Speak, Memory

The admirable and unforgettable village schoolmaster who in the summer of 1905 taught us Russian spelling used to come for only a few hours a day and thus does not really belong to the present series. He helps, however, to join its beginning and its end, since my final recollection of him refers to the Easter vacation in 1915, which my brother and I spent with my father and one Volgin—the last, and worst tutor—skiing in the snow-smothered country around our estate under an intense, almost violet sky. Our old friend invited us to his lodgings in the icicle-eaved school building for what he called a snack; actually it was a complex and lovingly planned meal. I can still see his beaming face and the beautifully simulated delight with which my father welcomed a dish (hare roasted in sour cream) that I knew he happened to detest. The room was overheated. My thawing ski boots were not as waterproof as they were supposed to be. My eyes, still smarting from the dazzling snows, kept trying to decipher, on the near wall, a so-called “typographical” portrait of Tolstoy. Like the tail of the mouse on a certain page in Alice in Wonderland, it was wholly composed of printed matter. A complete Tolstoy story (“Master and Man”) had gone to make its author’s bearded face, which, incidentally, our host’s features somewhat resembled. We were just on the point of attacking the unfortunate hare, when the door flew open and Hristofor, a blue-nosed footman in a woman’s woolen kerchief, ushered in sideways, with an idiotic smile, a huge luncheon basket packed with viands and wines that my tactless grandmother (who was wintering at Batovo) had thought necessary to send us, in case the schoolmaster’s fare proved insufficient. Before our host had time to feel hurt, my father sent the untouched hamper back, with a brief note that probably puzzled the well-meaning old lady as most of his actions puzzled her. In a flowing silk gown and net mitts, a period piece rather than a live person, she spent most of her life on a couch, fanning herself with an ivory fan. A box of boules de gomme, or a glass of almond milk were always within her reach, as well as a hand mirror, for she used to repowder her face, with a large pink puff, every hour or so, the little mole on her cheekbone showing through all that flour, like a currant. Notwithstanding the languid aspects of her usual day, she remained an extraordinarily hardy woman and made a point of sleeping near a wide-open window all year round. One morning, after a nightlong blizzard, her maid found her lying under a layer of sparkling snow which had swept over her bed and her, without infringing upon the healthy glow of her sleep. If she loved anybody, it was only her youngest daughter, Nadezhda Vonlyarlyarski, for whose sake she suddenly sold Batovo in 1916, a deal which benefited no one at that dusking-tide of imperial history. She complained to all our relatives about the dark forces that had seduced her gifted son into scorning the kind of “brilliant” career in the Tsar’s service his forefathers had pursued. What she found especially hard to understand was that my father, who, she knew, thoroughly appreciated all the pleasures of great wealth, could jeopardize its enjoyment by becoming a Liberal, thus helping to bring on a revolution that would, in the long run, as she correctly foresaw, leave him a pauper.

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