by Leo Tolstoy
‘And I did not say anything.
‘“Tell me the whole truth,” the kind man said to me. “Who are you and where have you come from? I like your face, and if you are an honest man, I will help you.”
‘And I told him everything. He said, “All right, young man, come with me to my rope Fabrik. I will give you work, clothes, money, and you will live in my house.”
‘And I said, “Good.”
‘We came to the rope factory, and the kind man said to his wife, “This is a young man who fought for his fatherland and escaped capture. He has neither home, nor clothes, nor bread. He will live with us. Give him clean linen and feed him.”
‘I lived at the rope factory a year and a half, and my employer became so fond of me that he did not want to let me go. And it was good for me. I was a handsome man then; I was young and tall with blue eyes and a Roman nose … And Frau L. (I cannot say her name), my employer’s wife, was a young, pretty lady. And she became fond of me.
‘When she saw me, she said, “Mister Mauer, what does your mama call you?” I said, “Karlchen.”
‘And she said, “Karlchen, sit down here beside me.”
‘I sat down beside her, and she said, “Karlchen, kiss me.”
‘I did so and she said, “Karlchen, I like you so much that I can hardly stand it,” and she started to tremble all over.’
Here Karl Ivanych made a lengthy pause and, rolling his kind blue eyes and slowly shaking his head, he started to smile the way people do when they’re overcome with pleasant memories.
‘Yes,’ he began again, straightening up in the armchair and wrapping his dressing gown tighter, ‘I have experienced much good and bad in my life, but here is my witness,’ he said, indicating the little needlepoint image of the Saviour hanging over his bed, ‘that no one can say that Karl Ivanych was a dishonest man! I did not want to repay with low ingratitude the good that Herr L. had done for me, and I decided to run away. Late in the evening when everyone was going to bed, I wrote a letter to my patron and put it on the desk in my room, took my clothes and three thalers, and quietly went outside. No one saw me, and I set off down the road.’
TEN
Further
‘I had not seen my mama in nine years and did not know if she was alive or long dead in her grave. I set off for my fatherland. When I arrived in the town, I asked where the Gustav Mauer lived who was a tenant of Count Sommerblat. And they said to me, “Count Sommerblat died and Gustav Mauer now lives on the main street where he keeps a Likör shop.” I put on my new waistcoat and good frock coat, both gifts of the factory owner, carefully combed my hair, and went to my papa’s liqueur shop. My sister Mariechen was sitting behind the counter, and she asked me what I would like. I said, “May I have a glass of liqueur?” And she said, “Vater! There is a young man here asking for a glass of liqueur.” And Papa said, “Give the young man a glass of liqueur.” I sat down at a table, drank my glass of liqueur, smoked my pipe, and looked at Papa, Mariechen and Johann, who had also come into the shop. During our conversation, Papa said to me, “You probably know, young man, where our Armee is now.” I said, “I myself have come from the Armee and it is near Vienna.” “Our son,” Papa said, “was a Soldat and it has been nine years since he has written and we do not know if he is dead or alive. My wife cries about him all the time.” I smoked my pipe and said, “What was your son’s name and where did he serve? Perhaps I know him.” “His name was Karl Mauer and he served in the Austrian chasseurs,” my papa said. “He is a tall, handsome man, like you,” my sister Mariechen said. I said, “I know your Karl!” “Amalia!” sagte auf einmal mein Vater.8 “Come in here! There is a young man who knows our Karl.” And my darling mama came out of the back. I recognized her at once. “You know our Karl?” she said and looked at me, turning pale and trembling. “Yes, I saw him,” I said, not daring to look at her, my heart wanting to jump. “My Karl is alive!” Mama said. “Thank God! Where is he, my dear Karl? I would die peacefully if I could see him once more, see my beloved son, but it is not God’s will,” and she began to cry. I could not stand it. “Mama!” I said. “I am your son, I am your Karl!” and she fell into my arms.’
