The lamps only emphasized the emptiness of the evening air. They gave out no light. Like spoiled fruit, they swelled from the hydophilia inside them, which blew up their bloated shades. They were located where they should be: standing in their proper places on the tables and suspended from the stucco ceiling. But the lamps had fewer points of contact with the room than with the spring sky, to which they were as close as a water glass to a sickbed. Their souls were in the street, where the gossip of servant girls buzzed over the wet earth and individual waterdrops gradually turned to ice and grew rigid for the coming night. Out there the lamps disappeared in the evening. Their parents were away, but their mother was expected that day—on that longest day or the next one. Yes, perhaps she would return quite suddenly. That, too, was possible.
Zhenya went to bed and discovered that the day had been long for the same reason as the previous one. At first she wanted to get a pair of scissors and cut out the spots from her nightgown and the bed sheet; but then she decided to take the French governess’ powder and whiten the spots with it. She was reaching for the powder box when the governess came in and struck her. All sinfulness became concentrated in that powder. “She powders herself! That’s the last straw. I suspected as much for a long time.”
Zhenya burst into tears because the governess had struck her and scolded her; because she was upset because she had not committed the crime of which she was accused; because she knew that she had done something much uglier than the governess suspected. She had to—she felt this deep in her stunned conscience, in her very calves and temples—she had to conceal this, without knowing how or why, but somehow and at any price. Her aching joints moved heavily, as if under a hypnotic compulsion. This tormenting, paralyzing compulsion was the work of her body, which hid from the girl the meaning of the whole frightening process, which behaved like a criminal and forced her to regard this bleeding as somthing disgusting and abominably evil. “Menteuse!” She could only deny everything, obstinately conceal what was worse than anything else and lay somewhere between the disgrace of illiteracy and the shame of making a row in the street. She could only shiver, clench her teeth, suppress her sobs and lean against the wall. She could not throw herself into the Kama; it was still cold and the last floes of ice were still moving down the river.
Neither she nor the Frenchwoman heard the doorbell in time. The tension in the house was absorbed by the thick, brown-black bearskins, and when her mother came in, it was already too late. She found her daughter in tears and the governess livid with anger. She demanded an explanation. The Frenchwoman quickly explained that—no, not “Zhenya” but “votre fille”—”your daughter” had been powdering herself, that she had seen her doing it and had suspected her for a long time. The mother let her talk herself out; her own horror was genuine—the girl was not quite thirteen. “Zhenya! My God, how far have you gone?” (In that moment, these words had a special meaning to the mother, as though she already knew that her daughter was on the wrong path, that she herself had failed to intervene in time, and that now her own daughter had already sunk this low.) “Zhenya, tell me the whole truth, or else it will be even worse. What have you done—” Mrs. Luvers wanted to say “done with the powder box,” but she said—”with this thing?” And she took the “thing” and waved it in the air.
“Mama, don’t believe Mam’selle. I have never…” and she began to sob. But her mother heard unrepentant tones in this crying that were not there at all. She felt guilty and became frightened; she believed that she could put everything right and “take pedagogical and rational measures,” even if it went against her maternal instinct. She decided not to yield to compassion. She would wait until the girl’s stream of tears, which hurt her deeply, had stopped.
She sat on the bed and stared with a quiet, empty look at the edge of the bookshelf. She smelled of an expensive perfume. When Zhenya regained her selfcontrol, her mother questioned her again. Zhenya, with tearful eyes, looked out the window and swallowed. Outside the ice floes drifted by, probably with a crunching noise. A star sparkled. And there was the dull blackness of the desolate night, supple and cold, but dark. Zhenya looked away from the window. Her mother’s voice sounded a note of warning impatience. The Frenchwoman stood against the wall, an image of strictness and concentrated pedagogy. Her hand lay on the wrist band of her watch—the gesture of a military aide. Zhenya cast another glance at the stars and the Kama. She was resolved, in spite of the cold, in spite of the drifting, ice—she would throw herself in. She lost herself in her words, in her terrible, incoherent words, and told her mother about that.
Her mother let her finish only because she was startled to see how much of the child’s heart and soul went into her account. From the first word, everything became clear to her. No—she knew even as the girl took a deep breath, before she started her story. The mother listened happily, lost in love and tenderness toward this thin little body. She wanted to throw her arms around her daughter’s neck and kiss her. But, no—pedagogy! She rose from the bed and removed the bedspread. She called her daughter to her, and caressed her hair slowly, very slowly and tenderly. “My good child…” she managed to say, then went hastily to the window and stood with her back to the other two.
Zhenya did not see the Frenchwoman. Her tears-her mother—filled the whole room. “Who makes the bed?” the woman asked. It was a senseless question. The girl shrank into herself. She felt sorry for Grusha. Then her mother said something in French, a language with which she was familiar—but these words were harsh and incomprehensible. Then she said to Zhenya, in a completely different voice, “Zhenichenka, go into the dining room, my child. I’ll be there right away. I’ll tell you about the wonderful country house Papa and I have rented for you—for us all—for the summer.”
The lamps became familiar to her again, as in the winter, at home, with the family, warm, eager, loyal. Her mother’s marten fur was thrown carelessly over the blue tablecloth. “Good. Stay at Blagodat. Wait till the end of Holy Week, when—” She couldn’t read the rest, the telegram was folded. Zhenya sat down on the edge of the sofa, tired and happy. She sat there relaxed and satisfied, just as she was to sit half a year later on the edge of the yellow bench in the corridor of the Yekaterinburg High School when she passed her Russian oral exam with the highest grade and was told that she could “go now.”
The next morning her mother told her what to do when it happened again, that there was nothing more to it, that she need not be afraid, that it would happen again and again. She never called “it” by name and explained nothing to her, but she added that hereafter she intended to teach her daughter herself since she wouldn’t be going away any more.
The Frenchwoman was dismissed for negligence; she had been with the family only a few months. When the cab came for her and she walked down the front steps, she met the doctor who was just coming up. He acknowledged her greeting in a most unfriendly manner and said no word of farewell to her. She guessed that he already knew everything, made a sour face and shrugged her shoulders.
The servant girl, who had ushered in the doctor, lingered outside the door, and so the noise of the footsteps and of the reverberating stones remained longer than usual in the corridor where Zhenya stood. And when later she thought of her awakening puberty, she always called back this memory: the loud echo of the busy morning street which hesitated on the doorstep and then gaily entered the house; the Frenchwoman, the servant girl and the doctor; two sinners and a confidant, cleansed and purified by the clear sound of shuffling steps.