At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving
with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage.
He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was
already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia
Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and
if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow,
it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it.
Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the
churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those
splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from
morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold
autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself
so unhappy.
Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled
up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected,
and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new
full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from
the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from
the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat,
the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a
very serious face.
"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said,
kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome."
He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through
a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt
of incense.
"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in
the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man,
_pater-familias_."
In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor
Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the
priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with
Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome
with confusion.
The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer
was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal.
The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room
on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect
stillness, no one even coughed.
"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with
great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung
--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers
sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed
how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles,
and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on
us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would
make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself,"
and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests
and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old
man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times
dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was
reassured.
At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest
gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went
up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak.
Signs were made to the singers to stop.
"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the
bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and
trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet
answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify
yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia,
servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace
into this house?"
Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the
cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice:
"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time."
The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the
room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full
of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over
her face, and said:
"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing."
The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was
singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had
lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he
talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live
together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent
rupture.
"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he
said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old
man like me to rest."
Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like
her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and
often kissed her hand.
"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red
came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style,
like Christians, little sister."
As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had
gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he
had expected. He said to his wife:
"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father
should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me.
Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he
was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and
trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively
healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were.
Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out
by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak
plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to
thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every
morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat
me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had
to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or
monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns.
Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion,
and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome
with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight
years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health,
for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to
the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after
dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went
on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and
he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great
deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with
pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very
fine fellow! How touched he will be!"