dreaming, I seize hold of it and press it to my lips. Every one else has

  gone to bed, and only one candle remains burning in the drawing-room.

  Mamma has said that she herself will wake me. She sits down on the arm

  of the chair in which I am asleep, with her soft hand stroking my hair,

  and I hear her beloved, well-known voice say in my ear:

  "Get up, my darling. It is time to go by-by."

  No envious gaze sees her now. She is not afraid to shed upon me the

  whole of her tenderness and love. I do not wake up, yet I kiss and kiss

  her hand.

  "Get up, then, my angel."

  She passes her other arm round my neck, and her fingers tickle me as

  they move across it. The room is quiet and in half-darkness, but the

  tickling has touched my nerves and I begin to awake. Mamma is sitting

  near me--that I can tell--and touching me; I can hear her voice and

  feel her presence. This at last rouses me to spring up, to throw my arms

  around her neck, to hide my head in her bosom, and to say with a sigh:

  "Ah, dear, darling Mamma, how much I love you!"

  She smiles her sad, enchanting smile, takes my head between her two

  hands, kisses me on the forehead, and lifts me on to her lap.

  "Do you love me so much, then?" she says. Then, after a few moments'

  silence, she continues: "And you must love me always, and never forget

  me. If your Mamma should no longer be here, will you promise never to

  forget her--never, Nicolinka? and she kisses me more fondly than ever.

  "Oh, but you must not speak so, darling Mamma, my own darling Mamma!"

  I exclaim as I clasp her knees, and tears of joy and love fall from my

  eyes.

  How, after scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the

  ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, "God bless Papa and Mamma!" and

  repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt

  to lisp-the love of God and of her blending strangely in a single

  emotion!

  After saying my prayers I would wrap myself up in the bedclothes. My

  heart would feel light, peaceful, and happy, and one dream would follow

  another. Dreams of what? They were all of them vague, but all of them

  full of pure love and of a sort of expectation of happiness. I remember,

  too, that I used to think about Karl Ivanitch and his sad lot. He was

  the only unhappy being whom I knew, and so sorry would I feel for him,

  and so much did I love him, that tears would fall from my eyes as I

  thought, "May God give him happiness, and enable me to help him and to

  lessen his sorrow. I could make any sacrifice for him!" Usually, also,

  there would be some favourite toy--a china dog or hare--stuck into the

  bed-corner behind the pillow, and it would please me to think how warm

  and comfortable and well cared-for it was there. Also, I would pray God

  to make every one happy, so that every one might be contented, and also

  to send fine weather to-morrow for our walk. Then I would turn myself

  over on to the other side, and thoughts and dreams would become jumbled

  and entangled together until at last I slept soundly and peacefully,

  though with a face wet with tears.

  Do in after life the freshness and light-heartedness, the craving for

  love and for strength of faith, ever return which we experience in our

  childhood's years? What better time is there in our lives than when

  the two best of virtues--innocent gaiety and a boundless yearning for

  affection--are our sole objects of pursuit?

  Where now are our ardent prayers? Where now are our best gifts--the pure

  tears of emotion which a guardian angel dries with a smile as he sheds

  upon us lovely dreams of ineffable childish joy? Can it be that life has

  left such heavy traces upon one's heart that those tears and ecstasies

  are for ever vanished? Can it be that there remains to us only the

  recollection of them?

  XVI -- VERSE-MAKING

  RATHER less than a month after our arrival in Moscow I was sitting

  upstairs in my Grandmamma's house and doing some writing at a large

  table. Opposite to me sat the drawing master, who was giving a few

  finishing touches to the head of a turbaned Turk, executed in black

  pencil. Woloda, with out-stretched neck, was standing behind the drawing

  master and looking over his shoulder. The head was Woloda's first

  production in pencil and to-day--Grandmamma's name-day--the masterpiece

  was to be presented to her.

  "Aren't you going to put a little more shadow there?" said Woloda to

  the master as he raised himself on tiptoe and pointed to the Turk's

  neck.

  "No, it is not necessary," the master replied as he put pencil and

  drawing-pen into a japanned folding box. "It is just right now, and

  you need not do anything more to it. As for you, Nicolinka," he added,

  rising and glancing askew at the Turk, "won't you tell us your great

  secret at last? What are you going to give your Grandmamma? I think

  another head would be your best gift. But good-bye, gentlemen," and

  taking his hat and cardboard he departed.

