The Little Russian Servant

by Henry Gréville

Her veneration for the countess was in nowise diminished by this. On the contrary, she loved her more, if possible. But in place of one idol, she had two. By little innocent tactics that surprised herself, she succeeded in having the service of the young count's room assigned to her, and thenceforth her happiness was complete. The care of the wardrobe was in the hands of the valet-de-chamber, who scrupulously avoided doing anything else.

Serge was the most breakneck rider in the world; not from bravado, since for the most part he was alone when he performed his wild exploits, but from instinctive contempt for danger. One fine morning, clearing a hedge six feet high—there were none lower—the count's horse stumbled and fell on its side. A touch of the spur made it spring up, but when Serge tried to spur the other side, that on which it had fallen, he suffered excruciating pain. Fortunately it was the last hedge, else he would have had some difficulty in getting home. He pushed on, however, and reached the entrance; but when he endeavored to rest his foot on the stirrup to alight, he found it absolutely impossible, and amid the lamentations of the servants who had gathered around, he had to let himself be taken down from his horse and be dragged, as he said, like a bundle to his bed.

When he was duly unbooted and examined, the supreme indifference with which he allowed himself to be handled and moved about, in spite of the paleness of his face, did not lessen the fact, that he had seriously fractured his tibia.

The bone-setter was sent for, in conformity with a precept of the countess, who preferred a bone-setter at hand to the first surgeon in the world three hundred miles off. A horribly-complicated dressing, bristling with splints and bandages, was applied to the leg, with very respectful but formal injunctions not to move, and to remain in bed for six weeks.

Six weeks! and the sporting season good, and flights of partridges started every minute by the count's dogs, hunting now for their own pleasure, the door of the kennel being seldom closed; the horses neighing from sheer weariness, and the grooms giving themselves lumbago brightening up trappings that were now to lie unused.

The countess was a good reader, in spite of her eyeglass; she read untiringly, the result of which was to send the patient to sleep—infallible result; simply an affair of time; often in ten minutes, sometimes an hour Serge's breathing would become regular, the fever that colored his cheek bones would gradually disappear, and then the good mother, closing the book, would go about her duties as mistress of the house, leaving Mavra in charge of her son.

Gradually the needle of Mavra's embroidery work would slacken its motion, and for long hours her eyes remain fixed on the face of the sleeping young count. Daylight would decline, and no candles be brought, lest the healing rest should be disturbed.

Seated near the window in the deepening shadow, the outlines of her figure relieved against the pale blue autumn sky in which her dear stars were fast gathering, Mavra would lose herself in a vague infinite ecstasy as she sat gazing at her sleeping young master, whom her heart only could now see. At the first sign of his awaking she was on her feet with her hand upon the bell. On the arrival of the lamp Mavra would withdraw to the workroom. At night in her dreams she would continue her spiritual, almost mystical, contemplation of the beautiful fair head asleep on its pillow.

When Serge got well, she was the prey of an implacable, unconscious, immortal love. Henceforth she belonged to her idol. Present or absent, he was her adored master; for him alone she breathed. She would have almost hated the convalescence that day by day was taking him from her, had not the young man's weakness obliged him frequently to seek her aid. Supporting himself with a stick in one hand, and resting the other on Mavra's shoulder, he would walk round his room. She was happy and proud the day when, to give the countess a surprise, she led him thus into the little salon, where the countess, thinking he was asleep, was reading a devotional book. The agitated joy of the mother and the nervous gayety of the son brought tears to the eyes of the young peasant girl; but stoical, like all her race, she drove her tears back.

Serge walked alone with a stick, then without a stick, limping a little: by and by his firm elastic tread was heard again on the waxed oak floor. The northern early winter was come, snow already blocking up from time to time the seignorial mansion, then melting under the breath of a warmer wind, till the great winter blockade finally set in. One day a sledge, lined with fur, drawn by spirited horses, clinking the bells that studded the harness, drew up before the door. Serge and his mother stepped into it, waving a friendly farewell to the household that crowded around with noisy benedictions. The countess was to pass the winter at St. Petersburg, where her son was to resume his service in the hussars of Grodno. When they were gone, when the heavy gate which Mavra had opened one beautiful August day was shut, and the snow fell slowly in large flakes, reflecting the colors of the prism, it shut out all the outer world from the inmates of the seignorial mansion.