Crusade?" he went on, balancing himself on his chair and looking gravely
at his feet. "Firstly, tell me something about the reasons which induced
the French king to assume the cross" (here he raised his eyebrows and
pointed to the inkstand); "then explain to me the general characteristics
of the Crusade" (here he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, as though
to seize hold of something with it); "and lastly, expound to me the
influence of this Crusade upon the European states in general" (drawing
the copy books to the left side of the table) "and upon the French state
in particular" (drawing one of them to the right, and inclining his head
in the same direction).
I swallowed a few times, coughed, bent forward, and was silent. Then,
taking a pen from the table, I began to pick it to pieces, yet still
said nothing.
"Allow me the pen--I shall want it," said the master. "Well?"
"Louis the-er-Saint was-was-a very good and wise king."
"What?"
"King, He took it into his head to go to Jerusalem, and handed over the
reins of government to his mother."
"What was her name?
"B-b-b-lanka."
"What? Belanka?"
I laughed in a rather forced manner.
"Well, is that all you know?" he asked again, smiling.
I had nothing to lose now, so I began chattering the first thing that
came into my head. The master remained silent as he gathered together
the remains of the pen which I had left strewn about the table, looked
gravely past my ear at the wall, and repeated from time to time, "Very
well, very well." Though I was conscious that I knew nothing whatever
and was expressing myself all wrong, I felt much hurt at the fact that
he never either corrected or interrupted me.
"What made him think of going to Jerusalem?" he asked at last, repeating
some words of my own.
"Because--because--that is to say--"
My confusion was complete, and I relapsed into silence, I felt that,
even if this disgusting history master were to go on putting questions
to me, and gazing inquiringly into my face, for a year, I should never
be able to enunciate another syllable. After staring at me for some
three minutes, he suddenly assumed a mournful cast of countenance, and
said in an agitated voice to Woloda (who was just re-entering the room):
"Allow me the register. I will write my remarks."
He opened the book thoughtfully, and in his fine caligraphy marked FIVE
for Woloda for diligence, and the same for good behaviour. Then, resting
his pen on the line where my report was to go, he looked at me and
reflected. Suddenly his hand made a decisive movement and, behold,
against my name stood a clearly-marked ONE, with a full stop after it!
Another movement and in the behaviour column there stood another one and
another full stop! Quietly closing the book, the master then rose, and
moved towards the door as though unconscious of my look of entreaty,
despair, and reproach.
"Michael Lavionitch!" I said.
"No!" he replied, as though knowing beforehand what I was about to say.
"It is impossible for you to learn in that way. I am not going to earn
my money for nothing."
He put on his goloshes and cloak, and then slowly tied a scarf about his
neck. To think that he could care about such trifles after what had just
happened to me! To him it was all a mere stroke of the pen, but to me it
meant the direst misfortune.
"Is the lesson over?" asked St. Jerome, entering.
"Yes."
"And was the master pleased with you?"
"Yes."
"How many marks did he give you?"
"Five."
"And to Nicholas?"
I was silent.
"I think four," said Woloda. His idea was to save me for at least today.
If punishment there must be, it need not be awarded while we had guests.
"Voyons, Messieurs!" (St. Jerome was forever saying "Voyons!") "Faites
votre toilette, et descendons."
XII. THE KEY
We had hardly descended and greeted our guests when luncheon was
announced. Papa was in the highest of spirits since for some time
past he had been winning. He had presented Lubotshka with a silver tea
service, and suddenly remembered, after luncheon, that he had forgotten
a box of bonbons which she was to have too.
"Why send a servant for it? YOU had better go, Koko," he said to me
jestingly. "The keys are in the tray on the table, you know. Take them,
and with the largest one open the second drawer on the right. There you
will find the box of bonbons. Bring it here."
"Shall I get you some cigars as well?" said I, knowing that he always
smoked after luncheon.
"Yes, do; but don't touch anything else."
I found the keys, and was about to carry out my orders, when I was
seized with a desire to know what the smallest of the keys on the bunch
belonged to.
On the table I saw, among many other things, a padlocked portfolio,
and at once felt curious to see if that was what the key fitted. My
experiment was crowned with success. The portfolio opened and disclosed
a number of papers. Curiosity so strongly urged me also to ascertain
what those papers contained that the voice of conscience was stilled,
and I began to read their contents. . . .
