The reader knows how Lavretzky had grown up and developed; let us say a
few words about Liza's bringing up. She was ten years old when her father
died; but he had paid little heed to her. Overwhelmed with business,
constantly absorbed in increasing his property, splenetic, harsh,
impatient, he furnished money unsparingly for teachers, tutors, clothing,
and the other wants of the children; but he could not endure, as he
expressed it, "to dandle the squalling brats,"--and he had no time to
dandle them: he worked, toiled over his business, slept little,
occasionally played cards, worked again; he compared himself to a horse
harnessed to a threshing-machine. "My life has rushed by fast," he said
on his deathbed, with a proud smile on his parched lips. Marya
Dmitrievna, in reality, troubled herself about Liza hardly more than did
the father, although she had boasted to Lavretzky that she alone had
reared her children; she had dressed Liza like a doll, in the presence of
visitors had patted her on the head, and called her, to her face, a
clever child and a darling--and that was all: any regular care wearied
the lazy gentlewoman. During her father's lifetime, Liza had been in the
hands of a governess, Mlle. Moreau, from Paris, and after his death she
had passed into the charge of Marfa Timofeevna. The reader is
acquainted with Marfa Timofeevna; but Mlle. Moreau was a tiny, wrinkled
creature, with birdlike ways and a tiny, birdlike mind. In her youth she
had led a very dissipated life, and in her riper years she had but two
passions left--for dainties and for cards. When she was gorged, was not
playing cards, and not chattering, her face instantly assumed an almost
deathlike expression: she would sit, and gaze, and breathe, and it was
evident that no thought was passing through her head. It was not even
possible to call her good-natured: there are also birds which are not
good-natured. Whether it was in consequence of her frivolously-spent
youth, or of the Paris air, which she had breathed since her
childhood,--she harboured within her a certain cheap, general scepticism,
which is usually expressed by the words: "_tout ca c'est des betises_."
She talked an irregular, but purely Parisian jargon, did not gossip, was
not capricious,--and what more could be desired in a governess? On Liza
she had little influence; all the more powerful upon her was the
influence of her nurse, Agafya Vlasievna.
The lot of this woman was remarkable. She sprang from a peasant family;
at the age of sixteen, they married her to a peasant; but there was a
sharp distinction between her and her sister-peasant women. For twenty
years her father had been the village elder, had accumulated a good deal
of money, and had petted her. She was a wonderful beauty, the most
dashingly-elegant peasant maid in all the country round about, clever, a
good talker, daring. Her master, Dmitry Pestoff, the father of Marya
Dmitrievna, a modest, quiet man, caught sight of her one day at the
threshing, talked with her, and fell passionately in love with her.
Soon afterward, she became a widow; Pestoff, although he was a married
man, took her into his house, and clothed her in the style of a
house-servant. Agafya immediately accommodated herself to her new
position, exactly as though she had never lived in any other way. Her
skin became white, she grew plump; her arms, under their muslin sleeves,
became "like fine wheat flour," like those of a cook; the samovar stood
constantly on her table; she would wear nothing but velvet and silk, she
slept on a feather-bed of down. This blissful life lasted for the space
of five years; but Dmitry Pestoff died: his widow, a good-natured
gentlewoman, desirous of sparing her husband's memory, was not willing to
behave dishonourably toward her rival, the more so, as Agafya had never
forgotten herself before her; but she married her to the cow-herd, and
sent her out of her sight. Three years passed. Once, on a hot summer day,
the lady of the manor went to her dairy. Agafya treated her to such
splendid cold cream, bore herself so modestly, and was so neat in person,
and so cheerful and satisfied with everything, that her mistress
announced to her her pardon, and permitted her to come to the
manor-house; and six months later, she had become so attached to her,
that she promoted her to the post of housekeeper, and entrusted the
entire management to her. Again Agafya came into power, again she grew
plump and white-skinned; her mistress had complete confidence in her. In
this manner, five more years elapsed. Again misfortune fell upon Agafya.
Her husband, whom she had had raised to the post of footman, took to
drink, began to disappear from the house, and wound up by stealing six of
the family's silver spoons, and hiding them--until a convenient
opportunity--in his wife's chest. This was discovered. He was again
degraded to the rank of cow-herd, and a sentence of disgrace was
pronounced upon Agafya; she was not banished from the house, but she was
reduced from the place of housekeeper to that of seamstress, and ordered
to wear a kerchief on her head, instead of a cap. To the amazement of
all, Agafya accepted the blow which had overtaken her with humble
submission. She was then over thirty years of age, all her children had
died, and her husband did not long survive. The time had arrived for her
to come to a sense of her position; she did so. She became very taciturn
and devout, never missed a single Matins service, nor a single Liturgy,
and gave away all her fine clothes. Fifteen years she spent quietly,
peacefully, with dignity, quarrelling with no one, yielding to every one.
If any one spoke rudely to her,--she merely bowed, and returned thanks
for the lesson. Her mistress had forgiven her long since, had removed the
ban from her, and had given her a cap from her own head; but she herself
refused to remove her kerchief, and always went about in a dark-hued
gown; and after the death of her mistress, she became still more quiet
and humble. A Russian easily conceives fear and affection; but it is
difficult to win his respect: it is not soon given, nor to every one.
Every one in the house respected Agafya; no one even recalled her former
sins, as though they had been buried in the earth, along with the old
master.
