ON the day after the events described, the carriage and the luggage-cart
drew up to the door at noon. Nicola, dressed for the journey, with his
breeches tucked into his boots and an old overcoat belted tightly about
him with a girdle, got into the cart and arranged cloaks and cushions on
the seats. When he thought that they were piled high enough he sat down
on them, but finding them still unsatisfactory, jumped up and arranged
them once more.
“Nicola Dimitvitch, would you be so good as to take master’s
dressing-case with you?” said Papa’s valet, suddenly standing up in the
carriage, “It won’t take up much room.”
“You should have told me before, Michael Ivanitch,” answered Nicola
snappishly as he hurled a bundle with all his might to the floor of the
cart. “Good gracious! Why, when my head is going round like a whirlpool,
there you come along with your dressing-case!” and he lifted his cap to
wipe away the drops of perspiration from his sunburnt brow.
The courtyard was full of bareheaded peasants in kaftans or simple
shirts, women clad in the national dress and wearing striped
handkerchiefs, and barefooted little ones--the latter holding their
mothers’ hands or crowding round the entrance-steps. All were chattering
among themselves as they stared at the carriage. One of the postillions,
an old man dressed in a winter cap and cloak, took hold of the pole of
the carriage and tried it carefully, while the other postillion (a
young man in a white blouse with pink gussets on the sleeves and a black
lamb’s-wool cap which he kept cocking first on one side and then on the
other as he arranged his flaxen hair) laid his overcoat upon the box,
slung the reins over it, and cracked his thonged whip as he looked now
at his boots and now at the other drivers where they stood greasing the
wheels of the cart--one driver lifting up each wheel in turn and the
other driver applying the grease. Tired post-horses of various hues
stood lashing away flies with their tails near the gate--some stamping
their great hairy legs, blinking their eyes, and dozing, some leaning
wearily against their neighbours, and others cropping the leaves and
stalks of dark-green fern which grew near the entrance-steps. Some of
the dogs were lying panting in the sun, while others were slinking under
the vehicles to lick the grease from the wheels. The air was filled with
a sort of dusty mist, and the horizon was lilac-grey in colour, though
no clouds were to be seen, A strong wind from the south was raising
volumes of dust from the roads and fields, shaking the poplars and
birch-trees in the garden, and whirling their yellow leaves away. I
myself was sitting at a window and waiting impatiently for these various
preparations to come to an end.
As we sat together by the drawing-room table, to pass the last few
moments en famille, it never occurred to me that a sad moment was
impending. On the contrary, the most trivial thoughts were filling my
brain. Which driver was going to drive the carriage and which the cart?
Which of us would sit with Papa, and which with Karl Ivanitch? Why must
I be kept forever muffled up in a scarf and padded boots?
“Am I so delicate? Am I likely to be frozen?” I thought to myself.
“I wish it would all come to an end, and we could take our seats and
start.”
“To whom shall I give the list of the children’s linen?” asked Natalia
Savishna of Mamma as she entered the room with a paper in her hand and
her eyes red with weeping.
“Give it to Nicola, and then return to say good-bye to them,” replied
Mamma. The old woman seemed about to say something more, but suddenly
stopped short, covered her face with her handkerchief, and left the
room. Something seemed to prick at my heart when I saw that gesture of
hers, but impatience to be off soon drowned all other feeling, and
I continued to listen indifferently to Papa and Mamma as they talked
together. They were discussing subjects which evidently interested
neither of them. What must be bought for the house? What would Princess
Sophia or Madame Julie say? Would the roads be good?--and so forth.
Foka entered, and in the same tone and with the same air as though he
were announcing luncheon said, “The carriages are ready.” I saw Mamma
tremble and turn pale at the announcement, just as though it were
something unexpected.
Next, Foka was ordered to shut all the doors of the room. This amused
me highly. As though we needed to be concealed from some one! When
every one else was seated, Foka took the last remaining chair. Scarcely,
however, had he done so when the door creaked and every one looked that
way. Natalia Savishna entered hastily, and, without raising her eyes,
sat own on the same chair as Foka. I can see them before me now-Foka’s
bald head and wrinkled, set face, and, beside him, a bent, kind figure
in a cap from beneath which a few grey hairs were straggling. The pair
settled themselves together on the chair, but neither of them looked
comfortable.
