’My father, before all, and above all, desired
to live, and lived.... Perhaps he had a presentiment
that he would not have long to enjoy the ‘savour’
of life: he died at forty-two.
I described my evening at the Zasyekins’ minutely
to my father. Half attentively, half carelessly,
he listened to me, sitting on a garden seat, drawing
in the sand with his cane. Now and then he laughed,
shot bright, droll glances at me, and spurred me on
with short questions and assents. At first I
could not bring myself even to utter the name of Zinaida,
but I could not restrain myself long, and began singing
her praises. My father still laughed; then he
grew thoughtful, stretched, and got up. I remembered
that as he came out of the house he had ordered his
horse to be saddled. He was a splendid horseman,
and, long before Rarey, had the secret of breaking
in the most vicious horses.
‘Shall I come with you, father?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he answered, and his face resumed
its ordinary expression of friendly indifference.
’Go alone, if you like; and tell the coachman
I’m not going.’
He turned his back on me and walked rapidly away.
I looked after him; he disappeared through the gates.
I saw his hat moving along beside the fence; he went
into the Zasyekins’.
He stayed there not more than an hour, but then departed
at once for the town, and did not return home till
evening.
After dinner I went myself to the Zasyekins’.
In the drawing-room I found only the old princess.
On seeing me she scratched her head under her cap
with a knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me, could
I copy a petition for her.
‘With pleasure,’ I replied, sitting down
on the edge of a chair.
‘Only mind and make the letters bigger,’
observed the princess, handing me a dirty sheet of
paper; ’and couldn’t you do it to-day,
my good sir?’
‘Certainly, I will copy it to-day.’
The door of the next room was just opened, and in
the crack I saw the face of Zinaida, pale and pensive,
her hair flung carelessly back; she stared at me with
big chilly eyes, and softly closed the door.
‘Zina, Zina!’ called the old lady.
Zinaida made no response. I took home the old
lady’s petition and spent the whole evening over
it.
My ‘passion’ dated from that day.
I felt at that time, I recollect, something like what
a man must feel on entering the service: I had
ceased now to be simply a young boy; I was in love.
I have said that my passion dated from that day; I
might have added that my sufferings too dated from
the same day. Away from Zinaida I pined; nothing
was to my mind; everything went wrong with me; I spent
whole days thinking intensely about her ... I
pined when away,... but in her presence I was no better
off. I was jealous; I was conscious of my insignificance;
I was stupidly sulky or stupidly abject, and, all
