Raisky entered the University, and spent the summer vacation with his
aunt, Tatiana Markovna Berezhkov.
His aunt lived in a family estate which Boris had inherited from his
mother--a piece of land on the Volga, close by a little town, with fifty
souls and two residences, one built of stone and now neglected, the
other a wooden building built by Boris’s father. In this newer house
Tatiana Markovna lived with two orphan girls of six and five years old
respectively, who had been left in her care by a niece whom she had
loved as a daughter.
Tatiana Markovna had an estate and a village of her own, but after the
death of Raisky’s parents she had established herself on their little
estate, which she ruled like a miniature kingdom, wisely, economically,
carefully and despotically. She never permitted Boris’s guardian to
interfere in her business, took no heed of documents, papers, or deeds,
but carried on the affairs of the estate according to the practice of
its former owners. She told Boris’s guardian that all the documents,
papers and deeds were inscribed in her memory, and that she would render
account to Boris when he came of age; until that day came she, according
to the verbal instructions of his parents, was mistress of the estate.
Boris’s guardian was content. It was an excellent estate, and could not
be better administered than by the old lady.
What a Paradise Raisky evolved for himself in this corner of the earth,
from which he had been taken away in his childhood and where he had
spent many a summer visit in his schooldays. What views in the
neighbourhood! Every window in the house framed a lovely landscape. From
one side could be seen the Volga with its steep banks; from the others
wide meadows and gorges, and the whole seemed to melt into the distant
blue hills. From the third side could be seen fields, villages, and part
of the town. The air was cool and invigorating, and as refreshing as a
bathe on a summer day.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the two houses the great park, with
its dark alleys, arbours and seats, was kept in good order, but beyond
these limits it was left wild. There were broad stretching elms, cherry
and apple trees, service trees, and there were lime trees intended to
form an avenue, which lost itself in a wood in the friendly
neighbourhood of pines and birches. Suddenly the whole ended in a
precipice, thickly overgrown with bushes, which overhung a plain about
one and a-half versts in breadth along the banks of the Volga.
Nearer the wooden house lay the vegetable garden, and just in front of
its windows lay the flower garden. Tatiana Markovna liked to have a
space clear of trees in front of the house, so that the place was
flooded with sunshine and the scent of flowers. From the other side of
the house one could watch all that was going on in the courtyard and
could see the servants’ quarters, the kitchens, the hayricks, and the
stable. In the depths of the courtyard stood the old house, gloomy,
always in shadow, stained with age, with here and there a cracked window
pane, with heavy doors fastened by heavy bolts, and the path leading up
to it overgrown with grass. But on the new house the sun streamed from
morning to night; the flower garden, full of roses and dahlias,
surrounded it like a garland, and the gay flowers seemed to be trying to
force their way in through the windows. Swallows nesting under the eaves
flew hither and thither; in the garden and the trees there were
hedge-sparrows, siskins and goldfinches, and when darkness fell the
nightingale began to sing. Around the flowers there were swarms of bees,
humble-bees, dragon-flies, and glittering butterflies; and in the
corners cats and kittens stretched themselves comfortably in the
sunshine.
In the house itself peace and joy reigned. The rooms were small, but
cosy. Antique pieces of furniture had been brought over from the great
house, as had the portraits of Raisky’s parents and grandparents. The
floors were painted, waxed and polished; the stoves were adorned with
old-fashioned tiles, also brought over from the other house; the
cupboards were full of plate and silver; there were old Dresden cups and
figures, Chinese ornaments, tea-pots, sugar-basins, heavy old spoons.
Round stools bound with brass, and inlaid tables stood in pleasant
corners.
In Tatiana Markovna’s sitting-room stood an old-fashioned carved bureau
with a mirror, urns, lyres, and genii. But she had hung up the mirror,
because she said it was a hindrance to writing when you stared at your
own stupid face. The room also contained a round table where she lunched
and drank her tea and coffee, and a rather hard leather-covered armchair
with a high back. Grandmother {1} was old-fashioned; she did not approve
of lounging, but held herself upright and was simple and reserved in
her manners.
How beautiful Boris thought her! And indeed she was beautiful.
Tall, neither stout nor thin, a vivacious old lady ... not indeed an old
lady, but a woman of fifty, with quick black eyes, and so kind and
gracious a smile that even when she was angry, and the storm-light
flickered in her eyes, the blue sky could be observed behind the clouds.
She had a slight moustache, and, on her left cheek, near the chin, a
birth-mark with a little bunch of hairs, details which gave her face a
remarkable expression of kindness.
She cut her grey hair short, and went about in house, yard, garden with
her head uncovered, but on feast days, or when guests were expected she
put on a cap. The cap could not be kept in its place, and did not suit
her at all, so that after about five minutes she would with apologies
remove the tiresome headdress.
In the mornings she wore a wide white blouse with a girdle and big
pockets; in the afternoon she put on a brown dress, and on feast days a
heavy rustling silk dress that gleamed like silver, and over it a
valuable shawl which only Vassilissa, her housekeeper, was allowed to
take out of the press.
“Uncle Ivan Kusmich brought it from the East,” she used to boast. “It
cost three hundred gold roubles, and now no money would buy it.”
At her girdle hung a bunch of keys, so that Grandmother could be heard
from afar like a rattlesnake when she crossed the yard or the garden. At
the sound the coachmen hid their pipes in their boots, because the
mistress feared nothing so much as fire, and for that reason counted
smoking as the greatest of crimes. The cooks seized the knife, the spoon
or the broom; Kirusha, who had been joking with Matrona, hurried to the
door, while Matrona hurried to the byre.
