Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay

family a beaming and kindly eye. They were, in all probability, thieves,and not, as the Russian lady asserted, the family of Signor Jayne, so he would not admit them into Signor Jayne’s room, but he liked to see their gambols.
    Every now and then the younger lady would say in Russian, “Cheer up, then, little children. Your father will soon be here, and he will give you more sweet cakes. Aha, how your dirty little mouths water to hear it I Boris, you rascal, don’t pull your sister’s pig-tail. What children! They drive me to despair.”
    And then Mr. Jayne arrived. He came in at the open hall door, with a tall, fair, English lady, and he was saying to her, “If you don’t mind coming in for a moment, I will get you the book.”
    The hall porter stepped forward with a bow, and indicated in the background Mrs. Jayne and the little Jaynes.
    What a moment for Mr. Jayne! What a moment for Mrs. Jayne, her mamma, and the little Jaynes. What a moment for Miss Garden! What a moment for the hall porter, who loved both domestic re-unions and quarrels, and was as yet uncertain which this would be (it might even be both), but, above all, loved moments, and that it would certainly be.
    And so it proved. Where Russians are, there, one may say, moments are, for these live in moments.
    Olga Petrushka stepped forward with a loud cry and outstretched arms, and exclaimed in Russian, “Ah, Franya Stefanovitch “(one of the names she had for him, for Russians give one another hundreds of names each, and this accounts in part for the curious, confused state in which this nation is often to be found), “I have found you at last.”
    Mr. Jayne, always composed, retained his calm. He shook hands with his wife and mother-in-law, and addressed them in French.
    “How are you, my dear Olga? Why did you nottell me you wanted to see me? I would have come to Moscow. It is a long way to have come, with your mother and the children too. How are you, my little villains?”
    “Ah, my God,” said Mrs. Jayne, also now in French, which she spoke with rapidity and violence, “how could I stay another day in Russia? The misery I have been through! Poor little papa—Nicolai Nicolaivitch—they have arrested him for revolutionary propaganda and sent him to Siberia, with my brother, Feodor. They had evidence also against mamma and myself, and would have arrested us, and only barely we escaped in time, with the little bears. The poor cherubs—kiss them, Franya. They have been crying for their little father and the love and good food and warm house he will give them. For now they and we have no one but you. ‘Go to England, Olga,’ papa said as they took him. It is the one safe country. The English are good to Russian exiles, and your husband will take care of you and mamma and the little ones. . . .’ But you are with a lady, Franya. Introduce us.”
    “I beg your pardon. Miss Garden, my wife, and Mme Naryskhin, her mother. Miss Garden and her father are great friends of mine. . . . If you will go into my rooms and wait for me for a moment, Olga, I will see Miss Garden to her pension and return.”
    “No,” said Miss Garden, in her fluent and exquisite French. “No, I beg of you. I will go home alone; indeed, it is no way. Good-evening, Madame Jayne and Madame Naryskhin.”
    Mr. Jayne went out into the street with her. His unhappy eyes met hers.
    “To-morrow morning,” he muttered, “I shall call. . . . This alters nothing. . . . I will come to-morrow morning, and we will talk.”
    “Yes,” said Miss Garden. “We must talk.”
    Mr. Jayne went back into the hall, and escorted his family upstairs to his rooms.
    “Aie, aie, aie,” shuddered Olga Petrushka, flinging off her fur coat and cap, and leaping round the room in her red dress, like a Russian in a novel. “Let’s get warm. Come, little bears”—she spoke German now—“to your papa’s arms. Kiss him, Katya; hug him, Boris. Tell him we have come across Europe to be with him, now