From the window on the right part of the verandah was visible, where the grown-ups generally sat before dinner. Sometimes while Karl Ivanych was correcting a page of dictation it was possible to steal a glance that way and see mamma’s dark head and somebody’s back, and hear faint sounds of conversation and laughter coming from that direction. And one would feel cross because one could not be there, and would think: ‘When shall I be a big boy and stop learning lessons, and sit with people I love instead of poring over Dialogues?’ Vexation would turn to sadness and one would fall into such a reverie, heaven knows why and what about, that one did not even hear Karl Ivanych raging over mistakes.

Karl Ivanych took off his dressing-gown, put on his blue swallow-tail coat with the padding and gathers on the shoulders, adjusted his cravat before the looking-glass, and led us downstairs to say good morning to our mother.

2 • MAMMA

Mamma was sitting in the parlour pouring out tea. In one hand she held the teapot and with the other the tap of the samovar, from which the water poured over the top of the teapot on to the tray. But though she was staring intently at it she did not realize either this, or that we had come in.

So many memories of the past arise when one tries to recall the features of somebody we love that one sees those features dimly through the memories, as though through tears. They are the tears of imagination. When I try to recall my mother as she was at that time I can only picture her brown eyes which always held the same expression of goodness and love, the mole on her neck just below the place where the short hairs grow, her embroidered white collar, and the delicate dry hand which so often caressed me and which I so often kissed; but the complete image escapes me.

To the left of the sofa stood an old English grand piano at which sat my rather sallow-skinned sister, Lyuba, her rosy fingers just washed in cold water playing Clementi’s studies with evident effort. Lyuba was eleven. She wore a short gingham frock and white lace-trimmed drawers, and could only manage an octave as an arpeggio. Beside and half turned towards her sat Marya Ivanovna, wearing a cap with pink ribbons and a short blue jacket; her face was red and cross, and assumed a still more forbidding expression as soon as Karl Ivanych came in. She looked severely at him and without returning his bow went on tapping the floor with her foot and counting ‘Un, deux, trois; un, deux, trois’ more loudly and imperatively even than before.

Karl Ivanych, paying no attention whatsoever to this, after his usual fashion went straight to kiss my mother’s hand. She roused herself, shook her head as if to drive away sad thoughts, gave Karl Ivanych her hand and kissed him on his wrinkled temple while he kissed her hand.

‘Ich danke, lieber1 Karl Ivanych,’ and continuing in German she asked: ‘Did the children sleep well?’

Karl Ivanych was deaf in one ear and now, thanks to the noise from the piano, he heard nothing at all. He stooped nearer to the sofa, rested one hand on the table and, standing on one foot, with a smile which seemed to me then the pinnacle of refinement he raised his skull-cap above his head and said:

‘You will excuse me, Natalya Nikolaycvna?’

Karl Ivanych, for fear of catching cold in his bald head, always wore his red cap but every time he entered the parlour he begged permission to keep it on.

‘Put it on, Karl Ivanych… I was asking you if the children slept well?’ said mamma, moving towards him and speaking fairly loudly.

But again he heard nothing, covered his bald head with the red skull-cap and smiled more amiably than ever.

‘Stop a moment, Mimi,’ said mamma to Marya Ivanovna with a smile. ‘We can’t hear anything.’

When mamma smiled, beautiful as her face was, it became incomparably lovelier and everything around seemed to grow brighter. If in the more painful moments of my life I could have had but a glimpse of that smile I should not have known what sorrow is. It seems to me that what we call beauty in a face lies in the smile: if the smile heightens the charm of the face, the face is a beautiful one; if it does not alter it, the face is ordinary, and if it is spoilt by a smile, it is ugly.

When she had said good morning to me mamma took my head in both her hands and tilted it back, then looked fixedly at me and said:

‘Have you been crying this morning?’

I did not answer. She kissed my eyes and asked in German:

‘What were you crying about?’

When talking to us with particular intimacy she always used that language, which she knew to perfection.

‘I cried in my sleep, mamma,’ I said, remembering my invented dream in all its details and involuntarily shuddering at the recollection.

Karl Ivanych corroborated my words but kept silent about the dream itself. After speaking of the weather – a conversation in which Mimi also took part – mamma put six lumps of sugar on a tray for certain specially esteemed servants, got up and went over to her embroidery-frame which stood in the window.

