The year of mourning over, Grandmamma recovered a little from her grief, and once more took to receiving occasional guests, especially children of the same age as ourselves.
On the 13th of December--Lubotshka's birthday--the Princess Kornakoff and her daughters, with Madame Valakhin, Sonetchka, Ilinka Grap, and the two younger Iwins, arrived at our house before luncheon.
Though we could hear the sounds of talking, laughter, and movements going on in the drawing-room, we could not join the party until our morning lessons were finished. The table of studies in the schoolroom said, " Lundi, de 2 a 3, maitre d'Histoire et de Geographie," and this infernal maitre d'Histoire we must await, listen to, and see the back of before we could gain our liberty. Already it was twenty minutes past two, and nothing was to be heard of the tutor, nor yet anything to be seen of him in the street, although I kept looking up and down it with the greatest impatience and with an emphatic longing never to see the maitre again.
"I believe he is not coming to-day," said Woloda, looking up for a moment from his lesson-book.
"I hope he is not, please the Lord!" I answered, but in a despondent tone. "Yet there he DOES come, I believe, all the same!""Not he! Why, that is a GENTLEMAN," said Woloda, likewise looking out of the window, "Let us wait till half-past two, and then ask St. Jerome if we may put away our books.""Yes, and wish them au revoir," I added, stretching my arms, with the book clasped in my hands, over my head. Having hitherto idled away my time, I now opened the book at the place where the lesson was to begin, and started to learn it. It was long and difficult, and, moreover, I was in the mood when one's thoughts refuse to be arrested by anything at all. Consequently I made no progress.
After our last lesson in history (which always seemed to me a peculiarly arduous and wearisome subject) the history master had complained to St. Jerome of me because only two good marks stood to my credit in the register --a very small total. St. Jerome had then told me that if I failed to gain less than THREE marks at the next lesson I should be severely punished. The next lesson was now imminent, and I confess that I felt a little nervous.
So absorbed, however, did I become in my reading that the sound of goloshes being taken off in the ante-room came upon me almost as a shock. I had just time to look up when there appeared in the doorway the servile and (to me) very disgusting face and form of the master, clad in a blue frockcoat with brass buttons.
Slowly he set down his hat and books and adjusted the folds of his coat (as though such a thing were necessary!), and seated himself in his place.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, rubbing his hands, "let us first of all repeat the general contents of the last lesson: after which Iwill proceed to narrate the succeeding events of the middle ages."This meant "Say over the last lesson." While Woloda was answering the master with the entire ease and confidence which come of knowing a subject well, I went aimlessly out on to the landing, and, since I was not allowed to go downstairs, what more natural than that I should involuntarily turn towards the alcove on the landing? Yet before I had time to establish myself in my usual coign of vantage behind the door I found myself pounced upon by Mimi--always the cause of my misfortunes!
"YOU here?" she said, looking severely, first at myself, and then at the maidservants' door, and then at myself again.
I felt thoroughly guilty, firstly, because I was not in the schoolroom, and secondly, because I was in a forbidden place. So I remained silent, and, dropping my head, assumed a touching expression of contrition.
"Indeed, this is TOO bad!" Mimi went on, "What are you doing here?
Still I said nothing.
"Well, it shall not rest where it is," she added, tapping the banister with her yellow fingers. "I shall inform the Countess."It was five minutes to three when I re-entered the schoolroom.
