Seriozha flared up at me: he clenched his fists, stamped his foot and in a voice which plainly betrayed that he had hurt himself badly shouted:

‘What’s the matter with you? How can we play the game properly? Well, why don’t you catch me? Why don’t you catch me?’ he repeated several times, with a side glance at Volodya and the eldest Ivin who were the travellers and so were running and jumping along the path; then with a sudden wild yell he hurled himself after them, laughing loudly.

I cannot express how impressed and enthralled I was by this heroic behaviour: in spite of terrible pain he not only did not cry – he did not even show that he was hurt, or for a moment forget the game.

Soon after that, when Ilinka Grap joined us and we went upstairs before dinner, Seriozha had occasion still further to captivate and impress me by his astonishing courage and strength of mind.

Ilinka Grap was the son of a poor foreigner who had once lived at my grandfather’s and was under some obligation to him, and now considered it his imperative duty to send his son to us as often as possible. If he supposed his son would derive any honour or pleasure from acquaintance with us he was quite mistaken, for not only were we not friendly with Ilinka but we only took any notice of him when we wanted to make fun of him. Ilinka Grap was a boy of about thirteen, thin, tall and pale, with a bird-like face and a good-natured submissive expression. He was very poorly dressed but his hair was so abundantly pomaded that we declared that on sunny days the pomatum melted on his head and trickled down under his jacket. As I recall him now I see that he was a very obliging quiet kind-hearted boy; but at the time he seemed such a contemptible creature that he was not worth pitying or even thinking about.

When we had finished playing at robbers we went upstairs and began to romp about and show off gymnastic feats to one another. Ilinka watched us with a timid smile of admiration and when we invited him to do the same he made excuses, saying that he was not strong enough. Seriozha looked marvellously nice: he had taken his jacket off, his face and eyes shone, he laughed and continually devised new tricks; he jumped over three chairs placed in a row, turned somersaults right down the room, stood on his head on Tatishchev’s dictionaries which he piled in the middle of the room for a pedestal, and at the same time did such funny things with his feet that it was impossible to help laughing. After this last trick he thought for a bit, blinking his eyes, and with a perfectly serious air suddenly went up to Ilinka and said: ‘You try that: it really isn’t difficult.’ Grap, seeing everybody’s attention fixed on him, blushed and in a scarcely audible voice said that he could not possibly do it.

‘Now, really, why won’t he do some trick for us too? He’s not a girl… He has just got to stand on his head.’

And Seriozha grabbed him by the hand.

‘Yes, yes, he must stand on his head!’ we all shouted, surrounding Ilinka, who at that moment obviously took fright and went pale, and we seized him by the arm and dragged him towards the dictionaries.

‘Let me go, I’ll do it by myself! You’ll tear my jacket!’ cried the unfortunate victim. But his cries of despair only encouraged us the more. We were doubled up with laughter: his green jacket was bursting at all its seams.

Volodya and the eldest Ivin pushed his head down and placed it on the dictionaries. Seriozha and I seized the poor boy by his thin legs, which he was kicking in all directions, rolled his trousers up to the knee and with a shout of laughter jerked his legs up in the air, while the youngest Ivin tried to preserve the balance of the whole body.

Suddenly after our boisterous laughter we all fell quite silent and it was so quiet in the room that the only sound heard was the heavy breathing of the unhappy Grap. At that moment I did not feel entirely convinced that all this was funny and amusing.

‘Now you’re a good chap,’ said Seriozha, giving him a slap.

Ilinka was silent and, endeavouring to free himself, kicked out right and left. In one of these desperate thrusts he caught Seriozha in the eye so forcibly with his heel that Seriozha immediately let go of the legs, put one hand to his eye which was shedding involuntary tears, and pushed Ilinka with all his might. No longer supported by us, Ilinka crashed heavily to the floor and could only mutter through his tears:

‘Why do you bully me?’

We were struck by the pitiful figure of poor Ilinka with his tear-stained face, dishevelled hair and the rolled up trousers showing the unblacked tops of his boots. No one said anything and we tried to force a smile.

Seriozha was the first to recover.

‘There’s an old woman for you! Cry-baby!’ he said, lightly touching Ilinka with his foot. ‘It’s no good trying to have a joke with him. Well, that’s enough now, get up.’

‘I told them all you were a nasty boy,’ said Ilinka angrily, and turning away he burst into loud sobs.

