The bride was also good-looking; she was a tall, dark-eyed, dark-
haired girl, somewhat timid but very tactful. He was not after her
dowry, though it pleased him to know that she had something. He
had connexions, and his wife came of good, influential people.
This might, at the proper opportunity, prove useful. Always
irreproachable and tactful, Nesletyev got on in his position not so
fast that any one should envy him, nor yet so slow that he should
envy any one else—everything came in the proper measure and at
the proper time.
After their marriage there was nothing in the manner of Sergey
Modestovich to suggest anything wrong to his wife. Later,
however, when his wife was about to have a child, Sergey
Modestovich established connexions elsewhere of a light and
temporary nature. Serafima Aleksandrovna found this out, and, to
her own astonishment, was not particularly hurt; she awaited her
infant with a restless anticipation that swallowed every other
feeling.
A little girl was born; Serafima Aleksandrovna gave herself up to
her. At the beginning she used to tell her husband, with rapture, of
all the joyous details of Lekchka's existence. But she soon found
that he listened to her without the slightest interest, and only from
the habit of politeness. Serafima Aleksandrovna drifted farther and
farther away from him. She loved her little girl with the ungratified
passion that other women, deceived in their husbands, show their
chance young lovers.
" Mamochka, let's play priatki" (hide and seek), cried Lelechka, pronouncing the r like the l, so that the word sounded "pliatki."
This charming inability to speak always made, Serafima
Aleksandrovna smile with tender rapture. Lelechka then ran away,
stamping with her plump little legs over the carpets, and hid herself
behind the curtains near her bed.
" Tiu-tiu, mamochka! " she cried out in her sweet, laughing voice, as she looked out with a single roguish eye.
"Where is my baby girl?" the mother asked, as she looked for
Lelechka and made believe that she did not see her.
And Lelechka poured out her rippling laughter in her hiding place.
Then she came out a little farther, and her mother, as though she
had only just caught sight of her, seized her by her little shoulders
and exclaimed joyously: "Here she is, my Lelechka!"
Lelechka laughed long and merrily, her head close to her mother's
knees, and all of her cuddled up between her mother's white hands.
Her mother's eyes glowed with passionate emotion.
"Now, mamochka, you hide," said Lelechka, as she ceased laughing.
Her mother went to hide. Lelechka turned away as though not to
see, but watched her mamochka stealthily all the time. Mamma hid behind the cupboard, and exclaimed: " Tiu-tiu, baby girl!"
Lelechka ran round the room and looked into all the corners,
making believe, as her mother had done before, that she was
seeking—though she really knew all the time where her mamochka
was standing.
"Where's my mamochka?" asked Lelechka. "She's not here, and she's not here," she kept on repeating, as she ran from corner to
corner.
Her mother stood, with suppressed breathing, her head pressed
against the wall, her hair somewhat disarranged. A smile of
absolute bliss played on her red lips.
The nurse, Fedosya, a good-natured and fine-looking, if somewhat
stupid woman, smiled as she looked at her mistress with her
characteristic expression, which seemed to say that it was not for
her to object to gentlewomen's caprices. She thought to herself:
"The mother is like a little child herself—look how excited she is."
Lelechka was getting nearer her mother's corner. Her mother was
growing more absorbed every moment by her interest in the game;
her heart beat with short quick strokes, and she pressed even closer
to the wall, disarranging her hair still more. Lelechka suddenly
glanced toward her mother's corner and screamed with joy.
"I've found 'oo," she cried out loudly and joyously,
mispronouncing her words in a way that again made her mother
happy.
She pulled her mother by her hands to the middle of the room, they
were merry and they laughed; and Lelechka again hid her head
against her mother's knees, and went on lisping and lisping,
without end, her sweet little words, so fascinating yet so awkward.
Sergey Modestovich was coming at this moment toward the
nursery. Through the half-closed doors he heard the laughter, the
joyous outcries, the sound of romping. He entered the nursery,
smiling his genial cold smile; he was irreproachably dressed, and
he looked fresh and erect, and he spread round him an atmosphere
of cleanliness, freshness and coldness. He entered in the midst of
the lively game, and he confused them all by his radiant coldness.
Even Fedosya felt abashed, now for her mistress, now for herself.
Serafima Aleksandrovna at once became calm and apparently
cold—and this mood communicated itself to the little girl, who
ceased to laugh, but looked instead, silently and intently, at her
father.
Sergey Modestovich gave a swift glance round the room. He liked
coming here, where everything was beautifully arranged; this was
done by Serafima Aleksandrovna, who wished to surround her
little girl, from her very infancy, only with the loveliest things.
Serafima Aleksandrovna dressed herself tastefully; this, too, she
did for Lelechka, with the same end in view. One thing Sergey
Modestovich had not become reconciled to, and this was his wife's
almost continuous presence in the nursery.
"It's just as I thought… I knew that I'd find you here," he said with a derisive and condescending smile.
They left the nursery together. As he followed his wife through the
door Sergey Modestovich said rather indifferently, in an incidental
way, laying no stress on his words: "Don't you think that it would
be well for the little girl if she were sometimes without your
company? Merely, you see, that the child should feel its own
individuality," he explained in answer to Serafima Aleksandrovna's
puzzled glance.
"She's still so little," said Serafima Aleksandrovna.
"In any case, this is but my humble opinion. I don't insist. It's your kingdom there."
"I'll think it over," his wife answered, smiling, as he did, coldly but genially.
Then they began to talk of something else.
II
Nurse Fedosya, sitting in the kitchen that evening, was telling the
silent housemaid Darya and the talkative old cook Agathya about
the young lady of the house, and how the child loved to play
priatki with her mother—"She hides her little face, and cries
' tiutiu'!"
"And the mistress herself is like a little one," added Fedosya, smiling.
Agathya listened and shook her head ominously; while her face
became grave and reproachful.
"That the mistress does it, well, that's one thing; but that the young lady does it, that's bad."
"Why?" asked Fedosya with curiosity.
This expression of curiosity gave her face the look of a wooden,
roughly-painted doll.
"Yes, that's bad," repeated Agathya with conviction. "Terribly bad!"
"Well?" said Fedosya, the ludicrous expression of curiosity on her face becoming more emphatic.
"She'll hide, and hide, and hide away," said Agathya, in a
mysterious whisper, as she looked cautiously toward the door.
"What are you saying?" exclaimed Fedosya, frightened.
"It's the truth I'm saying, remember my words," Agathya went on with the same assurance and secrecy. "It's the surest sign."
The old woman had invented this sign, quite suddenly, herself; and
she was evidently very proud of it.
III
Lelechka was asleep, and Serafima Aleksandrovna was sitting in
her own room, thinking with joy and tenderness of Lelechka.
Lelechka was in her thoughts, first a sweet, tiny girl, then a sweet,
big girl, then again a delightful little girl; and so until the end she
remained mamma's little Lelechka.
Serafima Aleksandrovna did not even notice that Fedosya came up
to her and paused before her. Fedosya had a worried, frightened
look.
"Madam, madam," she said quietly, in a trembling voice.
Serafima Aleksandrovna gave a start. Fedosya's face made her
anxious.
"What is it, Fedosya?" she asked with great concern. "Is there anything wrong with Lelechka?"
"No, madam," said Fedosya, as she gesticulated with her hands to reassure her mistress and to make her sit down. "Lelechka is
asleep, may God be with her! Only I'd like to say something—you
see—Lelechka is always hiding herself—that's not good."
Fedosya looked at her mistress with fixed eyes, which had grown
round from fright.
"Why not good?" asked Serafima Aleksandrovna, with vexation,
succumbing involuntarily to vague fears.
"I can't tell you how bad it is," said Fedosya, and her face
expressed the most decided confidence.
"Please speak in a sensible way," observed Serafima
Aleksandrovna dryly. "I understand nothing of what you are
saying."
"You see, madam, it's a kind of omen," explained Fedosya
abruptly, in a shamefaced way.
"Nonsense!" said Serafima Aleksandrovna.
