My Several Selves, Imaginary and Real 1 страница
A GIRL
GREW UP
IN RUSSIA
ANDRE DEUTSCH
First published 1970 by
Andre Deutsch Limited
105 Great Russell Street, London WCI
Copyright © 1970 by Elisaveta Fen
All rights reserved
Set in ‘Monotype’ Perpetua
Printed in Great Britain by
Ebenezer Baylis and Son Limited
The Trinity Press, Worcester and London
isbn o 233 96249 2
Contents
‘Shades of the Prison House’
Coining to Terms
Red Letter Days
Christmas at Home
Two Parties and a Memory
To be a Girl
In Favour and in Disgrace
Summer Freedom
A Family not Like Ours
Friends and Enemies
Compensations
A Summer of Crises
Being a Favourite
My Several Selves, Imaginary and Real
New Friendships, Expectations and Disappointments
Winning my Freedom
Thinking about Feelings
A Journey and a Romance
First Meeting with Love and Death
The Doors Open
‘Life’ is about to Begin
Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d
The gift - a fate, or will, that walk’d astray;
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay;
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.
Byron
‘ Shades of the Prison House’
Preparation should blunt the sharp point of pain, but it can prolong the agony. I was told at least a year ahead that when I reached the age of eleven, I was to become a boarder at the school in the town of M* where my sister had been a boarder, yet throughout that year I continued to hope, quite unreasonably, that somehow I might escape this fete. I asked my mother more than once why I could not be a day pupil and live in a family, like my brother. She told me that she would be less worried about my well-being if I were a boarder, because I would be looked after by people experienced in the job: she mentioned cleanliness, good food and good manners . . . This explanation struck me even then as unsatisfactory, as ignoring my most important needs, and because I was unable to put my thoughts into words, I merely repeated with tears that I would much rather live in a family. The prospect of being taught good manners offended my pride, while the mention of food aroused the fear of being made to eat up all that was put on my plate. But my mother continued to say that she knew of no suitable family with a girl of my own age into whose care she could confidently place me, and that the family with whom my brother was living was not the right one for me. After repeated discussions of this kind, I began to realize that she could not be swayed by pleading, and to sense the meaning of the inevitable. It was like a dark storm cloud on the horizon, approaching slowly but inexorably. Soon it would envelop and engulf me; I would be lost in it, desolate and utterly alone. The image of the school as a place of confinement where I would be in the power of complete strangers dominated my thoughts; it superseded the memory of it as an object of curiosity where I had been taken once or twice to visit my sister, and as a place of excitement and triumph when I went there for my entrance examinations. While absorbed in play or reading, I could forget my approaching doom, but suddenly the thought returned with a sickening shock, such as one feels when reminded of the loss of a loved person. It often kept me awake at night after I had gone to bed. Things could never be the same again. The serenity of my last months at home was corroded by these attacks of dreadful anticipation.
|
|
|
When the dreaded day came and — at the end of it — the parting from my mother in the school reception hall, I cried bitterly and made her promise that she would not leave me there for longer than one term. My trust in her, already somewhat shaken, suffered a further blow when I found later that she had never intended to keep that promise. The governess on duty, whose face I could hardly see through my tears, took me to the boarders’ study-room, well lit but dreary with its polished brown benches and long black tables at which the boarders did their homework. She showed me my place and the drawer in which I could keep my books, pens and pencils, and I tried to read, but could not concentrate for the hum of voices all around me and the pressure of distress on my throat and eyes.
Desolate as I was, I did not anticipate that my sense of bereavement would turn to despair that night when I found that I could not see the sky from my bed in the school dormitory. At home the windows of my bedroom opened on to an orchard, and the curtains were never drawn. When the lamp was put out, the darkness was not complete: even on the darkest night there were gleams of light in the sky, and now and again a star trembled on the edge of a cloud. I used to lie and gaze at it until my eyes became glued with sleep.
|
|
|
In the school dormitories the lower panes of tall windows were painted over with white paint. My dormitory was on the first floor and faced a building of four storeys across the street. One could probably see the sky if one stood on the window-sill, but that was one of the many things that were forbidden. Besides, white cotton blinds were always pulled half-way down, so that the room could not be overlooked from above, and that made me feel, in some obscure way, as if I had been suddenly cut off from all natural things among which I had lived until then.
