by Leo Tolstoy
ELEVEN
Activities in the Study and Drawing Room
It was already dusk when we got home. Maman sat down at the piano and we children brought paper, pencils and paints and arranged ourselves around the table to make pictures. I had only blue paint, but neverthless decided to represent a hunt. After vigorously depicting blue dogs and a blue boy mounted on a blue horse, I was unsure whether you could paint a blue hare and ran to the study to consult Papa about it. He was reading something, and to my question ‘Are there blue hares?’ he replied, without looking up, ‘Indeed there are, my friend, indeed there are.’ Returning to the table, I painted a blue hare, but then found it necessary to redo it as a blue shrub. I didn’t care for the shrub either and turned it into a tree, the tree into a haystack, and the haystack into a cloud, in the end so smearing the whole sheet of paper with blue paint that I tore it up in vexation and went to nap in the Voltaire armchair.
Maman was playing the second concerto of her teacher, John Field.30 I dozed off, and light, luminous, limpid memories rose up in my imagination. Then she started to play Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata, and I recollected something sad, heavy and gloomy. Maman played those two pieces often, and I remember very well the feeling they evoked in me. It was like a recollection, but a recollection of what? You seemed to be recalling something that had never existed.
Across from me was the door to the study, and I saw Yakov go in with some other bearded men wearing peasant caftans. The door immediately closed behind them. ‘Well, business has begun!’ I thought. It seemed to me that nothing in the world could be of greater importance than the business transacted in the study. That thought was confirmed in me by the fact that everyone approached the door in whispers and on tiptoe. From it, on the other hand, came Papa’s loud voice and the fragrance of his cigar, which – I don’t know why – was always very attractive to me. I was startled from my half-awake state by a familiar squeaking of boots in the waiters’ room. Karl Ivanych, on tiptoes but with a sombre, determined face and a note of some kind in his hand, went up to the door and knocked lightly on it. He was admitted and the door banged shut again.
‘I hope nothing terrible happens,’ I thought. ‘Karl Ivanych is angry and liable to say anything.’
I dozed off again.
But nothing terrible did happen. An hour later I was woken by the same squeaking. Using his handkerchief to wipe the tears I could see on his face, Karl Ivanych came out of the study and went upstairs, mumbling something to himself. Papa came out immediately after him and went into the drawing room.
‘You know what I’ve just decided?’ he said in a cheerful voice, putting his hand on maman’s shoulder.
‘What, my dear?’
‘I’m taking Karl Ivanych along with the children. There’s room in the britzka.31 They’re used to him, and he seems to be quite attached to them. The seven hundred roubles a year won’t make any difference, et puis au fond c’est un très bon diable.’32
I couldn’t at all understand why Papa was cursing Karl Ivanych.
‘I’m very happy for the children and for him,’ maman said. ‘He’s a dear old man.’
‘If you could have seen how touched he was when I told him that he could keep the five hundred roubles as a gift … But the most amusing part is the bill he brought me. It’s worth a look,’ he added with a smile, handing her a note written in Karl Ivanych’s hand. ‘It’s charming!’
Here are the note’s contents:
‘Two fishingpoles for childs – 70 kopeeks.
‘Colour paper, gold border, paste and mould for box, as gifts – 6 r., 55 k.
‘Book and archery bow, gifts for childs – 8 r., 16 k.
‘Trouser for Nikolay – 4 roubles.
‘Promised of Pyotr Aleksandrovish in Moscow in 18 –, gold watch for 140 roubles.
‘Total due to Karl Mauer, beside hees salary – 159 roubles, 79 kopeeks.’
Anyone reading that note in which Karl Ivanych asked for repayment of all the money he had spent on gifts, and even the money for a gift that had been promised to him, would think that he was nothing more than an insensitive, greedy egotist – and that person would be wrong.
Entering the study with the note in his hand and a prepared speech in his mind, Karl Ivanych had meant to lay out eloquently before Papa all the injustices that he had endured in our home. But when he started to speak with the same touching voice and sensitive intonations that he had used when dictating to us, his eloquence acted most powerfully of all on himself, so that on coming to the place where he said, ‘As sad as it will be for me to part with the children,’ he completely lost his way, his voice started to quaver and he had to take his checkered handkerchief out of his pocket.
‘Yes, Pyotr Aleksandrovich,’ he said through his tears in a part that hadn’t been in his prepared speech at all, ‘I’m so used to the children that I don’t know what I’ll do without them. It would be better to serve you without pay,’ he added, wiping his tears with one hand, while handing Papa the bill with the other.
That Karl Ivanych was speaking sincerely at that moment I can confirm, since I know his kind heart, yet in what way that bill was in agreement with his words remains a mystery to me.
‘If it makes you sad, then it would make me even sadder to part with you,’ Papa said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘I’ve changed my mind now.’
Just before supper, Grisha came into the room. From the moment he entered our home he hadn’t stopped sighing and weeping, which, in the view of those who believed in his ability to foretell the future, augured some calamity for us. He began his farewells and said that he would be leaving the next morning. I winked at Volodya and went out of the room.
‘What is it?’
