第48章

IN THE COUNTRY

Next day Woloda and myself departed in a post-chaise for the country.Turning over various Moscow recollections in my head as we drove along, I suddenly recalled Sonetchka Valakhin--though not until evening, and when we had already covered five stages of the road."It is a strange thing," I thought, "that I should be in love, and yet have forgotten all about it.I must start and think about her," and straightway I proceeded to do so, but only in the way that one thinks when travelling--that is to say, disconnectedly, though vividly.Thus I brought myself to such a condition that, for the first two days after our arrival home, I somehow considered it incumbent upon me always to appear sad and moody in the presence of the household, and especially before Katenka, whom I looked upon as a great connoisseur in matters of this kind, and to whom I threw out a hint of the condition in which my heart was situated.Yet, for all my attempts at dissimulation and assiduous adoption of such signs of love sickness as I had occasionally observed in other people, I only succeeded for two days (and that at intervals, and mostly towards evening) in reminding myself of the fact that I was in love, and finally, when I had settled down into the new rut of country life and pursuits, I forgot about my affection for Sonetchka altogether.

We arrived at Petrovskoe in the night time, and I was then so soundly asleep that I saw nothing of the house as we approached it, nor yet of the avenue of birch trees, nor yet of the household--all of whom had long ago betaken themselves to bed and to slumber.Only old hunchbacked Foka--bare-footed, clad in some sort of a woman's wadded nightdress, and carrying a candlestick--

opened the door to us.As soon as he saw who we were, he trembled all over with joy, kissed us on the shoulders, hurriedly put on his felt slippers, and started to dress himself properly.I passed in a semi-waking condition through the porch and up the steps, but in the hall the lock of the door, the bars and bolts, the crooked boards of the flooring, the chest, the ancient candelabrum (splashed all over with grease as of old), the shadows thrown by the crooked, chill, recently-lighted stump of candle, the perennially dusty, unopened window behind which I remembered sorrel to have grown--all was so familiar, so full of memories, so intimate of aspect, so, as it were, knit together by a single idea, that I suddenly became conscious of a tenderness for this quiet old house.Involuntarily I asked myself, "How have we, the house and I, managed to remain apart so long?" and, hurrying from spot to spot, ran to see if all the other rooms were still the same.Yes, everything was unchanged, except that everything had become smaller and lower, and I myself taller, heavier, and more filled out.Yet, even as I was, the old house received me back into its arms, and aroused in me with every board, every window, every step of the stairs, and every sound the shadows of forms, feelings, and events of the happy but irrevocable past.When we entered our old night nursery, all my childish fears lurked once more in the darkness of the corners and doorway.When we passed into the drawing-room, I could feel the old calm motherly love diffusing itself from every object in the apartment.In the breakfast-room, the noisy, careless merriment of childhood seemed merely to be waiting to wake to life again.In the divannaia (whither Foka first conducted us, and where he had prepared our beds) everything--mirror, screen, old wooden ikon, the lumps on the walls covered with white paper--

seemed to speak of suffering and of death and of what would never come back to us again.

We got into bed, and Foka, bidding us good-night, retired.

"It was in this room that Mamma died, was it not?" said Woloda.

I made no reply, but pretended to be asleep.If I had said anything I should have burst into tears.On awaking next morning, I beheld Papa sitting on Woloda's bed in his dressing gown and slippers and smoking a cigar.Leaping up with a merry hoist of the shoulders, he came over to me, slapped me on the back with his great hand, and presented me his cheek to press my lips to.