“No, I am Montezuma Hawkeye, the invincible chieftain.”
Masha, the youngest of the girls, looked first at him and then out of the window into the garden, where night was already falling, and said doubtfully:
“We had Tchetchevitsa (lentils) for supper last night.”
The absolutely unintelligible sayings of Tchetchevitsin, his continual whispered conversations with Volodia, and the fact that Volodia never played now and was always absorbed in thought—all this seemed to the girls to be both mysterious and strange. Katia and Sonia, the two oldest ones, began to spy on the boys, and when Volodia and his friend went to bed that evening, they crept to the door of their room and listened to the conversation inside. Oh! what did they hear? The boys were planning to run away to America in search of gold! They were all prepared for the journey and had a pistol ready, two knives, some dried bread, a magnifying-glass for lighting fires, a compass, and four roubles. The girls discovered that the boys would have to walk several thousand miles, fighting on the way with savages and tigers, and that they would then find gold and ivory, and slay their enemies. Next, they would turn pirates, drink gin, and at last marry beautiful wives and settle down to cultivate a plantation. Volodia and Tchetchevitsin both talked at once and kept interrupting one another from excitement. Tchetchevitsin called himself “Montezuma Hawkeye,” and Volodia “my Paleface Brother.”
“Be sure you don’t tell mamma!” said Katia to Sonia as they went back to bed. “Volodia will bring us gold and ivory from America, but if you tell mamma she won’t let him go!”
Tchetchevitsin spent the day before Christmas Eve studying a map of Asia and taking notes, while Volodia roamed about the house refusing all food, his face looking tired and puffy as if it had been stung by a bee. He stopped more than once in front of the icon in the nursery and crossed himself saying:
“O Lord, forgive me, miserable sinner! O Lord, help my poor, unfortunate mother!”
Toward evening he burst into tears. When he said good night he kissed his father and mother and sisters over and over again. Katia and Sonia realized the significance of his actions, but Masha, the youngest, understood nothing at all. Only when her eye fell upon Tchetchevitsin did she grow pensive and say with a sigh:
“Nurse says that when Lent comes we must eat peas and Tchetchevitsa.”
Early on Christmas Eve Katia and Sonia slipped quietly out of bed and went to the boys’ room to see them run away to America. They crept up to their door.