‘Oh, oh, kicks out with its heels and then starts calling names!’ cried Seriozha, seizing one of the dictionaries and flourishing it over the unfortunate youth, who made no pretence of defending himself but merely covered his head with his arms.

‘That’s what I think of you!… Let’s leave him alone if he can’t take a joke… Come on downstairs,’ said Seriozha, laughing unnaturally.

I glanced with compassion at the poor lad who lay on the floor and hiding his face among the dictionaries wept so bitterly that it seemed a little more and he would have died of the convulsions which shook his whole body.

‘Oh Sergei!’ I said. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘That’s good!… I didn’t cry, I hope, when I cut my leg nearly to the bone today.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ I thought. ‘That Ilinka’s nothing but a cry-baby, but Sergei now – he’s a fine fellow… What a fine fellow he is!…’

It never occurred to me that poor Ilinka was probably crying not so much from physical pain as at the thought that five boys whom he may have liked had for no reason at all conspired to detest and persecute him.

I am quite unable to explain to myself my cruel behaviour. How was it I did not go up to him, did not protect or console him? Where was my tender heart which often caused me to sob wildly at the sight of a young jackdaw pushed out of its nest, or a puppy being thrown over a fence, or a chicken the cook was going to make soup of?

Can it be that all those good instincts were stifled in me by my affection for Seriozha and my desire to appear in his eyes as fine a fellow as he was himself? Contemptible then were both the affection and my wish to be a fine fellow, for they left the only dark spots on the pages of my childhood’s recollections!

20 • VISITORS ARRIVE

To judge by the unusual activity in the butler’s pantry, by the brilliant lighting which lent a novel and festive appearance to all the things so long familiar to me in the drawing-room and ball-room, and especially by the fact that Prince Ivan Ivanych would not have sent his orchestra without some reason, it seemed that we were to have a large party that evening.

Every time a carriage rattled past I ran to the window, put the palms of my hands to my temples and leaned against the window-pane, peering into the street with impatient curiosity. Out of the darkness, which at first hid everything outside the window, there gradually emerged – opposite, the familiar little shop with its lantern, diagonally across the road, the large house with two lighted windows on the ground floor and in the middle of the street an open cab with a couple of passengers or an empty carriage returning at a foot pace; but at last a carriage drove up to our door and feeling sure that it was the Ivins who had promised to come early I ran to meet them in the hall. Instead of the Ivins two feminine figures appeared behind the liveried arm which opened the door: one of them tall, in a blue coat with a sable collar, the other much shorter and wrapped in a green shawl from beneath which only her little feet in fur boots were visible. Without paying any attention to my presence in the hall – although I had thought it my duty to make them a bow when they came in – the little one stepped up to the taller lady and silently stood in front of her. The latter unwound the shawl that completely covered the little one’s head, unbuttoned her mantle and when the liveried footman had received these articles into his charge and had pulled off her fur boots the muffled-up individual turned out to be a wonderful little girl of about twelve in a short low-necked muslin frock, white pantalettes and tiny black slippers. She had a black velvet ribbon round her snow-white neck; her little head was a mass of dark chestnut curls which suited her pretty face and bare shoulders so well that I would not have believed it even if Karl Ivanych himself had told me that her hair curled like that because it had been twisted up ever since the morning in bits of the Moscow News, and been crisped with hot curling tongs. She looked as if she had been born with that head of curls.

The most striking feature of her face was the extraordinary size of her prominent half-veiled eyes which formed an odd but pleasing contrast to her very small mouth. Her lips were closed and her eyes so grave that the general expression of her face suggested no promise of a smile, and therefore the smile when it did come was all the more bewitching.

Trying not to be noticed, I slipped through the door into the ball-room, and deemed it necessary to walk up and down in thought and quite unaware that guests had arrived. When they were half-way through the room I as it were came to myself, bowed and brought my feet together, and informed them that grandmamma was in the drawing-room. Madame Valakhina, whose face I liked very much, more especially as I discerned in it a strong resemblance to that of her daughter, Sonya, nodded to me graciously.

Grandmamma apparently was very pleased to see Sonya. She made her come up closer, set to rights a curl which fell over her forehead, and looking earnestly into her face said: ‘Quelle charmante enfant!’1 Sonya smiled, blushed, and looked so charming that I blushed too as I watched her.

‘I hope you will not find it dull here, my dear,’ said grandmamma, raising Sonya’s face by the chin.