Karl Ivanych closed his eyes and his lips started to tremble.
‘“Mutter!” sagte ich. “Ich bin Ihr Sohn, ich bin Ihr Karl!” und sie stürzte mir in die Arme,’ he repeated a little more calmly, as he wiped the large tears that were running down his cheeks.
‘But it did not please God for me to end my days in my native land. Bad luck pursued me everywhere! Das Unglück verfolgte mich überall! I remained in my native land only three months. One Sunday I was in a coffee house, where I had bought a Bierkrug and was smoking my pipe and talking to my friends about Politik, the Emperor Franz,9 Napoleon, the war, and each of us said his opinion. Sitting next to us was a stranger in a grey Überrock,10 who drank his coffee and smoked his little pipe and kept quiet. Er rauchte sein Pfeifchen und schweig still. When the Nachtwächter11 cried ten o’clock, I got my hat, paid my share, and went home. In the middle of the night someone knocked on the door. I awoke and said, “Who is there?” “Macht auf!”12 I said, “Say who it is and I will open.” Ich sagte, “Sagt, wer ihr seid, und ich werde aufmachen.” “Macht auf im Namen des Gesetzes!”13 came from the other side of the door. And I opened it. Two armed Soldaten remained standing outside the door, but into the room came the stranger in the grey Überrock who had been sitting beside us at the coffee house. He was a spy! Er war ein Spion! “Come with me!” the spy said. “All right,” I said. I put on my boots und Pantalon and was pulling on my braces, while walking around the room. My blood was boiling. I said, “He is a scoundrel!” When I got to the wall where my sword was hanging, I suddenly grabbed it and said, “You are a spy, defend yourself!” Du bist ein Spion, verteidige dich!” Ich gab ein Hieb14 to the right, ein Hieb to the left, and one to his head. The spy fell down! I grabbed my travelling bag and wallet and jumped out of the window. Ich nahm meinen Mantelsack und Beutel und sprang zum Fenster hinaus. I came to Ems. Ich kam nach Ems.15 There I met General Sazin. He took a liking to me, got a passport from the envoy, and brought me to Russia to teach his children. After General Sazin died, your mama asked me to her home. She said, “Karl Ivanych! I am giving you my children. Love them and I will never abandon you and will be a comfort to you in your old age.” Now she is gone and everything has been forgotten. For my twenty years of service I must now, in my old age, seek my stale crust of bread in the street. God sees this and knows this, and it is His holy will, only I am sorry, children, for you!’ Karl Ivanych ended, pulling me towards him by my hand and kissing me on the head.
ELEVEN
A Low Mark
By the end of her year of mourning, Grandmother had recovered at least partly from the grief that had overwhelmed her, and had begun to receive visitors from time to time, especially children – boys and girls our own age.
On Lyubochka’s birthday, 13 December, Princess Kornakova and her daughters arrived before dinner, as did Mme Valakhina and Sonyechka, Ilenka Grap and the two younger Ivin brothers.
The sound of talking, laughter and quick footsteps reached us from downstairs, where all the company had gathered, but we couldn’t join them until we finished our morning lessons. Indicated on the schedule hanging in the classroom were the words Lundi, de 2 à 3, Maître d’Histoire et de Géographie,16 and we therefore had to wait for that same Maître d’Histoire, listen to him, and then see him out before we would be free. It was already twenty past two and the history teacher was still nowhere to be seen or heard, not even on the street down which he would have to come, and out at which I looked with a strong wish never to see him at all.
‘Apparently, Lebedev isn’t coming today,’ Volodya said, for a moment putting down the volume of Smaragdov17 from which he was preparing the lesson.
‘God willing, God willing … Since I don’t know anything. Although, I think that’s him now,’ I
added in a dejected voice.
Volodya got up and came over to the window.
