When your sainted grandfather – may the Kingdom of Heaven be his! – went against the Turks he brought it back. This is the last bit,’ she would add with a sigh.

The trunks which crowded her room contained absolutely everything. Whatever was wanted, the cry was always: ‘Ask Natalya Savishna for it,’ and sure enough after a certain amount of searching she would produce the required article, saying, ‘It’s lucky I put it away.’ In these trunks were thousands of objects about which nobody in the house but herself either knew or cared.

Once I lost my temper with her. This is how it happened. One day at dinner when I was pouring myself out some kvass1 I dropped the decanter and stained the tablecloth.

‘Call Natalya Savishna to come and admire what her darling has done!’ said mamma.

Natalya Savishna came in, saw the mess I had made and shook her head. Then mamma whispered something in her ear and she went out, shaking her finger at me.

After dinner I was on my way to the ball-room and skipping about in the highest of spirits when all at once Natalya Savishna sprang out from behind the door with the tablecloth in her hand, caught hold of me and despite desperate resistance on my part began rubbing my face with the wet cloth, repeating: ‘Don’t thee go dirtying tablecloths, don’t thee go dirtying tablecloths!’ I was so offended that I howled with rage.

‘What!’ I said to myself, pacing up and down the room and choking with tears, ‘To think that Natalya Savishna – no, plain Natalya says thee to me, and hits me in the face with a wet tablecloth as if I were a serf-boy. It’s abominable!’

When Natalya Savishna saw that I was gasping with fury she immediately ran off, while I continued to walk to and fro considering how I could pay out the impudent Natalya for the way she had insulted me.

A few minutes later Natalya Savishna returned, came up to me timidly and started trying to pacify me.

‘Hush now, dearie, don’t cry… Forgive an old fool… it was all my fault… Pray forgive me, my pet… Here’s something for you.’

From under her shawl she took a screw of red paper in which there were two caramels and a grape, and offered it to me with a trembling hand. I could not look the kind old woman in the face; with averted eyes I accepted her present, my tears flowing faster than ever, but from love and shame now, and no longer from anger.

14 • PARTING

Towards noon on the day following the events I have described the barouche and the chaise stood at the front door. Nikolai was dressed for travelling – that is to say, his trousers were tucked into his boots and the belt round his old coat was tied as tightly as possible. He stood in the trap packing greatcoats and cushions under the seat. When the pile seemed to him too high he sat on the cushions, bounced up and down and flattened them.

‘For mercy’s sake, Nikolai Dmitrich, can’t you get the master’s dressing-box in with your things?’ pleaded papa’s valet, panting and thrusting his head out of the carriage. ‘It isn’t big…’

‘You should have spoken before, Mihei Ivanych,’ Nikolai snapped back, angrily hurling a parcel with all his might to the floor of the trap. ‘By heaven, my head’s in a whirl as it is, and you come along with your dressing-boxes,’ and he lifted his cap to wipe away the large drops of perspiration from his sunburned forehead.

Men-servants bare-headed, in peasant-coats, tunics or shirt-sleeves, women in coarse linen dresses with striped kerchiefs on their heads and babies in their arms, and bare-footed children stood around the steps looking at the vehicles and chatting among themselves. One of our coachmen, a bent old man wearing a winter cap and cloth coat, held the pole of the carriage and feeling it here and there thoughtfully examined the way it moved. The other, a good-looking young fellow in a white blouse with gussets of red calico under the arms, and a conical black lamb’s-wool cap which he tilted first over one ear and then over the other as he scratched his curly fair hair, laid his coat on the box, slung the reins over it and cracked his little plaited whip as he looked now at his boots now at the coachmen who were greasing the trap. One of them was straining to hold the brake; the other, bent over the wheel, was carefully greasing the axle and hub, and, in order not to waste the remainder of the grease with which he was lubricating, smearing it on the rim below. Weary unmatched post-horses stood by the fence, brushing the flies away with their tails. Some of them planted their shaggy swollen legs far apart, blinked their eyes and dozed; others in sheer boredom rubbed against one another or nibbled the fronds and stalks of the coarse dark-green ferns that grew beside the porch. A number of borzoi dogs lay panting in the sun, while others were walking about in the shade under the carriage and the trap, licking the grease round the axles. The air was full of a sort of dusty mist and the horizon was purplish-grey, but there was not a single cloud in the sky. A strong wind from the west raised columns of dust from the roads and the fields, bent the tops of the tall lime-and birth-trees in the garden, and bore far away their falling yellow leaves. I sat by the window waiting impatiently for all these preparations to come to an end.

When we were all assembled by the round table in the drawing-room, to spend the last few minutes together, it never entered my head what a painful moment awaited us. The most trivial thoughts flitted through my mind. Which driver would drive the carriage and which the trap, I wondered. Who would travel with papa and who with Karl Ivanych? And why did I have to be muffled up in a scarf and wadded coat?

‘Am I so delicate? No fear of my freezing. I wish all this were over quickly and we could take our seats and be off!’

‘Who shall I give the list of the children’s underclothes to?’ asked Natalya Savishna, coming in with her eyes swollen with tears and a list in her hand, addressing mamma.

‘Give it to Nikolai and then come and say good-bye to the children.’

The old woman tried to speak but suddenly stopped, covered her face with her handkerchief and with a gesture of her hand left the room. Something seemed to stab at my heart when I saw that gesture of hers but impatience to be off was stronger than my feeling and I continued to listen quite indifferently to my father’s conversation with mamma. They were talking about things which obviously did not interest either of them: what should be bought for the house, what to say to Princess Sophie and to Madame Julie, and whether the roads would be good!

Foka entered, stopped at the door and in exactly the same tone with which he announced ‘Dinner is served’ said ‘The horses are ready’. I noticed that mamma started and turned pale at this announcement, as though she had not expected it.

Foka was told to close the doors of the room.1 This amused me highly – ‘as if we were all hiding from somebody!’

When we were all seated Foka too sat down on the edge of a chair but hardly had he done so before the door creaked and every one looked round. Natalya Savishna hurried in and without raising her eyes took refuge near the door on the same chair as Foka.