‘If you want to have a look at Grisha’s chains, let’s all go up to the men’s quarters, since he’s sleeping in the second room. We can sit very nicely in the storage closet and see everything.’
‘Excellent! Wait here. I’ll get the girls.’
The girls ran out and we went upstairs. After arguing over who would enter the dark closet first, we took our places and waited.
TWELVE
Grisha
We were all afraid of the dark and pressed close together without speaking. Grisha came in with quiet steps almost immediately after us. He held his staff in one hand and in the other a tallow candle in a copper candlestick. We held our breath.
‘Lord Jesus Christ! Most Holy Mother of God! Father and Son and Holy Spirit!’ he recited, taking large breaths and using the various intonations and elisions that are typical of those who repeat the words often.
He placed his staff in a corner with a prayer and examined the bed, and then began to undress. After unwinding his old black sash, he slowly took off his torn nankeen coat, carefully folded it, and draped it over the back of the chair. His face no longer expressed its usual haste and obtuseness; on the contrary, he was serene, thoughtful, and even majestic. His movements were slow and deliberate.
Dressed only in his underwear, he quietly lowered himself onto the bed, made the sign of the cross over it in every direction, and with evident effort – since he winced – rearranged the chains under his shirt. After sitting for a while and carefully examining his underwear, which was torn in several places, he got to his feet, lifted the candle to the level of the icon case in which several icons stood, crossed himself before them, and turned the candle upside down. It went out with a crackle.
A nearly full moon shone brightly through the windows, which faced the wood.
The tall white figure of the holy fool was illumined on one side by pale, silvery moonbeams, and hidden on the other in a dark shadow that, along with those of the window frames, fell on the floor and on the opposite wall up to the ceiling. Outside, the night watchman banged on his cast-iron bar.
Folding his enormous hands over his chest, bowing his head and breathing heavily, Grisha stood silently i
n front of the icons, then lowered himself with effort onto his knees and started to pray.
First he quietly recited familiar prayers, stressing only a few words, and then repeated them, but louder with more animation. Then he began to speak his own words, trying with evident effort to express himself in Church Slavonic.33 His own words were awkward but moving. He prayed for all his benefactors (as he called those who took him in), including Mama and us, and he prayed for himself, asking God to forgive him his grievous sins, and repeated, ‘God, forgive my enemies!’ Then he raised himself up with a groan and, while repeating the same words over and over, prostrated himself, and then raised himself up again, despite the weight of the chains, which produced a harsh, dry sound as they struck the floor.
Volodya pinched my leg very painfully, but I didn’t even turn around. I merely rubbed the place with my hand and continued to follow all of Grisha’s movements and words with a feeling of astonishment, pity and awe.
Instead of the fun and laughter I was expecting when I entered the storage closet, I felt trembling and a sinking heart.
Grisha remained in that condition of religious ecstasy a long time, improvising prayers. Either he repeated ‘God, have mercy’ several times in succession, each time with new strength and expression, or he would say, ‘Forgive me, Lord, and teach me what to do! Teach me what to do, Lord!’ but as if he were expecting an immediate reply to his words; or else only mournful sobbing would be heard. Then he got onto his knees again, crossed his hands on his chest and fell silent.
I quietly stuck my head out of the door and held my breath. Grisha didn’t move. Heavy sighs tore from his breast and a tear welled in the clouded pupil of his blind eye, illumined by the moon.
‘Thy will be done!’ he suddenly cried with incomparable expression, and then fell with his forehead to the floor and began to sob like a child.
Much water has flowed by since then, many memories of the past have lost their meaning for me or have become confused dreams, and even the wanderer Grisha has long since finished his last pilgrimage, but the impression he made on me and the feeling he aroused will remain in my memory forever.
O great Christian, Grisha! Your faith was so strong that you felt the nearness of God. Your love was so great that the words flowed of their own accord from your lips – you did not test them with your reason. And what lofty praise you gave to His majesty when, not finding words, you fell to the floor in tears!
The tender feeling with which I listened to Grisha couldn’t last, first because my curiosity had been satisfied, and second because my legs were numb from sitting in one place, and I wanted to join in the whispering and rustling I heard behind me in the dark. Someone took hold of my arm and murmured, ‘Whose arm is this?’ The closet was completely dark, but I knew at once that it was Katenka by her touch and by the voice whispering by my ear.
Completely unconsciously, I took hold of her arm in its short little sleeve ending at her elbow and raised it to my lips. Katenka was evidently surprised by that action and jerked her arm away, bumping as she did a broken chair standing in the closet. Grisha raised his head, quietly looked around, and, while reciting a prayer, made the sign of the cross at all four corners. We tumbled out of the closet with noisy whispering.
