dreaming, I seize hold of it and press it to my lips. Every one else has
gone to bed, and only one candle remains burning in the drawing-room.
Mamma has said that she herself will wake me. She sits down on the arm
of the chair in which I am asleep, with her soft hand stroking my hair,
and I hear her beloved, well-known voice say in my ear:
"Get up, my darling. It is time to go by-by."
No envious gaze sees her now. She is not afraid to shed upon me the
whole of her tenderness and love. I do not wake up, yet I kiss and kiss
her hand.
"Get up, then, my angel."
She passes her other arm round my neck, and her fingers tickle me as
they move across it. The room is quiet and in half-darkness, but the
tickling has touched my nerves and I begin to awake. Mamma is sitting
near me--that I can tell--and touching me; I can hear her voice and
feel her presence. This at last rouses me to spring up, to throw my arms
around her neck, to hide my head in her bosom, and to say with a sigh:
"Ah, dear, darling Mamma, how much I love you!"
She smiles her sad, enchanting smile, takes my head between her two
hands, kisses me on the forehead, and lifts me on to her lap.
"Do you love me so much, then?" she says. Then, after a few moments'
silence, she continues: "And you must love me always, and never forget
me. If your Mamma should no longer be here, will you promise never to
forget her--never, Nicolinka? and she kisses me more fondly than ever.
"Oh, but you must not speak so, darling Mamma, my own darling Mamma!"
I exclaim as I clasp her knees, and tears of joy and love fall from my
eyes.
How, after scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the
ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, "God bless Papa and Mamma!" and
repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt
to lisp-the love of God and of her blending strangely in a single
emotion!
After saying my prayers I would wrap myself up in the bedclothes. My
heart would feel light, peaceful, and happy, and one dream would follow
another. Dreams of what? They were all of them vague, but all of them
full of pure love and of a sort of expectation of happiness. I remember,
too, that I used to think about Karl Ivanitch and his sad lot. He was
the only unhappy being whom I knew, and so sorry would I feel for him,
and so much did I love him, that tears would fall from my eyes as I
thought, "May God give him happiness, and enable me to help him and to
lessen his sorrow. I could make any sacrifice for him!" Usually, also,
there would be some favourite toy--a china dog or hare--stuck into the
bed-corner behind the pillow, and it would please me to think how warm
and comfortable and well cared-for it was there. Also, I would pray God
to make every one happy, so that every one might be contented, and also
to send fine weather to-morrow for our walk. Then I would turn myself
over on to the other side, and thoughts and dreams would become jumbled
and entangled together until at last I slept soundly and peacefully,
though with a face wet with tears.
Do in after life the freshness and light-heartedness, the craving for
love and for strength of faith, ever return which we experience in our
childhood's years? What better time is there in our lives than when
the two best of virtues--innocent gaiety and a boundless yearning for
affection--are our sole objects of pursuit?
Where now are our ardent prayers? Where now are our best gifts--the pure
tears of emotion which a guardian angel dries with a smile as he sheds
upon us lovely dreams of ineffable childish joy? Can it be that life has
left such heavy traces upon one's heart that those tears and ecstasies
are for ever vanished? Can it be that there remains to us only the
recollection of them?
XVI -- VERSE-MAKING
RATHER less than a month after our arrival in Moscow I was sitting
upstairs in my Grandmamma's house and doing some writing at a large
table. Opposite to me sat the drawing master, who was giving a few
finishing touches to the head of a turbaned Turk, executed in black
pencil. Woloda, with out-stretched neck, was standing behind the drawing
master and looking over his shoulder. The head was Woloda's first
production in pencil and to-day--Grandmamma's name-day--the masterpiece
was to be presented to her.
"Aren't you going to put a little more shadow there?" said Woloda to
the master as he raised himself on tiptoe and pointed to the Turk's
neck.
"No, it is not necessary," the master replied as he put pencil and
drawing-pen into a japanned folding box. "It is just right now, and
you need not do anything more to it. As for you, Nicolinka," he added,
rising and glancing askew at the Turk, "won't you tell us your great
secret at last? What are you going to give your Grandmamma? I think
another head would be your best gift. But good-bye, gentlemen," and
taking his hat and cardboard he departed.
