When she had finished her tale, which I did not hear, she burst into a laugh and looking inquiringly into papa’s face said:

‘What a boy, eh mon cousin? He deserved a whipping but the prank was so clever and amusing that I forgave him, mon cousin.’

And fixing her eyes on grandmamma the princess continued to smile without saying anything more.

‘Do you really beat your children, my dear?’ asked grandmamma, raising her eyebrows significantly and laying particular emphasis on the word beat.

‘Ah, ma bonne tante,’ the princess replied in a sweet voice after a swift glance at papa, ‘I know your opinion on that subject; but you must allow me to disagree with you in this one particular. I have thought and read a great deal, and taken much advice about this matter, but experience has all the same convinced me that children must be governed through fear. To make anything of a child, fear is indispensable… is it not so, mon cousin? And what, je vous demande un peu,1 do children fear more than the birch?’

Saying this, she threw an inquiring look in our direction, and I confess at that moment I felt rather uncomfortable.

‘Say what you like but a boy up to the age of twelve, or even fourteen, is still a child. Now with a girl it is different.’

‘How lucky,’ I thought to myself, ‘that I am not her son.’

‘Yes, that is all very fine, my dear,’ said grandmamma, folding up my verses and putting them away under the box as though after that she did not consider the princess worthy of hearing such a work. ‘That is all very well, only tell me, please, what delicacy of feeling can you expect in your children after that?’

And considering this unanswerable grandmamma added, in order to put an end to the conversation:

‘However, every one has a right to his own opinion on that subject.’

The princess made no reply but merely smiled condescendingly, to show that she forgave these strange prejudices in one whom she respected so much.

‘Oh, but do introduce me to your young people,’ she said, looking at us and smiling affably.

We stood up and fixed our eyes on the princess’s face but we did not in the least know what we ought to do to show that we had become acquainted.

‘Well, kiss the princess’s hand,’ said papa.

‘I hope that you will love your old aunt,’ she said, kissing Volodya on the hair. ‘Though I am a distant relation I value friendship more than I do degrees of relationship,’ she added, directing her remark chiefly to grandmamma; but grandmamma was still displeased with her and answered:

‘Oh, my dear, just as if kinship of that kind counted nowadays!’

‘This is going to be my young man of the world,’ said papa, pointing to Volodya, ‘and this is the poet,’ he added, just as I was kissing the princess’s dry little hand, at the same time very distinctly picturing to myself a birch in that hand, and a bench beneath the birch, and so on and so on.

‘Which one?’ asked the princess, detaining me by the hand.

‘This little fellow with the tufts of hair sticking up,’ answered papa with a merry smile.

‘What have my tufts done to him? Is there nothing else to talk about?’ I thought, and retreated into a corner.

I had the strangest possible conceptions of beauty – I even thought Karl Ivanych one of the handsomest men in the world, but I knew very well that I was not good-looking, and in this I was in no wise mistaken, so that any allusion to my personal appearance offended me deeply.

I can remember quite well how one day during dinner – I was six years old at the time – they were discussing my looks and mamma, trying to discover something nice about my face, said that I had intelligent eyes and a pleasant smile, and then, yielding to papa’s arguments and to the obvious, had been forced to admit that I was plain; and afterwards, when I was thanking her for the dinner1 she patted my cheek and said:

‘Remember, my little Nikolai, that no one will love you for your face so you must try to be a sensible good boy.’

These words not only convinced me that I was no beauty but made me determined by all the means in my power to be a good and clever boy.

But in spite of this I often had moments of despair, fancying that there could be no earthly happiness for a person with such a broad nose, such thick lips and such small grey eyes as I had; and I prayed for a miracle that would transform me into a handsome man, and I would have given all I possessed and everything I might have in the future in exchange for a handsome face.

18 • PRINCE IV AN IVANYCH

After the princess had heard the verses and showered praises upon their author grandmamma relented. She began talking to her in French and stopped calling her ‘you, my dear’1 and invited her to return that evening with all her children. The princess accepted the invitation and after staying a little longer took her leave.

So many visitors called with their good wishes that day that throughout the morning there were always several carriages by the entrance in the courtyard.

‘Bonjour, chère cousine!’ said one of the callers as he entered the room and kissed grandmamma’s hand.

He was a tall man of about seventy, in military uniform with large epaulets and a large white cross showing beneath his collar, and having a calm frank expression of countenance. I was struck by the freedom and simplicity of his movements. Though only a thin semicircle of hair was left on the back of his head, and the set of his upper lip clearly betrayed a scarcity of teeth, his face was still notably handsome.

