V. MY ELDER BROTHER
I was only a year and some odd months younger than Woloda, and
from the first we had grown up and studied and played together.
Hitherto, the difference between elder and younger brother had
never been felt between us, but at the period of which I am
speaking, I began to have a notion that I was not Woloda's equal
either in years, in tastes, or in capabilities. I even began to
fancy that Woloda himself was aware of his superiority and that
he was proud of it, and, though, perhaps, I was wrong, the idea
wounded my conceit--already suffering from frequent comparison
with him. He was my superior in everything--in games, in studies,
in quarrels, and in deportment. All this brought about an
estrangement between us and occasioned me moral sufferings which
I had never hitherto experienced.
When for the first time Woloda wore Dutch pleated shirts, I at
once said that I was greatly put out at not being given similar
ones, and each time that he arranged his collar, I felt that he
was doing so on purpose to offend me. But, what tormented me most
of all was the idea that Woloda could see through me, yet did not
choose to show it.
Who has not known those secret, wordless communications which
spring from some barely perceptible smile or movement--from a
casual glance between two persons who live as constantly together
as do brothers, friends, man and wife, or master and servant--
particularly if those two persons do not in all things cultivate
mutual frankness? How many half-expressed wishes, thoughts, and
meanings which one shrinks from revealing are made plain by a
single accidental glance which timidly and irresolutely meets the
eye!
However, in my own case I may have been deceived by my excessive
capacity for, and love of, analysis. Possibly Woloda did not feel
at all as I did. Passionate and frank, but unstable in his
likings, he was attracted by the most diverse things, and always
surrendered himself wholly to such attraction. For instance, he
suddenly conceived a passion for pictures, spent all his money on
their purchase, begged Papa, Grandmamma, and his drawing master
to add to their number, and applied himself with enthusiasm to
art. Next came a sudden rage for curios, with which he covered
his table, and for which he ransacked the whole house. Following
upon that, he took to violent novel-reading--procuring such
works by stealth, and devouring them day and night. Involuntarily
I was influenced by his whims, for, though too proud to imitate
him, I was also too young and too lacking in independence to
choose my own way. Above all, I envied Woloda his happy, nobly
frank character, which showed itself most strikingly when we
quarrelled. I always felt that he was in the right, yet could
not imitate him. For instance, on one occasion when his passion
for curios was at its height, I went to his table and
accidentally broke an empty many-coloured smelling-bottle.
"Who gave you leave to touch my things?" asked Woloda, chancing
to enter the room at that moment and at once perceiving the
disorder which I had occasioned in the orderly arrangement of the
treasures on his table. "And where is that smelling bottle?
Perhaps you--?"
"I let it fall, and it smashed to pieces; but what does that
matter?"
"Well, please do me the favour never to DARE to touch my things
again," he said as he gathered up the broken fragments and looked
at them vexedly.
"And will YOU please do me the favour never to ORDER me to do
anything whatever," I retorted. "When a thing's broken, it's
broken, and there is no more to be said." Then I smiled, though I
hardly felt like smiling.
"Oh, it may mean nothing to you, but to me it means a good deal,"
said Woloda, shrugging his shoulders (a habit he had caught from
Papa). "First of all you go and break my things, and then you
laugh. What a nuisance a little boy can be!"
"LITTLE boy, indeed? Then YOU, I suppose, are a man, and ever so
wise?"
"I do not intend to quarrel with you," said Woloda, giving me a
slight push. "Go away."
"Don't you push me!"
"Go away."
"I say again--don't you push me!"
Woloda took me by the hand and tried to drag me away from the
table, but I was excited to the last degree, and gave the table
such a push with my foot that I upset the whole concern, and
brought china and crystal ornaments and everything else with a
crash to the floor.
"You disgusting little brute!" exclaimed Woloda, trying to save
some of his falling treasures.
"At last all is over between us," I thought to myself as I strode
from the room. "We are separated now for ever."
It was not until evening that we again exchanged a word. Yet I
felt guilty, and was afraid to look at him, and remained at a
loose end all day.
Woloda, on the contrary, did his lessons as diligently as ever,
and passed the time after luncheon in talking and laughing with
the girls. As soon, again, as afternoon lessons were over I left
the room, for it would have been terribly embarrassing for me to
be alone with my brother. When, too, the evening class in history
was ended I took my notebook and moved towards the door. Just as
I passed Woloda, I pouted and pulled an angry face, though in
reality I should have liked to have made my peace with him. At
the same moment he lifted his head, and with a barely perceptible
and good-humouredly satirical smile looked me full in the face.
Our eyes met, and I saw that he understood me, while he, for his
part, saw that I knew that he understood me; yet a feeling
stronger than myself obliged me to turn away from him.
"Nicolinka," he said in a perfectly simple and anything but mock-
pathetic way, "you have been angry with me long enough. I am
sorry if I offended you," and he tendered me his hand.
It was as though something welled up from my heart and nearly
choked me. Presently it passed away, the tears rushed to my eyes,
and I felt immensely relieved.
"I too am so-rry, Wo-lo-da," I said, taking his hand. Yet he only
looked at me with an expression as though he could not understand
why there should be tears in my eyes.
