FullReads

Every day I read to Ivan Matveitch, sometimes for three or four hours together…. So much reading in such a loud voice was harmful to me. Our doctor was anxious about my lungs and even once communicated his fears to Ivan Matveitch. But the old man only smiled–no; he never smiled, but somehow sharpened and moved forward his lips–and told him: ‘Vous ne savez pas ce qu’il y a de ressources dans cette jeunesse.’ ‘In former years, however, M. le Commandeur,’… the doctor ventured to observe. Ivan Matveitch smiled as before. ‘Vous revez, mon cher,’ he interposed: ‘le commandeur n’a plus de dents, et il crache a chaque mot. J’aime les voix jeunes.’

And I still went on reading, though my cough was very troublesome in the mornings and at night…. Sometimes Ivan Matveitch made me play the piano. But music always had a soporific influence on his nerves. His eyes closed at once, his head nodded in time, and only rarely I heard, ‘C’est du Steibelt, n’est-ce pas? Jouez-moi du Steibelt!’ Ivan Matveitch looked upon Steibelt as a great genius, who had succeeded in overcoming in himself ‘la grossiere lourdeur des Allemands,’ and only found fault with him for one thing: ‘trop de fougue! trop d’imagination!’… When Ivan Matveitch noticed that I was tired from playing he would offer me ‘du cachou de Bologne.’ So day after day slipped by….

And then one night–a night never to be forgotten!–a terrible calamity fell upon me. My mother died almost suddenly. I was only just fifteen. Oh, what a sorrow that was, with what cruel violence it swooped down upon me! How terrified I was at that first meeting with death! My poor mother! Strange were our relations; we passionately loved each other… passionately and hopelessly; we both as it were treasured up and hid from each other our common secret, kept obstinately silent about it, though we knew all that was passing at the bottom of our hearts! Even of the past, of her own early past, my mother never spoke to me, and she never complained in words, though her whole being was nothing but one dumb complaint. We avoided all conversation of any seriousness. Alas! I kept hoping that the hour would come, and she would open her heart at last, and I too should speak out, and both of us would be more at ease…. But the daily little cares, her irresolute, shrinking temper, illnesses, the presence of Mr. Ratsch, and most of all the eternal question,–what is the use? and the relentless, unbroken flowing away of time, of life…. All was ended as though by a clap of thunder, and the words which would have loosed us from the burden of our secret–even the last dying words of leave-taking–I was not destined to hear from my mother! All that is left in my memory is Mr. Ratsch’s calling, ‘Susanna Ivanovna, go, please, your mother wishes to give you her blessing!’ and then the pale hand stretched out from the heavy counterpane, the agonised breathing, the dying eyes…. Oh, enough! enough!

With what horror, with what indignation and piteous curiosity I looked next day, and on the day of the funeral, into the face of my father… yes, my father! In my dead mother’s writing-case were found his letters. I fancied he looked a little pale and drawn… but no! Nothing was stirring in that heart of stone. Exactly as before, he summoned me to his room, a week later; exactly in the same voice he asked me to read: ‘Si vous le voulez bien, les observations sur l’histoire de France de Mably, a la page 74… la ou nous avons ete interrompus.’ And he had not even had my mother’s portrait moved! On dismissing me, he did indeed call me to him, and giving me his hand to kiss a second time, he observed: ‘Suzanne, la mort de votre mere vous a privee de votre appui naturel; mais vous pourrez toujours compter sur ma protection,’ but with the other hand he gave me at once a slight push on the shoulder, and, with the sharpening of the corners of the mouth habitual with him, he added, ‘Allez, mon enfant.’ I longed to shriek at him: ‘Why, but you know you’re my father!’ but I said nothing and left the room.