I continued preoccupied and impatient. In fact, the ten minutes during
which we sat there with closed doors seemed to me an hour. At last every
one rose, made the sign of the cross, and began to say good-bye. Papa
embraced Mamma, and kissed her again and again.
“But enough,” he said presently. “We are not parting for ever.”
“No, but it is-so-so sad!” replied Mamma, her voice trembling with
emotion.
When I heard that faltering voice, and saw those quivering lips and
tear-filled eyes, I forgot everything else in the world. I felt so ill
and miserable that I would gladly have run away rather than bid
her farewell. I felt, too, that when she was embracing Papa she was
embracing us all. She clasped Woloda to her several times, and made the
sign of the cross over him; after which I approached her, thinking that
it was my turn. Nevertheless she took him again and again to her heart,
and blessed him. Finally I caught hold of her, and, clinging to her,
wept--wept, thinking of nothing in the world but my grief.
As we passed out to take our seats, other servants pressed round us in
the hall to say good-bye. Yet their requests to shake hands with
us, their resounding kisses on our shoulders, [The fashion in which
inferiors salute their superiors in Russia.] and the odour of their
greasy heads only excited in me a feeling akin to impatience with these
tiresome people. The same feeling made me bestow nothing more than a
very cross kiss upon Natalia’s cap when she approached to take leave of
me. It is strange that I should still retain a perfect recollection of
these servants’ faces, and be able to draw them with the most minute
accuracy in my mind, while Mamma’s face and attitude escape me entirely.
It may be that it is because at that moment I had not the heart to look
at her closely. I felt that if I did so our mutual grief would burst
forth too unrestrainedly.
I was the first to jump into the carriage and to take one of the hinder
seats. The high back of the carriage prevented me from actually seeing
her, yet I knew by instinct that Mamma was still there.
“Shall I look at her again or not?” I said to myself. “Well, just for
the last time,” and I peeped out towards the entrance-steps. Exactly at
that moment Mamma moved by the same impulse, came to the opposite side
of the carriage, and called me by name. Hearing her voice behind me. I
turned round, but so hastily that our heads knocked together. She gave a
sad smile, and kissed me convulsively for the last time.
When we had driven away a few paces I determined to look at her once
more. The wind was lifting the blue handkerchief from her head as, bent
forward and her face buried in her hands, she moved slowly up the steps.
Foka was supporting her. Papa said nothing as he sat beside me. I felt
breathless with tears--felt a sensation in my throat as though I were
going to choke, just as we came out on to the open road I saw a white
handkerchief waving from the terrace. I waved mine in return, and the
action of so doing calmed me a little. I still went on crying, but the
thought that my tears were a proof of my affection helped to soothe and
comfort me.
After a little while I began to recover, and to look with interest at
objects which we passed and at the hind-quarters of the led horse which
was trotting on my side. I watched how it would swish its tail, how it
would lift one hoof after the other, how the driver’s thong would fall
upon its back, and how all its legs would then seem to jump together and
the back-band, with the rings on it, to jump too--the whole covered with
the horse’s foam. Then I would look at the rolling stretches of ripe
corn, at the dark ploughed fields where ploughs and peasants and horses
with foals were working, at their footprints, and at the box of the
carriage to see who was driving us; until, though my face was still wet
with tears, my thoughts had strayed far from her with whom I had just
parted--parted, perhaps, for ever. Yet ever and again something would
recall her to my memory. I remembered too how, the evening before, I
had found a mushroom under the birch-trees, how Lubotshka had quarrelled
with Katenka as to whose it should be, and how they had both of them
wept when taking leave of us. I felt sorry to be parted from them, and
from Natalia Savishna, and from the birch-tree avenue, and from Foka.
Yes, even the horrid Mimi I longed for. I longed for everything at home.
And poor Mamma!--The tears rushed to my eyes again. Yet even this mood
passed away before long.