Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 33

This question did not embarra.s.s Peter Ivanovich. He expressed his desire to have rooms, tea, a samovar, supper, dinner, food for the servants, in short, all those things for which hotels exist, and when M. Chevalier, marvelling at the innocence of the old man, who apparently imagined that he was in the Trukhmen steppe, or supposed that all these things would be given him without pay, informed him that he could have all those things, Peter Ivanovich was in ecstasy.

"Now that is nice! Very nice! And so we shall get things all fixed.

Well, then please--" but he felt embarra.s.sed to be speaking all the time about himself, and he began to ask M. Chevalier about his family and his business. When Sergyey Petrovich returned to the room, he did not seem to approve of his father's address; he observed the landlord's dissatisfaction, and reminded his father of the bath. But Peter Ivanovich was interested in the question of how a French hotel could be run in Moscow in the year '56, and of how Madame Chevalier pa.s.sed her time. Finally the landlord himself bowed and asked him whether he was not pleased to order anything.

"We will have tea, Natasha. Yes? Tea, then, if you please! We will have some other talks, my dear monsieur! What a charming man!"

"And the bath, papa?"

"Oh, yes, then we shall have no tea."

Thus the only result from the conversation with the newly arrived guests was taken from the landlord. But Peter Ivanovich was now proud and happy of his arrangements. The drivers, who came to ask a _pourboire_, vexed him, because Serezha had no change, and Peter Ivanovich was on the point of sending once more for the landlord, but the happy thought that others, too, ought to be happy on that evening helped him out of that predicament. He took two three-rouble bills, and, sticking one bill into the hand of one of the drivers, he said, "This is for you" (Peter Ivanovich was in the habit of saying "you" to all without exception, unless to a member of his family); "and this is for you," he said, transferring the other bill from the palm of his hand to that of the driver, in some such manner as people do when paying a doctor for a visit. After attending to all these things, he was taken to the bath-house.

Sonya, who was sitting on the divan, put her hand under her head and burst out laughing.

"Oh, how nice it is, mamma! Oh, how nice!"

Then she placed her feet on the divan, stretched herself, adjusted herself, and fell into the sound, calm sleep of a healthy girl of eighteen years of age, after six weeks on the road. Natalya Nikolaevna, who was still busy taking out things in her sleeping-room, heard, no doubt with her maternal ear, that Sonya was not stirring, and went out to take a look at her. She took a pillow and, raising the girl's reddened, dishevelled head with her large white hand, placed her on the pillow. Sonya drew a deep, deep sigh, shrugged her shoulders, and put her head on the pillow, without saying "_Merci_," as though that had all been done of its own accord.

"Not on that bed, not on that, Gavrilovna, Katya," Natalya Nikolaevna immediately turned to the maids who were making a bed, and with one hand, as though in pa.s.sing, she adjusted the straying hair of her daughter. Without stopping and without hurrying, Natalya Nikolaevna dressed herself, and upon the arrival of her husband and her son everything was ready: the trunks were no longer in the rooms; in Pierre's sleeping-room everything was arranged as it had been for several decades in Irkutsk: the morning-gown, the pipe, the tobacco-pouch, the sugared water, the Gospel, which he read at night, and even the image stuck to the rich wall-paper in the rooms of Chevalier, who never used such adornments, but on that evening they appeared in all the rooms of the third division of the hotel.

Having dressed herself, Natalya Nikolaevna adjusted her collar and cuffs, which, in spite of the journey, were still clean, combed herself, and seated herself opposite the table. Her beautiful black eyes gazed somewhere into the distance: she looked and rested herself. She seemed to be resting, not from the unpacking alone, nor from the road, nor from the oppressive years,--she seemed to be resting from her whole life, and the distance into which she was gazing, and in which she saw living and beloved faces, was that rest which she was wis.h.i.+ng for. Whether it was an act of love, which she had done for her husband, or the love which she had experienced for her children when they were young, or whether it was a heavy loss, or a peculiarity of her character,--everyone who looked at that woman could not help seeing that nothing could be expected from her, that she had long ago given all of herself to life, and that nothing was left of her. All that there was left was something worthy of respect, something beautiful and sad, as a reminiscence, as the moonlight. She could not be imagined otherwise than surrounded by all the comforts of life. It was impossible for her ever to be hungry, or to eat eagerly, or to have on soiled clothes, or to stumble, or to forget to clear her nose. It was a physical impossibility. Why it was so, I do not know, but every motion of hers was dignity, grace, gentleness toward all those who could enjoy her sight.

