WHAT AWAITED US AT THE COUNTRY-HOUSE
On the 18th of April we descended from the carriage at the front
door of the house at Petrovskoe. All the way from Moscow Papa had
been preoccupied, and when Woloda had asked him "whether Mamma
was ill" he had looked at him sadly and nodded an affirmative.
Nevertheless he had grown more composed during the journey, and
it was only when we were actually approaching the house that his
face again began to grow anxious, until, as he leaped from the
carriage and asked Foka (who had run breathlessly to meet us),
"How is Natalia Nicolaevna now?" his voice, was trembling, and
his eyes had filled with tears. The good, old Foka looked at
us, and then lowered his gaze again. Finally he said as he
opened the hall-door and turned his head aside: "It is the
sixth day since she has not left her bed."
Milka (who, as we afterwards learned, had never ceased to whine
from the day when Mamma was taken ill) came leaping, joyfully to
meet Papa, and barking a welcome as she licked his hands, but
Papa put her aside, and went first to the drawing-room, and then
into the divannaia, from which a door led into the bedroom. The
nearer he approached the latter, the more, did his movements
express the agitation that he felt. Entering the divannaia he
crossed it on tiptoe, seeming to hold his breath. Even then he
had to stop and make the sign of the cross before he could summon
up courage to turn the handle. At the same moment Mimi, with
dishevelled hair and eyes red with weeping came hastily out of
the corridor.
"Ah, Peter Alexandritch!" she said in a whisper and with a
marked expression of despair. Then, observing that Papa was
trying to open the door, she whispered again:
"Not here. This door is locked. Go round to the door on the
other side."
Oh, how terribly all this wrought upon my imagination, racked as
it was by grief and terrible forebodings!
So we went round to the other side. In the corridor we met the
gardener, Akim, who had been wont to amuse us with his grimaces,
but at this moment I could see nothing comical in him. Indeed,
the sight of his thoughtless, indifferent face struck me more
painfully than anything else. In the maidservants' hall, through
which we had to pass, two maids were sitting at their work, but
rose to salute us with an expression so mournful that I felt
completely overwhelmed.
Passing also through Mimi's room, Papa opened the door of the
bedroom, and we entered. The two windows on the right were
curtained over, and close to them was seated, Natalia Savishna,
spectacles on nose and engaged in darning stockings. She did not
approach us to kiss me as she had been used to do, but just rose
and looked at us, her tears beginning to flow afresh. Somehow it
frightened me to see every one, on beholding us, begin to cry,
although they had been calm enough before.
On the left stood the bed behind a screen, while in the great
arm-chair the doctor lay asleep. Beside the bed a young, fair-
haired and remarkably beautiful girl in a white morning wrapper
was applying ice to Mamma's head, but Mamma herself I could not
see. This girl was "La Belle Flamande" of whom Mamma had
written, and who afterwards played so important a part in our
family life. As we entered she disengaged one of her hands,
straightened the pleats of her dress on her bosom, and
whispered, " She is insensible," Though I was in an agony of
grief, I observed at that moment every little detail.
It was almost dark in the room, and very hot, while the air was
heavy with the mingled, scent of mint, eau-de-cologne, camomile,
and Hoffman's pastilles. The latter ingredient caught my
attention so strongly that even now I can never hear of it, or
even think of it, without my memory carrying me back to that
dark, close room, and all the details of that dreadful time.
Mamma's eyes were wide open, but they could not see us. Never
shall I forget the terrible expression in them--the expression of
agonies of suffering!
Then we were taken away.
When, later, I was able to ask Natalia Savishna about Mamma's
last moments she told me the following:
"After you were taken out of the room, my beloved one struggled
for a long time, as though some one were trying to strangle her.
Then at last she laid her head back upon the pillow, and slept
softly, peacefully, like an angel from Heaven. I went away for a
moment to see about her medicine, and just as I entered the room
again my darling was throwing the bedclothes from off her and
calling for your Papa. He stooped over her, but strength failed
her to say what she wanted to. All she could do was to open her
lips and gasp, 'My God, my God! The children, the children!' I
would have run to fetch you, but Ivan Vassilitch stopped me,
saying that it would only excite her--it were best not to do so.
Then suddenly she stretched her arms out and dropped them again.
What she meant by that gesture the good God alone knows, but I
think that in it she was blessing you--you the children whom she
could not see. God did not grant her to see her little ones
before her death. Then she raised herself up--did my love, my
darling--yes, just so with her hands, and exclaimed in a voice
which I cannot bear to remember, 'Mother of God, never forsake
them!'"
"Then the pain mounted to her heart, and from her eyes it as,
plain that she suffered terribly, my poor one! She sank back upon
the pillows, tore the bedclothes with her teeth, and wept--wept--"
"Yes and what then?" I asked but Natalia Savishna could say no
more. She turned away and cried bitterly.
Mamma had expired in terrible agonies.
