This diversion lasted for two months.... And lo! again I am standing at
the window of the drawing-room and looking out into the courtyard....
Suddenly--what is this?... Through the gate with quiet step enters a
novice.... His conical cap is pulled down on his brow, his hair is
combed smoothly and flows from under it to right and left ... he wears a
long cassock and a leather girdle.... Can it be Mísha? It is!
I go out on the steps to meet him.... "What is the meaning of this
masquerade?" I ask.
"It is not a masquerade, uncle," Mísha answers me, with a deep
sigh;--"but as I have squandered all my property to the last kopék, and
as a mighty repentance has seized upon me, I have made up my mind to
betake myself to the Tróitzko-Sérgieva Lávra,[9] to pray away my sins.
For what asylum is now left to me?... And so I have come to bid you
farewell, uncle, like the Prodigal Son...."
I gazed intently at Mísha. His face was the same as ever, fresh and rosy
(by the way, it never changed to the very end), and his eyes were humid
and caressing and languishing, and his hands were small and white....
But he reeked of liquor.
"Very well!" I said at last: "It is a good move if there is no other
issue. But why dost thou smell of liquor?"
"Old habit," replied Mísha, and suddenly burst out laughing, but
immediately caught himself up, and making a straight, low, monastic
obeisance, he added:--"Will not you contribute something for the
journey? For I am going to the monastery on foot...."
"When?"
"To-day ... at once."
"Why art thou in such a hurry?"
"Uncle! my motto has always been 'Hurry! Hurry!'"
"But what is thy motto now?"
"It is the same now.... Only '_Hurry_--to good!'"
So Mísha went away, leaving me to meditate over the mutability of human
destinies.
But he speedily reminded me of his existence. A couple of months after
his visit I received a letter from him,--the first of those letters with
which he afterward favoured me. And note this peculiarity: I have rarely
beheld a neater, more legible handwriting than was possessed by this
unmethodical man. The style of his letters also was very regular, and
slightly florid. The invariable appeals for assistance alternated with
promises of amendment, with honourable words and with oaths.... All this
appeared to be--and perhaps was--sincere. Mísha's signature at the end
of his letters was always accompanied by peculiar flourishes, lines and
dots, and he used a great many exclamation-points. In that first letter
Mísha informed me of a new "turn in his fortune." (Later on he called
these turns "dives" ... and he dived frequently.) He had gone off to the
Caucasus to serve the Tzar and fatherland "with his breast," in the
capacity of a yunker. And although a certain benevolent aunt had
commiserated his poverty-stricken condition and had sent him an
insignificant sum, nevertheless he asked me to help him to equip
himself. I complied with his request, and for a period of two years
thereafter I heard nothing about him. I must confess that I entertained
strong doubts as to his having gone to the Caucasus. But it turned out
that he really had gone thither, had entered the T---- regiment as
yunker, through influence, and had served in it those two years. Whole
legends were fabricated there about him. One of the officers in his
regiment communicated them to me.