When Kalitin became the husband of Marya Dmitrievna, he wished to
entrust the housekeeping to Agafya; but she declined, "because of the
temptation"; he roared at her, she made him a lowly reverence, and left
the room. The clever Kalitin understood people; and he also understood
Agafya, and did not forget her. On removing his residence to the town,
he appointed her, with her own consent, as nurse to Liza, who had just
entered her fifth year.
At first, Liza was frightened by the serious and stern face of her new
nurse; but she speedily became accustomed to her, and conceived a strong
affection for her. She herself was a serious child; her features recalled
the clear-cut, regular face of Kalitin; only, she had not her father's
eyes; hers beamed with a tranquil attention and kindness which are rare
in children. She did not like to play with dolls, her laughter was
neither loud nor long, she bore herself with decorum. She was not often
thoughtful, and was never so without cause; after remaining silent for a
time, she almost always ended by turning to some one of her elders, with
a question which showed that her brain was working over a new impression.
She very early ceased to lisp, and already in her fourth year she spoke
with perfect distinctness. She was afraid of her father; her feeling
toward her mother was undefined,--she did not fear her, neither did she
fondle her; but she did not fondle Agafya either, although she loved
only her alone. Agafya and she were never separated. It was strange to
see them together. Agafya, all in black, with a dark kerchief on her
head, with a face thin and transparent as wax, yet still beautiful and
expressive, would sit upright, engaged in knitting a stocking; at her
feet, in a little arm-chair, sat Liza, also toiling over some sort of
work, or, with her bright eyes uplifted gravely, listening to what
Agafya was relating to her, and Agafya did not tell her fairy-stories;
in a measured, even voice, she would narrate the life of the Most-pure
Virgin, the lives of the hermits, the saints of God, of the holy martyrs;
she would tell Liza how the holy men lived in the deserts, how they
worked out their salvation, endured hunger and want,--and, fearing not
kings, confessed Christ; how the birds of heaven brought them food, and
the wild beasts obeyed them; how on those spots where their blood fell,
flowers sprang up.--"Yellow violets?"--one day asked Liza, who was very
fond of flowers.... Agafya talked gravely and meekly to Liza, as though
she felt that it was not for her to utter such lofty and sacred words.
Liza listened to her--and the image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient God
penetrated into her soul with a certain sweet power, filled her with
pure, devout awe, and Christ became for her a person close to her, almost
a relative: and Agafya taught her to pray. Sometimes she woke Liza
early, at daybreak, hastily dressed her, and surreptitiously took her to
Matins: Liza followed her on tiptoe, hardly breathing; the chill and
semi-obscurity of the dawn, the freshness and emptiness of the streets,
the very mysteriousness of these unexpected absences, the cautious return
to the house, to bed,--all this mingling of the forbidden, the strange,
the holy, agitated the little girl, penetrated into the very depths of
her being. Agafya never condemned anybody, and did not scold Liza for
her pranks. When she was displeased over anything, she simply held her
peace; and Liza understood that silence; with the swift perspicacity of a
child, she also understood very well when Agafya was displeased with
other people--with Marya Dmitrievna herself, or with Kalitin. Agafya
took care of Liza for a little more than three years; she was replaced by
Mlle. Moreau; but the frivolous Frenchwoman, with her harsh manners and
her exclamation: "_tout ca c'est des betises_,"--could not erase from
Liza's heart her beloved nurse: the seeds which had been sown had struck
down roots too deep. Moreover, Agafya, although she had ceased to have
charge of Liza, remained in the house, and often saw her nursling, who
confided in her as before.
But Agafya could not get along with Marfa Timofeevna, when the latter
came to live in the Kalitin house. The stern dignity of the former
"peasant woman" did not please the impatient and self-willed old woman.
Agafya begged permission to go on a pilgrimage, and did not return. Dark
rumours circulated, to the effect that she had withdrawn to a convent of
Old Ritualists. But the traces left by her in Liza's soul were not
effaced. As before, the latter went to the Liturgy as to a festival,
prayed with delight, with a certain repressed and bashful enthusiasm,
which secretly amazed Marya Dmitrievna not a little, although she put
no constraint upon Liza, but merely endeavoured to moderate her zeal, and
did not permit her to make an excessive number of prostrations: that was
not lady-like manners, she said. Liza studied well,--that is to say,
assiduously; God had not endowed her with particularly brilliant
capacities, with a great mind; she acquired nothing without labour. She
played well on the piano; but Lemm alone knew what it cost her. She read
little; she had no "words of her own," but she had thoughts of her own,
and she went her own way. It was not for nothing that she resembled her
father: he, also, had not been wont to ask others what he should do. Thus
she grew up--quietly, at leisure; thus she attained her nineteenth year.
She was very pretty, without herself being aware of the fact. An
unconscious, rather awkward grace revealed itself in her every movement;
her voice rang with the silvery sound of unaffected youth, the slightest
sensation of pleasure evoked a winning smile on her lips, imparted a deep
gleam and a certain mysterious caress to her sparkling eyes. Thoroughly
imbued with the sense of duty, with the fear of wounding any one
whatsoever, with a kind and gentle heart, she loved every one in general,
and no one in particular; God alone she loved with rapture, timidly,
tenderly. Lavretzky was the first to break in upon her tranquil inner
life.
Such was Liza.