My childish feeling of unlimited respect for my elders, especially for
Papa, was so strong within me that my intellect involuntarily refused to
draw any conclusions from what I had seen. I felt that Papa was living
in a sphere completely apart from, incomprehensible by, and unattainable
for, me, as well as one that was in every way excellent, and that any
attempt on my part to criticise the secrets of his life would constitute
something like sacrilege.
For this reason, the discovery which I made from Papa's portfolio left
no clear impression upon my mind, but only a dim consciousness that I
had done wrong. I felt ashamed and confused.
The feeling made me eager to shut the portfolio again as quickly as
possible, but it seemed as though on this unlucky day I was destined to
experience every possible kind of adversity. I put the key back into the
padlock and turned it round, but not in the right direction. Thinking
that the portfolio was now locked, I pulled at the key and, oh horror!
found my hand come away with only the top half of the key in it! In vain
did I try to put the two halves together, and to extract the portion
that was sticking in the padlock. At last I had to resign myself to the
dreadful thought that I had committed a new crime--one which would be
discovered to-day as soon as ever Papa returned to his study! First of
all, Mimi's accusation on the staircase, and then that one mark, and
then this key! Nothing worse could happen now. This very evening
I should be assailed successively by Grandmamma (because of Mimi's
denunciation), by St. Jerome (because of the solitary mark), and by Papa
(because of the matter of this key)--yes, all in one evening!
"What on earth is to become of me? What have I done?" I exclaimed as
I paced the soft carpet. "Well," I went on with sudden determination,
"what MUST come, MUST--that's all;" and, taking up the bonbons and the
cigars, I ran back to the other part of the house.
The fatalistic formula with which I had concluded (and which was one
that I often heard Nicola utter during my childhood) always produced
in me, at the more difficult crises of my life, a momentarily soothing,
beneficial effect. Consequently, when I re-entered the drawing-room,
I was in a rather excited, unnatural mood, yet one that was perfectly
cheerful.
XIII. THE TRAITRESS
After luncheon we began to play at round games, in which I took a lively
part. While indulging in "cat and mouse", I happened to cannon rather
awkwardly against the Kornakoffs' governess, who was playing with us,
and, stepping on her dress, tore a large hole in it. Seeing that the
girls--particularly Sonetchka--were anything but displeased at the
spectacle of the governess angrily departing to the maidservants' room
to have her dress mended, I resolved to procure them the satisfaction
a second time. Accordingly, in pursuance of this amiable resolution, I
waited until my victim returned, and then began to gallop madly round
her, until a favourable moment occurred for once more planting my
heel upon her dress and reopening the rent. Sonetchka and the young
princesses had much ado to restrain their laughter, which excited my
conceit the more, but St. Jerome, who had probably divined my tricks,
came up to me with the frown which I could never abide in him, and said
that, since I seemed disposed to mischief, he would have to send me away
if I did not moderate my behaviour.
However, I was in the desperate position of a person who, having staked
more than he has in his pocket, and feeling that he can never make up
his account, continues to plunge on unlucky cards--not because he hopes
to regain his losses, but because it will not do for him to stop and
consider. So, I merely laughed in an impudent fashion and flung away
from my monitor.
After "cat and mouse", another game followed in which the gentlemen sit
on one row of chairs and the ladies on another, and choose each other
for partners. The youngest princess always chose the younger Iwin,
Katenka either Woloda or Ilinka, and Sonetchka Seriosha--nor, to my
extreme astonishment, did Sonetchka seem at all embarrassed when her
cavalier went and sat down beside her. On the contrary, she only laughed
her sweet, musical laugh, and made a sign with her head that he had
chosen right. Since nobody chose me, I always had the mortification of
finding myself left over, and of hearing them say, "Who has been left
out? Oh, Nicolinka. Well, DO take him, somebody." Consequently, whenever
it came to my turn to guess who had chosen me, I had to go either to
my sister or to one of the ugly elder princesses. Sonetchka seemed so
absorbed in Seriosha that in her eyes I clearly existed no longer. I do
not quite know why I called her "the traitress" in my thoughts, since
she had never promised to choose me instead of Seriosha, but, for all
that, I felt convinced that she was treating me in a very abominable
fashion. After the game was finished, I actually saw "the traitress"
(from whom I nevertheless could not withdraw my eyes) go with Seriosha
and Katenka into a corner, and engage in secret confabulation.