‘No, that’s not him but some gentleman,’ he said. ‘Let’s wait until two-thirty,’ he added, scratching the top of his head and stretching, as he usually did whenever he took a break from studying. ‘If he still hasn’t come by then, we can tell St-Jérôme to collect our exercise books.’
‘But why does he have to come at a-a-all?’ I said, stretching, too, and shaking Kaydanov’s history18 over my head with both hands.
Since there was nothing else to do, I opened the book at the place assigned for the lesson and started to read. It was long and hard, and I knew none of it and realized there was no way I could learn even part of it, especially since I was in that irritable state in which your thoughts refuse to dwell on any subject, whatever it might be.
After the last history lesson – a subject that was always the most boring and difficult for me – Lebedev had complained to St-Jérôme about me and given me a two,19 which was considered very poor. St-Jérôme told me then that if I got less than a three the next time, I would be severely punished. Now that next time had come, and I was, I’ll admit, in a terrible funk.
I was so engrossed in reading through the unfamiliar lesson that the sound of galoshes being removed in the anteroom caught me by surprise. Barely had I turned around to look than in the doorway appeared the repellently pockmarked face and all too familiar awkward figure of the teacher in a blue tailcoat with academic buttons.
He slowly placed his fur hat on the windowsill and his copybooks on the table, spread the tails of his coat with both hands (as if it were quite necessary to do), and, breathing hard, sat down at his place.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, rubbing his sweaty palms together, ‘let’s first go over what was covered in the last lesson, and then I’ll try to acquaint you with the subsequent events of the Middle Ages.’
That meant: ‘Recite your lessons.’
While Volodya was answering him with the fluency and confidence that are characteristic of those who know a subject well, I wandered out onto the stairs and, since I wasn’t allowed to go down, it was natural that without realizing it myself I turned up on the landing. But just as I was thinking of assuming my usual observation post behind the door, Mimi, who was always a source of grief for me, suddenly turned up. ‘You’re here?’ she said, glaring at me and then at the door to the maids’ room and then at me again.
I felt completely in the wrong both for not being in the classroom and for being in such a forbidden place, so I said nothing and bowed my head, trying to display in my person a most touchingly contrite demeanour.
‘No, this is simply unheard of!’ Mimi said. ‘What have you been doing here?’ I said nothing. ‘No, this won’t do,’ she repeated, rapping the banister with her knuckles. ‘I’ll tell the countess about it.’
It was already five to three when I returned to the classroom. The teacher, as if noticing neither my absence nor my presence, was going over the next lesson with Volodya. After he had finished his explanation and was starting to put his copybooks away, and Volodya had gone to another room to get the coupon, the happy thought occurred to me that they were done and I had been overlooked.
But then the teacher suddenly turned to me with an ominous half-smile.
‘I hope you’ve memorized your lesson, sir,’ he said, rubbing his palms together.
‘I have, sir,’ I responded.
‘Then endeavour to tell me something about the first crusade of St Louis,’20 he said, rocking in his chair and looking thoughtfully down at his feet. ‘First, tell me the reasons that induced the king of France to take up the cross,’ he said, raising his eyebrows and pointing at the inkwell, ‘then explain to me the general features of the crusade itself,’ he added, making a movement with his whole hand, as if he wanted to grab something, ‘and, finally, describe the influence of the crusade first on the European states in general,’ he said, striking the desk on the left side with his copybook, ‘and then on the French realm in particular,’ he concluded, striking it on the right side and tipping his head in that direction, as well.
I swallowed my saliva several times, coughed, tipped my own head to the side, and said nothing. Then, picking up a pen on the table, I started to pick at it but remained silent.
‘The pen, if you please,’ the teacher said, holding out his hand. ‘It can still be used. Well, sir?’
‘Lou … King … St Louis was … was … was … a kind and clever tsar.’
‘Who, sir?’
‘The tsar. He came up with the idea of going to Jerusalem and “gave the reins of government” to his mother.’
‘What was her name, sir?’
‘B … B … lanka.’
‘How’s that, sir? Blanka?’
