I. A RETIRED GENERAL AND A TEACHER REPORTING FOR DUTY
It was getting late in the afternoon. Alexei Abramovich was standing on the balcony; he had not yet fully recovered after his two-hour post-lunch nap; his eyes slowly opened, and he yawned from time to time. A servant entered with a report; but Alexei Abramovich did not consider it necessary to acknowledge him, and the servant did not dare disturb his master. Two or three minutes passed like this, after which Alexei Abramovich asked:
“What is it?“
“While Your Excellency was pleased to rest, the teacher whom the doctor hired was brought from Moscow.“
“Ah?” (What exactly follows here: a question mark (?) or an exclamation mark (!) — circumstances did not resolve.)
“I showed him to the little room where the German who you were pleased to dismiss lived.“
“Ah!“
“He asked to be informed when you were pleased to wake up.“
“Call him.“
And Alexei Abramovich’s face became more distinguished and majestic. A few minutes later, the Cossack servant appeared and reported:
“The teacher has entered, sir.“
Alexei Abramovich was silent for a moment, then, glancing severely at the servant, he remarked:
“You fool, do you have flour in your mouth or something? Mumbling, one can’t understand a thing.” However, without waiting for a repetition, he added: “Call the teacher,” and immediately sat down.
A young man of about twenty-three or twenty-four, thin, pale, with fair hair and wearing a rather tight black tailcoat, appeared on the scene, timid and confused.
“Greetings, my esteemed fellow!” the General said, smiling favorably and without rising from his seat. “My doctor spoke very highly of you; I hope we shall be pleased with each other. Hey, Vaska!” (At this, he whistled.) “Why aren’t you offering him a chair? Do you think since he’s a teacher, he doesn’t need one? Oh, when will I ever manage to polish you all up and make you look like human beings! Pray, be seated. I have a son, my dear fellow; a good boy, with abilities, and I want to prepare him for the military school. He speaks French with me, and German—he doesn’t exactly speak it, but he understands it. The German fellow turned out to be a drunkard, he didn’t work with him, and to be honest, I used him more around the household—he lived in the room you were given; I chased him off. I’ll tell you frankly, I don’t need my son to become a master or a philosopher; however, my esteemed fellow, although thank God I’m well off, I won’t pay two thousand five hundred rubles for nothing. In our time, as you know, even for military service, they require all this grammar, arithmetic… Hey, Vaska, call Mikhail Alexeevich!“
The young man had been silent all this time, blushing, fiddling with his handkerchief, and gathering the courage to say something; his ears were ringing from the rush of blood; he did not even entirely clearly grasp the General’s words, but he felt that the entire speech produced a feeling similar to running a hand against the grain of walrus hide. At the end of the address, he said:
“In taking on the duty of being your son’s teacher, I shall act as conscience and honor… naturally, to the best of my abilities… however, I shall use every endeavor to justify the trust of your… Your Excellency…“
Alexei Abramovich interrupted him:
“My Excellency, my dear fellow, will not require anything excessive. The main thing is the ability to encourage the pupil, jestingly, you see? You have finished your studies, haven’t you?“
“Yes, sir, I am a Candidate.“
“Is that some new rank?“
“It is an academic degree.“
“And allow me, are your parents well?“
“They are alive, sir.“
“Of the spiritual calling?“
“My father is a district doctor.“
“And were you pursuing the medical field?“
“In the physics and mathematics department.“
“Do you know Latin?“
“Yes, sir.“
“That is a completely unnecessary language; for doctors, of course, they can’t exactly tell a patient he’ll kick the bucket tomorrow; but for us, why? Good heavens…“
We do not know how long the scholarly conversation would have continued had it not been interrupted by Mikhail Alexeevich, that is, Misha, a thirteen-year-old boy, healthy, red-cheeked, well-fed, and tanned; he was wearing a jacket which he had managed to outgrow in a few months, and he had the appearance common to all ordinary children of wealthy landowners living in the country.
“Here is your new teacher,” said the father. Misha scraped his foot.
“Obey him, study well; I don’t spare the money—it is your duty to make use of it.“
The teacher stood up, bowed courteously to Misha, took his hand, and with a meek, kind look told him that he would do everything he could to ease his studies and encourage the pupil.
“He has already studied a little,” Alexei Abramovich noted, “with a madam who lives with us; and the priest taught him—he’s a former seminarian, our village priest. Now, my dear fellow, please, examine him.“
The teacher was confused, thought for a long time about what to ask, and finally said:
“Tell me, what is the subject of grammar?“
Misha looked around, picked his nose, and said:
“Russian grammar?“
“No matter, in general.“
“We didn’t study that.“
“What did the priest do with you, then?” the father asked sternly.
“We, Papa, studied Russian grammar up to the gerund and the catechism up to the sacraments.“
“Well, go and show him the classroom for now… Excuse me, what is your name?”
“Dmitry,” the teacher replied, blushing.
“And your patronymic?”
“Yakovlevich.”
“Ah, Dmitry Yakovlich! Would you like something to eat after your journey, perhaps a drink of vodka?”
“I drink nothing but water.”
“He’s pretending!” thought Alexei Abramovich, extremely tired after the prolonged scholarly conversation, and went to the drawing-room to see his wife. Glafira Lvovna was resting on a soft Turkish sofa. She was wearing a blouse: this was her favorite attire, because all others constricted her; fifteen years of truly prosperous marriage had been good for her: she had become an Adansonia baobab [Baobab (Latin)] among women. Alexis’s heavy footsteps woke her; she raised her sleepy head, took a long time to come to, and, as if she had never slept at the wrong time before, exclaimed in surprise: “Oh, my God! I think I fell asleep? Imagine that!” Alexei Abramovich began to report on his efforts for Misha’s education. Glafira Lvovna was pleased with everything and, while listening, drank half a decanter of kvass. She drank kvass every day before tea.
