On April 25th we reached our Petrovskoe home.  Papa had been very sad and thoughtful during the journey.  We at once learned from the steward that Mamma had not left her room for six days.  I shall never forget what I saw when we entered Mamma’s room.  She was unconscious.  Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing.  We were led away.  Mamma soon passed away.

She was dead, the funeral obsequies took place, and then our life went on much as before.  We rose, had our repasts, and retired to rest at the same hours.  Three days after the funeral the whole household removed to Moscow.  Grandmamma only learned what had happened when we arrived, and her grief was terrible.  She lay unconscious for a week, and the doctor feared for her life, for she would not eat, speak, or take medicine.  When she recovered somewhat, her first thought was of us children.  She cried softly, spoke of Mamma, and tenderly caressed us.

II.—­Boyhood

On our arrival in Moscow a change had taken place in my views of things.  My sentiment of reverence for Grandmamma had changed to one of sympathy.  As she covered my cheeks with kisses I realised that each kiss expressed the thought “She is gone; I shall never see her more.”  Papa had very little to do with us in Moscow, coming to us only at dinner time, and lost much in my eyes, with his ostentatious dress, his stewards, his clerks, and his hunting and business expeditions.

Between us and the girls also an invisible barrier seemed to rise.  We were proud of our trousers and straps, and they of their petticoats, which increased in length.  Their showier Sunday dress made it manifest that we were no longer in the country.  But soon commenced a period of my life of which it is difficult to trace a record.  Rarely during memories of it do I find moments of the genuine warmth of feeling which so frequently illumined the earliest years of my life.

Vivid is the recollection of Volodya’s entrance at the university.  He was barely two years my senior in age.  The day of his first examination arrived, and he presented a handsome appearance in his blue uniform with brass buttons and lacquered boots.  The examination lasted ten days, and Volodya, having passed brilliantly, returned on the last day no longer in blue coat and grey cap, but in student uniform, with blue embroidered collar, three-cornered hat, and a gilt dagger by his side.  Joy and excitement reigned in the whole household.  For the first time since Mamma’s death, Grandmamma drank champagne, and weeps with joy as she looks at Volodya, who henceforth rode in his own equipage, receives friends in his own rooms, smokes tobacco, goes to balls.

But soon another incident happened which is engraven on memory.  The dear old Grandmamma was growing daily weaker, and one morning the announcement thrilled us that she was dead.  Again, the house was full of mourning.  In a few months I should be preparing to enter the university.  I was by degrees emerging from my boyish moods, with the exception of one—­a tendency to metaphysical dreaminess, which was fated to do me much injury in after years.