“No, it is not necessary,” the master replied as he put pencil and drawing-pen into a japanned folding box. “It is just right now, and you need not do anything more to it. As for you, Nicolinka,” he added, rising and glancing askew at the Turk, “won’t you tell us your great secret at last? What are you going to give your Grandmamma? I think another head would be your best gift. But good-bye, gentlemen,” and taking his hat and cardboard he departed.
I too had thought that another head than the one at which I had been working would be a better gift; so, when we were told that Grandmamma’s name-day was soon to come round and that we must each of us have a present ready for her, I had taken it into my head to write some verses in honour of the occasion, and had forthwith composed two rhymed couplets, hoping that the rest would soon materialise. I really do not know how the idea—one so peculiar for a child—came to occur to me, but I know that I liked it vastly, and answered all questions on the subject of my gift by declaring that I should soon have something ready for Grandmamma, but was not going to say what it was.
Contrary to my expectation, I found that, after the first two couplets executed in the initial heat of enthusiasm, even my most strenuous efforts refused to produce another one. I began to read different poems in our books, but neither Dimitrieff nor Derzhavin could help me. On the contrary, they only confirmed my sense of incompetence. Knowing, however, that Karl Ivanitch was fond of writing verses, I stole softly upstairs to burrow among his papers, and found, among a number of German verses, some in the Russian language which seemed to have come from his own pen.
To L
Remember near
Remember far,
Remember me.
To-day be faithful, and for ever—
Aye, still beyond the grave—remember
That I have well loved thee.
“KARL MAYER.”
These verses (which were written in a fine, round hand on thin letter-paper) pleased me with the touching sentiment with which they seemed to be inspired. I learnt them by heart, and decided to take them as a model. The thing was much easier now. By the time the name-day had arrived I had completed a twelve-couplet congratulatory ode, and sat down to the table in our school-room to copy them out on vellum.
Two sheets were soon spoiled—not because I found it necessary to alter anything (the verses seemed to me perfect), but because, after the third line, the tail-end of each successive one would go curving upward and making it plain to all the world that the whole thing had been written with a want of adherence to the horizontal—a thing which I could not bear to see.
The third sheet also came out crooked, but I determined to make it do.
In my verses I congratulated Grandmamma, wished her many happy returns,
and concluded thus:
“Endeavouring you to please and cheer,
We love you like our Mother dear.”
This seemed to me not bad, yet it offended my ear somehow.
“Lo-ve you li-ike our Mo-ther dear,” I repeated to myself. “What other rhyme could I use instead of ‘dear’? Fear? Steer? Well, it must go at that. At least the verses are better than Karl Ivanitch’s.”
Accordingly I added the last verse to the rest. Then I went into our bedroom and recited the whole poem aloud with much feeling and gesticulation. The verses were altogether guiltless of metre, but I did not stop to consider that. Yet the last one displeased me more than ever. As I sat on my bed I thought: