§2
Two or three years after this, two old brother-officers of my father’s were at our house one evening—General Essen, the Governor of Orenburg, and General Bakhmétyev, who lost a leg at Borodino and was later Lieutenant-Governor of Bessarabia. My room was next the drawing-room where they were sitting. My father happened to mention that he had been speaking to Prince Yusúpov with regard to my future; he wished me to enter the Civil Service. “There’s no time to lose,” he added; “as you know, he must serve a long time before he gets any decent post.”
“It is a strange notion of yours,” said Essen good-humouredly, “to turn the boy into a clerk. Leave it to me; let me enroll him in the Ural Cossacks; he will soon get his commission, which is the main thing, and then he can forge ahead like the rest of us.”
But my father would not agree: he said that everything military was distasteful to him, that he hoped in time to get me a diplomatic post in some warm climate, where he would go himself to end his days.
Bakhmétyev had taken little part in the conversation; but now he got up on his crutches and said:
“In my opinion, you ought to think twice before you reject Essen’s advice. If you don’t fancy Orenburg, the boy can enlist here just as well. You and I are old friends, and I always speak my mind to you. You will do no good to the young man himself and no service to the country by sending him to the University and on to the Civil Service. He is clearly in a false position, and nothing but the Army can put that right and open up a career for him from the first. Any dangerous notions will settle down before he gets the command of a regiment. Discipline works wonders, and his future will depend on himself. You say that he’s clever; but you don’t suppose that all officers in the Army are fools? Think of yourself and me and our lot generally. There is only one possible objection—that he may have to serve some time before he gets his commission; but that’s the very point in which we can help you.”
This conversation was as valuable to me as the casual remarks of my nurses. I was now thirteen; and these lessons, which I turned over and over and pondered in my heart for weeks and months in complete solitude, bore their fruit. I had formerly dreamt, as boys always do, of military service and fine uniforms, and had nearly wept because my father wished to make a civilian of me; but this conversation at once cooled my enthusiasm, and by degrees—for it took time—I rooted out of my mind every atom of my passion for stripes and epaulettes and aiguillettes. There was, it is true, one relapse, when a cousin, who was at school in Moscow and sometimes came to our house on holidays, got a commission in a cavalry regiment. After joining his regiment, he paid a visit to Moscow and stayed some days with us. My heart beat fast, when I saw him in all his finery, carrying his sabre and wearing the shako held at a becoming angle by the chin-strap. He was sixteen but not tall for his age; and next morning I put on his uniform, sabre, shako, and all, and looked at myself in the glass. How magnificent I seemed to myself, in the blue jacket with scarlet facings! What a contrast between this gorgeous finery and the plain cloth jacket and duck trousers which I wore at home!
My cousin’s visit weakened for a time the effect of what the generals had said; but, before long, circumstances gave me a fresh and final distaste for a soldier’s uniform.
By pondering over my “false position,” I was brought to much the same conclusions as by the talk of the two nurses. I felt less dependence on society (of which, however, I knew nothing), and I believed that I must rely mainly on my own efforts. I said to myself with childish arrogance that General Bakhmétyev and his brother-officers should hear of me some day.
In view of all this, it may be imagined what a weary and monotonous existence I led in the strange monastic seclusion of my home. There was no encouragement for me, and no variety; my father, who showed no fondness for me after I was ten, was almost always displeased with me; I had no companions. My teachers came and went; I saw them to the door, and then stole off to play with the servants’ children, which was strictly forbidden. At other times I wandered about the large gloomy rooms, where the windows were shut all day and the lights burnt dim in the evening; I either did nothing or read any books I could lay hands on.
My only other occupation I found in the servants’ hall and the maids’ room; they gave me real live pleasure. There I found perfect freedom; I took a side in disputes; together with my friends downstairs, I discussed their doings and gave my advice; and though I knew all their secrets, I never once betrayed them by a slip of the tongue in the drawing-room.