I too had thought that another head than the one at which I had been
working would be a better gift; so, when we were told that Grandmamma's
name-day was soon to come round and that we must each of us have a
present ready for her, I had taken it into my head to write some
verses in honour of the occasion, and had forthwith composed two rhymed
couplets, hoping that the rest would soon materialise. I really do not
know how the idea--one so peculiar for a child--came to occur to me, but
I know that I liked it vastly, and answered all questions on the subject
of my gift by declaring that I should soon have something ready for
Grandmamma, but was not going to say what it was.
Contrary to my expectation, I found that, after the first two couplets
executed in the initial heat of enthusiasm, even my most strenuous
efforts refused to produce another one. I began to read different poems
in our books, but neither Dimitrieff nor Derzhavin could help me. On
the contrary, they only confirmed my sense of incompetence. Knowing,
however, that Karl Ivanitch was fond of writing verses, I stole softly
upstairs to burrow among his papers, and found, among a number of German
verses, some in the Russian language which seemed to have come from his
own pen.
To L
Remember near
Remember far,
Remember me.
To-day be faithful, and for ever--
Aye, still beyond the grave--remember
That I have well loved thee.
"KARL MAYER."
These verses (which were written in a fine, round hand on thin
letter-paper) pleased me with the touching sentiment with which they
seemed to be inspired. I learnt them by heart, and decided to take them
as a model. The thing was much easier now. By the time the name-day had
arrived I had completed a twelve-couplet congratulatory ode, and sat
down to the table in our school-room to copy them out on vellum.
Two sheets were soon spoiled--not because I found it necessary to alter
anything (the verses seemed to me perfect), but because, after the third
/> line, the tail-end of each successive one would go curving upward and
making it plain to all the world that the whole thing had been written
with a want of adherence to the horizontal--a thing which I could not
bear to see.
The third sheet also came out crooked, but I determined to make it do.
In my verses I congratulated Grandmamma, wished her many happy returns,
and concluded thus:
"Endeavouring you to please and cheer,
We love you like our Mother dear."
This seemed to me not bad, yet it offended my ear somehow.
"Lo-ve you li-ike our Mo-ther dear," I repeated to myself. "What other
rhyme could I use instead of 'dear'? Fear? Steer? Well, it must go at
that. At least the verses are better than Karl Ivanitch's."
Accordingly I added the last verse to the rest. Then I went into
our bedroom and recited the whole poem aloud with much feeling and
gesticulation. The verses were altogether guiltless of metre, but I
did not stop to consider that. Yet the last one displeased me more than
ever. As I sat on my bed I thought:
"Why on earth did I write 'like our Mother dear'? She is not here, and
therefore she need never have been mentioned. True, I love and respect
Grandmamma, but she is not quite the same as--Why DID I write that?
What did I go and tell a lie for? They may be verses only, yet I needn't
quite have done that."
At that moment the tailor arrived with some new clothes for us.
"Well, so be it!" I said in much vexation as I crammed the verses
hastily under my pillow and ran down to adorn myself in the new Moscow
garments.
They fitted marvellously-both the brown jacket with yellow buttons (a
garment made skin-tight and not "to allow room for growth," as in
the country) and the black trousers (also close-fitting so that they
displayed the figure and lay smoothly over the boots).
"At last I have real trousers on!" I thought as I looked at my legs with
the utmost satisfaction. I concealed from every one the fact that the
new clothes were horribly tight and uncomfortable, but, on the contrary,
said that, if there were a fault, it was that they were not tight
enough. For a long while I stood before the looking-glass as I combed
my elaborately pomaded head, but, try as I would, I could not reduce the
topmost hairs on the crown to order. As soon as ever I left off combing
them, they sprang up again and radiated in different directions, thus
giving my face a ridiculous expression.
Karl Ivanitch was dressing in another room, and I heard some one
bring him his blue frockcoat and under-linen. Then at the door leading
downstairs I heard a maid-servant's voice, and went to see what she
wanted. In her hand she held a well-starched shirt which she said she
had been sitting up all night to get ready. I took it, and asked if
Grandmamma was up yet.
"Oh yes, she has had her coffee, and the priest has come. My word, but
you look a fine little fellow!" added the girl with a smile at my new
clothes.
This observation made me blush, so I whirled round on one leg, snapped
my fingers, and went skipping away, in the hope that by these manoeuvres
I should make her sensible that even yet she had not realised quite what
a fine fellow I was.
However, when I took the shirt to Karl I found that he did not need it,
having taken another one. Standing before a small looking-glass, he tied
his cravat with both hands--trying, by various motions of his head, to
see whether it fitted him comfortably or not--and then took us down to
see Grandmamma. To this day I cannot help laughing when I remember what
a smell of pomade the three of us left behind us on the staircase as we
descended.