‘Now, children, run along to papa, and tell him to be sure and come to me before he goes to the threshing-floor.’

The music, the counting and the black looks began again, and we went off to papa. Passing through the room which still retained from grandpapa’s time the name of ‘the pantry’, we entered the study.

3 • PAPA

He was standing by his writing-table and pointing to some envelopes, papers, and piles of money spoke with anger – heatedly explaining something to his steward, Yakov Mihailov, who stood in his usual place between the door and the barometer with his hands behind his back, rapidly twisting and turning his fingers in all directions.

The angrier papa grew the more rapidly the fingers twitched, and in the same way, when father paused the fingers came to rest too; but as soon as ever Yakov himself started to speak the fingers betrayed extreme agitation and flew desperately here, there and everywhere. It seemed to me one could guess Yakov’s secret thoughts by the movements of his fingers, but his face was invariably placid – expressing consciousness of his own dignity and at the same time deference, saying as it were, ‘I am right but nevertheless have your own way!’

When papa saw us he merely said:

‘Wait a moment,’ and by a nod of his head directed one of us to shut the door.

‘Oh, gracious heavens! What is the matter with you today, Yakov?’ he continued to the steward, jerking one shoulder (which was a habit of his). ‘This envelope with 800 roubles in it…’

Yakov moved his abacus a little, marked off eight hundred and fixed his gaze on some indefinite spot while he waited for what would come next.

‘…is for general expenses during my absence. Do you understand? For the mill you ought to get a thousand roubles… is that right or not? From the Treasury mortgage you should get back eight thousand; for the hay, of which by your own reckoning there should be 7,000 poods1 for sale, at, say, forty-five kopecks a pood, you will get three thousand roubles; so altogether you will have… how much? twelve thousand… is that so or not?’

‘Just so, sir,’ said Yakov.

But by the rapidity with which his fingers moved I saw that he had an objection to make; papa interrupted him.

‘Well, out of this money you will send ten thousand to the Council for the Petrovskoe estate. Now as to the money which is in the office,’ continued papa (Yakov pushed back the twelve thousand he had shown on the abacus and cast on twenty-one thousand) – ‘you will bring it to me and enter it as paid out today.’ (Yakov shook up his abacus again and turned it over, no doubt to intimate that the twenty-one thousand would disappear in like fashion.) ‘And this envelope with the money in it you will deliver for me to the person to whom it is addressed.’

I was standing near the table and glanced at the address. It was to ‘Karl Ivanych Mauer’.

Papa must have noticed that I had read something I had no business to know for he put his hand on my shoulder and with a slight pressure indicated that I was to move away from the table. I did not understand whether this was a caress or a rebuke but at all events I kissed the large muscular hand that lay on my shoulder.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Yakov. ‘And what are your orders with regard to the Khabarovka money?’

Khabarovka was mamma’s estate.

‘Keep it in the office and on no account make use of it without my instructions.’

For several seconds Yakov was silent; then suddenly his fingers began to twitch with increased rapidity, and altering the look of servile stupidity with which he had listened to his master’s orders to his natural expression of sly intelligence he drew the abacus towards him and began to speak:

‘Permit me to report to you, Piotr Alexandrych, it’s just as you please, but we cannot pay the Council on time. You were pleased to say,’ he went on with deliberation, ‘that monies are due to come in from the deposits, from the mill and from the hay…’ (As he mentioned each item he cast on to the abacus) ‘but I am afraid we may be wrong in our reckoning,’ he added after a pause and with a thoughtful look at papa.

‘How so?’

‘Be pleased to consider: take the mill now – the miller has twice been to see me begging for a deferment and swearing by Christ the Lord that he has no money… Why, he is even here now: perhaps you would like to speak to him yourself?’

‘What does he say?’ asked papa, shaking his head to show that he had no wish to speak to the miller.

‘The same old story. He says there was no grinding to do; that what little money there was all went on the dam. And suppose we turn him out, sir, what good would it do us? As to the deposits you were pleased to mention, I think I have already reported that our money is locked up there and cannot be got hold of at a moment’s notice. I sent a load of flour to town the other day for Ivan Afanassich and with it a note about this business, and the answer is again the same: “I should be glad to do anything I could for Piotr Alexandrych but the matter does not depend on me,” and it looks as if it will be at least another couple of months before you receive settlement.