PAPA was seldom at home that spring. Yet, whenever he was so, he seemed
extraordinarily cheerful as he either strummed his favourite pieces on
the piano or looked roguishly at us and made jokes about us all, not
excluding even Mimi. For instance, he would say that the Tsarevitch
himself had seen Mimi at the rink, and fallen so much in love with her
that he had presented a petition to the Synod for divorce; or else
that I had been granted an appointment as secretary to the Austrian
ambassador--a piece of news which he imparted to us with a perfectly
grave face. Next, he would frighten Katenka with some spiders (of which
she was very much afraid), engage in an animated conversation with our
friends Dubkoff and Nechludoff, and tell us and our guests, over and
over again, his plans for the year. Although these plans changed almost
from day to day, and were for ever contradicting one another, they
seemed so attractive that we were always glad to listen to them, and
Lubotshka, in particular, would glue her eyes to his face, so as not to
lose a single word. One day his plan would be that he should leave my
brother and myself at the University, and go and live with Lubotshka
in Italy for two years. Next, the plan would be that he should buy an
estate on the south coast of the Crimea, and take us for an annual visit
there; next, that we should migrate en masse to St. Petersburg; and so
forth. Yet, in addition to this unusual cheerfulness of his, another
change had come over him of late--a change which greatly surprised
me. This was that he had had some fashionable clothes made--an
olive-coloured frockcoat, smart trousers with straps at the sides, and a
long wadded greatcoat which fitted him to perfection. Often, too, there
was a delightful smell of scent about him when he came home from a
party--more especially when he had been to see a lady of whom Mimi never
spoke but with a sigh and a face that seemed to say: “Poor orphans! How
dreadful! It is a good thing that SHE is gone now!” and so on, and
so on. From Nicola (for Papa never spoke to us of his gambling) I had
learnt that he (Papa) had been very fortunate in play that winter, and
so had won an extraordinary amount of money, all of which he had
placed in the bank after vowing that he would play no more that spring.
Evidently, it was his fear of being unable to resist again doing so that
was rendering him anxious to leave for the country as soon as possible.
Indeed, he ended by deciding not to wait until I had entered the
University, but to take the girls to Petrovskoe immediately after
Easter, and to leave Woloda and myself to follow them at a later season.
All that winter, until the opening of spring, Woloda had been
inseparable from Dubkoff, while at the same time the pair of them had
cooled greatly towards Dimitri. Their chief amusements (so I gathered
from conversations overheard) were continual drinking of champagne,
sledge-driving past the windows of a lady with whom both of them
appeared to be in love, and dancing with her--not at children’s parties,
either, but at real balls! It was this last fact which, despite our love
for one another, placed a vast gulf between Woloda and myself. We felt
that the distance between a boy still taking lessons under a tutor and
a man who danced at real, grown-up balls was too great to allow of their
exchanging mutual ideas. Katenka, too, seemed grown-up now, and read
innumerable novels; so that the idea that she would some day be getting
married no longer seemed to me a joke. Yet, though she and Woloda were
thus grown-up, they never made friends with one another, but, on the
contrary, seemed to cherish a mutual contempt. In general, when Katenka
was at home alone, nothing but novels amused her, and they but slightly;
but as soon as ever a visitor of the opposite sex called, she at once
grew lively and amiable, and used her eyes for saying things which I
could not then understand. It was only later, when she one day informed
me in conversation that the only thing a girl was allowed to indulge
in was coquetry--coquetry of the eyes, I mean--that I understood those
strange contortions of her features which to every one else had seemed a
matter for no surprise at all. Lubotshka also had begun to wear what
was almost a long dress--a dress which almost concealed her goose-shaped
feet; yet she still remained as ready a weeper as ever. She dreamed
now of marrying, not a hussar, but a singer or an instrumentalist, and
accordingly applied herself to her music with greater diligence than
ever. St. Jerome, who knew that he was going to remain with us only
until my examinations were over, and so had obtained for himself a new
post in the family of some count or another, now looked with contempt
upon the members of our household. He stayed indoors very little, took
to smoking cigarettes (then all the rage), and was for ever whistling
lively tunes on the edge of a card. Mimi daily grew more and more
despondent, as though, now that we were beginning to grow up, she looked
for nothing good from any one or anything.
