Papa followed him out and came into the drawing-room.

‘Do you know what I have just decided?’ he said in a cheerful voice, laying his hand on mamma’s shoulder.

‘What, my dear?’

‘I am taking Karl Ivanych with the children. There is room for him in the trap. They are used to him and apparently he is really attached to them; and seven hundred roubles a year won’t make any difference to us, et puis au fond c’ est un très bon diable.’1

I could not understand why papa called Karl Ivanych a devil.

‘I am very glad both for the children’s sakes and for his,’ said mamma. ‘He is a worthy old man.’

‘You should have seen how affected he was when I told him he could keep the five hundred roubles as a present… but the most amusing thing of all is this account he brought me. It’s worth looking at,’ he added with a smile, handing her a note in Karl Ivanych’s writing. ‘Quite delightful!’

This is what the note contained:2

Reading this note, in which Karl Ivanych demanded payment of all the money he had spent on presents, and even the price of a present promised to himself, anyone would conclude that Karl Ivanych was nothing but an unfeeling mercenary egoist – and every one would be mistaken.

When he entered the study with this account of his in his hand and a speech ready prepared in his head he intended to set forth eloquently before papa all the injustices he had endured in our house; but when he began to speak in that touching voice and with the feeling intonations he used when dictating to us his eloquence reacted chiefly on himself, so that when he reached the place where he said: ‘Sad as it will be for me to part with the children’ – he quite lost his thread, his voice trembled and he was obliged to pull his chequered handkerchief out of his pocket. ‘Yes, Piotr Alexandrych,’ he said through his tears (this passage did not occur in his prepared speech) ‘I am so used to the children that I don’t know what I shall do without them. It would be better for me to serve you without salary than not at all,’ he added, wiping his eyes with one hand while with the other he presented his bill.

That Karl Ivanych was speaking in all sincerity at that moment I can affirm for I know what a kind heart he had; but how he reconciled the bill with his words remains a mystery to me.

‘If you are grieved, the idea of parting from you would grieve me even more,’ said papa, patting him on the shoulder. ‘I have now changed my mind.’

Just before supper Grisha entered the room. From the moment he had come to our house he had never left off sighing and weeping, which in the opinion of those who believed in his powers of prediction portended some calamity to our family. He began to take leave of us for tomorrow (he said) he was moving on. I winked at Volodya and went out of the room.

‘What is it?’

‘If you want to see Grisha’s chains let’s go upstairs to the men-servants’ quarters. Grisha sleeps in the second room – so we can wait splendidly in the attic and see everything.’

‘Fine! Stay here and I’ll call the girls.’

The girls ran out and we betook ourselves upstairs. Having decided, not without some arguing, who should be the first to have to enter the dark attic, we settled down and waited.

12 • GRISHA

We were all scared in the dark garret: we huddled close together and did not say a word. Almost immediately Grisha arrived with his soft tread. In one hand he had his staff, in the other a tallow candle in a brass candlestick. We held our breaths.

‘Lord Jesus Christ! Most Holy Mother of God! To the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost…’ he kept saying, drawing the air into his lungs and speaking with the different intonations and abbreviations peculiar to those who often repeat these words.

With a prayer he placed his staff in a corner of the room and inspected his bed; after which he began to undress. Unfastening his old black girdle, he slowly divested himself of his tattered nankeen coat, folded it carefully and hung it over the back of a chair. His face no longer wore its usual precipitant obtuse look: on the contrary, he was composed, pensive and even majestic. His movements were deliberate and thoughtful.

Clad only in his shirt and undergarment he gently lowered himself on the bed, made the sign of the cross all round it, and with an effort (for he frowned) adjusted the chains beneath his shirt. After sitting there for a while and anxiously examining several tears in his linen he got up and, lifting the candle with a prayer to the level of the glass case where there were some ikons, he crossed himself before them and turned the candle upside down. It spluttered and went out.

An almost full moon shone in through the windows which looked towards the forest. The long white figure of the fool was lit up on one side by its pale silvery rays; from the other its dark shadow, in company with the shadow from the window-frames, fell on the floor, on the walls and up to the ceiling. Outside in the courtyard the watchman was striking on his iron panel.

Folding his huge hands on his breast, Grisha stood in silence with bowed head before the ikons, breathing heavily all the while. Then with difficulty he sank to his knees and began to pray.

At first he softly recited familiar prayers, only emphasizing certain words; then he repeated them, but louder and with much animation. Then he began to pray in his own words, making an evident effort to express himself in Church Slavonic. Though incoherent, his words were touching. He prayed for all his benefactors (as he called those who received him hospitably), among them for our mother and us; he prayed for himself, asking God to forgive him his grievous sins, and he kept repeating: ‘Oh God, forgive my enemies!’ He rose to his feet with a groan and repeating the same words again and again, fell to the floor and again got up despite the weight of his chains, which knocked against the floor every time with a dry harsh sound.

Volodya gave me a very painful pinch on the leg but I did not even turn round: I only rubbed the place with my hand and continued to follow all Grisha’s movements and words with childish wonder, pity and awe.

Instead of the amusement and laughter I had expected when we entered the garret I was trembling and my heart beat.

For a long time Grisha continued in this state of religious ecstasy, improvising prayers. Now he would repeat several times in succession Lord, have mercy but each time with renewed force and expression. Then he prayed Forgive me, O Lord, teach me how to live… teach me how to live, O Lord so feelingly that he might be expecting an immediate answer to his petition.