On many a night after that first night I lay in bed in that lofty, aseptic room, painted in green and white, with cold, highly polished parquets floor, thinking of the game I used to play at home after dark, throwing a ball up into the sky. I used to play it by myself, yet I did not feel alone because I could hear familiar voices in conversation on the veranda behind me. I flung my ball towards the shimmering stars and, with my head thrown back, followed its ascent up and up into the luminous dusk until it disappeared out of sight at what seemed to be an incredible height, the height I could never reach when throwing it up in daylight. Then, just as incredibly, it descended into my open hands like a gift from heaven, and up it went again and again, until I felt light-headed with delight and ravished, through drinking in all that starlight, so that I staggered and lost my balance and sank down happily on the fine sand of the garden path.
There were five girls beside myself in the small dormitory. Of these one was friendly, one aloof, two hostile and one isolated and inaccessible. This last one, a rebellious little girl called Ania Orlovskaia, provided me with one of those object lessons that become, despite their triviality, real landmarks on one’s journey towards the ‘wisdom’ — if such it is — of later years. But the chain of incidents which led to this was started off, quite innocently, by myself — by my dislike of the yellow, scratchy pea soup.
|
|
|
The two hostile girls were Mílochka and Fatima. Mílochka was a doll-faced child with large, round, blue eyes and a long plait of fair hair; Fatima a dark, swarthy Tartar girl from beyond the Volga who looked mature for her years. The friendly girl was Tania Pánova, and the aloof one, Stassia, a pale slender child with a long Polish surname. She, Fatima and Mílochka were second-year boarders, old stagers compared to myself and the other two who were new to the school. Fatima and Mílochka looked down on Tania and myself, and they positively despised Ania Orlovskaia.
I was told as soon as I arrived that Mílochka was very pretty and that she was the favourite of Fräulein Schmiedel. Fräulein Schmiedel was one of the three governesses who lived at the school and supervised the boarders, the three Parcae who held the threads of our daily lives in their hands, who watched us at our meals and studies and during our leisure, or whatever passed under that name. Each was on duty on one day out of three. Mademoiselle Saburova was elderly, distinguished- looking and remote. Her manner towards us verged on the disdainful. On her days we were obliged to talk French, and if a girl was heard speaking Russian, she was set to learn a column of French vocabulary before going to bed that night. Otherwise Mademoiselle Saburova took very little notice of us, reading a French book at her own little table, while the girls got on with their homework.
Mademoiselle Vinogradova was a slender person with a soft, light voice, much younger than Mademoiselle Saburova. On her duty days we spoke Russian. She treated us as persons rather than as mere pupils in her charge, and spoke to us often with a smile. The study-room had a relaxed atmosphere when she was on duty, and she was the only one of the three to whom I felt I could bring a difficulty and ask a question in connection with my homework.
Fräulein Schmiedel, the third governess, was short and plump and had piggy eyes and red cheeks. Her homely looks were deceptive: she was a small army sergeant in petticoats. The worst thing about her was her voice. While Mademoiselle Saburova drawled, Fräulein Schmiedel barked, and her bark was gruff and loud. It usually made me jump as if I were doing something forbidden, and it took me some time to discover that her bark was worse than her bite and that the older girls were not frightened of her. The rule about speaking German on her duty days was frequently broken, and the study-room was at its noisiest and least tidy. Now and again the Fräulein would flare up in a temper and set half the room memorizing lines of German text — too many for her to check before the pupils’ bed-time, and so ineffective as a deterrent.
