Nikolai Ilitch Belayeff was a young gentleman of St. Petersburg, aged
thirty-two, rosy, well fed, and a patron of the race-tracks. Once,
toward evening, he went to pay a call on Olga Ivanovna with whom, to use
his own expression, he was dragging through a long and tedious
love-affair. And the truth was that the first thrilling, inspiring pages
of this romance had long since been read, and that the story was now
dragging wearily on, presenting nothing that was either interesting or
novel.
Not finding Olga at home, my hero threw himself upon a couch and
prepared to await her return.
“Good evening, Nikolai Ilitch!” he heard a child’s voice say. “Mamma
will soon be home. She has gone to the dressmaker’s with Sonia.”
On the divan in the same room lay Aliosha, Olga’s son, a small boy of
eight, immaculately and picturesquely dressed in a little velvet suit
and long black stockings. He had been lying on a satin pillow, mimicking
the antics of an acrobat he had seen at the circus. First he stretched
up one pretty leg, then another; then, when they were tired, he brought
his arms into play, and at last jumped up galvanically, throwing himself
on all fours in an effort to stand on his head. He went through all
these motions with the most serious face in the world, puffing like a
martyr, as if he himself regretted that God had given him such a
restless little body.
“Ah, good evening, my boy!” said Belayeff. “Is that you? I did not know
you were here. Is mamma well?”
Aliosha seized the toe of his left shoe in his right hand, assumed the
most unnatural position in the world, rolled over, jumped up, and peeped
out at Belayeff from under the heavy fringes of the lampshade.
“Not very,” he said shrugging his shoulders. “Mamma is never really
well. She is a woman, you see, and women always have something the
matter with them.”
From lack of anything better to do, Belayeff began scrutinizing
Aliosha’s face. During all his acquaintance with Olga he had never
bestowed any consideration upon the boy or noticed his existence at all.
He had seen the child about, but what he was doing there Belayeff,
somehow, had never cared to think.
Now, in the dusk of evening, Aliosha’s pale face and fixed, dark eyes
unexpectedly reminded Belayeff of Olga as she had appeared in the first
pages of their romance. He wanted to pet the boy.
“Come here, little monkey,” he said, “and let me look at you!”
The boy jumped down from the sofa and ran to Belayeff.
“Well,” the latter began, laying his hand on the boy’s thin shoulder.
“And how are you? Is everything all right with you?”
“No, not very. It used to be much better.”
“In what way?”
“That’s easy to answer. Sonia and I used to learn only music and reading
before, but now we have French verses, too. You have cut your beard!”
“Yes.”
“So I noticed. It is shorter than it was. Please let me touch it—does
that hurt?”
“No, not a bit.”
“Why does it hurt if you pull one hair at a time, and not a bit if you
pull lots? Ha! Ha! I’ll tell you something. You ought to wear whiskers!
You could shave here on the sides, here, and here you could let the hair
grow——”
The boy nestled close to Belayeff and began to play with his
watch-chain.
“Mamma is going to give me a watch when I go to school, and I am going
to ask her to give me a chain just like yours—Oh, what a lovely locket!
Papa has a locket just like that; only yours has little stripes on it,
and papa’s has letters. He has a portrait of mamma in his locket. Papa
wears another watch-chain now made of ribbon.”
“How do you know? Do you ever see your papa?”
“I—n-no—I——”
Aliosha blushed deeply at being caught telling a fib and began to
scratch the locket furiously with his nail. Belayeff looked searchingly
into his face and repeated:
“Do you ever see your papa?”
“N-no!”
“Come, tell me honestly! I can see by your face that you are not telling
the truth. It’s no use quibbling now that the cat is out of the bag.
Tell me, do you see him? Now then, as between friends!”
Aliosha reflected.
“You won’t tell mamma?” he asked.
“What an idea!”
“Honour bright?”
“Honour bright!”
“Promise!”
“Oh, you insufferable child! What do you take me for?”
Aliosha glanced around, opened his eyes wide, and said:
“For heaven’s sake don’t tell mamma! Don’t tell a soul, because it’s a
secret. I don’t know what would happen to Sonia and Pelagia and me if
mamma should find out. Now, listen. Sonia and I see papa every Thursday
and every Friday. When Pelagia takes us out walking before dinner we go
to Anfel’s confectionery and there we find papa already waiting for us.
He is always sitting in the little private room with the marble table
and the ash-tray that’s made like a goose without a back.”
“What do you do in there?”
“We don’t do anything. First we say how do you do, and then papa orders
coffee and pasties for us. Sonia likes pasties with meat, you know, but
I can’t abide them with meat. I like mine with cabbage or eggs. We eat
so much that we have a hard time eating our dinner afterward so that
mamma won’t guess anything.”
“What do you talk about?”
