in a spoon over a candle flame. It tickles, it makes me laugh, it’s hot and I complain and fidget. She quivers and groans as if she is ticklish too, and this makes me feel better. “Oh, oh, things are so hard for Afoniushka (she always had humorous catch-phrases from the village which seemed to be free improvisations to us) . . . there, that’s the way Volodiushka… now your little hands and feet are resting . . . soon you’ll be healthy again and running around the yard.” And one fell sweetly asleep to her stories. She knew many of them and we knew them by heart from her, but we still kept insisting that she tell them to us again. She would wake us in the morning clapping her hands: “Wake up kids, the buns are ready!”
Nanny was illiterate and all of us children, in turn, taught her reading and writing. But nothing came of this. She remembered the letters and could point out each of them in a book. She even could pronounce syllables but could not combine them into a word no matter how hard we tried. She remained illiterate until her death. But I am convinced that she had a huge influence on all of us, perhaps just a touch less than that of mother, though perhaps equal to hers. Most of all she loved Misha, the second brother in age and likely the least fortunate of all the children. Maybe that is why she loved him more then the others. As a child, he was ill more than the rest of us and endured all the various childhood diseases. Perhaps he also reminded her of her own son Vania who grew up in the village. He was also a sickly child. Having grown up and come to Moscow, he, like Misha, was not distinguished by exemplary behavior and was “good-for-nothing,” as she called him. When Misha was in military service (“Mishutka, Mishutka, this is no joke!”) and had to go to the barracks very early in the morning before daybreak, Nanny would wake him and give him tea. At night she would clean his dress uniform, the buttons, the buckle, and the boots. And she was absolutely right when she would later say in all seriousness: “When Mishen’ka and I served in the army . . .”
As I recall all that I have lived through and reconstruct the past in my mind, I can only come to the conclusion that our family was a happy one.
I am not sure of the reasons, but in our family I developed in a way different from my brothers and sister. Our family was of the middle class not only in terms of income, but also according to its habits and its overall moral atmosphere. Nobody was absorbed in social issues, and politics were of absolutely no interest to anyone. My sister graduated from the
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businessmen? Additionally, my eldest brother also graduated from the Moscow Imperial Technical College and earned a diploma in mechanical engineering. But he became a merchant and entered my father’s business. My other brother—the “good for nothing”—did not feel the need to further his studies upon graduating from the Alexander Commercial Institute. Both of them led fairly dissipated lives and caused periodic trouble for our parents. Their friends were of little interest, especially those of Mikhail (whom the Bolsheviks later executed). This was how the youth of that circle lived, without any special spiritual interests.
I am not sure of the circumstances which made me different. From my youngest years, my biggest joy was to find an interesting book and hide somewhere. I could read a book for many hours. I can still recall the sensation: you sit for hours in an easy chair in a quiet living room—everything else is forgotten. Nothing outside of the book exists. Suddenly I am called to dinner or for something else. I would immediately come to myself as if recovering from some hallucination and look around without recognizing the familiar surroundings. My brothers laughed at me. Once I found a note pinned above my bed which read: “Philosopher—king of donkeys.” (My brothers teased me by calling me “donkey” since I had protruding ears in childhood.)
Father would get angry because I would always arrive for family tea with a book. I would put it next to my place setting and try to read so as not to waste time over tea. Indignantly he would say, “And your books are all unusual, big and thick.” (At that time, as I recall, I was reading Buckle’s
Here in America, every time that I see a group of school children in a museum under the supervision of a teacher, and see how they address their instructors with friendliness and trust, I become envious. We in Russia, at least my generation, did not experience this. During our school years there was always an abyss between us and our teachers. Even worse than an abyss— enmity which often turned into hatred. We did not like or respect out teachers and they, in turn, were deeply indifferent to us. Why this occurred I do not know, but I think the fault lay less with us than with the teachers. We, schoolchildren, were like the children of other countries during all times, i.e., children with good and bad inclinations. Like soft wax, we could have been
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molded into anything desired. But the majority of our teachers were poor pedagogues and educators.
Here is one of my first impressions of
All of this is elementary. But in our class, the following occurred. One of our pranksters thought up an amusement: he made a tube of paper and then, as from an air gun, shot chewed up blotting paper from it. If such a “bullet” hit a wall or ceiling, it stuck firmly. This activity was very absorbing and soon the ceiling in our classroom was covered with stars and constellations of red paper. I also participated in this joyous activity. Of course, this exceeded the boundaries of innocent play, but it is unlikely that this breach could be called a serious crime. Our class mentor thought otherwise. He did not attempt to explain to us why this mischief was unacceptable—he was only interested in who the offenders were. We, however, remained tight-lipped. Nobody made an admission or betrayed each other. For a long time he demanded confession and the remanding of the guilty. We remained resolute and among us there were no cowards or traitors. Then he turned to cunning and announced that, this being the first time, he forgave the guilty in advance. He simply was requesting that an admission be made so that he would know who was capable of doing this—the guilty would not be punished. We went for the bait and trustingly made the admission. Among those confessing was me. How bewildered—no, horrified—we were, when, despite the mentor’s solemn promise, we were cruelly punished. We were left after school for two hours in a locked
