"'When I was in the cadet corps,' he said, 'they used to take down my breeches now and again and lay me across a bench and flog me. They flogged and they flogged; when they stopped, that was the happiest moment of my life.' Well, it was only during the entr'actes, when Rubinstein stopped playing, that I really enjoyed myself."
He did not always spare my father.
Once when I was out shooting with a setter near Pirogovo, I drove in to Uncle Seryozha's to stop the night.
I do not remember apropos of what, but Uncle Seryozha averred that Lyovotchka was proud. He said:
"He is always preaching humility and non-resistance, but he is proud himself.
"Nashenka's [14] sister had a footman called Forna. When he got drunk, he used to get under the staircase, tuck in his legs, and lie down. One day they came and told him that the countess was calling him. 'She can come and find me if she wants me,' he answered.
"Lyovotchka is just the same. When Dolgoruky sent his chief secretary Istomin to ask him to come and have a talk with him about Syntayef, the sectarian, do you know what he answered?
"'Let him come here, if he wants me.' Isn't that just the same as Forna?
"No, Lyovotchka is very proud. Nothing would induce him to go, and he was quite right; but it's no good talking of humility."
During the last years of Sergei Nikolayevitch's life my father was particularly friendly and affectionate with him, and delighted in sharing his thoughts with him.