"Sie pflegen und weben Himmlische Rosen ins irdische Leben."

She knew those verses and loved them, but was not guided by them. All her nature was an expression of that thought; all her life was this one unconscious weaving of invisible roses in the lives of those with whom she came in contact. She had followed her husband to Siberia only because she loved him; she had not thought what she could do for him, and instinctively had done everything. She had made his bed, had put away his things, had prepared his dinner and his tea, and, above all, had always been where he was, and no woman could have given more happiness to her husband.

In the drawing-room the samovar was boiling on the round table. Natalya Nikolaevna sat near it. Sonya wrinkled her face and smiled under her mother's hand, which was tickling her, when father and son, with wrinkled finger-tips and glossy cheeks and foreheads (the father's bald spot was particularly glistening), with fluffy white and black hair, and with beaming countenances, entered the room.

"It has grown brighter since you have come in," said Natalya Nikolaevna.

"O Lord, how white you are!"

She had been saying that each Sat.u.r.day, for several decades, and each Sat.u.r.day Pierre experienced bashfulness and delight, whenever he heard that. They seated themselves at the table; there was an odour of tea and of the pipe, and there were heard the voices of the parents, the children, and the servants, who received their cups in the same room.

They recalled everything funny that had happened on the road, admired Sonya's hair-dressing, and laughed. Geographically they were all transferred a distance of five thousand versts, into an entirely different, strange milieu, but morally they were that evening still at home, just such as the peculiar, long, solitary family life had made them to be. It will not be so to-morrow. Peter Ivanovich seated himself near the samovar, and lighted his pipe. He was not in a cheerful mood.

"So here we are," he said, "and I am glad that we shall not see any one to-night; this is the last evening we shall pa.s.s with the family," and he washed these words down with a large mouthful of tea.

"Why the last, Pierre?"

"Why? Because the eaglets have learned to fly, and they have to make their own nests, and from here they will fly each in a different direction--"

"What nonsense!" said Sonya, taking his gla.s.s from him, and smiling at him, as she smiled at everything. "The old nest is good enough!"

"The old nest is a sad nest; the old man did not know how to make it,--he was caught in a cage, and in the cage he reared his young ones, and was let out only when his wings no longer would hold him up. No, the eaglets must make their nests higher up, more auspiciously, nearer to the sun; that is what they are his children for, that his example might serve them; but the old one will look on, so long as he is not blind, and will listen, when he becomes blind-- Pour in some rum, more, more--enough!"

"We shall see who is going to leave," replied Sonya, casting a cursory glance at her mother, as though she felt uneasy speaking in her presence. "We shall see who is going to leave," she continued. "I am not afraid for myself, neither am I for Serezha." (Serezha was walking up and down in the room, thinking of how clothes would be ordered for him to-morrow, and wondering whether he had better go to the tailor, or send for him; he was not interested in Sonya's conversation with his father.) Sonya began to laugh.

"What is the matter? What?" asked her father.

"You are younger than we, papa. Much younger, indeed," she said, again bursting out into a laugh.

"Indeed!" said the old man, and his austere wrinkles formed themselves into a gentle, and yet contemptuous, smile.

Natalya Nikolaevna bent away from the samovar which prevented her seeing her husband.

"Sonya is right. You are still sixteen years old, Pierre. Serezha is younger in feelings, but you are younger in soul. I can foresee what he will do, but you will astound me yet."

Whether he recognized the justice of this remark, or was flattered by it, he did not know what reply to make, and only smoked in silence, drank his tea, and beamed with his eyes. But Serezha, with characteristic egoism of youth, interested in what was said about him, entered into the conversation and affirmed that he was really old, that his arrival in Moscow and the new life, which was opening before him, did not gladden him in the least, and that he calmly reflected on the future and looked forward toward it.

