There is often a peculiar charm about the reminiscences of those who have gone through hidden sorrows, and it was only when we touched on the days of her careless youth that she let herself go. Our last talk was the best of them all, so delightful that I did not leave her home until after midnight. It was full of tender sympathy. It was about Peter Nikiforovich, the first tutor her children ever had. He was a graduate of Moscow University, and he died of consumption in her house. He was a remarkable man, and had exercised a great influence over her. Though she did not realise it, he was the only man whom she could, or did, love besides her husband.
We talked about him and about his theories of life, views which I had known and shared at the time. He was not exactly a disciple of Rousseau, though he knew and approved of his theories, but he had a mind of the same type. He very much resembled our usual conception of the wise men of antiquity. He was full of the gentle humility of unconscious Christianity. Though he was convinced that he hated the teachings of Christianity, his whole life was one long self-sacrifice. He was obviously wretched when he could find no opportunity to deny himself something for the sake of others, and it must be something that could only be relinquished with suffering and difficulty. Then he was really happy. He was as innocent as a child and as tender as a woman.
There may be some doubt as to whether she loved him; but there could be absolutely no doubt that she was his only love, his idol, for anyone who ever saw him in her presence. To banish any shadow of question, it was quite enough to watch his great, round, blue eyes following her every movement, reflecting every shade of expression on her face; frail and attenuated as he was, in his shapeless, ill-fitting coat, it was more than enough to see him draw himself up, to note how he bent or turned toward the spot which she occupied.
Alexis Nicolaevich, her late husband, knew it, and did not mind in the least, frequently leaving him alone with her and the children for whole evenings. The children knew it. They loved both their mother and their tutor, and thought it only natural that their mother and their tutor should love one another.
Alexis Nicolaevich’s only precaution was to call him “Peter the Wise.” He, too, loved him and respected him; indeed, he could not help respecting him for his exceptional affectionate devotion to the children, and for the unusual loftiness of his morality; and never for a moment did he think of passion between him and his wife as a possibility. But I am inclined to believe that she did love him. His death was not only a deep grief, but a bereavement. Certain sides of her nature, the best, the fundamental, the most essential, withered away after his death.
So we talked about him, and about his opinions on life; how he had believed that the highest morality lay in taking from others as little as possible, and in giving to others as much as possible of oneself, of one’s soul; and how, in order that one might take as little as possible, he believed that one should cultivate what Plato ranked as the highest virtue, abstinence: that one should sleep on a plank bed, wear the same clothing winter and summer, have bread and water for one’s nourishment, or, as a great indulgence, milk. (That was how he had lived, and Marie Alexandrovna thought that that was how he had ruined his health.) He had held that, to equip oneself for giving to others, it was essential to develop one’s spiritual forces, chief among which was love, dynamic love, devoted to service in life, to uplifting of life. He would have brought up the children on these lines if he could have had his way; but their parents insisted upon some concession to convention, and an excellent compromise was adopted. But unfortunately, his regime did not last long, as he only lived with them for four years.
“Just think of it,” said Marie Alexandrovna, “I have taken to reading religious tracts, I listen to Father Nicodim’s sermons, and believe me”—here her smiling eyes shone with a glance so bright that it brought to mind the independence of thought which was so characteristic of her—“believe me, all these pious exhortations are infinitely inferior to the sayings of Peter Nikiforovich. They deal with the same things, but on a much lower plane. But, above all, he taught one not so much by precept as by practice. And how did he do it? Why, his whole life was a flame, and it consumed him. Do you remember when Mitia and Vera had scarlatina—you were staying with us—do you remember how he sat up at night with them, but insisted upon going on with his lessons with the older children during the day? He regarded it as a sacred duty. And then, when Barbara’s boy was ill, he did the same thing, and was quite angry because we would not have the child moved to our house. Barbara was talking about him only the other day. Then when Vania, the page boy, broke his bust of some sage or other, do you remember how, after scolding him, he went out of his way to atone for his anger, begged the boy’s pardon, and bought him a ticket for the circus. He was a wonderful man. He insisted that the sort of life we led was not worth living, and begged my husband to give up our land to the peasants and to live by his own labour. Alexander only laughed. But the advice had been given quite earnestly, from a sense of duty.
“He had arrived at that conclusion, and he was right. Yet we went on living just