When, on the day of which I am speaking, I went in to luncheon I found
only Mimi, Katenka, Lubotshka, and St. Jerome in the dining-room. Papa
was away, and Woloda in his own room, doing some preparation work for
his examinations in company with a party of his comrades: wherefore he
had requested that lunch should be sent to him there. Of late, Mimi had
usually taken the head of the table, and as none of us had any respect
for her, luncheon had lost most of its refinement and charm. That is
to say, the meal was no longer what it had been in Mamma’s or our
grandmother’s time, namely, a kind of rite which brought all the family
together at a given hour and divided the day into two halves. We allowed
ourselves to come in as late as the second course, to drink wine in
tumblers (St. Jerome himself set us the example), to roll about on our
chairs, to depart without saying grace, and so on. In fact, luncheon had
ceased to be a family ceremony. In the old days at Petrovskoe, every one
had been used to wash and dress for the meal, and then to repair to the
drawing-room as the appointed hour (two o’clock) drew near, and pass
the time of waiting in lively conversation. Just as the clock in the
servants’ hall was beginning to whirr before striking the hour, Foka
would enter with noiseless footsteps, and, throwing his napkin over his
arm and assuming a dignified, rather severe expression, would say in
loud, measured tones: “Luncheon is ready!” Thereupon, with pleased,
cheerful faces, we would form a procession--the elders going first and
the juniors following, and, with much rustling of starched petticoats
and subdued creaking of boots and shoes--would proceed to the
dining-room, where, still talking in undertones, the company would seat
themselves in their accustomed places. Or, again, at Moscow, we would
all of us be standing before the table ready-laid in the hall, talking
quietly among ourselves as we waited for our grandmother, whom the
butler, Gabriel, had gone to acquaint with the fact that luncheon was
ready. Suddenly the door would open, there would come the faint swish
of a dress and the sound of footsteps, and our grandmother--dressed in a
mob-cap trimmed with a quaint old lilac bow, and wearing either a smile
or a severe expression on her face according as the state of her health
inclined her--would issue from her room. Gabriel would hasten to precede
her to her arm-chair, the other chairs would make a scraping sound, and,
with a feeling as though a cold shiver (the precursor of appetite)
were running down one’s back, one would seize upon one’s damp, starched
napkin, nibble a morsel or two of bread, and, rubbing one’s hands softly
under the table, gaze with eager, radiant impatience at the steaming
plates of soup which the butler was beginning to dispense in order of
ranks and ages or according to the favour of our grandmother.
On the present occasion, however, I was conscious of neither excitement
nor pleasure when I went in to luncheon. Even the mingled chatter of
Mimi, the girls, and St. Jerome about the horrible boots of our Russian
tutor, the pleated dresses worn by the young Princesses Kornakoff, and
so forth (chatter which at any other time would have filled me with
a sincerity of contempt which I should have been at no pains to
conceal--at all events so far as Lubotshka and Katenka were concerned),
failed to shake the benevolent frame of mind into which I had fallen. I
was unusually good-humoured that day, and listened to everything with
a smile and a studied air of kindness. Even when I asked for the kvas I
did so politely, while I lost not a moment in agreeing with St. Jerome
when he told me that it was undoubtedly more correct to say “Je peux”
than “Je puis.” Yet, I must confess to a certain disappointment at
finding that no one paid any particular attention to my politeness and
good-humour. After luncheon, Lubotshka showed me a paper on which
she had written down a list of her sins: upon which I observed that,
although the idea was excellent so far as it went, it would be still
better for her to write down her sins on her SOUL--“a very different
matter.”
“Why is it ‘a very different matter’?” asked Lubotshka.
“Never mind: that is all right; you do not understand me,” and I went
upstairs to my room, telling St. Jerome that I was going to work, but in
reality purposing to occupy the hour and a half before confession time
in writing down a list of my daily tasks and duties which should last me
all my life, together with a statement of my life’s aim, and the rules
by which I meant unswervingly to be guided.