumping, Yegor Alexeye- vich? What have you got to do with it?"
Pobedimsky was startled and confused. Fyodor looked intently at him, then at his wife, and began walking about the room. When mother had gone out of the lodge, I saw what for long afterwards I looked upon as a dream. I saw Fyodor seize my tutor, lift him up in the air, and thrust him out of the door.
When I woke up in the morning my tutor's bed was empty. To my question where he was nurse told me in a whisper that he had been taken off early in the morn- ing to the hospital, as his arm was broken. Saddened by this news and remembering the scene of the previous evening, I went out of doors. It was a gray day. The sky was overcast and there was a wind blowing dust, bits of paper, and feathers along the ground. . . . It felt as though rain were coming. People and animals looked bored. When I went into the house I was told not to make such a noise with my feet, as mother was in bed with a migraine. What was I to do? I went out- side the gate, sat down on the little bench there, and fell to trying to discover the meaning of what I had seen and heard the day before. From our gate there was a road which, passing the forge and the pool that never dried up, led to the highway. I looked at the telegraph- posts, about which clouds of dust were whirling, and at the sleepy birds sitting on the wires, and I suddenly felt so dreary that I began to cry.
A dusty bus crammed full of to^speople, probably going to visit the shrine, drove by along the highway. The bus was hardly out of sight when a light carriage drawn by a pair of horses came into view. In it was Akim Nikitich, the district police officer, standing up and holding on to the coachman's belt. To my great swprise, the carriage turned into our road and flew by me into the gate. While I was puzzling why the police inspector had come to see us, I heard a noise, and a troika came into sight on the road. In the carriage stood the chief of police, directing his coachman towards our
gaie'
"And why is he coming?" I thought, looking at the dusty chief of police. "Most probably Pobedimsky has complained of Fyodor to him, and they have come to take him to prison."
But the mystery was not so easily solved. The police officer and the chief of police were only forerunners, for five minutes had scarcely passed when another coach drove in at our gate. It dashed by me so swiftly that I could only get a glimpse of a red beard at the window.
Lost in conjecture and fuU of apprehension, I ran to the house. In the vestibule first of all I saw mother; she was pale and looking with horror towards the door, from which came the sounds of men's voices. The visi- tors had taken her by surprise at the height of her mi- graine.
"Who has come, mother?" I asked.
"Sister," I heard my uncle's voice, "will you send in something to eat for the Governor and me?"
"It is easy to say 'something to eat,' " whispered my mother, numb with horror. 'What have I time to get ready now? I am put to shame in my old agel"
Mother clutched at her head and ran into the kitchen. The Governor's sudden visit stirred and overwhelmed the whole household. A ferocious. slaughter followed. A dozen hens, five turkeys, eight ducks were killed, and in the confusion the old gander, the progenitor of our whole flock of geese and a great favorite of mother's, was beheaded. The coachmen and the cook seemed frenzied, and slaughtered birds at random, without dis- tinction of age or breed. For the sake of some wretched sauce a pair of valuable pigeons, as dear to me as the gander was to mother, were sacrificed. It was a long while before I could forgive the Governor their death.
In the evening, when the Governor and his suite, after a sumptuous dinner, had got into their carriages and driven away, I went into the house to look at the remains of the feast. Glancing into the drawing-room from the vestibule, I saw my uncle and my mother. My uncle, with his hands behind his back, was walking nervously up and down close to the wall, shrugging his shoulders. Mother, exhausted and looking much thin- ner, was sitting on the sofa and watching his move- ments with heavy eyes.
"Excuse me, sister, but this won't do at all," my uncle grumbled, wrinkling up his face. "I introduced the Gov- ernor to you, and you didn't offer to shake hands. You covered him with embarrassment, poor fellow! No, that won't do. . . . Simplicity is a very good thing, but there must be limits to it, too . . . I swear to God! And then that dinnerl How can one give people such food? What was that mess, for instance, that they served for the fourth course?"
"That was duck with sweet sauce . . ." mother an- swered softly.
"Duck! Forgive me, sister, but . • . but here I've got heartburn! I am ill!"
Uncle made a sour, tearful face, and went on:
"It was the devil sent that Governorl As though I wanted his visit! Pff! . . . heartburn! I can't work or sleep ... I am going to pieces. . . . And I can't un- derstand how you can live here without anything to do . . . in this boredom! Here I've got a pain in the pit of my stomach! . . ."
My uncle frowned and strode more rapidly than ever.
"Brother," my mother inquired softly, "what does it cost to go abroad?"
"At least three thousand . . ." my uncle answered in a tearful voice. "I would go, but where am I to get the money? I haven't a kopeck. PH! . . . heartburn!"
Uncle stopped, looked dejectedly at the gray, over- cast prospect from the window, and began pacing to and fro again.
A silence followed. . . . Mother looked a long while at the icon, pondering something, then began crying, and said:
'Tll give you the three thousand, brother. . . ."
Three days later the majestic trunks went off to the station and the privy councilor drove off after them. As he said good-by to mother he dropped a tear, and it was a long time before he took his lips from her hands, but when he got into his carriage his face beamed with childlike pleasure. . . . Radiant and happy, he settled himself comfortably, blew a kiss to my mother, who was crying, and all at once I caught his eye. A look of the utmost astonishment came into his face.
"What boy is this?" he asked.
My mother, who had assured me that my uncle's coming was a piece of luck for which I must thank God, was bitterly mortified at this question. I was in no mood for questions. I looked at my uncle's happy face, and for some reason felt fearfully sorry for him. I could not control myself, jumped into the carriage and hugged that frivolous man, weak as all men are. Looking into his face and wanting to say something pleasant, I asked: "Uncle, have you ever been in a battle?" "Ah, the dear boy . . ." Uncle laughed, kissing me. "A charming boy, I swear to God! How natural, how true to life it all is, I swear to God! . . ."
The carriage set off. ... I looked after him, and long afterwards that farewell "I swear to God" was ring- ing in my ears.
1886
A Calamity
S
OFYA PETROVN A, the wife of Lubyantzev, the notary public, a beautiful young woman of twenty- five, was walking slowly along a lane that had been cleared through the woods, with Ilyin, a lawyer who occupied a summer cottage near hers. It was past four o'clock in the afternoon. Fluffy white clouds were massed just above; here and there patches of bright blue sky peeped out from under them. The clouds hung motionless, as though caught in the tops of the tall old pine-trees. It was still and sultry.
In the distance the lane was cut off by a low railway embankment on which just then a sentry with a gun was pacing to and fro for some reason. Right beyond the embankment there was a large white church with a rusty roof and six domes.