He was particularly proud of his distinguished connexions, which he possessed partly through my mother’s family and partly through the companions of his youth, with whom in his secret heart he was angry because they had all risen high in rank while he remained a retired lieutenant of the Guards. Like all retired military men he had no talent for choosing fashionable dress; but he made up for it by dressing with originality and elegance. He always wore light loose-fitting clothes and beautiful linen with large turndown cuffs and collars… Indeed, everything suited his tall figure and powerful build, the bald head and quiet assured movements. He was emotional and even easily moved to tears. Often when reading aloud and he came to a pathetic passage his voice would falter, tears would appear in his eyes and he would put down the book in vexation. He loved music and accompanying himself on the piano sang the love-songs of his friend A— or the gipsy ballads or arias from operas; but he found no pleasure in classical music and regardless of accepted opinion frankly said that Beethoven’s sonatas sent him to sleep and bored him, and that he knew nothing finer than Do not wake me, a young girl as sung by Semionova and Not alone when the gipsy girl Tanyusha sang it. He had a nature that required his good deeds to be noted. And he only approved what was approved by the public. Heaven only knows whether he had any moral convictions. His life was so full of all kinds of amusements that he had no time to form convictions, and besides, he was so fortunate in life that he saw no necessity to do so.

As he grew older his opinions set and his rules of conduct became immutable – but solely on practical grounds. Those actions and the manner of life which afforded him happiness or pleasure he considered right, and held that everybody else should behave likewise. He talked very persuasively and this faculty, it seemed to me, increased the elasticity of his principles: he could describe one and the same action as the most delightful piece of mischief or as the most abject villainy.

11 . IN THE STUDY AND THE DRAWING-ROOM

It was getting dark by the time we reached home. Mamma sat down at the piano and we children fetched paper, pencils and paints, and settled ourselves at the round table to draw. I only had blue paint; but for all that I took it into my head to draw a picture of the hunt. After representing in very lively style a blue boy on a blue horse, and some blue dogs, I stopped, uncertain whether one could paint a blue hare, and ran into papa’s study to consult him. Papa was reading something and in answer to my question ‘Are there blue hares?’ replied without lifting his head, ‘Yes, my dear, there are.’ Returning to the round table, I painted a blue hare but then found it necessary to turn it into a bush. I did not like the bush either and made it into a tree, then the tree into a hayrick, and the hayrick into a cloud, until finally I had so smeared my whole sheet of paper with blue paint that I tore it up in vexation and went off to meditate in the high-backed arm-chair.

Mamma was playing the second concerto of Field, her music-master. I sat day-dreaming, and airy luminous transparent recollections appeared in my imagination. She started playing Beethoven’s Sonate pathétique and my memories became sad, oppressive and gloomy. Mamma often played those two pieces and so I well remember the feelings they aroused in me. They resembled memories – but memories of what? It almost seemed as if I were remembering something that had never been.

Opposite me was the door into the study and I saw Yakov and some other men, bearded and in peasant coats, go in. The door immediately closed behind them. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘they have begun business now!’ It seemed to me that nothing in the world could be more important than the business which was being transacted in the study. This idea of mine was confirmed by the fact that generally everybody who approached the study door spoke in whispers and walked on tiptoe; while from the study came the sound of papa’s loud voice and the scent of his cigar – which always attracted me very much, I don’t know why. Half asleep, I suddenly heard a familiar squeak of boots in the butler’s pantry. Karl Ivanych with some papers in his hand crept up to the door on tiptoe but with a gloomy and determined look, and knocked lightly. He was admitted and the door shut fast again.

‘If only something dreadful does not happen,’ I thought. ‘Karl Ivanych is angry: he might do anything…’

Again I dozed off.

But no disaster occurred: about an hour later the same creaking of boots woke me. Karl Ivanych emerged from the study, with his handkerchief wiping away the tears which I could see on his cheeks and muttering to himself as he went upstairs.