While he was still very young at the end of the last century Prince Ivan Ivanych had made himself a brilliant career, thanks to his honourable character, good looks, remarkable courage, distinguished and powerful connexions and, above all, good fortune. He continued in the Service and very soon his ambition was so thoroughly satisfied that there was nothing more for him to wish for in that respect. From his earliest youth he had behaved as if he were preparing himself to occupy that exalted position in the world in which fate eventually placed him. Consequently, though in the course of his brilliant and somewhat vainglorious life he encountered reverses, disappointments and afflictions like any other man, his invariably calm disposition, his elevated cast of mind, his profound moral and religious principles never once failed him, and he had won universal respect not so much for his brilliant position as for his perseverance and integrity. He was not a man of great intellect but due to the eminence of his station which allowed him to look down on all the vain turmoil of life his views were lofty. He was kindly and sympathetic but cold and rather arrogant in his dealings with others since, occupying a position in which he could be useful to many people, he endeavoured by his cold manner to protect himself from the continual requests and cajolery of those who only wanted to avail themselves of his influence. Even so this coldness was mitigated by the indulgent courtesy of a man of the highest society. He was well educated and well read; but his education had stopped at what he had acquired in his youth, that is, at the end of the last century. He had read everything of note that had been written in France in the field of philosophy and rhetoric during the eighteenth century; he was thoroughly acquainted with all the best works of French literature, so that he was able to quote and liked quoting passages from Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Molière, Montaigne and Fénelon; he was splendidly versed in mythology, and in French translations had studied with profit the ancient monuments of epic poetry; he had acquired a sufficient knowledge of history from Ségur but he knew nothing at all of mathematics beyond arithmetic, nor of physics, nor of contemporary literature; in conversation he knew how to be silent, or to utter a few commonplaces about Goethe, Schiller and Byron but he had never read them. Notwithstanding this classical French education, of which so few examples still exist nowadays, his conversation was always simple and this very simplicity both concealed his ignorance of certain things and showed his good breeding and tolerant disposition. He hated every kind of eccentricity, declaring that eccentricity was an expedient of vulgar people. Society life was a necessity to him wherever he might be: whether in Moscow or abroad he always lived in the same open fashion and on certain days entertained the whole town at his home. His standing was such that a note of invitation from him would serve as a passport to any drawing-room, and many young and pretty women willingly offered him their rosy cheeks, which he kissed as it were paternally; and others, to all appearances very important and superior persons, were delighted beyond words when they were asked to one of the prince’s receptions

There were very few people left to the prince now, who, like our grandmamma, were of the same circle as himself, had been brought up in the same way, had the same outlook on things and were of the same age; so he set particular store on his long-established friendship with her and always showed her the greatest esteem.

I could not take my eyes off the prince: the respect he evoked from all sides, his huge epaulets, the way grandmamma was always so glad to see him, and the fact that he was the only person she did not seem to inspire with fear – indeed, he was quite at his ease with her, even daring to address her as ma cousine – filled me with a regard which equalled, if it did not excel, that which I felt for grandmamma. When my verses were shown to him he called me to his side and said:

‘Who knows, ma cousine, but this may turn out to be a second Derzhavin?’

Thereupon he pinched my cheek so painfully that if I did not cry out it was only because I guessed it must be meant as a caress.

The visitors had departed, my father and Volodya had gone out of the room: only the prince, grandmamma and I were left in the drawing-room.

‘How is it our dear Natalya Nikolayevna did not come?’ asked Prince Ivan Ivanych suddenly, after a momentary silence.

‘Ah, mon cher,’ answered grandmamma, lowering her voice and laying a hand on the sleeve of his uniform, ‘she would certainly have come were she at liberty to do what she wants to. She wrote that Pierre had offered to bring her but that she had declined because, according to her, they are getting no income at all this year; and she adds: “Besides, there is no real reason why the whole family need come to Moscow this year. Lyuba is still too young, and as to the boys – they will live at your house and I shall feel even more secure about them than if they were with me.” All very nice!’ continued grandmamma in a tone which plainly showed that she did not consider it nice at all. ‘It was high time to send the boys here that they might learn something and become accustomed to society, for what sort of an education could they have got in the country?… Why, the eldest will soon be thirteen and the other eleven… You have noticed, mon cousin, that they are just like savages here… they do not even know how to enter a room.’

‘Still I cannot understand these perpetual complaints of straitened circumstances,’ replied the prince. ‘He has a very handsome fortune, and I know Natalya’s Khabarovka estate (where once upon a time you and I used to play in theatricals together) like the back of my hand – it is a marvellous property and must bring in a splendid income.’

‘I will tell you as a true friend,’ grandmamma interrupted him with a sad expression on her face, ‘that it seems to me these are only excuses for him to live here alone, to gad about from club to club, go to dinner-parties and do heaven knows what, and she does not suspect a thing. You know what an angel of goodness she is – she trusts him in everything. He assured her that the children had to be taken to Moscow and that she ought to remain in the country with the stupid governess – and she believed it. If he were to tell her the children should be whipped as Princess Kornakova whips her children I think she would agree even to that,’ said grandmamma, turning in her arm-chair with an expression of great contempt.