Karl was carrying a box which he had made himself, Woloda, his drawing,
and I my verses, while each of us also had a form of words ready with
which to present his gift. Just as Karl opened the door, the priest put
on his vestment and began to say prayers.
During the ceremony Grandmamma stood leaning over the back of a chair,
with her head bent down. Near her stood Papa. He turned and smiled at us
as we hurriedly thrust our presents behind our backs and tried to remain
unobserved by the door. The whole effect of a surprise, upon which we
had been counting, was entirely lost. When at last every one had made
the sign of the cross I became intolerably oppressed with a sudden,
invincible, and deadly attack of shyness, so that the courage to, offer
my present completely failed me. I hid myself behind Karl Ivanitch, who
solemnly congratulated Grandmamma and, transferring his box from his
right hand to his left, presented it to her. Then he withdrew a few
steps to make way for Woloda. Grandmamma seemed highly pleased with
the box (which was adorned with a gold border), and smiled in the most
friendly manner in order to express her gratitude. Yet it was evident
that, she did not know where to set the box down, and this probably
accounts for the fact that she handed it to Papa, at the same time
bidding him observe how beautifully it was made.
His curiosity satisfied, Papa handed the box to the priest, who also
seemed particularly delighted with it, and looked with astonishment,
first at the article itself, and then at the artist who could make
such wonderful things. Then Woloda presented his Turk, and received a
similarly flattering ovation on all sides.
It was my turn now, and Grandmamma turned to me with her kindest smile.
Those who have experienced what embarrassment is know that it is a
feeling which grows in direct proportion to delay, while decision
decreases in similar measure. In other words the longer the condition
lasts, the more invincible does it become, and the smaller does the
power of decision come to be.
My last remnants of nerve and energy had forsaken me while Karl and
Woloda had been offering their presents, and my shyness now reached its
culminating point, I felt the blood rushing from my heart to my head,
one blush succeeding another across my face, and drops of perspiration
beginning to stand out on my brow and nose. My ears were burning, I
trembled from head to foot, and, though I kept changing from one foot to
the other, I remained rooted where I stood.
"Well, Nicolinka, tell us what you have brought?" said Papa. "Is it a
box or a drawing?"
There was nothing else to be done. With a trembling hand held out the
folded, fatal paper, but my voiced failed me completely and I stood
before Grandmamma in silence. I could not get rid of the dreadful idea
that, instead of a display of the expected drawing, some bad verses of
mine were about to be read aloud before every one, and that the words
"our Mother dear" would clearly prove that I had never loved, but had
only forgotten, her. How shall I express my sufferings when Grandmamma
began to read my poetry aloud?--when, unable to decipher it, she stopped
half-way and looked at Papa with a smile (which I took to be one of
ridicule)?--when she did not pronounce it as I had meant it to be
pronounced?--and when her weak sight not allowing her to finish it, she
handed the paper to Papa and requested him to read it all over again
from the beginning? I fancied that she must have done this last because
she did not like to read such a lot of stupid, crookedly written stuff
herself, yet wanted to point out to Papa my utter lack of feeling. I
expected him to slap me in the face with the verses and say, "You bad
boy! So you have forgotten your Mamma! Take that for it!" Yet nothing
of the sort happened. On the contrary, when the whole had been read,
Grandmamma said, "Charming!" and kissed me on the forehead. Then our
presents, together with two cambric pocket-handkerchiefs and a snuff-box
engraved with Mamma's portrait, were laid on the table attached to the
great Voltairian arm-chair in which Grandmamma always sat.
"The Princess Barbara Ilinitsha!" announced one of the two footmen who
used to stand behind Grandmamma's carriage, but Grandmamma was looking
thoughtfully at the portrait on the snuff-box, and returned no answer.
"Shall I show her in, madam?" repeated the footman.
XVII -- THE PRINCESS KORNAKOFF
"Yes, show her in," said Grandmamma, settling herself as far back in
her arm-chair as possible. The Princess was a woman of about
forty-five, small and delicate, with a shrivelled skin and disagreeable,
greyish-green eyes, the expression of which contradicted the unnaturally
suave look of the rest of her face. Underneath her velvet bonnet,
adorned with an ostrich feather, was visible some reddish hair, while
against the unhealthy colour of her skin her eyebrows and eyelashes
looked even lighter and redder that they would other wise have done.