THE PARTING
ON the day after the events described, the carriage and the
luggage-cart drew up to the door at noon. Nicola, dressed for the
journey, with his breeches tucked into his boots and an old
overcoat belted tightly about him with a girdle, got into the
cart and arranged cloaks and cushions on the seats. When he
thought that they were piled high enough he sat down on them, but
finding them still unsatisfactory, jumped up and arranged them
once more.
"Nicola Dimitvitch, would you be so good as to take master's
dressing-case with you? " said Papa's valet, suddenly standing up
in the carriage, " It won't take up much room."
"You should have told me before, Michael Ivanitch," answered
Nicola snappishly as he hurled a bundle with all his might to the
floor of the cart. "Good gracious! Why, when my head is going
round like a whirlpool, there you come along with your dressing-
case!" and he lifted his cap to wipe away the drops of
perspiration from his sunburnt brow.
The courtyard was full of bareheaded peasants in kaftans or
simple shirts, women clad in the national dress and wearing
striped handkerchiefs, and barefooted little ones--the latter
holding their mothers' hands or crowding round the entrance-
steps. All were chattering among themselves as they stared at the
carriage. One of the postillions, an old man dressed in a winter
cap and cloak, took hold of the pole of the carriage and tried it
carefully, while the other postillion (a young man in a white
blouse with pink gussets on the sleeves and a black lamb's-wool
cap which he kept cocking first on one side and then on the other
as he arranged his flaxen hair) laid his overcoat upon the box,
slung the reins over it, and cracked his thonged whip as he
looked now at his boots and now at the other drivers where they
stood greasing the wheels of the cart--one driver lifting up each
wheel in turn and the other driver applying the grease. Tired
post-horses of various hues stood lashing away flies with their
tails near the gate--some stamping their great hairy legs,
blinking their eyes, and dozing, some leaning wearily against
their neighbours, and others cropping the leaves and stalks of
dark-green fern which grew near the entrance-steps. Some of the
dogs were lying panting in the sun, while others were slinking
under the vehicles to lick the grease from the wheels. The air
was filled with a sort of dusty mist, and the horizon was lilac-
grey in colour, though no clouds were to be seen, A strong wind
from the south was raising volumes of dust from the roads and
fields, shaking the poplars and birch-trees in the garden, and
whirling their yellow leaves away. I myself was sitting at a
window and waiting impatiently for these various preparations to
come to an end.
As we sat together by the drawing-room table, to pass the last
few moments en famille, it never occurred to me that a sad moment
was impending. On the contrary, the most trivial thoughts were
filling my brain. Which driver was going to drive the carriage
and which the cart? Which of us would sit with Papa, and which
with Karl Ivanitch? Why must I be kept forever muffled up in a
scarf and padded boots?
"Am I so delicate? Am I likely to be frozen?" I thought to
myself. "I wish it would all come to an end, and we could take
our seats and start."
"To whom shall I give the list of the children's linen?" asked
Natalia Savishna of Mamma as she entered the room with a paper in
her hand and her eyes red with weeping.
"Give it to Nicola, and then return to say good-bye to them,"
replied Mamma. The old woman seemed about to say something more,
but suddenly stopped short, covered her face with her
handkerchief, and left the room. Something seemed to prick at my
heart when I saw that gesture of hers, but impatience to be off
soon drowned all other feeling, and I continued to listen
indifferently to Papa and Mamma as they talked together. They
were discussing subjects which evidently interested neither of
them. What must be bought for the house? What would Princess
Sophia or Madame Julie say? Would the roads be good?--and so
forth.
Foka entered, and in the same tone and with the same air as
though he were announcing luncheon said, "The carriages are
ready." I saw Mamma tremble and turn pale at the announcement,
just as though it were something unexpected.
Next, Foka was ordered to shut all the doors of the room. This
amused me highly. As though we needed to be concealed from some
one! When every one else was seated, Foka took the last remaining
chair. Scarcely, however, had he done so when the door creaked
and every one looked that way. Natalia Savishna entered hastily,
and, without raising her eyes, sat own on the same chair as
Foka. I can see them before me now-Foka's bald head and wrinkled,
set face, and, beside him, a bent, kind figure in a cap from
beneath which a few grey hairs were straggling. The pair settled
themselves together on the chair, but neither of them looked
comfortable.