  I too had thought that another head than the one at which I had been

  working would be a better gift; so, when we were told that Grandmamma's

  name-day was soon to come round and that we must each of us have a

  present ready for her, I had taken it into my head to write some

  verses in honour of the occasion, and had forthwith composed two rhymed

  couplets, hoping that the rest would soon materialise. I really do not

  know how the idea--one so peculiar for a child--came to occur to me, but

  I know that I liked it vastly, and answered all questions on the subject

  of my gift by declaring that I should soon have something ready for

  Grandmamma, but was not going to say what it was.

  Contrary to my expectation, I found that, after the first two couplets

  executed in the initial heat of enthusiasm, even my most strenuous

  efforts refused to produce another one. I began to read different poems

  in our books, but neither Dimitrieff nor Derzhavin could help me. On

  the contrary, they only confirmed my sense of incompetence. Knowing,

  however, that Karl Ivanitch was fond of writing verses, I stole softly

  upstairs to burrow among his papers, and found, among a number of German

  verses, some in the Russian language which seemed to have come from his

  own pen.

  To L

  Remember near

  Remember far,

  Remember me.

  To-day be faithful, and for ever--

  Aye, still beyond the grave--remember

  That I have well loved thee.

  "KARL MAYER."

  These verses (which were written in a fine, round hand on thin

  letter-paper) pleased me with the touching sentiment with which they

  seemed to be inspired. I learnt them by heart, and decided to take them

  as a model. The thing was much easier now. By the time the name-day had

  arrived I had completed a twelve-couplet congratulatory ode, and sat

  down to the table in our school-room to copy them out on vellum.

  Two sheets were soon spoiled--not because I found it necessary to alter

  anything (the verses seemed to me perfect), but because, after the third

/>   line, the tail-end of each successive one would go curving upward and

  making it plain to all the world that the whole thing had been written

  with a want of adherence to the horizontal--a thing which I could not

  bear to see.

  The third sheet also came out crooked, but I determined to make it do.

  In my verses I congratulated Grandmamma, wished her many happy returns,

  and concluded thus:

  "Endeavouring you to please and cheer,

  We love you like our Mother dear."

  This seemed to me not bad, yet it offended my ear somehow.

  "Lo-ve you li-ike our Mo-ther dear," I repeated to myself. "What other

  rhyme could I use instead of 'dear'? Fear? Steer? Well, it must go at

  that. At least the verses are better than Karl Ivanitch's."

  Accordingly I added the last verse to the rest. Then I went into

  our bedroom and recited the whole poem aloud with much feeling and

  gesticulation. The verses were altogether guiltless of metre, but I

  did not stop to consider that. Yet the last one displeased me more than

  ever. As I sat on my bed I thought:

  "Why on earth did I write 'like our Mother dear'? She is not here, and

  therefore she need never have been mentioned. True, I love and respect

  Grandmamma, but she is not quite the same as--Why DID I write that?

  What did I go and tell a lie for? They may be verses only, yet I needn't

  quite have done that."

  At that moment the tailor arrived with some new clothes for us.

  "Well, so be it!" I said in much vexation as I crammed the verses

  hastily under my pillow and ran down to adorn myself in the new Moscow

  garments.

  They fitted marvellously-both the brown jacket with yellow buttons (a

  garment made skin-tight and not "to allow room for growth," as in

  the country) and the black trousers (also close-fitting so that they

  displayed the figure and lay smoothly over the boots).

  "At last I have real trousers on!" I thought as I looked at my legs with

  the utmost satisfaction. I concealed from every one the fact that the

  new clothes were horribly tight and uncomfortable, but, on the contrary,

  said that, if there were a fault, it was that they were not tight

  enough. For a long while I stood before the looking-glass as I combed

  my elaborately pomaded head, but, try as I would, I could not reduce the

  topmost hairs on the crown to order. As soon as ever I left off combing

  them, they sprang up again and radiated in different directions, thus

  giving my face a ridiculous expression.

  Karl Ivanitch was dressing in another room, and I heard some one

  bring him his blue frockcoat and under-linen. Then at the door leading

  downstairs I heard a maid-servant's voice, and went to see what she

  wanted. In her hand she held a well-starched shirt which she said she

  had been sitting up all night to get ready. I took it, and asked if

  Grandmamma was up yet.

  "Oh yes, she has had her coffee, and the priest has come. My word, but

  you look a fine little fellow!" added the girl with a smile at my new

  clothes.

  This observation made me blush, so I whirled round on one leg, snapped

  my fingers, and went skipping away, in the hope that by these manoeuvres

  I should make her sensible that even yet she had not realised quite what

  a fine fellow I was.

  However, when I took the shirt to Karl I found that he did not need it,

  having taken another one. Standing before a small looking-glass, he tied

  his cravat with both hands--trying, by various motions of his head, to

  see whether it fitted him comfortably or not--and then took us down to

  see Grandmamma. To this day I cannot help laughing when I remember what

  a smell of pomade the three of us left behind us on the staircase as we

  descended.

