Soon, again, I began to fancy myself far away from the house and alone in the world.
I enter a hussar regiment and go to war.
Surrounded by the foe on every side, I wave my sword, and kill one of them and wound another—then a third,—then a fourth.
At last, exhausted with loss of blood and fatigue, I fall to the ground and cry,
“Victory!”
The general comes to look for me, asking,
“Where is our saviour?” whereupon I am pointed out to him. He embraces me, and, in his turn, exclaims with tears of joy,
“Victory!”
I recover and, with my arm in a black sling, go to walk on the boulevards.
I am a general now.
I meet the Emperor, who asks, “Who is this young man who has been wounded?”
He is told that it is the famous hero Nicolas; whereupon he approaches me and says,
“My thanks to you!
Whatsoever you may ask for, I will grant it.”
To this I bow respectfully, and, leaning on my sword, reply,
“I am happy, most august Emperor, that I have been able to shed my blood for my country. I would gladly have died for it. Yet, since you are so generous as to grant any wish of mine, I venture to ask of you permission to annihilate my enemy, the foreigner St. Jerome” And then I step fiercely before St. Jerome and say, “YOU were the cause of all my fortunes! Down now on your knees!”
Unfortunately this recalled to my mind the fact that at any moment the REAL St. Jerome might be entering with the cane; so that once more I saw myself, not a general and the saviour of my country, but an unhappy, pitiful creature.
Then the idea of God occurred to me, and I asked Him boldly why He had punished me thus, seeing that I had never forgotten to say my prayers, either morning or evening.
Indeed, I can positively declare that it was during that hour in the store-room that I took the first step towards the religious doubt which afterwards assailed me during my youth (not that mere misfortune could arouse me to infidelity and murmuring, but that, at moments of utter contrition and solitude, the idea of the injustice of Providence took root in me as readily as bad seed takes root in land well soaked with rain).
Also, I imagined that I was going to die there and then, and drew vivid pictures of St. Jerome’s astonishment when he entered the store-room and found a corpse there instead of myself!
Likewise, recollecting what Natalia Savishna had told me of the forty days during which the souls of the departed must hover around their earthly home, I imagined myself flying through the rooms of Grandmamma’s house, and seeing Lubotshka’s bitter tears, and hearing Grandmamma’s lamentations, and listening to Papa and St. Jerome talking together.
“He was a fine boy,” Papa would say with tears in his eyes.
“Yes,” St. Jerome would reply, “but a sad scapegrace and good-for-nothing.”
“But you should respect the dead,” would expostulate Papa. “YOU were the cause of his death; YOU frightened him until he could no longer bear the thought of the humiliation which you were about to inflict upon him.
Away from me, criminal!”
Upon that St. Jerome would fall upon his knees and implore forgiveness, and when the forty days were ended my soul would fly to Heaven, and see there something wonderfully beautiful, white, and transparent, and know that it was Mamma.
And that something would embrace and caress me. Yet, all at once, I should feel troubled, and not know her.
“If it be you,” I should say to her, “show yourself more distinctly, so that I may embrace you in return.”
And her voice would answer me,
“Do you not feel happy thus?” and I should reply, “Yes, I do, but you cannot REALLY caress me, and I cannot REALLY kiss your hand like this.”
“But it is not necessary,” she would say. “There can be happiness here without that,”—and I should feel that it was so, and we should ascend together, ever higher and higher, until—Suddenly I feel as though I am being thrown down again, and find myself sitting on the trunk in the dark store-room (my cheeks wet with tears and my thoughts in a mist), yet still repeating the words, “Let us ascend together, higher and higher.”
Indeed, it was a long, long while before I could remember where I was, for at that moment my mind’s eye saw only a dark, dreadful, illimitable void.
I tried to renew the happy, consoling dream which had been thus interrupted by the return to reality, but, to my surprise, I found that, as soon as ever I attempted to re-enter former dreams, their continuation became impossible, while—which astonished me even more—they no longer gave me pleasure.
XVI. “KEEP ON GRINDING, AND YOU’LL HAVE FLOUR”
I PASSED the night in the store-room, and nothing further happened, except that on the following morning—a Sunday—I was removed to a small chamber adjoining the schoolroom, and once more shut up.
I began to hope that my punishment was going to be limited to confinement, and found my thoughts growing calmer under the influence of a sound, soft sleep, the clear sunlight playing upon the frost crystals of the windowpanes, and the familiar noises in the street.
Nevertheless, solitude gradually became intolerable. I wanted to move about, and to communicate to some one all that was lying upon my heart, but not a living creature was near me.
The position was the more unpleasant because, willy-nilly, I could hear St. Jerome walking about in his room, and softly whistling some hackneyed tune.
Somehow, I felt convinced that he was whistling not because he wanted to, but because he knew it annoyed me.
At two o’clock, he and Woloda departed downstairs, and Nicola brought me up some luncheon. When I told him what I had done and what was awaiting me he said:
“Pshaw, sir! Don’t be alarmed. ‘Keep on grinding, and you’ll have flour.’”
Although this expression (which also in later days has more than once helped me to preserve my firmness of mind) brought me a little comfort, the fact that I received, not bread and water only, but a whole luncheon, and even dessert, gave me much to think about.
If they had sent me no dessert, it would have meant that my punishment was to be limited to confinement; whereas it was now evident that I was looked upon as not yet punished—that I was only being kept away from the others, as an evil-doer, until the due time of punishment.
While I was still debating the question, the key of my prison turned, and St. Jerome entered with a severe, official air.
“Come down and see your Grandmamma,” he said without looking at me.
I should have liked first to have brushed my jacket, since it was covered with dust, but St. Jerome said that that was quite unnecessary, since I was in such a deplorable moral condition that my exterior was not worth considering.
As he led me through the salon, Katenka, Lubotshka, and Woloda looked at me with much the same expression as we were wont to look at the convicts who on certain days filed past my grandmother’s house.
Likewise, when I approached Grandmamma’s arm-chair to kiss her hand, she withdrew it, and thrust it under her mantilla.
“Well, my dear,” she began after a long pause, during which she regarded me from head to foot with the kind of expression which makes one uncertain where to look or what to do, “I must say that you seem to value my love very highly, and afford me great consolation.”
Then she went on, with an emphasis on each word, “Monsieur St. Jerome, who, at my request, undertook your education, says that he can no longer remain in the house.