I continued preoccupied and impatient. In fact, the ten minutes
during which we sat there with closed doors seemed to me an hour.
At last every one rose, made the sign of the cross, and began to
say good-bye. Papa embraced Mamma, and kissed her again and
again.
"But enough," he said presently. "We are not parting for ever."
"No, but it is-so-so sad! " replied Mamma, her voice trembling
with emotion.
When I heard that faltering voice, and saw those quivering lips
and tear-filled eyes, I forgot everything else in the world. I
felt so ill and miserable that I would gladly have run away
rather than bid her farewell. I felt, too, that when she was
embracing Papa she was embracing us all. She clasped Woloda to
her several times, and made the sign of the cross over him; after
which I approached her, thinking that it was my turn.
Nevertheless she took him again and again to her heart, and
blessed him. Finally I caught hold of her, and, clinging to her,
wept--wept, thinking of nothing in the world but my grief.
As we passed out to take our seats, other servants pressed round
us in the hall to say good-bye. Yet their requests to shake hands
with us, their resounding kisses on our shoulders, [The fashion
in which inferiors salute their superiors in Russia.] and the
odour of their greasy heads only excited in me a feeling akin to
impatience with these tiresome people. The same feeling made me
bestow nothing more than a very cross kiss upon Natalia's cap
when she approached to take leave of me. It is strange that I
should still retain a perfect recollection of these servants'
faces, and be able to draw them with the most minute accuracy in
my mind, while Mamma's face and attitude escape me entirely. It
may be that it is because at that moment I had not the heart to
look at her closely. I felt that if I did so our mutual grief
would burst forth too unrestrainedly.
I was the first to jump into the carriage and to take one of the
hinder seats. The high back of the carriage prevented me from
actually seeing her, yet I knew by instinct that Mamma was still
there.
"Shall I look at her again or not?" I said to myself. "Well,
just for the last time," and I peeped out towards the entrance-
steps. Exactly at that moment Mamma moved by the same impulse,
came to the opposite side of the carriage, and called me by name.
Rearing her voice behind me. I turned round, but so hastily that
our heads knocked together. She gave a sad smile, and kissed me
convulsively for the last time.
When we had driven away a few paces I determined to look at her
once more. The wind was lifting the blue handkerchief from her
head as, bent forward and her face buried in her hands, she moved
slowly up the steps. Foka was supporting her. Papa said nothing
as he sat beside me. I felt breathless with tears--felt a sensation
in my throat as though I were going to choke, just as we came out
on to the open road I saw a white handkerchief waving from the
terrace. I waved mine in return, and the action of so doing
calmed me a little. I still went on crying. but the thought that
my tears were a proof of my affection helped to soothe and
comfort me.
After a little while I began to recover, and to look with
interest at objects which we passed and at the hind-quarters of
the led horse which was trotting on my side. I watched how it
would swish its tail, how it would lift one hoof after the other,
how the driver's thong would fall upon its back, and how all its
legs would then seem to jump together and the back-band, with the
rings on it, to jump too--the whole covered with the horse's foam.
Then I would look at the rolling stretches of ripe corn, at the
dark ploughed fields where ploughs and peasants and horses with
foals were working, at their footprints, and at the box of the
carriage to see who was driving us; until, though my face was
still wet with tears, my thoughts had strayed far from her with
whom I had just parted--parted, perhaps, for ever. Yet ever and
again something would recall her to my memory. I remembered too
how, the evening before, I had found a mushroom under the birch-
trees, how Lubotshka had quarrelled with Katenka as to whose it
should be, and how they had both of them wept when taking leave
of us. I felt sorry to be parted from them, and from Natalia
Savishna, and from the birch-tree avenue, and from Foka. Yes,
even the horrid Mimi I longed for. I longed for everything at
home. And poor Mamma!--The tears rushed to my eyes again. Yet even
this mood passed away before long.
