He designed my dresses, and later on he insisted that I should learn to make them myself. He gave me a riding-master, a violin teacher and a piano teacher, besides the various governesses who taught me the "other things," but it was with him and through him that I learned the little I have learned. His was a beautiful life, and there sang in my young heart those words which my father often whispered in my ear: "I love you every day more than yesterday and less than to-morrow." I looked upon my father as a kind of marvellously beneficent Deity. Sometimes I heard it said that he was "not practical," but I pitied those who criticised him. If he hated to calculate, that was his own affair, after all! Though warned of the catastrophe which never befell him, he remained cheerful, kind and generous. Our house was known as "La Maison du Bon Dieu." Every one was welcome there, and my father, who was a gourmet, and had a remarkable chef, treated his guests to feasts worthy of Lucullus, and to the best wines in his cellars—under one condition, invariably the same: that they should listen to the concert in the drawing-room, afterwards.
My father kept my mother's whole family, paid the debts of his friends, and did his utmost to assist any one and every one. Whenever he passed through a village round Beaucourt, men, women, and children would appear at the windows or doors of their cottages, and greet him with a sign, a word, or a smile of gratitude. And I used to sit as close to him as possible, in the trap; I was proud and happy and felt like shouting to the good villagers: "You know, he is my daddy!"
Dear father! they were to slander him, too, at my trial. A member of his own family asserted that he was a brute and a drunkard. And when I revolted against such an abominable statement, my counsel tried to appease me. "Don't take any notice," he muttered. "The statement, it seems, has been made to save you at any cost. Being the daughter of a drunkard, you could be considered, to some extent, as irresponsible. It was tactics, not an insult!"
In my memory I can see next to my father the lovable figure of M. Doriand, my parents' "old" and my "great" friend.
M. Doriand was a professor in the Empress's College for girls at Moscow, and his conversation was a rare delight. He came every year to spend his holidays with us. He remained three months at Beaucourt, and during the rest of the year sent us a long letter every week. In the summer, when he was with us, he made me read over again all the lessons I had taken since the previous summer, and he discussed them so wittily and opened up to me such new horizons, retold me history in such a fascinating and personal manner, and managed to render mathematics so interesting, that I never thought of complaining of the unusual way of making me spend my holidays.
Then he painted very well, and gave me lessons in watercolours. He developed in me such a keen taste for art that later on my father decided I should attend an art school.
My "great friend" or my "grandpapa from Russia," as I often called him, had exquisite manners. When, many years later, I became what is called a "woman of the world," and even a Paris "Society Queen," if I may quote a term so often applied to me, I was able to judge the various types of people who composed that Society and their manners, and I realised then that M. Doriand did not belong to his time. He had the exquisite politeness of the "honest" people of the grand siècle. I still see him bowing with easy grace whenever he met my mother, my sisters or me. Never did a vulgar or trivial word pass from his lips. He loved what he called, not "beautiful" French, but "good" French. He had for the most humble the same little attentions and the same gentle and old-time courteousness as for his peers. He addressed his aged sister, who resided near Beaucourt, as he would have a queen, for he believed that nowhere more than in the home were perfect manners and courteous speech more becoming, and that to no one more than to his own people did a man owe respect. He took off his hat when he met the women about the farm, and never kept it on in a shop. He spoke slowly and softly, and cultivated the mot propre (the exact word). It was a joy to hear him, as much to the ear as to the mind. As long as I remained under his influence, I tried to speak as he did; but destiny took me to Paris, where, alas! they speak Parisian, not French.
My grandpapa from Russia seemed to know everything and to be able to do anything. He would, for instance, talk to me for an hour about a tragedy of Voltaire, which he afterwards compared with a tragedy of his beloved Racine; or perhaps a book by some little known Russian author, whom he placed far above the work of many celebrated writers—German, French or English. Then he would suddenly tell me the life of a plant at our feet or the story of the stone on which he sat. Afterwards, we would go to the kitchen, and there he taught me how to prepare some kind of soup or sweet dish à la Russe. When this was over we would go to the music-room and there I had to sing or play to him an air by Mozart, Glück, Lulli, or Rameau. He used to say: "You will play the music of Beethoven and Wagner (he, like my father, had already recognised Wagner's genius) when you are older. One must have suffered and loved to understand these geniuses." He taught me to sculpture, to bind books, to solder....
My father joined us and said: "My dear Doriand, you are monopolising my daughter. You have had her to yourself the whole morning."
"How dare you complain," the other retorted; "you have her the whole of the year."