I produced a sort of wry, awkward grin.
‘Well, sir, do you happen to know anything else?’ he asked with a smirk.
Having nothing to lose, I coughed and began to spout whatever came into my head. The teacher said nothing, brushed the dust from the table with the pen he had taken from me, stared past my ear, and kept repeating, ‘All right, sir, all right.’ I sensed that I knew nothing and was expressing myself not at all the way I should have, and it was terribly distressing to me that the teacher made no attempt to stop or correct me.
‘But how did he come up with the idea of going to Jerusalem?’ he asked, repeating my words.
‘In order … Because … So that …’
I was at a complete loss and said no more, sensing that if that scoundrel of a teacher should stare enquiringly at me for a year, I would still be in no condition to utter a single word. He gazed at me for three minutes or so, and then, with an expression of profound regret, suddenly said in a sensitive voice to Volodya, who had just come back into the room, ‘Give me the record book, please, and I’ll enter your marks.’
Volodya gave him the record book and carefully placed the coupon beside it.
The teacher pressed the record book flat, carefully dipped his pen and, in a beautiful hand, entered fives for Volodya in the columns for achievement and behaviour. Then, holding the pen over the columns where my marks were to be entered, he looked at me, shook off some ink, and pondered.
Suddenly his hand made a barely perceptible movement and in the first column there appeared a beautifully inscribed one, followed by a full stop, and then, after another movement, a second one with a full stop in the column for behaviour.
After gently closing the record book, the teacher got up and went over to the door, as if unaware of my look expressing despair, pleading and reproach.
‘Mikhail Larionych!’ I said.
‘No,’ he answered, understanding what I wanted to say to him. ‘That’s no way to study. I don’t want to take your money for nothing.’
He put on his galoshes and camlet overcoat and meticulously wrapped himself in his scarf. As if it were possible to care about anything else after what had just happened to me. For him it had been a mere movement of his pen, but for me, the greatest of calamities.
‘Is the lesson over?’ St-Jérôme asked, coming into the room.
‘Yes.’
‘Was the teacher pleased with you?’
‘Yes,’ Volodya said.
‘What did you receive?’
‘A five.’
‘And Nicolas?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘A four, I think,’ Volodya said.
He realized that I needed to be rescued, if only for the day. Let them punish me, only not today while we had company.
‘Voyons, messieurs!’ (It was St-Jérôme’s habit to precede every expression with ‘voyons’.) ‘Faites votre toilette et descendons.’21
TWELVE
A Little Key
No sooner had we gone downstairs to greet our guests than we were all called to the table for dinner. Papa was in a jolly mood (he
had been winning of late) and gave Lyubochka an expensive silver tea service, and then remembered during dinner that he had left a bonbonnière for her in the guest house.
‘Why send a man for it? Better you go, Koko,’ he said to me. ‘The keys are in a shell on the big desk, right? Get them and use the big one to open the second drawer on the right. You’ll find a little box of sweets wrapped in tissue. Bring everything here.’
‘Shall I bring some cigars, too?’ I asked, knowing that he always sent for them after dinner.
‘Yes, do, but don’t touch anything else!’ he called out after me.
I found the keys where he said and was about to unlock the drawer when I was stopped by a desire to know what the little key on the ring was for.
On top of the desk, next to the inkwell among numerous other things, was an embroidered portfolio with a tiny padlock, and I wanted to see if the little key would fit it. The test was crowned with complete success, the portfolio opened, and inside I found a whole stack of papers. My curiosity advised me so convincingly to see what they were that I disobeyed the voice of conscience and began to look through them …
My childhood feeling of unconditional respect for everyone older, but especially for Papa, was so powerful that my mind unconsciously refused to draw any conclusions whatever from what I saw. I felt that Papa must inhabit a sphere that was completely special, excellent, inaccessible and unfathomable to me, and that to try to penetrate the secrets of his life would be something like a sacrilege on my part.