  Karl was carrying a box which he had made himself, Woloda, his drawing,

  and I my verses, while each of us also had a form of words ready with

  which to present his gift. Just as Karl opened the door, the priest put

  on his vestment and began to say prayers.

  During the ceremony Grandmamma stood leaning over the back of a chair,

  with her head bent down. Near her stood Papa. He turned and smiled at us

  as we hurriedly thrust our presents behind our backs and tried to remain

  unobserved by the door. The whole effect of a surprise, upon which we

  had been counting, was entirely lost. When at last every one had made

  the sign of the cross I became intolerably oppressed with a sudden,

  invincible, and deadly attack of shyness, so that the courage to, offer

  my present completely failed me. I hid myself behind Karl Ivanitch, who

  solemnly congratulated Grandmamma and, transferring his box from his

  right hand to his left, presented it to her. Then he withdrew a few

  steps to make way for Woloda. Grandmamma seemed highly pleased with

  the box (which was adorned with a gold border), and smiled in the most

  friendly manner in order to express her gratitude. Yet it was evident

  that, she did not know where to set the box down, and this probably

  accounts for the fact that she handed it to Papa, at the same time

  bidding him observe how beautifully it was made.

  His curiosity satisfied, Papa handed the box to the priest, who also

  seemed particularly delighted with it, and looked with astonishment,

  first at the article itself, and then at the artist who could make

  such wonderful things. Then Woloda presented his Turk, and received a

  similarly flattering ovation on all sides.

  It was my turn now, and Grandmamma turned to me with her kindest smile.

  Those who have experienced what embarrassment is know that it is a

  feeling which grows in direct proportion to delay, while decision

  decreases in similar measure. In other words the longer the condition

  lasts, the more invincible does it become, and the smaller does the

  power of decision come to be.

  My last remnants of nerve and energy had forsaken me while Karl and

  Woloda had been offering their presents, and my shyness now reached its

  culminating point, I felt the blood rushing from my heart to my head,

  one blush succeeding another across my face, and drops of perspiration

  beginning to stand out on my brow and nose. My ears were burning, I

  trembled from head to foot, and, though I kept changing from one foot to

  the other, I remained rooted where I stood.

  "Well, Nicolinka, tell us what you have brought?" said Papa. "Is it a

  box or a drawing?"

  There was nothing else to be done. With a trembling hand held out the

  folded, fatal paper, but my voiced failed me completely and I stood

  before Grandmamma in silence. I could not get rid of the dreadful idea

  that, instead of a display of the expected drawing, some bad verses of

  mine were about to be read aloud before every one, and that the words

  "our Mother dear" would clearly prove that I had never loved, but had

  only forgotten, her. How shall I express my sufferings when Grandmamma

  began to read my poetry aloud?--when, unable to decipher it, she stopped

  half-way and looked at Papa with a smile (which I took to be one of

  ridicule)?--when she did not pronounce it as I had meant it to be


  pronounced?--and when her weak sight not allowing her to finish it, she

  handed the paper to Papa and requested him to read it all over again

  from the beginning? I fancied that she must have done this last because

  she did not like to read such a lot of stupid, crookedly written stuff

  herself, yet wanted to point out to Papa my utter lack of feeling. I

  expected him to slap me in the face with the verses and say, "You bad

  boy! So you have forgotten your Mamma! Take that for it!" Yet nothing

  of the sort happened. On the contrary, when the whole had been read,

  Grandmamma said, "Charming!" and kissed me on the forehead. Then our

  presents, together with two cambric pocket-handkerchiefs and a snuff-box

  engraved with Mamma's portrait, were laid on the table attached to the

  great Voltairian arm-chair in which Grandmamma always sat.

  "The Princess Barbara Ilinitsha!" announced one of the two footmen who

  used to stand behind Grandmamma's carriage, but Grandmamma was looking

  thoughtfully at the portrait on the snuff-box, and returned no answer.

  "Shall I show her in, madam?" repeated the footman.

  XVII -- THE PRINCESS KORNAKOFF

  "Yes, show her in," said Grandmamma, settling herself as far back in

  her arm-chair as possible. The Princess was a woman of about

  forty-five, small and delicate, with a shrivelled skin and disagreeable,

  greyish-green eyes, the expression of which contradicted the unnaturally

  suave look of the rest of her face. Underneath her velvet bonnet,

  adorned with an ostrich feather, was visible some reddish hair, while

  against the unhealthy colour of her skin her eyebrows and eyelashes

  looked even lighter and redder that they would other wise have done.