She did not wish to hear any further as to the sort of omen it was,
and what it foreboded. But, somehow, a sense of fear and of
sadness crept into her mood, and it was humiliating to feel that an
absurd tale should disturb her beloved fancies, and should agitate
her so deeply.
"Of course I know that gentlefolk don't believe in omens, but it's a bad omen, madam," Fedosya went on in a doleful voice, "the
young lady will hide, and hide…"
Suddenly she burst into tears, sobbing out loudly: "She'll hide, and hide, and hide away, angelic little soul, in a damp grave," she
continued, as she wiped her tears with her apron and blew her
nose.
"Who told you all this?" asked Serafima Aleksandrovna in an
austere low voice.
"Agathya says so, madam," answered Fedosya; "it's she that knows."
"Knows!" exclaimed Serafima Aleksandrovna in irritation, as
though she wished to protect herself somehow from this sudden
anxiety. "What nonsense! Please don't come to me with any such
notions in the future. Now you may go."
Fedosya, dejected, her feelings hurt, left her mistress.
"What nonsense! As though Lelechka could die!" thought Serafima Aleksandrovna to herself, trying to conquer the feeling of coldness
and fear which took possession, of her at the thought of the
possible death of Lelechka. Serafima Aleksandrovna, upon
reflection, attributed these women's beliefs in omens to ignorance.
She saw clearly that there could be no possible connexion between
a child's quite ordinary diversion and the continuation of the child's
life. She made a special effort that evening to occupy her mind
with other matters, but her thoughts returned involuntarily to the
fact that Lelechka loved to hide herself.
When Lelechka was still quite small, and had learned to
distinguish between her mother and her nurse, she sometimes,
sitting in her nurse's arms, made a sudden roguish grimace, and hid
her laughing face in the nurse's shoulder. Then she would look out
with a sly glance.
Of late, in those rare moments of the mistress' absence from the
nursery, Fedosya had again taught Lelechka to hide; and when
Lelechka's mother, on coming in, saw how lovely the child looked
when she was hiding, she herself began to play hide and seek with
her tiny daughter.
IV
The next day Serafima Aleksandrovna, absorbed in her joyous
cares for Lelechka, had forgotten Fedosya's words of the day
before.
But when she returned to the nursery, after having ordered the
dinner, and she heard Lelechka suddenly cry "Tiu-tiu!" from under the table, a feeling of fear suddenly took hold of her. Though she
reproached herself at once for this unfounded, superstitious dread,
nevertheless she could not enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of
Lelechka's favourite game, and she tried to divert Lelechka's
attention to something else.
Lelechka was a lovely and obedient child. She eagerly complied
with her mother's new wishes. But as she had got into the habit of
hiding from her mother in some corner, and of crying out "Tiu-
tiu!" so even that day she returned more than once to the game.
Serafima Aleksandrovna tried desperately to amuse Lelechka. This
was not so easy because restless, threatening thoughts obtruded
themselves constantly.
"Why does Lelechka keep on recalling the tiu-tiu? Why does she not get tired of the same thing—of eternally closing her eyes, and
of hiding her face? Perhaps," thought Serafima Aleksandrovna,
"she is not as strongly drawn to the world as other children, who
are attracted by many things. If this is so, is it not a sign of organic weakness? Is it not a germ of the unconscious non-desire to live?"
Serafima Aleksandrovna was tormented by presentiments. She felt
ashamed of herself for ceasing to play hide and seek with Lelechka
before Fedosya. But this game had become agonising to her, all the
more agonising because she had a real desire to play it, and
because something drew her very strongly to hide herself from
Lelechka and to seek out the hiding child. Serafima Aleksandrovna
herself began the game once or twice, though she played it with a
heavy heart. She suffered as though committing an evil deed with
full consciousness.
It was a sad day for Serafima Aleksandrovna.
V
Lelechka was about to fall asleep. No sooner had she climbed into
her little bed, protected by a network on all sides, than her eyes
began to close from fatigue. Her mother covered her with a blue
blanket. Lelechka drew her sweet little hands from under the
blanket and stretched them out to embrace her mother. Her mother
bent down. Lelechka, with a tender expression on her sleepy face,
kissed her mother and let her head fall on the pillow. As her hands
hid themselves under the blanket Lelechka whispered: "The hands
tiu-tiu! "
The mother's heart seemed to stop—Lelechka lay there so small, so
frail, so quiet. Lelechka smiled gently, closed her eyes and said
quietly: "The eyes tiu-tiu! "
Then even more quietly: "Lelechka tiu-tiu! "
With these words she fell asleep, her face pressing the pillow. She
seemed so small and so frail under the blanket that covered her.
Her mother looked at her with sad eyes.
Serafima Aleksandrovna remained standing over Lelechka's bed a
long while, and she kept looking at Lelechka with tenderness and
fear.
"I'm a mother: is it possible that I shouldn't be able to protect her?"
she thought, as she imagined the various ills that might befall
Lelechka.
She prayed long that night, but the prayer did not relieve her
sadness.
VI
Several days passed. Lelechka caught cold. The fever came upon
her at night. When Serafima Aleksandrovna, awakened by
Fedosya, came to Lelechka and saw her looking so hot, so restless,
and so tormented, she instantly recalled the evil omen, and a
hopeless despair took possession of her from the first moments.
A doctor was called, and everything was done that is usual on such
occasions—but the inevitable happened. Serafima Aleksandrovna
tried to console herself with the hope that Lelechka would get well,
and would again laugh and play—yet this seemed to her an
unthinkable happiness! And Lelechka grew feebler from hour to
hour.
All simulated tranquillity, so as not to frighten
Serafima Aleksandrovna, but their masked faces only made her
sad.
Nothing made her so unhappy as the reiterations of Fedosya,
uttered between sobs: "She hid herself and hid herself, our
Lelechka!"
But the thoughts of Serafima Aleksandrovna were confused, and
she could not quite grasp what was happening.
Fever was consuming Lelechka, and there were times when she
lost consciousness and spoke in delirium. But when she returned to
herself she bore her pain and her fatigue with gentle good nature;
she smiled feebly at her mamochka, so that her mamochka should not see how much she suffered. Three days passed, torturing like a
nightmare. Lelechka grew quite feeble. She did not know that she
was dying.
She glanced at her mother with her dimmed eyes, and lisped in a
scarcely audible, hoarse voice: " Tiu-tiu, mamochka! Make tiu-tiu, mamochka! "
Serafima Aleksandrovna hid her face behind the curtains
near Lelechka's bed. How tragic!
" Mamochka! " called Lelechka in an almost inaudible voice.
Lelechka's mother bent over her, and Lelechka, her vision grown
still more dim, saw her mother's pale, despairing face for the last
time.
"A white mamochka!" whispered Lelechka.
Mamochka's white face became blurred, and everything grew dark
before Lelechka. She caught the edge of the bed-cover feebly with
her hands and whispered: " Tiu-tiu! "
Something rattled in her throat; Lelechka opened and again closed
her rapidly paling lips, and died.
Serafima Aleksandrovna was in dumb despair as she left Lelechka,
and went out of the room. She met her husband.
"Lelechka is dead," she said in a quiet, dull voice.
Sergey Modestovich looked anxiously at her pale face. He was
struck by the strange stupor in her formerly animated handsome
features.
VII
Lelechka was dressed, placed in a little coffin, and carried into the
parlour. Serafima Aicksandrovna was standing by the coffin and
looking dully at her dead child. Sergey Modestovich went to his
wife and, consoling her with cold, empty words, tried to draw her
away from the coffin. Seranma Aleksandrovna smiled.
"Go away," she said quietly. "Lelechka is playing. She'll be up in a minute."
"Sima, my dear, don't agitate yourself," said Sergey Modestovich in a whisper. "You must resign yourself to your fate."
"She'll be up in a minute," persisted Serafima Aleksandrovna, her eyes fixed on the dead little girl.
Sergey Modestovich looked round him cautiously: he was afraid of
the unseemly and of the ridiculous.
"Sima, don't agitate yourself," he repeated. "This would be a miracle, and miracles do not happen in the nineteenth century."
No sooner had he said these words than Sergey Modestovich felt
their irrelevance to what had happened. He was confused and
annoyed.
