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. Hearing 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.
