is, was going on nine—and I was about to get married then—I took him to all the schools. We went here and there, and they wouldn’t accept him. He was weeping... ‘Why are you weeping, little fool?’ So I took him to Razgulai, to the Second School, and there, God grant them health, they took him... And the little boy went on foot every day from Pyatnitskaya to Razgulai, and from Razgulai to Pyatnitskaya... Alyosha paid for him... Merciful Lord, the boy began to study, grasped things well, and with good results... Now he’s a lawyer in Moscow, Alyosha’s friend, of the same high learning. We didn’t neglect our fellow man, we took him into our house, and no doubt he prays to God for us now...Yes...’
Nina Fyodorovna began speaking more and more softly, with long pauses, then, after some silence, suddenly raised herself and sat up.
‘‘But I’m not so... as if I’m unwell,’’ she said. ‘‘Lord have mercy. Ah, I can’t breathe!’’
Sasha knew her mother was soon to die; now, seeing how her face suddenly became pinched, she guessed that this was the end and was frightened.
‘‘Mama, you mustn’t!’’ she wept. ‘‘You mustn’t!’’
‘‘Run to the kitchen, have them fetch your father. I’m very unwell.’’
Sasha ran through all the rooms and called, but none of the servants was at home, only Lida was sleeping on a trunk in the dining room, dressed and without a pillow. Just as she was, without galoshes, Sasha ran out to the yard, then to the street. On a bench outside the gate, her nanny sat watching people sleigh-riding. From the river, where the skating rink was, came the sounds of military music.
‘‘Nanny, mama’s dying!’’ Sasha said, weeping. ‘‘We must fetch papa!...’
The nanny went upstairs to the bedroom and, after glancing at the sick woman, gave her a lighted wax candle to hold. Terrified, Sasha fussed and begged, herself not knowing whom, to fetch her papa, then she put on her coat and kerchief and ran outside. She knew from the servants that her father had another wife and two daughters with whom he lived on Bazarnaya Square. She ran left from the gate, crying and afraid of strangers, and soon began to sink into the snow and feel cold.
She met an empty cab but did not take it: he might drive her out of town, rob her, and abandon her by the cemetery (the maid had told her over tea that there had been such a case). She walked and walked, breathless from fatigue and sobbing. Coming to Bazarnaya, she asked where Mr. Panaurov lived. Some unknown woman explained it to her at length and, seeing that she understood nothing, took her by the hand to a one-story house with a porch. The door was not locked. Sasha ran through the front hall, then a corridor, and finally found herself in a bright, warm room where her father was sitting by the samovar, and with him a lady and two little girls. But she could no longer utter a word and only sobbed. Panaurov understood.
‘‘Mama’s probably not well?’’ he asked. ‘‘Tell me, girl: is mama unwell?’’
He became worried and sent for a cab.
When they reached home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting, propped on pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face had darkened, and her eyes were closed. In the bedroom, crowded by the doorway, stood the nanny, the cook, the maid, the muzhik Prokofy, and some other unknown simple people. The nanny was ordering something in a whisper, and they did not understand her. At the far end of the room, by the window, stood Lida, pale, sleepy, sternly gazing at her mother from there.
Panaurov took the candle from Nina Fyodorovna’s hands and, wincing squeamishly, flung it onto the chest of drawers.
‘‘This is terrible!’’ he said, and his shoulders twitched. ‘‘Nina, you must lie down,’’ he said tenderly. ‘‘Lie down, dear.’’
She looked and did not recognize him... They lay her on her back.
When the priest and Dr. Sergei Borisych came, the servants were already crossing themselves piously and commemorating her.
‘‘There’s a story for you!’’ the doctor said pensively, coming out to the drawing room. ‘‘And she was still young, not even forty yet.’’
The loud sobbing of the girls was heard. Panaurov, pale, with moist eyes, went over to the doctor and said in a weak, languid voice:
‘‘My dear, do me a favor, send a telegram to Moscow. It’s decidedly beyond me.’’
The doctor found the ink and wrote the following telegram to his daughter: ‘‘Mrs. Panaurov passed away eight this evening. Tell husband: house on Dvoryanskaya for sale, transfer of mortgage plus nine. Auction twelfth. Advise not let slip.’’
IX
LAPTEV LIVED IN one of the lanes off Malaya Dmitrovka, not far from Stary Pimen. Besides the big house on the street, he also rented the two-story wing in the yard for his friend Kochevoy, an assistant attorney whom all the Laptevs simply called Kostya, because he had grown up before their eyes. Facing his wing was another, also two- story, in which there lived a French family, consisting of a husband, a wife, and five daughters.
It was ten below zero. The windows were covered with frost. Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with a preoccupied look, took fifteen drops of some medicine, then got two dumbbells from the bookcase and began doing exercises. He was tall, very thin, with a big, reddish mustache; but most conspicuous in his appearance were his remarkably long legs. Pyotr, a middle-aged muzhik in a jacket and cotton trousers tucked into high boots, brought the samovar and made tea.
‘‘Very nice weather today, Konstantin Ivanych,’’ he said.
‘‘Yes, nice, only the pity is, brother, our life here is nothing to shout about.’’
Pyotr sighed out of politeness.
‘‘How are the girls?’’ asked Kochevoy.
‘‘The priest hasn’t come, Alexei Fyodorych himself is giving them their lesson.’’
Kostya found an unfrosted spot on the window and began looking through binoculars at the windows of the French family’s house.
‘‘Can’t see,’’ he said.
