In my poem I wished grandmamma many happy returns of the day, and concluded thus:

To comfort thee we shall endeavour,

And love thee like our own dear mother.

This ought to have sounded really quite fine yet in a strange way the last line offended my ear.

‘And to lo-ve thee li-ike our own dear mo-ther,’ I kept repeating to myself. ‘What other rhyme could I use instead of mother?… Oh, it will do! It’s better than Karl Ivanych’s anyhow.’

Accordingly I added the last line to the rest. Then in our bedroom I read the whole composition aloud with expression and gestures. There were some lines that did not scan at all but I did not dwell on them: the last line, however, struck me even more forcibly and disagreeably than before. I sat on my bed and pondered:

‘Why did I write like our own dear mother? She is not here so there was no need ever to bring her in; it is true, I do love and respect grandmamma, still she is not the same as… Why did I put that? Why did I write a lie? Of course it’s only poetry but I needn’t have done that.’

At this point the tailor entered with our new suits. ‘Well, it can’t be helped!’ I thought irritably, stuffing my verses under the pillow in my vexation, and ran to try on my Moscow clothes.

They were splendid: the cinnamon-brown jackets with their bronze buttons fitted tightly – not as they made them in the country to allow for growing. The black trousers, also close-fitting, showed up our muscles and came down over our boots.

‘At last I’ve got real trousers with straps!’ I reflected, beside myself with delight as I examined my legs from every side. Although the new garments felt very tight and uncomfortable I concealed the fact from everybody and declared that, on the contrary, they fitted comfortably and if there was any fault about them it was that they were, if anything, a shade loose. After that I stood for a long time before the looking-glass, brushing my generously pomaded hair; but strive as I would I could not smooth down the tufts of hair on the crown of my head: so soon as, to test their obedience, I stopped pressing them with the brush they rose and stuck out in all directions, imparting to my face a most ridiculous look.

Karl Ivanych was dressing in another room, and his blue frock-coat and some white things were carried in to him through the schoolroom. The voice of one of grandmamma’s maids was heard at the door which led downstairs and I went out to see what she wanted. She was holding in her hand a stiffly starched shirt-front which she told me she had brought for Karl Ivanych, and that she had been up all night to get it washed in time. I undertook to deliver the shirt-front and asked whether grandmamma was up yet.

‘I should say so! She’s had her coffee and now the priest is here. What a fine fellow you look!’ she added with a smile, surveying my new clothes.

This remark made me blush. I whirled round on one leg, snapped my fingers and gave a little skip, to let her feel that she still did not thoroughly appreciate what a very fine fellow I was.

When I took Karl Ivanych his shirt-front he no longer needed it: he had put on another and, stooping before a small looking-glass that stood on a table, was holding the magnificent knot of his cravat in both hands and trying whether his smoothly shaved chin could move easily in and out. After pulling our clothes straight all round and asking Nikolai to do the same for him he took us down to grandmamma. I laugh when I remember how strongly all three of us smelt of pomatum as we descended the stairs.

Karl Ivanych was carrying a little box he had made himself, Volodya had his drawing and I my verses; and each of us had on the tip of his tongue the greeting with which he intended to offer his present. When Karl Ivanych opened the drawing-room door the priest was putting on his vestments and we heard the first sounds of the Te Deum.

Grandmamma was already in the drawing-room: with her head bowed and resting her hands on the back of a chair she was standing by the wall, praying devoutly; papa stood beside her. He turned towards us and smiled as he saw us hastily hide our presents behind our backs and stop just inside the door in an effort to escape notice. The whole effect of a surprise, on which we had counted, was lost.

When the time came to go up and kiss the cross I suddenly felt myself suffering from an insurmountable paralysing fit of shyness, and feeling that I should never have the courage to give my present I hid behind the back of Karl Ivanych who, having expressed his good wishes in the choicest of phrases, transferred his little box from his right hand to his left, presented it to grandmamma and stepped a few paces to one side to make way for Volodya. Grandmamma seemed delighted with the box, which had gilt strips pasted round the borders, and expressed her gratitude with the sweetest of smiles. It was evident, however, that she did not know where to put the box, and probably for this reason she asked papa to look at it and see how wonderfully skilfully it was made.

After satisfying his curiosity papa handed it to the priest, who apparently admired the little article very much indeed: he nodded his head, gazing with interest first at the box, then at the craftsman who could make such a beautiful object. Volodya presented his Turk, and he too received the most flattering praise from all sides. I was the next and grandmamma turned towards me with an encouraging smile.

