“But enough,” he said presently.  “We are not parting for ever.”

“No, but it is-so-so sad!” replied Mamma, her voice trembling with emotion.

When I heard that faltering voice, and saw those quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, I forgot everything else in the world.  I felt so ill and miserable that I would gladly have run away rather than bid her farewell.  I felt, too, that when she was embracing Papa she was embracing us all.  She clasped Woloda to her several times, and made the sign of the cross over him; after which I approached her, thinking that it was my turn.  Nevertheless she took him again and again to her heart, and blessed him.  Finally I caught hold of her, and, clinging to her, wept—­wept, thinking of nothing in the world but my grief.

As we passed out to take our seats, other servants pressed round us in the hall to say good-bye.  Yet their requests to shake hands with us, their resounding kisses on our shoulders, [The fashion in which inferiors salute their superiors in Russia.] and the odour of their greasy heads only excited in me a feeling akin to impatience with these tiresome people.  The same feeling made me bestow nothing more than a very cross kiss upon Natalia’s cap when she approached to take leave of me.  It is strange that I should still retain a perfect recollection of these servants’ faces, and be able to draw them with the most minute accuracy in my mind, while Mamma’s face and attitude escape me entirely.  It may be that it is because at that moment I had not the heart to look at her closely.  I felt that if I did so our mutual grief would burst forth too unrestrainedly.

I was the first to jump into the carriage and to take one of the hinder seats.  The high back of the carriage prevented me from actually seeing her, yet I knew by instinct that Mamma was still there.

“Shall I look at her again or not?” I said to myself.  “Well, just for the last time,” and I peeped out towards the entrance-steps.  Exactly at that moment Mamma moved by the same impulse, came to the opposite side of the carriage, and called me by name.  Rearing her voice behind me.  I turned round, but so hastily that our heads knocked together.  She gave a sad smile, and kissed me convulsively for the last time.

When we had driven away a few paces I determined to look at her once more.  The wind was lifting the blue handkerchief from her head as, bent forward and her face buried in her hands, she moved slowly up the steps.  Foka was supporting her.  Papa said nothing as he sat beside me.  I felt breathless with tears—­felt a sensation in my throat as though I were going to choke, just as we came out on to the open road I saw a white handkerchief waving from the terrace.  I waved mine in return, and the action of so doing calmed me a little.  I still went on crying, but the thought that my tears were a proof of my affection helped to soothe and comfort me.