"Still, it is the last evening," repeated Peter Ivanovich. "It will not be again to-morrow."

And he poured a little more rum into his gla.s.s. He sat for a long time at the tea-table, with an expression as though he wished to say many things, but had no hearers. He moved up the rum toward him, but his daughter softly carried away the bottle.

II.

When M. Chevalier, who had been up-stairs to look after his guests, returned to his room and gave the benefit of his observations on the newcomers to his life companion, in laces and a silk garment, who in Parisian fas.h.i.+on was sitting back of the counter, several habitual visitors of the establishment were sitting in the room. Serezha, who had been down-stairs, had taken notice of that room and of its visitors. If you have been in Moscow, you have, no doubt, noticed that room yourself.

If you, a modest man who do not know Moscow, have missed a dinner to which you are invited, or have made a mistake in your calculations, imagining that the hospitable Muscovites would invite you to dinner, or simply wish to dine in the best restaurant, you enter the lackeys' room.

Three or four lackeys jump up: one of them takes off your fur coat and congratulates you on the occasion of the New Year, or of the b.u.t.ter-week, or of your arrival, or simply remarks that you have not called for a long while, though you have never been in that establishment before.

You enter, and the first thing that strikes your eyes is a table set, as you in the first moment imagine, with an endless quant.i.ty of palatable dishes. But that is only an optical illusion, for the greater part of that table is occupied by pheasants in feather, raw lobsters, boxes with perfume and pomatum, and bottles with cosmetics and candy. Only at the very edge, if you look well, will you find the vodka and a piece of bread with b.u.t.ter and sardines, under a wire globe, which is quite useless in Moscow in the month of December, even though it is precisely such as those which are used in Paris. Then, beyond the table, you see the room, where behind a counter sits a Frenchwoman, of extremely repulsive exterior, but wearing the cleanest of gloves and a most exquisite, fas.h.i.+onable gown. Near the Frenchwoman you will see an officer in unb.u.t.toned uniform, taking a dram of vodka, a civilian reading a newspaper, and somebody's military or civilian legs lying on a velvet chair, and you will hear French conversation, and more or less sincere, loud laughter.

If you wish to know what is going on in that room, I should advise you not to enter within, but only to look in, as though merely pa.s.sing by to take a sandwich. Otherwise you will feel ill at ease from the interrogative silence and glances, and you will certainly take your tail between your legs and skulk away to one of the tables in the large hall, or to the winter garden. n.o.body will keep you from doing so. These tables are for everybody, and there, in your solitude, you may call Dey a garcon and order as many truffles as you please. The room with the Frenchwoman, however, exists for the select, golden Moscow youth, and it is not so easy to find your way among the select as you imagine.

On returning to this room, M. Chevalier told his wife that the gentleman from Siberia was dull, but that his son and daughter were fine people, such as could be raised only in Siberia.

"You ought just to see the daughter! She is a little rose-bus.h.!.+"

"Oh, this old man is fond of fresh-looking women," said one of the guests, who was smoking a cigar. (The conversation, of course, was carried on in French, but I render it in Russian, as I shall continue to do in this story.)

"Oh, I am very fond of them!" replied M. Chevalier. "Women are my pa.s.sion. Do you not believe me?"

"Do you hear, Madame Chevalier?" shouted a stout officer of Cossacks, who owed a big bill in the inst.i.tution and was fond of chatting with the landlord.

"He shares my taste," said M. Chevalier, patting the stout man on his epaulet.

"And is this Siberian young lady really pretty?"

M. Chevalier folded his fingers and kissed them.

After that the conversation between the guests became confidential and very jolly. They were talking about the stout officer; he smiled as he listened to what they were saying about him.

"How can one have such perverted taste!" cried one, through the laughter. "Mlle. Clarisse! You know, Strugov prefers such of the women as have chicken calves."

Though Mlle. Clarisse did not understand the salt of that remark, she behind her counter burst out into a laughter as silvery as her bad teeth and advanced years permitted.

"Has the Siberian lady turned him to such thoughts?" and she laughed more heartily still. M. Chevalier himself roared with laughter, as he said:

"_Ce vieux coquin_," patting the officer of Cossacks on his head and shoulders.