On the 18th of April we descended from the carriage at the front door
of the house at Petrovskoe. All the way from Moscow Papa had been
preoccupied, and when Woloda had asked him “whether Mamma was ill” he
had looked at him sadly and nodded an affirmative. Nevertheless he had
grown more composed during the journey, and it was only when we were
actually approaching the house that his face again began to grow
anxious, until, as he leaped from the carriage and asked Foka (who
had run breathlessly to meet us), “How is Natalia Nicolaevna now?” his
voice, was trembling, and his eyes had filled with tears. The good, old
Foka looked at us, and then lowered his gaze again. Finally he said as
he opened the hall-door and turned his head aside: “It is the sixth day
since she has not left her bed.”
Milka (who, as we afterwards learned, had never ceased to whine from the
day when Mamma was taken ill) came leaping, joyfully to meet Papa, and
barking a welcome as she licked his hands, but Papa put her aside, and
went first to the drawing-room, and then into the divannaia, from which
a door led into the bedroom. The nearer he approached the latter, the
more, did his movements express the agitation that he felt. Entering the
divannaia he crossed it on tiptoe, seeming to hold his breath. Even then
he had to stop and make the sign of the cross before he could summon up
courage to turn the handle. At the same moment Mimi, with dishevelled
hair and eyes red with weeping came hastily out of the corridor.
“Ah, Peter Alexandritch!” she said in a whisper and with a marked
expression of despair. Then, observing that Papa was trying to open the
door, she whispered again:
“Not here. This door is locked. Go round to the door on the other side.”
Oh, how terribly all this wrought upon my imagination, racked as it was
by grief and terrible forebodings!
So we went round to the other side. In the corridor we met the gardener,
Akim, who had been wont to amuse us with his grimaces, but at this
moment I could see nothing comical in him. Indeed, the sight of his
thoughtless, indifferent face struck me more painfully than anything
else. In the maidservants’ hall, through which we had to pass, two maids
were sitting at their work, but rose to salute us with an expression so
mournful that I felt completely overwhelmed.
Passing also through Mimi’s room, Papa opened the door of the bedroom,
and we entered. The two windows on the right were curtained over, and
close to them was seated, Natalia Savishna, spectacles on nose and
engaged in darning stockings. She did not approach us to kiss me as she
had been used to do, but just rose and looked at us, her tears beginning
to flow afresh. Somehow it frightened me to see every one, on beholding
us, begin to cry, although they had been calm enough before.
On the left stood the bed behind a screen, while in the great arm-chair
the doctor lay asleep. Beside the bed a young, fair-haired and
remarkably beautiful girl in a white morning wrapper was applying ice to
Mamma’s head, but Mamma herself I could not see. This girl was “La
Belle Flamande” of whom Mamma had written, and who afterwards played so
important a part in our family life. As we entered she disengaged one
of her hands, straightened the pleats of her dress on her bosom, and
whispered, “She is insensible.” Though I was in an agony of grief, I
observed at that moment every little detail.
It was almost dark in the room, and very hot, while the air was heavy
with the mingled, scent of mint, eau-de-cologne, camomile, and Hoffman’s
pastilles. The latter ingredient caught my attention so strongly that
even now I can never hear of it, or even think of it, without my memory
carrying me back to that dark, close room, and all the details of that
dreadful time.
Mamma’s eyes were wide open, but they could not see us. Never shall I
forget the terrible expression in them--the expression of agonies of
suffering!
Then we were taken away.
When, later, I was able to ask Natalia Savishna about Mamma’s last
moments she told me the following:
“After you were taken out of the room, my beloved one struggled for a
long time, as though some one were trying to strangle her. Then at last
she laid her head back upon the pillow, and slept softly, peacefully,
like an angel from Heaven. I went away for a moment to see about her
medicine, and just as I entered the room again my darling was throwing
the bedclothes from off her and calling for your Papa. He stooped over
her, but strength failed her to say what she wanted to. All she could
do was to open her lips and gasp, ‘My God, my God! The children, the
children!’ I would have run to fetch you, but Ivan Vassilitch stopped
me, saying that it would only excite her--it were best not to do so.
Then suddenly she stretched her arms out and dropped them again. What
she meant by that gesture the good God alone knows, but I think that in
it she was blessing you--you the children whom she could not see. God
did not grant her to see her little ones before her death. Then she
raised herself up--did my love, my darling--yes, just so with her hands,
and exclaimed in a voice which I cannot bear to remember, ‘Mother of
God, never forsake them!’”
“Then the pain mounted to her heart, and from her eyes it as, plain that
she suffered terribly, my poor one! She sank back upon the pillows, tore
the bedclothes with her teeth, and wept--wept--”
“Yes and what then?” I asked but Natalia Savishna could say no more. She
turned away and cried bitterly.
Mamma had expired in terrible agonies.