THIRTEEN
Natalya Savishna
In the second half of the last century a merry, plump, rosy-cheeked girl named Natashka ran about the yards of the village of Khabarovka in bare feet and a coarse cotton frock. At the request of her father, the clarinet player Savva, and in recognition of his services, my grandfather ‘took her up’ into the household as a lady’s maid for my grandmother. As a chambermaid, Natashka was distinguished by her diligence and mild temperament. When Mama was born and a nurse was needed, the responsibility was given to Natashka. And in that new duty, too, she earned praise and rewards for her industry, fidelity and devotion to her young mistress. But the powdered head and gartered stockings of the lively young waiter Foka, who in his work came into frequent contact with Natalya, captured her rough-hewn but loving heart. She even decided to go to Grandfather herself to ask for permission to marry him. Grandfather took her wish for ingratitude, became enraged, and in punishment exiled the poor Natalya to a village cattle yard in the steppe. Six months later, however, she was called back to the household to her previous duties, since no one had been able to replace her. Returning from exile in her coarse frock, she presented herself to Grandfather, fell down at his feet, and begged him to restore his kindness and favour and to forget the foolishness that had overcome her and that, she swore, would never happen again. And she was true to her word.
From that day forth Natashka became Natalya Savishna, put on a mobcap, and gave to her young lady all the love that was in her.
When a governess took her place by Mama’s side, Natalya Savishna was given the keys to the storeroom and care of the linen and provisions. She carried out her new duties with the same diligence and love. She lived entirely for her masters’ property and saw waste, spoilage and pilfering in everything, and took every measure to resist them.
Wishing after her own marriage to repay Natalya Savishna in some way for her twenty years of labour and devotion, maman sent for her and, expressing in the most affectionate terms all her appreciation and love, presented her with a stamped piece of paper granting her her freedom, and told her that whether or not she continued to serve in our home, she would always receive an annual pension of three hundred roubles. Natalya Savishna listened to it all without a word and then took the document in her hands, angrily looked at it, muttered something between her teeth, and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Not understanding the reason for that strange reaction, maman went to Natalya Savishna’s room a little later. Natalya Savishna, her eyes red from weeping, was sitting on a trunk and turning her handkerchief over and over in her hands, while staring at the letter of manumission lying in fragments on the floor in front of her.
‘What’s wrong, darling Natalya Savishna?’ maman asked, taking her hand.
‘Nothing, ma’am,’ she replied. ‘It must be that I’ve offended you in some way, since you’re driving me out of the house. So, I’ll leave.’
She pulled her hand away and, barely holding back her tears, tried to run out of the room. Maman restrained her, embraced her, and they both started to cry.
For as long as I can remember, I remember Natalya Savishna and her love and affection, but it’s only now that I’m able to appreciate them. It never occurred to me then what a rare, marvellous creature that old woman was. She not only never talked but also, I think, never even thought about herself. Her whole life was one of love and self-sacrifice. I was so used to her selfless, tender love for us that I never imagined it could be otherwise, and I was therefore in no way grateful to her, nor did I ever ask myself the questions, ‘Is she happy?’ ‘Is she satisfied?’
Sometimes it would happen, on the pretext of an urgent need, that you would run from the lesson to her room, seat yourself and start to muse out loud, not in the least embarrassed by her presence. She was always occupied with something, whether knitting a stocking or rummaging in the trunks that filled the room or making a list of the linen, and as she listened to me chatter away about when ‘I become a general, I’ll marry a remarkable beauty, buy a bay horse, build a glass house and send to Saxony for Karl Ivanych’s relatives’ and the like, she would say, ‘Yes, little master, yes.’ When I got up to leave, she would usually open a blue trunk with, as I remember it now, the tinted image of some hussar, a picture from a pomade jar, and one of Volodya’s drawings pasted on the lid, and take out a pastille, light it and say, while waving it around, ‘This is still the Ochakov incense, little master. When your late grandfather – may he rest in the kingdom of heaven – marched against the Turks,34 his lordship brought it back with him. There are only a few pieces left,’ she would add with a sigh.
The trunks filling her room contained absolutely
everything. Whatever might be needed, the servants would say, ‘Go ask Natalya Savishna,’ and, in fact, after going through the trunks, she would find the item and say, ‘It’s a good thing I put it aside.’ There were a thousand such things in those trunks that no one in the house but she either knew or cared about.
Once I lost my temper with her. This is how it happened. While pouring some kvass at dinner I dropped the pitcher and soaked the tablecloth.
‘Well, go call Natalya Savishna, so she can enjoy her darling’s work,’ maman said.
Natalya Savishna came in and, on seeing the mess I had made, shook her head. Then maman whispered something to her and Natalya Savishna, after a threatening gesture at me, went out.
After dinner, as I was skipping in the direction of the salon in the merriest of moods, Natalya Savishna suddenly sprang from behind a door with the tablecloth in her hand, grabbed hold of me and, even though I desperately resisted, began to rub my face with the wet part, saying, ‘Don’t soil the tablecloths! Don’t soil the tablecloths!’ I was so offended that I started to howl with rage.
‘What!’ I said to myself as I paced back and forth in the salon, choking on my tears. ‘Natalya Savishna – or just “Natalya” – uses the intimate “thou” with me and hits me in the face with a wet tablecloth like some servant boy? No, it’s an outrage!’
When Natalya Savishna saw me sobbing, she immediately ran off, and I continued to walk up and down, thinking how to repay the insolent ‘Natalya’ for the insult I had suffered.
A few minutes later Natalya Savishna returned, meekly came over to me, and started to plead.
