I have seen few more charming spots than this estate of Vasílevskoë. On one side, where the ground slopes, there is a large village with a church and an old manor-house; on the other side, where there is a hill and a smaller village, was a new house built by my father. From our windows there was a view for many miles: the endless corn-fields spread like lakes, ruffled by the breeze; manor-houses and villages with white churches were visible here and there; forests of varying hues made a semicircular frame for the picture; and the ribbon of the Moscow River shone blue outside it. In the early morning I used to push up my window as high as it would go, and look, and listen, and drink in the air.
Yet I had a tenderness for the old manor-house too, perhaps because it gave me my first taste of the country; I had a passion for the long shady avenue which led up to it, and the neglected garden. The house was falling down, and a slender shapely birch-tree was growing out of a crack in the hall floor. A willow avenue went to the left, followed by reed-beds and white sand, all the way to the river; about my twelfth year, I used to play the whole morning on this sand and among the reeds. An old gardener, bent and decrepit, was generally sitting in front of the house, boiling fruit or straining mint-wine; and he used to give me peas and beans to eat on the sly. There were a number of rooks in the garden; they nested in the tree-tops and flew round and round, cawing; sometimes, especially towards evening, they rose up in hundreds at a time, rousing others by their noise; sometimes a single bird would fly quickly from tree to tree, amid general silence. When night came on, some distant owl would cry like a child or burst out laughing; and, though I feared those wild plaintive noises, yet I went and listened.
The years when we did not stay at Vasílevskoë were few and far between. On leaving, I always marked my height on the wall near the balcony, and my first business on arriving was to find out how much I had grown. But I could measure more than mere bodily growth by this place: the regular recurrence to the same surroundings enabled me to detect the development of my mind. Different books and different objects engaged my attention. In 1823 I was still quite a child and took childish books with me; and even these I left unread, taking more interest in a hare and a squirrel that lived in a garret near my room. My father allowed me, once every evening, to fire off a small cannon, and this was one of my chief delights. Of course, all the servants bore a hand in this occupation, and grey-haired men of fifty were no less excited than I was. In 1827 my books were Plutarch and Schiller; early in the morning I sought the remotest part of the wood, lay down under a tree, and read aloud, fancying myself in the forests of Bohemia. Yet, all the same, I paid much attention to a dyke which I and another boy were making across a small stream, and I ran there ten times a day to look at it and repair it. In 1829 and the next year, I was writing a “philosophical” review of Schiller’s Wallenstein, and the cannon was the only one of my old amusements that still maintained its attraction.
But I had another pleasure as well as firing off the cannon—the evenings in the country haunted me like a passion, and I feel them still to be times of piety and peace and poetry.... One of the last bright hours of my life also recalls to me an evening in the country. I was in Italy, and she was with me. The sun was setting, solemn and bright, in an ocean of fire, and melting into it. Suddenly the rich crimson gave place to a sombre blue, and smoke-coloured vapour covered all the sky; for in Italy darkness comes on fast. We mounted our mules; riding from Frascati to Rome, we had to pass through a small village; lights were twinkling already here and there, all was peace, the hoofs of the mules rang out on the stone, a fresh dampish wind blew from the Apennines. At the end of the village there was a small Madonna in a niche, with a lamp burning before her; the village girls, coming home from work with white kerchiefs over their heads, knelt down and sang a hymn, and some begging pifferari who were passing by added their voices. I was profoundly impressed and much moved by the scene. We looked at each other, and rode slowly on to the inn where our carriage was waiting. When we got home, I described the evenings I had spent at Vasílevskoë. What was it I described?
The shepherd cracks his long whip and plays on his birch-bark pipe. I hear the lowing and bleating of the returning animals, and the stamping of their feet on the bridge. A barking dog scurries after a straggling sheep, and the sheep breaks into a kind of wooden-legged gallop. Then the voices of the girls, singing on their way from the fields, come nearer and nearer; but the path takes a turn to the right, and the sound dies away again. House-doors open with creaking of the hinges, and the children come out to meet their cows and sheep. Work is over. Children play in the street or by the river, and their voices come penetrating and clear over the water through the evening glow. The smell of burning passes from the corn-kilns through the air; the soaking dew begins to spread like smoke over the earth, the wind seems to walk audibly over the trees, the sunset glow sends a last faint light over the world—and Vyéra Artamónovna finds me under a lime-tree, and scolds me, though she is not seriously angry.
“What’s the meaning of this? Tea has long been served, and everyone is there. I have looked and looked for you everywhere till I’m tired out. I’m too old for all this running. And what do you mean by lying on the wet grass? You’ll have a cold to-morrow, I feel sure.”
“Never mind, never mind,” I would answer laughing; “I shan’t have a cold, and I want no tea; but you must steal me some cream, and mind you skim off the top of the jug!”
“Really, I can’t find it in my heart to be angry with you! But how dainty you are! I’ve got cream ready for you, without your asking. Look how red the sky is! That’s a sign of a good harvest.”
And then I made off home, jumping and whistling as I went.