“I must think it over and seek for guidance. The day after tomorrow I will
give you a final answer,” he said, after considering a moment.
Chapter 19
Stepan Arkadyevitch was about to go away when Korney came in to
announce:
“Sergey Alexyevitch!”
“Who’s Sergey Alexyevitch?” Stepan Arkadyevitch was beginning, but
he remembered immediately.
“Ah, Seryozha!” he said aloud. “Sergey Alexyevitch! I thought it was the
director of a department. Anna asked me to see him too,” he thought.
And he recalled the timid, piteous expression with which Anna had said
to him at parting: “Anyway, you will see him. Find out exactly where he is,
who is looking after him. And Stiva … if it were possible! Could it be
possible?” Stepan Arkadyevitch knew what was meant by that “if it were
possible,”—if it were possible to arrange the divorce so as to let her have
her son…. Stepan Arkadyevitch saw now that it was no good to dream of
that, but still he was glad to see his nephew.
Alexey Alexandrovitch reminded his brother-in-law that they never spoke
to the boy of his mother, and he begged him not to mention a single word
about her.
“He was very ill after that interview with his mother, which we had not
foreseen,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Indeed, we feared for his life. But
with rational treatment, and sea-bathing in the summer, he regained his
strength, and now, by the doctor’s advice, I have let him go to school. And
certainly the companionship of school has had a good effect on him, and he
is perfectly well, and making good progress.”
“What a fine fellow he’s grown! He’s not Seryozha now, but quite full-
fledged Sergey Alexyevitch!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as he
looked at the handsome, broad-shouldered lad in blue coat and long
trousers, who walked in alertly and confidently. The boy looked healthy and
good-humored. He bowed to his uncle as to a stranger, but recognizing him,
he blushed and turned hurriedly away from him, as though offended and
irritated at something. The boy went up to his father and handed him a note
of the marks he had gained in school.
“Well, that’s very fair,” said his father, “you can go.”
“He’s thinner and taller, and has grown out of being a child into a boy; I
like that,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Do you remember me?”
The boy looked back quickly at his uncle.
“Yes, mon oncle,” he answered, glancing at his father, and again he
looked downcast.
His uncle called him to him, and took his hand.
“Well, and how are you getting on?” he said, wanting to talk to him, and
not knowing what to say.
The boy, blushing and making no answer, cautiously drew his hand away.
As soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch let go his hand, he glanced doubtfully at
his father, and like a bird set free, he darted out of the room.
A year had passed since the last time Seryozha had seen his mother.
Since then he had heard nothing more of her. And in the course of that year
he had gone to school, and made friends among his schoolfellows. The
dreams and memories of his mother, which had made him ill after seeing
her, did not occupy his thoughts now. When they came back to him, he
studiously drove them away, regarding them as shameful and girlish, below
the dignity of a boy and a schoolboy. He knew that his father and mother
were separated by some quarrel, he knew that he had to remain with his
father, and he tried to get used to that idea.
He disliked seeing his uncle, so like his mother, for it called up those
memories of which he was ashamed. He disliked it all the more as from
some words he had caught as he waited at the study door, and still more
from the faces of his father and uncle, he guessed that they must have been
talking of his mother. And to avoid condemning the father with whom he
lived and on whom he was dependent, and, above all, to avoid giving way
to sentimentality, which he considered so degrading, Seryozha tried not to
look at his uncle who had come to disturb his peace of mind, and not to
think of what he recalled to him.
But when Stepan Arkadyevitch, going out after him, saw him on the
stairs, and calling to him, asked him how he spent his playtime at school,
Seryozha talked more freely to him away from his father’s presence.