Stealing softly round the piano which masked the conclave, I beheld the
following:
Katenka was holding up a pocket-handkerchief by two of its corners, so
as to form a screen for the heads of her two companions. "No, you have
lost! You must pay the forfeit!" cried Seriosha at that moment, and
Sonetchka, who was standing in front of him, blushed like a criminal
as she replied, "No, I have NOT lost! HAVE I, Mademoiselle Katherine?"
"Well, I must speak the truth," answered Katenka, "and say that you HAVE
lost, my dear." Scarcely had she spoken the words when Seriosha embraced
Sonetchka, and kissed her right on her rosy lips! And Sonetchka smiled
as though it were nothing, but merely something very pleasant!
Horrors! The artful "traitress!"
XIV. THE RETRIBUTION
Instantly, I began to feel a strong contempt for the female sex in
general and Sonetchka in particular. I began to think that there was
nothing at all amusing in these games--that they were only fit for
girls, and felt as though I should like to make a great noise, or to do
something of such extraordinary boldness that every one would be forced
to admire it. The opportunity soon arrived. St. Jerome said something to
staircase, and then passing across the schoolroom, and the idea occurred
to me that Mimi must have told him her story about my being found on the
landing, and thereupon he had gone to look at the register. (In those
days, it must be remembered, I believed that St. Jerome's whole aim in
life was to annoy me.) Some where I have read that, not infrequently,
children of from twelve to fourteen years of age--that is to say,
children just passing from childhood to adolescence--are addicted to
incendiarism, or even to murder. As I look back upon my childhood, and
particularly upon the mood in which I was on that (for myself) most
unlucky day, I can quite understand the possibility of such terrible
crimes being committed by children without any real aim in view--without
any real wish to do wrong, but merely out of curiosity or under the
influence of an unconscious necessity for action. There are moments when
the human being sees the future in such lurid colours that he
shrinks from fixing his mental eye upon it, puts a check upon all his
intellectual activity, and tries to feel convinced that the future will
never be, and that the past has never been. At such moments--moments
when thought does not shrink from manifestations of will, and the carnal
instincts alone constitute the springs of life--I can understand that
want of experience (which is a particularly predisposing factor in
this connection) might very possibly lead a child, aye, without fear
or hesitation, but rather with a smile of curiosity on its face, to set
fire to the house in which its parents and brothers and sisters (beings
whom it tenderly loves) are lying asleep. It would be under the same
influence of momentary absence of thought--almost absence of mind--that
a peasant boy of seventeen might catch sight of the edge of a
newly-sharpened axe reposing near the bench on which his aged father was
lying asleep, face downwards, and suddenly raise the implement in order
to observe with unconscious curiosity how the blood would come spurting
out upon the floor if he made a wound in the sleeper's neck. It is under
the same influence--the same absence of thought, the same instinctive
curiosity--that a man finds delight in standing on the brink of an abyss
and thinking to himself, "How if I were to throw myself down?" or in
holding to his brow a loaded pistol and wondering, "What if I were
to pull the trig
ger?" or in feeling, when he catches sight of some
universally respected personage, that he would like to go up to him,
pull his nose hard, and say, "How do you do, old boy?"
Under the spell, then, of this instinctive agitation and lack of
reflection I was moved to put out my tongue, and to say that I would not
move, when St. Jerome came down and told me that I had behaved so badly
that day, as well as done my lessons so ill, that I had no right to be
where I was, and must go upstairs directly.
At first, from astonishment and anger, he could not utter a word.
"C'est bien!" he exclaimed eventually as he darted towards me. "Several
times have I promised to punish you, and you have been saved from it by
your Grandmamma, but now I see that nothing but the cane will teach you
obedience, and you shall therefore taste it."
This was said loud enough for every one to hear. The blood rushed to
my heart with such vehemence that I could feel that organ beating
violently--could feel the colour rising to my cheeks and my lips
trembling. Probably I looked horrible at that moment, for, avoiding
my eye, St. Jerome stepped forward and caught me by the hand. Hardly
feeling his touch, I pulled away my hand in blind fury, and with all my
childish might struck him.
"What are you doing?" said Woloda, who had seen my behaviour, and now
approached me in alarm and astonishment.
"Let me alone!" I exclaimed, the tears flowing fast. "Not a single one
of you loves me or understands how miserable I am! You are all of you
odious and disgusting!" I added bluntly, turning to the company at