“With papa? Oh, about everything. He kisses us and hugs us and tells us
the funniest jokes. Do you know what? He says that when we grow bigger
he is going to take us to live with him. Sonia doesn’t want to go, but I
wouldn’t mind. Of course it would be lonely without mamma, but I could
write letters to her. Isn’t it funny, we might go and see her then on
Sundays, mightn’t we? Papa says, too, he is going to buy me a pony. He
is such a nice man! I don’t know why mamma doesn’t ask him to live with
her and why she won’t let us see him. He loves mamma very much. He
always asks how she is and what she has been doing. When she was ill he
took hold of his head just like this—and ran about the room. He always
asks us whether we are obedient and respectful to her. Tell me, is it
true that we are unfortunate?”
“H’m—why do you ask?”
“Because papa says we are. He says we are unfortunate children, and that
he is unfortunate, and that mamma is unfortunate. He tells us to pray to
God for her and for ourselves.”
Aliosha fixed his eyes on the figure of a stuffed bird, and became lost
in thought.
“Well, I declare—” muttered Belayeff. “So, that’s what you do, you hold
meetings at a confectioner’s? And your mamma doesn’t know it?”
“N-no. How could she? Pelagia wouldn’t tell her for the world. Day
before yesterday papa gave us pears. They were as sweet as sugar. I ate
two!”
“H’m. But—listen to me, does papa ever say anything about me?”
“About you? What shall I say?” Aliosha looked searchingly into
Belayeff’s face and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing special,” he
answered.
“Well, what does he say, for instance?”
“You won’t be angry if I tell you?”
“What an idea! Does he abuse me?”
“No, he doesn’t abuse you, but, you know, he is angry with you. He says
that it is your fault that mamma is unhappy, and that you have ruined
mamma. He is such a funny man! I tell him that you are kind and that you
never scold mamma, but he only shakes his head.”
“So he says I have ruined her?”
“Yes—don’t be angry, Nikolai Ilitch!”
Belayeff rose and began pacing up and down the room.
“How strange this is—and how ridiculous!” he muttered shrugging his
shoulders and smiling sarcastically. “It is all _his_ fault and yet he
says _I_ have ruined her! What an innocent baby this is! And so he told
you I had ruined your mother?”
“Yes, but—you promised not to be angry!”
“I’m not angry and—and it is none of your business anyway. Yes, this
is—this is really ridiculous! Here I have been caught like a mouse in a
trap, and now it seems it is all my fault!”
The door-bell rang. The boy tore himself from Belayeff’s arms and ran
out of the room. A moment later a lady entered with a little girl. It
was Aliosha’s mother, Olga Ivanovna. Aliosha skipped into the room
behind her, singing loudly and clapping his hands. Belayeff nodded and
continued to walk up and down.
“Of course!” he muttered. “Whom should he blame but me? He has right on
his side! He is the injured husband.”
“What is that you are saying?” asked Olga Ivanovna.
“What am I saying? Just listen to what your young hopeful here has been
preaching. It appears that I am a wicked scoundrel and that I have
ruined you and your children. You are all unhappy, and I alone am
frightfully happy. Frightfully, frightfully happy!”
“I don’t understand you, Nikolai. What is the matter?”
“Just listen to what this young gentleman here has to say!” cried
Belayeff pointing to Aliosha.
Aliosha flushed and then grew suddenly pale and his face became
distorted with fear.
“Nikolai Ilitch!” he whispered loudly. “Hush!”
Olga Ivanovna looked at Aliosha in surprise, and then at Belayeff, and
then back again at Aliosha.
“Ask him!” Belayeff continued. “That idiot of yours, Pelagia, takes them
to a confectioner’s and arranges meetings there between them and their
papa. But that isn’t the point. The point is that papa is the victim,
and that I am an abandoned scoundrel who has wrecked the lives of both
of you!”
“Nikolai Ilitch!” groaned Aliosha. “You gave me your word of honour!”
“Leave me alone!” Belayeff motioned to him impatiently. “This is more
important than words of honour. This hypocrisy, these lies are
intolerable!”
“I don’t understand!” cried Olga Ivanovna, the tears glistening in her
eyes. “Listen, Aliosha,” she asked, turning to her son. “Do you really
see your father?”
But Aliosha did not hear her, his eyes were fixed with horror on
Belayeff.
“It cannot be possible!” his mother exclaimed, “I must go and ask
Pelagia.”
Olga Ivanovna left the room.
“But Nikolai Ilitch, you gave me your word of honour!” cried Aliosha
trembling all over.
Belayeff made an impatient gesture and went on pacing the floor. He was
absorbed in thoughts of the wrong that had been done him, and, as
before, was unconscious of the boy’s presence: a serious, grown-up
person like him could not be bothered with little boys. But Aliosha
crept into a corner and told Sonia with horror how he had been deceived.
He trembled and hiccoughed and cried. This was the first time in his
life that he had come roughly face to face with deceit; he had never
imagined till now that there were things in this world besides pasties
and watches and sweet pears, things for which no name could be found in
the vocabulary of childhood.