Those who have experienced what it is to be shy know that the sensation increases in direct proportion to its duration, and that one’s resolution diminishes in the same ratio: in other words, the longer the condition lasts the more invincible it becomes and the less resolution remains.

The last remnants of courage and resolution forsook me while Karl Ivanych and Volodya were offering their presents, and my shyness reached its climax: I felt the blood continually rushing from my heart to my head, my face kept changing colour and great drops of perspiration stood out on my forehead and my nose. My ears were burning, I felt my whole body trembling and cold with perspiration, and I shifted from one foot to the other but did not budge from the spot.

‘Well, Nikolai, show us what you have got – is it a box or a drawing?’ papa said to me. There was no help for it: with a shaking hand I held out the crumpled fatal roll; but my voice utterly refused to serve me and I stood before grandmamma in silence. I could not get away from the dreadful idea that instead of the expected drawing my good-for-nothing verses would be read out in front of everybody, and the words like our own dear mother would clearly prove that I had never loved her and had forgotten her.

How can I describe my sufferings when grandmamma began to read my poem aloud, and when, unable to make it out, she paused in the middle of a line to glance at papa with what seemed to me then a mocking smile, or when she failed to give a word the expression I had intended, and when, on account of her weak eyesight, she handed the sheet to papa before she had finished, and asked him to read it all over again from the beginning. I thought she did so because she had had enough of reading such stupid crookedly-written verses, and so that papa might read for himself that last line which was such plain proof of want of feeling. I expected him to give me a rap on the nose with the verses and say, ‘You horrid boy, you are not to forget your mother… take that!’ But nothing of the kind happened: on the contrary, when it had been read to the end grandmamma said ‘Charmant!’1 and kissed me on the forehead.

The little box, the drawing and the poem were laid out in a row beside two cambric handkerchiefs and a snuff-box with a portrait of mamma on the lid on the adjustable flap of the arm-chair in which grandmamma always sat.

‘The Princess Varvara Ilinichna!’ announced one of the two huge footmen who stood behind grandmamma’s carriage when she drove out.

But grandmamma was gazing thoughtfully at the portrait set in the tortoise-shell snuff-box, and made no reply.

‘Shall I show her in, your ladyship?’ repeated the footman.

17 • PRINCESS KORNAKOVA

‘Yes, show her in,’ said grandmamma, settling deeper into her chair.

The princess was a woman of about forty-five, small, frail, lean and bilious-looking, with disagreeable greeny-grey eyes whose expression entirely contradicted the unnaturally suave curves of her small mouth. Beneath her velvet bonnet with its ostrich feather some fair carroty hair was visible; her eyebrows and eyelashes appeared paler and more carroty still against the unhealthy colour of her face. But in spite of all this, owing to the ease of her movements, her tiny hands and the peculiar aridity of all her features, there was something aristocratic and forceful about her general appearance.

The princess was a great talker and in the way she spoke belonged to the category of people who give the impression that they are being contradicted though no one has uttered a word: she would alternately raise her voice and let it die away gradually, then suddenly begin to speak with fresh animation and gaze round at those who were present but taking no part in the conversation, as though she hoped to gain support by so looking.

In spite of the fact that the princess had kissed grandmamma’s hand and continually called her ma bonne tante1 I noticed that grandmamma was displeased with her: she raised her eyebrows in an odd kind of way as she listened to explanations as to why Prince Mihailo could not come in person to give grandmamma his good wishes ‘as he would so very much like to have done’; and, answering in Russian to the princess’s French, said in a singular drawl:

‘I am very much obliged to you, my dear, for your thoughtfulness; and as for Prince Mihailo’s not having come, pray do not mention it… He always has such a mass of things on hand; and besides, what pleasure could he find in seeing an old woman like me?’

And not giving the princess time to protest she went on – ‘And how are your children, my dear?’

‘Quite well, I am thankful to say, ma tante: they grow, do their lessons and get into mischief, especially Etienne, the eldest, who is becoming such a scapegrace that we can’t do anything with him; but then he’s very intelligent-un garçon qui promet.2 Just fancy, mon cousin,’ she continued, addressing herself exclusively to papa since grandmamma, not in the least interested in the princess’s children but wanting to brag about her own grandchildren, was carefully taking my verses from under the little box and beginning to unfold them: ‘Just fancy, mon cousin, what he did the other day…’

And the princess, leaning over to papa, began to tell him something with great animation.