If the approaching clatter gave warning that the mistress was returning
to the house Mashutka quickly took off her dirty apron and wiped her
hands on a towel or a bit of rag, as the case might be. Spitting on her
hands she smoothed down her dry, rebellious hair, and covered the round
table with the finest of clean tablecloths. Vassilissa, silent, serious,
of the same age as her mistress, buxom, but faded with much confinement
indoors, would bring in the silver service with the steaming coffee.
Mashutka effaced herself as far as possible in a corner. The mistress
insisted on cleanliness in her servants, but Mashutka had no gift for
keeping herself spotless. When her hands were clean she could do nothing,
but felt as if everything would slip through her fingers. If she was
told to do her hair on Sunday, to wash and to put on tidy clothes, she
felt the whole day as if she had been sewn into a sack. She only seemed
to be happy when, smeared and wet with washing the boards, the windows,
the silver, or the doors, she had become almost unrecognisable, and had,
if she wanted to rub her nose or her eyebrows, to use her elbow.
Vassilissa, on the contrary, respected herself, and was the only tidy
woman among all the servants. She had been in the service of her
mistress since her earliest days as her personal maid, had never been
separated from her, knew every detail of her life, and now lived with
her as housekeeper and confidential servant. The two women communicated
with one another in monosyllables. Tatiana Markovna hardly needed to
give instructions to Vassilissa, who knew herself what had to be done.
If something unusual was required, her mistress did not give orders, but
suggested that this or that should be done.
Vassilissa was the only one of her subjects whom Tatiana Markovna
addressed by her full name. If she did address them by their baptismal
names they were names that could not be compressed nor clipped, as for
example Ferapont or Panteleimon. The village elder she did indeed
address as Stepan Vassilich, but the others were to her Matroshka,
Mashutka, Egorka and so on. The unlucky individual whom she addressed
with his Christian name and patronymic knew that a storm was impending.
“Here, Egor Prokhorich! where were you all day yesterday?” Or “Simeon
Vassilich, you smoked a pipe yesterday in the hayrick. Take care!”
She would get up in the middle of the night to convince herself that a
spark from a pipe had not set fire to anything, or that there was not
someone walking about the yard or the coachhouse with a lantern.
Under no consideration could the gulf between the “people” and the
family be bridged. She was moderately strict and moderately considerate,
kindly, but always within the limits of her ideas of government. If
Irene, Matrona or another of the maids gave birth to a child, she
listened to the report of the event with an air of injured dignity, but
gave Vassilissa to understand that the necessaries should be provided;
and would add, “Only don’t let me see the good-for-nothing.” After
Matrona or Irene had recovered she would keep out of her mistress’s
sight for a month or so; then it was as if nothing had happened, and the
child was put out in the village.
If any of her people fell sick, Tatiana got up in the night, sent him
spirits and embrocation, but next day she would send him either to the
infirmary or oftener to the “wise woman,” but she did not send for a
doctor. But if one of her own relatives, her “grandchildren” showed a
bad tongue, or a swollen face, Kirusha or Vlass must immediately ride
post haste to the town for the doctor.
The “wise woman” was a woman in the suburbs who treated the “people”
with simple remedies, and rapidly relieved them of their maladies. It
did, indeed, happen that many a man remained crippled for life after her
treatment. One lost his voice and could only crow, another lost an eye,
or a piece of his jawbone, but the pain was gone and he went back to
work. That seemed satisfactory to the patient as well as the proprietor
of the estate. And as the “wise woman” only concerned herself with
humble people, with serfs and the poorer classes, the medical profession
did not interfere with her.
Tatiana Markovna fed her servants decently with cabbage soup and groats,
on feast-days with rye and mutton; at Christmas geese and pigs were
roasted. She allowed nothing out of the common on the servants’ table or
in their dress, but she gave the surplus from her own table now to one
woman, now to another.
Vassilissa drank tea immediately after her mistress; after her came the
maids in the house, and last old Yakob. On feast days, on account of the
hardness of their work, a glass of brandy was handed to the coachman,
the menservants and the Starost.
As soon as the tea was cleared away in the morning a stout, chubby-faced
woman pushed her way into the room, always smiling. She was maid to the
grandchildren, Veroshka and Marfinka. Close at her heels the
twelve-year-old assistant, and together they brought the children
to breakfast.
Never knowing which of the two to kiss first, Tatiana Markovna would
begin: “Well, my birdies, how are you? Veroshka, darling, you have
brushed your hair?”
“And me, Granny, me,” Marfinka would cry.
“Why are Marfinka’s eyes red? Has she been crying?” Tatiana Markovna
inquired anxiously of the maid. “The sun has dazzled her. Are her
curtains well drawn, you careless girl? I must see.”
In the maid’s room sat three or four young girls who sat all day long
sewing, or making bobbin lace, without once stretching their limbs all
day, because the mistress did not like to see idle hands. In the
ante-room there sat idly the melancholy Yakob, Egorka, who was sixteen
and always laughing, with two or three lackeys. Yakob did nothing but
wait at table, where he idly flicked away the flies, and as idly changed
the plates. He was almost too idle to speak, and when the visitors
addressed him he answered in a tone indicating excessive boredom or a
guilty conscience. Because he was quiet, never seriously drunk, and did
not smoke, his master had made him butler; he was also very zealous at
church.
{1} Tatiana Markovna was addressed by her grand-nieces and her
grand-nephew as Grandmother.