LITMIR.BIZ

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at once he began hurriedly groping for something, and again the same fearful thought flashed through me like lightning. I wondered why mother slept so soundly. How was it she did not wake when he touched her face with his hand? At last I saw him getting together all the clothes he could. He took mother’s pelisse, his old frockcoat, his dressing-gown, even the clothes that I had thrown off when I went to bed, so that he covered mother completely and hid her under the pile thrown on her. She still lay motionless, not stirring a limb.

      She was sleeping soundly.

      He seemed to breathe more freely when he had finished his task. This time nothing hindered him, but yet he was still uneasy. He moved the candle and stood with his face towards the door, so as not even to look towards the bed. At last he took the violin, and with a despairing gesture drew his bow across it…. The music began.

      But it was not music…. I remember everything distinctly; to the last moment I remembered everything that caught my attention at the time. No, this was not music such as I have heard since. They were not the notes of the violin, but some terrible voice seemed to be resounding for the first time in our room. Either my impressions were abnormal and due to delirium, or my senses had been so affected by all I had witnessed and were prepared for terrible and agonising impressions — but I am firmly convinced that I heard groans, the cry of a human voice, weeping. Utter despair flowed forth in these sounds; and at the end, when there resounded the last awful chord which seemed to combine all the horror of lamentation, the very essence of torment, of hopeless despair, I could not bear it — I began trembling, tears spurted from my eyes, and rushing at father with a fearful, despairing shriek, I clutched at his hands. He uttered a cry and dropped the violin.

      He stood for a minute as though bewildered. At last his eyes began darting and straying from side to side, he seemed to be looking for something; suddenly he snatched up the violin, brandished it above me, and… another minute and he would perhaps have killed me on the spot.

      “Daddy!” I shouted at him; “Daddy!”

      He trembled like a leaf when he heard my voice, and stepped back a couple of paces.

      “Oh, so you are still left! So it’s not all over yet! So you are still left with me!” he shouted, lifting me in the air above his shoulders.

      “Daddy!” I cried again. “For God’s sake don’t terrify me! I am frightened! Oh!’’

      My wail impressed him; he put me down on the ground gently, and for a minute looked at me without speaking, as though recognising and remembering something. At last, as though at some sudden revulsion, as though at some awful thought, tears gushed from his lustreless eyes; he bent down and began looking intently in my face.

      “Daddy,” I said to him, racked by terror, “don’t look like that! Let us go away from here! Let us make haste and go away! Let us go, let us run away!”

      “Yes, we’ll run away, we’ll run away. It’s high time. Come along, Nyetochka. Make haste, make haste!” And he rushed about as though he had only now grasped what he must do. He looked hurriedly around, and seeing mother’s handkerchief on the ground, picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then he saw her cap, and picked that up too and put it in his pocket, as though preparing for a long journey and putting together everything he would want.

      I got my clothes on in an instant, and in haste I too began snatching up everything which I fancied necessary for the journey.

      “Is everything ready, everything?” asked my father. “Is everything ready? Make haste! make haste!”

      I hurriedly tied up my bundle, threw a kerchief on my head, and we were about to set off when the idea occurred to me that I must take the picture which was hanging on the wall. Father instantly agreed to this. Now he was quiet, spoke in a whisper, and only urged me to make haste and start. The picture hung very high up. Together we brought a chair, put a stool on it, and clambering on it, after prolonged efforts, took it down. Then everything was ready for our journey. He took me by the hand, and we had almost started when father suddenly stopped me. He rubbed his forehead for some minutes as though trying to remember something which had not been done. At last he seemed to find what he wanted; he felt for the key which lay under mother’s pillow and began hurriedly looking for something in the chest of drawers. At last he came back to me and brought me some money he had found in the box.

      “Here, take this, take care of it,” he whispered to me. Don’t lose it, remember, remember!”

      At first he put the money in my hand, then took it back and thrust it in the bosom of my dress. I remembered that I shuddered when that silver touched my body, and it seemed that only then I understood what money meant. Now we were ready again, but all at once he stopped me again.

      “Nyetochka!” he said to me, as though reflecting with an effort, “my child, I have forgotten…. What is it?… I can’t remember…. Yes, yes, I have found it, I remember!… Come here, Nyetochka!”

      He led me to the corner where the holy image stood, and told me to kneel down.

      “Pray, my child, pray! You will feel better!… Yes, really it will be better,” he whispered, pointing to the ikon, and looking at me strangely. “Say your prayers,” he said in an imploring voice.

      I dropped on my knees, and clasping my hands, full of horror and despair which by now had gained complete possession of me, I sank on the floor and lay there for some moments without breathing. I strained every thought, every feeling to pray, but tears overwhelmed me. I got up exhausted with misery. I no longer wanted to go with him, I was frightened of him. At last what harassed and tortured me burst out.

      “Daddy,” I said, melting into tears, “and Mammy?… What’s the matter with Mammy? Where is she? Where’s my Mammy?”

      I could not go on, I wept bitterly.

      He shed tears too, as he looked at me. At last he took me by the hand, led me up to the bed, swept away the pile of clothes and turned down the quilt. My God! she lay dead, already cold and blue. Almost senseless, I flung myself on her and threw my arms round her dead body. My father made me kneel down.

      “Bow down to her, child!” he said. “Say goodbye to her….”

      I bowed down. My father bowed down beside me. He was fearfully pale. His lips were trembling and whispering something.

      “It wasn’t I, Nyetochka, it wasn’t I,” he said, pointing at the dead body with a trembling finger. “Do you hear? It was not I, it was not my doing. Remember, Nyetochka!”

      “Daddy, let us go,” I whispered in terror, “it’s time!”

      “Yes, it is time now, we ought to have gone long ago!” he said, gripping me tightly by the hand, in haste to get out of the room. “Now let us set off. Thank God, thank God, now it is all over!”

      We went down the stairs; the drowsy porter unlocked the gate for us, looking at us suspiciously; and father, as though afraid he would question him, ran out of the gate first, so that I had difficulty in overtaking him. We went down our street and came out on the bank of the canal. Snow had fallen on the pavement overnight, and was coming down in tiny flakes now. It was cold, I was chilled to the bone, and ran along with father clutching convulsively at the skirts of his coat. His violin was under his arm, and he was continually stopping to prevent its slipping.

      We walked for a quarter of an hour; at last he turned along the sloping pavement down to the edge of the canal and sat down on the farthest part. There was a hole cut in the ice two paces from us. There was not a sound around. Oh, God! How I remember to this day the terrible feeling that overpowered me! At last everything of which I had been dreaming for a whole year had come to pass. We had left our poor home. But was this what I was expecting, was it of this I was dreaming, was this the creation of my childish imagination, when I looked into the future for the happiness of him whom I loved with a passion so unlike a child’s? Above all, the thought of mother tortured me at that moment. Why had we left her alone, I wondered. We had abandoned her body like some useless thing. I remember that that harassed and tortured me more than anything.

      “Daddy,”

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