You were pleased to mention the hay – let us suppose it does sell for three thousand…’

He cast three thousand on the abacus and was silent for about a minute, looking now at the abacus, now into papa’s eyes, as much as to say:

‘You can see for yourself that it is too little! And again, the hay will have to be sold first: if we sell now, you know yourself…’

It was plain that he still had a large fund of arguments ready, and probably for that reason papa interrupted him.

‘I am not going to change my orders,’ he said, ‘but if there should really be a delay in receiving these sums it can’t be helped, you will take what is necessary from the Khabarovka money.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The expression of Yakov’s face, and his fingers, showed that this last order afforded him great satisfaction.

Yakov was a serf, and a very zealous and devoted man. Like all good stewards he was extremely close-fisted on his master’s account, and had the queerest notions as to what was advantageous for him. He was for ever endeavouring to increase his master’s property at the expense of his mistress’s, and to prove that it was absolutely necessary to use the income from her estate for Petrovskoe – the estate where we lived. He was triumphant at the present moment because on this point he had been successful.

Having wished us good morning, papa said that we had kicked our heels in the country long enough, that we were no longer little boys and it was time for us to do lessons in earnest.

‘I think you know that I am going to Moscow tonight, and I am taking you with me,’ he said. ‘You will live at grandmamma’s, and mamma will remain here with the girls. And be sure that her one consolation will be to hear that you are doing well in your studies.’

The preparations which had been in progress for some days past had made us expect something unusual but this news was a terrible shock. Volodya turned red and in a trembling voice repeated mamma’s message.

‘So that is what my dream foreboded?’ I thought. ‘God grant there may be nothing worse to follow.’

I felt very very sorry to leave mamma, and at the same time pleased at the idea that we were now really big boys.

‘If we are going away today I don’t suppose there will be any lessons. That’s fine!’ I thought. ‘But I am sorry about Karl Ivanych. He is certainly going to be sent away, otherwise they would not have prepared that envelope for him… It would be better to go on having lessons for ever, and not go away and leave mamma and hurt poor Karl Ivanych. He is so very unhappy as it is!’

These reflections flashed through my mind. I stood still and stared hard at the black bows on my shoes.

After a few words to Karl Ivanych about a fall in the barometer, and telling Yakov not to feed the dogs so that he might go out after dinner and make a farewell trial of the young hounds, papa, contrary to my expectations, sent us to the schoolroom, comforting us, however, with a promise to take us out hunting with him.

On my way upstairs I ran out on to the verandah. At the door my father’s favourite borzoi, Milka, lay in the sun with her eyes shut. ‘Good dog, Milka,’ I said, patting and kissing her on the muzzle. ‘We are going away today. Good-bye! We shall never see each other again.’

My feelings overcame me and I burst out crying.

4 • LESSONS

Karl Ivanych was in a very bad humour. This was evident from his frowning brows and the way he flung his frock-coat into a drawer and angrily tied the girdle of his dressing-gown, and the deep mark which he made with his nail across the book of Dialogues to indicate how far we were to learn by heart. Volodya set to work diligently; but I was so upset that I could do positively nothing. I gazed long and stupidly at the Dialogues but could not read for the tears which gathered in my eyes at the thought of the parting before us. When the time came to recite to Karl Ivanych, who was listening to me with half-closed eyes (that was a bad sign), just at the place where someone asks, ‘Wo kommen Sie her?’1 and the answer is ‘Ich komme vom Kaffeehaus’2 I could no longer keep back my tears, and sobs prevented my uttering ‘Haben Sie die Zeitung nicht gelesen?’3 When it came to writing, the tears that fell on the paper made such blots that it looked as if I had been writing with water on brown paper.

Karl Ivanych got angry, ordered me on my knees and kept saying that it was obstinacy and all humbug (a favourite expression of his), threatened me with the ruler and demanded that I should say I was sorry, though I could not get a word out for my crying. At last he must have felt that he was being unjust for he went off into Nikolai’s room and slammed the door.

In the schoolroom we could hear the conversation in the other room.

‘I suppose you have heard, Nikolai, that the children are going to Moscow?’ said Karl Ivanych as he went in.

‘Indeed, sir, I have.’

Probably Nikolai started to his feet for Karl Ivanych said: ‘Sit down, Nikolai,’ and then shut the door. I left the corner and went to the door to listen.

‘However much you do for people, however devoted you may be, gratitude is not to be expected, apparently, Nikolai,’ said Karl Ivanych with feeling.

Nikolai, who was sitting by the window mending a boot, nodded affirmatively.

‘Twelve years have I lived in this house, Nikolai,’ went on Karl Ivanych, lifting his eyes and his snuff-box towards the ceiling, ‘and I can say before God that I have loved them and taken more interest in them than if they had been my own children. You remember, Nikolai, when Volodya had fever, you remember how for nine days I sat beside his bed without closing my eyes. Yes, then I was “dear kind Karl Ivanych”, then I was wanted; but now,’ he added with an ironical smile, ‘now the children are growing up, they must study in earnest. Just as if they were not doing any learning here, Nikolai! Eh?’

‘I can’t see how they could learn more,’ said Nikolai, laying his awl down and pulling the waxed thread through with both hands.

‘Yes, I am no longer needed now, I must be sent away; but where are their promises? Where is their gratitude? Natalya Nikolayevna I revere and love, Nikolai,’ he said, placing his hand on his heart, ‘but what can she do here? Her wishes are of no more account in this house than that,’ and he flung a strip of leather on the floor with an expressive gesture. ‘I know whose doing this is, and why I am no longer needed: it is because I do not flatter and fawn, like some people. I am accustomed to speak the truth at all times and to all persons,’ he continued proudly. ‘Oh well! They won’t grow any the richer by my not being here, and I – God is merciful – I shall find a crust of bread for myself… isn’t that so, Nikolai?’

Nikolai raised his head and looked at Karl Ivanych as though desirous of assuring himself that he would indeed be able to find a crust of bread; but he said nothing.

Karl Ivanych went on at great length in this strain. In particular he said how much better his services had been appreciated at a certain general’s where he had once lived (I was awfully upset to hear that).