‘But in what am I to blame?’ he said to himself. And this question always called up another question in him - whether they feel differently, love differently, marry differently, these other people, these Vronskys and Oblonskys ... these gentlemen of the bed-chamber with their fat calves. And he pictured a whole line of these juicy, strong, undoubting people, who, against his will, had always and everywhere attracted his curious attention. He drove these thoughts away; he tried to convince himself that he lived not for this temporary life here and now but for eternal life, and that there was peace and love in his soul. Yet the fact that in this temporary, negligible life he had made, as it seemed to him, some negligible mistakes tormented him as though that eternal salvation in which he believed did not exist. But this temptation did not last long, and soon the tranquillity and loftiness were restored in Alexei Alexandrovich’s soul thanks to which he was able to forget what he did not want to remember.
XXVI
‘Well, Kapitonych?’ said Seryozha, red-cheeked and merry, coming back from a walk on the eve of his birthday and giving his pleated jacket to the tall old hall porter, who smiled down at the little fellow from his great height. ‘Did the bandaged official come today? Did papa receive him?’
‘He did. As soon as the manager came out, I announced him,’ the porter said with a merry wink. ‘I’ll take it off, if you please.’
‘Seryozha!’ said the Slav tutor,39 pausing in the inside doorway. ‘Take it off yourself.’
But Seryozha, though he heard the tutor’s weak voice, paid no attention. He stood holding on to the porter’s sash and looking into his face.
‘And did papa do what he wanted him to?’
The porter nodded affirmatively.
The bandaged official, who had already come seven times to petition Alexei Alexandrovich for something, interested both Seryozha and the hall porter. Seryozha had come upon him once in the front hall and had heard him pitifully asking the porter to announce him, saying that he and his children were sure to die.
Since then Seryozha had taken an interest in the official, having met him in the front hall another time.
‘And was he very glad?’ he asked.
‘How could he not be! He was all but skipping when he left.’
‘And has anything come?’ asked Seryozha, after a pause.
‘Well, sir,’ the porter said in a whisper, shaking his head, ‘there’s something from the countess.’
Seryozha understood at once that the porter was talking about a present for his birthday from Countess Lydia Ivanovna.
‘Is there really? Where?’
‘Kornei took it to your papa’s. Must be something nice!’
‘How big is it? Like this?’
‘A bit smaller, but it’s nice.’
‘A book?’
‘No, a thing. Go, go, Vassily Lukich is calling,’ the porter said, hearing the steps of the approaching tutor and, carefully unclasping the little hand in the half-removed glove that was holding on to his sash, he winked and nodded towards Vunich.
‘Coming, Vassily Lukich!’ Seryozha answered with that merry and loving smile that always won over the dutiful Vassily Lukich.
Seryozha was too merry, everything was too happy, for him not to tell his friend the porter about another family joy, which he had learned of during his walk in the Summer Garden from Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s niece. This joy seemed especially important to him, as it fell in with the joy of the official and his own joy about the toys that had come. It seemed to Seryozha that this was a day when everybody must be glad and merry.
‘You know papa got the Alexander Nevsky?’
‘How could I not know? People have already come to congratulate him.’
‘And is he glad?’
‘How could he not be glad of the tsar’s favour! He must have deserved it,’ the porter said sternly and seriously.
Seryozha reflected, peering into the porter’s face, which he had studied in the smallest detail, particularly his chin, hanging between grey side-whiskers, which no one saw except Seryozha, because he always looked at it from below.
‘Well, and has your daughter been to see you lately?’
The porter’s daughter was a ballet dancer.
‘When could she come on weekdays? They’ve also got to study. And you, too, sir. Off you go!’
When he came to his room, instead of sitting down to his lessons, Seryozha told his tutor his guess that what had been brought must be an engine. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
But Vassily Lukich thought only that the grammar lesson had to be learned for the teacher, who was to come at two o‘clock.
‘No, but just tell me, Vassily Lukich,’ he asked suddenly, already sitting at his desk and holding the book in his hands, ‘what’s bigger than the Alexander Nevsky? You know papa got the Alexander Nevsky?’
Vassily Lukich replied that the Vladimir was bigger than the Alexander Nevsky.
‘And higher?’
‘The highest of all is Andrew the First-called.’40
‘And higher than Andrew?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What, even you don’t know?’ And Seryozha, leaning on his elbow, sank into reflection.
