The most frequent of her visitors was Major Olessov, who revolved about her on his short legs, stout, red-faced, gray-haired, and as greasy as an engineer on a steamboat.
He played the guitar well, and bore himself as the humble, devoted servant of the lady.
As radiantly beautiful as her mother was the little five-year-old, curly-haired, chubby girl.
Her great, dark-blue eyes looked about her gravely, calmly expectant, and there was an air of thoughtfulness about her which was not at all childish.
Her grandmother was occupied with housekeeping from morning to night, with the help of Tuphyaev, a morose, taciturn man, and a fat, cross-eyed housemaid. There was no nursemaid, and the little girl lived almost without any notice being taken of her, playing about all day on the front steps or on a heap of planks near them.
I often went out to play with her in the evenings, for I was very fond of her. She soon became used to me, and would fall asleep in my arms while I was telling her a story.
When this happened, I used to carry her to bed.
Before long it came about that she would not go to sleep, when she was put to bed, unless I went to say good night to her.
When I went to her, she would hold out her plump hand with a grand air and say:
“Good-by till tomorrow.
Grandmother, how ought I to say it?”
“God preserve you!” said the grandmother, blowing a cloud of dark-blue smoke from her mouth and thin nose.
“God preserve you till tomorrow! And now I am going to sleep,” said the little girl, rolling herself up in the bedclothes, which were trimmed with lace.
The grandmother corrected her.
“Not till tomorrow, but for always.”
“But doesn’t tomorrow mean for always?”
She loved the word “tomorrow,” and whatever pleased her specially she carried forward into the future. She would stick into the ground flowers that had been plucked or branches that had been broken by the wind, and say:
“Tomorrow this will be a garden.”
“Tomorrow, some time, I shall buy myself a horse, and ride on horseback like mother.”
She was a clever child, but not very lively, and would often break off in the midst of a merry game to become thoughtful, or ask unexpectedly:
“Why do priests have hair like women?”
If she stung herself with nettles, she would shake her finger at them, saying:
“You wait! I shall pray God to do something vewy bady to you.
God can do bad things to every one; He can even punish mama.”
Sometimes a soft, serious melancholy descended upon her. She would press close to me, gazing up at the sky with her blue, expectant eyes, and say:
“Sometimes grandmother is cross, but mama never; she on’y laughs.
Every one loves her, because she never has any time. People are always coming to see her and to look at her because she is so beautiful.
She is ‘ovely, mama is.
‘Oseph says so — ‘ovely!”
I loved to listen to her, for she spoke of a world of which I knew nothing.
She spoke willingly and often about her mother, and a new life gradually opened out before me. I was again reminded of Queen Margot, which deepened my faith in books and also my interest in life.
One day when I was sitting on the steps waiting for my people, who had gone for a walk, and the little girl had dozed off in my arms, her mother rode up on horseback, sprang lightly to the ground, and, throwing back her head, asked:
“What, is she asleep?”
“Yes.”
“That’s right.”
The soldier Tuphyaev came running to her and took the horse. She stuck her whip into her belt and, holding out her arms, said:
“Give her to me!”
“I’ll carry her in myself.”
“Come on!” cried the lady, as if I had been a horse, and she stamped her foot on the step.
The little girl woke up, blinking, and, seeing her mother, held out her arms to her.
They went away.
I was used to being shouted at, but I did not like this lady to shout at me. She had only to give an order quietly, and every one obeyed her.
In a few minutes the cross-eyed maid came out for me. The little girl was naughty, and would not go to sleep without saying good night.
It was not without pride in my bearing toward the mother that I entered the drawing-room, where the little girl was sitting on the knees of her mother, who was deftly undressing her.
“Here he is,” she said. “He has come — this monster.”
“He is not a monster, but my boy.”
“Really?
Very good.
Well, you would like to give something to your boy, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I should.”