becomes alarmed.
“What am I doing sitting here?” she says, getting up. “The samovar has long been on the table, and I sit here chattering. Lord, I’ve become so forgetful!”
She goes out quickly but stops in the doorway to say:
“We owe Yegor for five months. Do you know that? It won’t do to fall behind with the servants’ pay, I’ve said so many times! Paying ten roubles a month is much easier than going five months and paying fifty!”
She gets through the door, stops again, and says:
“There’s no one I pity so much as our poor Liza. The girl studies at the conservatory, she’s always in good society, and she’s dressedGod knows how. It’s shameful to go out in such a coat. If she were someone else’s daughter, it would be nothing, but everybody knows her father is a famous professor, a privy councillor!”
And, having reproached me with my name and rank, she finally leaves. So my day begins. The sequel is no better.
While I’m having tea, my Liza comes in with her coat and hat on, holding some scores, all ready to go to the conservatory. She’s twenty-two years old. She looks younger, is pretty, and slightly resembles my wife when she was young. She kisses me tenderly on the temple and on the hand, and says:
“Good morning, papa. Are you well?”
As a child she was very fond of ice cream, and I often took her to the pastry shop. For her, ice cream was the measure of all that was beautiful. If she wanted to praise me, she would say: “You’re ice cream, papa.” One little finger was named pistachio, another vanilla, another raspberry, and so on. Usually, when she came and said good morning to me, I would take her on my knee and, kissing her fingers, repeat:
“Vanilla … pistachio … lemon …”
And now, for old times’ sake, I kiss Liza’s fingers, murmuring: “Pistachio … vanilla … lemon …” but it turns out all wrong. I’m cold as ice cream and feel ashamed. When my daughter comes to me and brushes my temple with her lips, I give a start as if I’d been stung by a bee, smile tensely, and turn my face away. Ever since I began to suffer from insomnia, a question has been lodged in my brain like a nail: my daughter often sees me, an old man, a celebrity, blush painfully because I owe money to a servant; she sees how often the worry over petty debts makes me abandon my work and spend whole hours pacing back and forth, pondering, but why has she never once come to me, in secret from her mother, and whispered: “Father, here is my watch, my bracelets, my earrings, my dresses … Pawn it all, you need money …”? Why, seeing how her mother and I, surrendering to a false feeling, try to hide our poverty from people, does she not give up the expensive pleasure of studying music? Not that I’d accept any watch, or bracelets, or sacrifices, God forbid—I don’t need that.
And then I also remember my son, the officer in Warsaw. He’s an intelligent, honest, and sober man. But I don’t find that enough. I think if I had an old father and if I knew that he had moments when he was ashamed of his poverty, I would give my officer’s postto someone else and go to do day labor. Such thoughts about my children poison me. What’s the point? To harbor spitefulfeelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for a narrow-minded or embittered man. But enough of that.
At a quarter to ten I must go to my dear boys and give a lecture. I get dressed and follow a road that has been familiar to me for thirty years now and has its own history for me. Here is a big gray house with a pharmacy; a small house once stood there, and in it there was a beer parlor; in that beer parlor I thought over my dissertation and wrote my first love letter to Varya. I wrote it in pencil, on a page with the heading “Historia morbi.” 5 Here is the grocery shop; it was formerly run by a little Jew who sold me cigarettes on credit, then by a fat woman who loved students because “each
“What am I doing sitting here?” she says, getting up. “The samovar has long been on the table, and I sit here chattering. Lord, I’ve become so forgetful!”
She goes out quickly but stops in the doorway to say:
“We owe Yegor for five months. Do you know that? It won’t do to fall behind with the servants’ pay, I’ve said so many times! Paying ten roubles a month is much easier than going five months and paying fifty!”
She gets through the door, stops again, and says:
“There’s no one I pity so much as our poor Liza. The girl studies at the conservatory, she’s always in good society, and she’s dressedGod knows how. It’s shameful to go out in such a coat. If she were someone else’s daughter, it would be nothing, but everybody knows her father is a famous professor, a privy councillor!”
And, having reproached me with my name and rank, she finally leaves. So my day begins. The sequel is no better.
While I’m having tea, my Liza comes in with her coat and hat on, holding some scores, all ready to go to the conservatory. She’s twenty-two years old. She looks younger, is pretty, and slightly resembles my wife when she was young. She kisses me tenderly on the temple and on the hand, and says:
“Good morning, papa. Are you well?”
As a child she was very fond of ice cream, and I often took her to the pastry shop. For her, ice cream was the measure of all that was beautiful. If she wanted to praise me, she would say: “You’re ice cream, papa.” One little finger was named pistachio, another vanilla, another raspberry, and so on. Usually, when she came and said good morning to me, I would take her on my knee and, kissing her fingers, repeat:
“Vanilla … pistachio … lemon …”
And now, for old times’ sake, I kiss Liza’s fingers, murmuring: “Pistachio … vanilla … lemon …” but it turns out all wrong. I’m cold as ice cream and feel ashamed. When my daughter comes to me and brushes my temple with her lips, I give a start as if I’d been stung by a bee, smile tensely, and turn my face away. Ever since I began to suffer from insomnia, a question has been lodged in my brain like a nail: my daughter often sees me, an old man, a celebrity, blush painfully because I owe money to a servant; she sees how often the worry over petty debts makes me abandon my work and spend whole hours pacing back and forth, pondering, but why has she never once come to me, in secret from her mother, and whispered: “Father, here is my watch, my bracelets, my earrings, my dresses … Pawn it all, you need money …”? Why, seeing how her mother and I, surrendering to a false feeling, try to hide our poverty from people, does she not give up the expensive pleasure of studying music? Not that I’d accept any watch, or bracelets, or sacrifices, God forbid—I don’t need that.
And then I also remember my son, the officer in Warsaw. He’s an intelligent, honest, and sober man. But I don’t find that enough. I think if I had an old father and if I knew that he had moments when he was ashamed of his poverty, I would give my officer’s postto someone else and go to do day labor. Such thoughts about my children poison me. What’s the point? To harbor spitefulfeelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for a narrow-minded or embittered man. But enough of that.
At a quarter to ten I must go to my dear boys and give a lecture. I get dressed and follow a road that has been familiar to me for thirty years now and has its own history for me. Here is a big gray house with a pharmacy; a small house once stood there, and in it there was a beer parlor; in that beer parlor I thought over my dissertation and wrote my first love letter to Varya. I wrote it in pencil, on a page with the heading “Historia morbi.” 5 Here is the grocery shop; it was formerly run by a little Jew who sold me cigarettes on credit, then by a fat woman who loved students because “each
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