|
|
|
It was this woman who favoured Mílochka and called her by her Christian name, which is in Russian also a term of endearment, while the rest of us were called by our surnames. The advantages of being Fräulein Schmiedel’s favourite were brought sharply into focus, as far as I was concerned, one evening soon after I had become a boarder. The Fräulein was presiding over our supper and she allowed Mílochka to leave her plate of pea soup untouched. I hated pea soup, and Mílochka’s success gave me the courage to ask permission to do the same. But Fräulein Schmiedel came down on me like a ton of bricks. Did I have to ape Mílochka? she demanded. Frightened but indignant, I replied that I was not aping anybody: I never liked pea soup and had never been made to eat anything I disliked at home. Fräulein Schmiedel retorted that I had no right at my age to use the word ‘never’, and that I must have been spoiled at home. ‘I promise you that you won’t get any spoiling here while I’m on duty,’ she added.
I managed to swallow my tears and a few spoonfuls of soup before my plate was mercifully removed by the kind maid Sasha who was serving at table. After that I had to struggle through a large helping of beef rissoles and macaroni. The sweet course of kissiel went down mo easily, and at last the ordeal of supper was over. We formed into pairs and transferred ourselves into the study-room where we had to do our homework for next morning’s lessons. As I was taking out my books, still smarting under Fräulein Schmiedel’s reprimand, I heard Mílochka and Fatima tittering together, then Mílochka said loudly: ‘Girls, we’ve got a monkey at our table! ’
Tania, Stassia and Ania looked at me. ‘Yes, her! ’ continued Mílochka. ‘She apes people. Fräulein Schmiedel said so.’
My reasonable self was telling me to ignore this provocation, but a part of me which felt passionately about ‘truth’ and ‘justice’ burst out in protest: ‘It isn’t true!’
‘You don’t mean to say that Fräulein Schmiedel isn’t speaking the truth?’
That was Fatima, the Tartar girl from over the Volga. She was speaking with a sly smile and narrowed eyes. I felt there was something almost diabolical about Fatima. She was a Muslim — not a Christian. Muslims had tortured Christians; Tartars had invaded and oppressed Russia. Fatima, I was sure, could be as cruel as those Muslims and Tartars of old. She certainly thought up much more wounding things to say than the spiteful but silly Mílochka.
‘I’ll tell you what — if Rayévskaia is a monkey, then her parents must be apes! ’
This gratuitous insult made me leap to my feet in an impulse to do something — I knew not what — to the offender. But in doing this, I made the bench scrape the floor and drew Fräulein Schmiedel’s attention to our table. She demanded to know what was happening. I was too ashamed to explain: Fatima had dared to insult my parents! She had dared — and I could do nothing to her!
The governess called us up to her table and insisted on an explanation. In the end I managed to tell her that Fatima was saying things about my parents, but I could not bring myself to repeat what she had said. Ania Orlovskaia then blurted out the offending phrase. Fräulein Schmiedel told Fatima that she was very silly, but added that I was silly too, to take notice of such nonsense. Mílochka, who had started it all, escaped reprimand altogether.
As we returned to our table, Fatima muttered that she hated sneaks and tell-tales. She probably meant me, but Ania, who happened to be next to her, flared up and stamped hard on her foot under the table. Fatima yelled, and that started another inquest. The outcome of it all m as that Ania was told to stand by the wall in punishment for hurting Fatima, and Fatima was given some German lines to learn, for calling Ania names.
Ania Orlovskaia was a very plain little girl, snub-nosed, freckled, with wisps of straight ginger hair sticking out from her head in every direction. She could easily have passed for a sulky, resentful little peasant boy, and the boarders’ uniform, a long-skirted dress and white lawn cape, looked ridiculous on her. I was not attracted to her, but the unfairness of the punishment to which she was subjected made my heart go out to her in sympathy, especially as I felt she was suffering partly on my account. I writhed inwardly as I imagined myself in her place: I would have preferred to face the wall rather than the room full of people, but Ania amused herself by making faces at the girls who happened to look at her. There was some tittering, then Fatima complained in an aggrieved voice that Orlovskaia was preventing her from learning her German lines. Ania shouted that Fatima was telling fibs. Fräulein Schmiedel told Ania to turn her face to the wall; she obeyed but continued looking round over her shoulder and putting out her tongue at Fatima, who again complained. In the end Fräulein Schmiedel barked out an order to one of the older girls to take Orlovskaia to the dormitory and have her put to bed.