Not all of Dmitry Yakovlevich’s misfortunes ended with the audience with Alexei Abramovich; he was sitting, silent and agitated, in the classroom when a man entered and called him for tea. Until now, our Candidate had never been in the company of ladies; he nourished a kind of instinctual feeling of respect for women; they were surrounded by a kind of halo for him; he had seen them either on the boulevard, dressed up and unapproachable, or on the stage of the Moscow theatre—there, all the ugly extras seemed to him like fairies, like goddesses. Now he was going to be introduced to the General’s wife, and would she be alone? Misha had managed to tell him that he had a sister, that a madam lived with them, and also some Lyubonka. Dmitry Yakovlevich desperately wanted to know the age of Misha’s sister; he started to bring it up three times but didn’t dare ask, fearing his face would flush. “Well? Let’s go, sir!” said Misha, who, with the diplomacy common to all spoiled children, was extremely modest and quiet with an outsider. The Candidate, as he rose, doubted if his legs would hold him; his hands were cold and damp; he made a gigantic effort and, close to fainting, entered the drawing-room; at the door, he respectfully bowed to the maid who was leaving after setting down the samovar.
“Glasha,” said Alexei Abramovich, “allow me to introduce you—our Misha’s new mentor.”
The Candidate bowed.
“I am very pleased,” said Glafira Lvovna, squinting her eyes a little and with a certain air of affectedness that she had once mastered. “Our Misha has been in need of a good instructor for so long; truly, we don’t know how to thank Semyon Ivanych for arranging your acquaintance. Please be informal; would you care to sit down?”
“I have been sitting all along,” the Candidate muttered, truly not knowing what he was saying.
“Well, you weren’t standing up when riding in the carriage!” the General quipped. This remark completely ruined the Candidate; he took a chair, placed it somewhat off-center, and almost sat down next to it. He was afraid to lift his eyes, as if it were a great misfortune; perhaps the young ladies were in the room, and if he saw them, he would have to bow—how? And besides, he probably should have bowed without sitting down.
“I told you,” the General said under his breath, “a blushing maiden!”
“Le pauvre, il est à plaindre [The poor thing, he is to be pitied (French)],” remarked Glafira Lvovna, biting her plump lips.
Glafira Lvovna liked the young man at first glance; there were many reasons for this: firstly, Dmitry Yakovlevich with his large blue eyes was interesting; secondly, Glafira Lvovna, apart from her husband, lackeys, coachmen, and the old doctor, rarely saw men, especially young, interesting ones—and she, as we shall later discover, enjoyed platonic daydreams, having retained a fondness for them; thirdly, women of a certain age look upon a young man with that inexplicably captivating feeling with which men usually look at young girls. It seems as if this feeling is close to compassion—a maternal feeling—that they want to take the defenseless, timid, inexperienced under their protection, to cherish them, fondle them, warm them; this is what it seems to them most of all: we do not think the same about this, but we do not consider it necessary to say what we think…
Glafira Lvovna herself pushed a teacup toward the Candidate; he took a strong sip and scalded his tongue and palate but concealed the pain with the fortitude of Mucius Scaevola. This incident was beneficial for him: it created a diversion, and he calmed down a little. Gradually, he even began to raise his gaze. Glafira Lvovna was sitting on the sofa; a table stood before her, and on the table, a huge samovar towered like some monument in the Indian style. Opposite her—whether to enjoy the pleasant vis-à-vis (meaning sitting opposite), or to avoid seeing him behind the samovar—Alexei Abramovich was sinking some ancestral armchair into the floor; behind the armchair stood a girl of about ten with an extremely foolish look; she peered out from behind her father at the teacher: it was she that the brave Candidate feared! Misha was also at the table; before him was a bowl of sour milk and a thick slice of coarse rye bread. From beneath the tablecloth, which was successfully embroidered with a representation of the city of Yaroslavl and which ended on all sides with a bear, the head of a setter dog peered out; the drapery of the cloth gave her a kind of Egyptian appearance: she stared motionlessly at the Candidate with two eyes swollen with fat. By the window, on an armchair, with a stocking in her hand, was a miniature old woman, with a cheerful and wrinkled look, with drooping eyebrows and thin, pale lips. Dmitry Yakovlevich guessed that this was the French madam. By the door stood the Cossack servant, handing Alexei Abramovich his pipe; next to him was the maid, in a chintz dress with linen sleeves, waiting with a kind of reverence for the masters to finish the tea-drinking ceremony. One more person was present in the room, but Dmitry Yakovlevich did not see her because her head was bowed over the embroidery frame. This face belonged to a poor girl whom the good General was raising. The conversation failed to take hold for a long time, and even when it did, it was somehow fragmented, pointless, and exhausting for the Candidate.
This clash of the poor young man’s life with the life of a rich landowner’s family was strange. It seems that these people could have lived quite peacefully until the end of time without meeting. It turned out otherwise. The life of the sensitive and kind young man, educated and studious, somehow discordantly entered the opulent life of Alexei Abramovich and his wife—it entered like a bird into a cage. Everything changed for him, and one could foresee that such a change would not pass without an influence on the young man, who was utterly unfamiliar with the practical world and inexperienced.
But what kind of people are they, the General’s couple, blissful and successful in their happy marriage, and this young man, appointed to shape Misha’s head just enough so the boy could enter some military school?
I do not know how to write novels: perhaps it is precisely for this reason that I find it far from superfluous to preface the story with some biographical information, drawn from very reliable sources.
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