He took his wife by the arm, and cautiously led her away from the
coffin. She did not oppose him.
Her face seemed tranquil and her eyes were dry. She went into the
nursery and began to walk round the room, looking into those
places where Lelechka used to hide herself. She walked all about
the room, and bent now and then to look under the table or under
the bed, and kept on repeating cheerfully: "Where is my little one?
Where is my Lelechka?"
After she had walked round the room once she began to make her
quest anew. Fedosya, motionless, with dejected face, sat in a
corner, and looked frightened at her mistress; then she suddenly
burst out sobbing, and she wailed loudly:
"She hid herself, and hid herself, our Lelechka, our angelic little soul!"
Serafima Aleksandrovna trembled, paused, cast a perplexed look
at Fedosya, began to weep, and left the nursery quietly.
VIII
Sergey Modestovich hurried the funeral. He saw that Serafima
Aleksandrovna. was terribly shocked by her sudden misfortune,
and as he feared for her reason he thought she would more readily
be diverted and consoled when Lelechka was buried.
Next morning Serafima Aleksandrovna dressed with particular
care—for Lelechka. When she entered the parlour there were
several people between her and Lelechka. The priest and deacon
paced up and down the room; clouds of blue smoke drifted in the
air, and there was a smell of incense. There was an oppressive
feeling of heaviness in Serafima Aleksandrovna's head as she
approached Lelechka. Lelechka lay there still and pale, and smiled
pathetically. Serafima Aleksandrovna laid her cheek upon the edge
of Lelechka's coffin, and whispered: " Tiu-tiu, little one!"
The little one did not reply. Then there was some kind of stir and
confusion around Serafima Aleksandrovna; strange, unnecessary
faces bent over her, some one held her—and Lelechka was carried
away somewhere.
Serafima Aleksandrovna stood up erect, sighed in a lost way,
smiled, and called loudly: "Lelechka!"
Lelechka was being carried out. The mother threw herself after the
coffin with despairing sobs, but she was held back. She sprang
behind the door, through which Lelechka had passed, sat down
there on the floor, and as she looked through the crevice, she cried
out: "Lelechka, tiu-tiu! "
Then she put her head out from behind the door, and began to
laugh.
Lelechka was quickly carried away from her mother, and those
who carried her seemed to run rather than to walk.
DETHRONED
BY I.N. POTAPENKO
"Well?" Captain Zarubkin's wife called out impatiently to her
husband, rising from the sofa and turning to face him as he entered.
"He doesn't know anything about it," he replied indifferently, as if the matter were of no interest to him. Then he asked in a
businesslike tone: "Nothing for me from the office?"
"Why should I know? Am I your errand boy?"
"How they dilly-dally! If only the package doesn't come too late.
It's so important!"
"Idiot!"
"Who's an idiot?"
"You, with your indifference, your stupid egoism."
The captain said nothing. He was neither surprised nor insulted. On
the contrary, the smile on his face was as though he had received a
compliment. These wifely animadversions, probably oft-heard, by
no means interfered with his domestic peace.
"It can't be that the man doesn't know when his wife is coming
back home," Mrs. Zarubkin continued excitedly. "She's written to him every day of the four months that she's been away. The
postmaster told me so."
"Semyonov! Ho, Semyonov! Has any one from the office been
here?"
"I don't know, your Excellency," came in a loud, clear voice from back of the room.
"Why don't you know? Where have you been?"
"I went to Abramka, your Excellency."
"The tailor again?"
"Yes, your Excellency, the tailor Abramka."
The captain spat in annoyance.
"And where is Krynka?"
"He went to market, your Excellency."
"Was he told to go to market?"
"Yes, your Excellency."
The captain spat again.
"Why do you keep spitting? Such vulgar manners!" his wife cried angrily. "You behave at home like a drunken subaltern. You
haven't the least consideration for your wife. You are so coarse in
your behaviour towards me! Do, please, go to your office."
"Semyonov."
"Your Excellency?"
"If the package comes, please have it sent back to the office and
say I've gone there. And listen! Some one must al