As Ania was led out, resisting and shouting that she did not want to go to bed, she became for a few moments, despite her freckles and snub nose, a young heroine in my eyes, then a victim, led to execution. My imagination balked at the thought of what was going to happen next, for I did not believe this was the end of the incident. And very soon the older girl returned to report that Ania refused to go to bed and that she was hysterical. Fräulein Schmiedel sent a message to the matron, asking her to give Ania some valerian drops, and soon afterwards sent the whole of our table to bed half an hour early.
As we approached the small dormitory through the big girls’ much larger one, I could hear Ania’s angry wail. She was sitting on her bed, half undressed, her hair hanging over her eyes, glaring at the two female figures standing over her. These were the old chambermaid Dasha and the matron, who was holding a glass half full of brownish liquid. ‘Take it away!’ Ania was shouting. ‘I won’t drink your beastly drops! Go away, both of you! ’
Dasha darted towards us as soon as she saw us come in and shepherded us into the washing-room.
This Dasha must have been about seventy years old when I first knew her, and she had looked after more than one generation of boarders. A tiny, bent figure with thin silvery hair, half covered with a white headkerchief, she was the only motherly person in the place and more like a family nanny than an ordinary maid. Someone in the administration of the school, perhaps our wise and kindly director, assigned her the task of looking after the younger boarders, maybe so that she could save them from feeling utterly lost in the wilderness of coldly unrelated classrooms, halls and dormitories. She did this by just being herself, a small source of spontaneous feeling whose warmth prevented us from growing emotionally numbed. The very way she talked of nothing in particular in her quiet old voice could soothe a homesick child. On the evening of Ania’s outburst, however, even she was less serene than usual. I heard her muttering as she undid my plaits and began to comb my hair.
‘Lord help and preserve us! What’s come over our Anichka?’ Fatima growled resentfully: ‘She’s not ours . . . She’s been here only a week, and I hope they’ll expel her! ’
‘It’s a sin to talk like that, dearie,’ Dasha reproved her, mildly. When we returned to the dormitory, Ania was still sitting on her bed, but now the dumpy figure of Fräulein Schmiedel had joined the white- clad matron. I could not hear what the governess was saying to Ania because Ania was crying loudly. She was repeating between sobs: ‘I don’t want to and I won’t!’
I slipped into my bed as quickly as I could, drew the bedclothes up to my chin and lay tense, watching, ready to stop my ears if there were any shouting. Then Fräulein Schmiedel’s voice pierced the noise of crying. ‘Very well, then, I shall have to report you to the Nachálnitsa,' she said and walked, almost ran, out of the room.
Peeping over the edge of my blanket, I saw Dasha stroking Ania’s back, whispering to her, obviously doing her best to get her into bed. But Ania was too far gone in her mood of defiance to respond even to Dasha. Instead of doing what she was asked, she had slipped down and was sitting on the floor, her face buried in the bedclothes, crying.
We did not often see the Nachálnitsa, the headmistress, except at prayers in the assembly hall. She was not the type of person to inspire tear even in the most timid of girls.
Her voice and manner were very gentle and she looked benevolent. She always wore a uniform dress of mid-blue stiff silk with a shawl of black lace over her shoulders and black lace mittens on her hands. A small gold watch was pinned to her corsage and a lorgnette in a gold frame hung from her waist on a black ribbon. I was told that she had been a ‘Smolny pupil’; that is, she had been educated in one of the exclusive boarding schools for girls in St Petersburg. She certainly had the exquisite manners and affectations of that type of school. She always addressed a girl as doóshechka — little soul — and would often pat the young ones on the cheek. When I was old enough to form an opinion of her, I found her as she looked — a sweet-tempered, unassertive, rather sentimental person — yet her voice could be decisive when there was a question about expelling a pupil from the school.
Дата добавления: 2021-04-05; просмотров: 64; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!