character.
Poor Fatherâs worries, troubles and failures tortured him in the extreme: he became mistrustful and splenetic; he was frequently close to despair, began to neglect his health, caught a cold and suddenly fell ill. His sufferings did not last long; he died so abruptly and so without warning that for several days we were all stunned by the blow. Mother was in a kind of rigid trance; I even feared for her sanity. No sooner had Father died than his creditors appeared before us as if they had sprung from the ground; they hurled themselves upon us in a crowd. We had to give them everything we possessed. Even our little house on the St Petersburg Side, the one Father had bought six months after we moved to St Petersburg, was sold. I donât know how the rest of the business was settled, but we ourselves were left without a roof over our heads, without anywhere to go, and without our daily bread. Mother was suffering from a wasting disease, we were unable to provide for ourselves, and before us lay ruin. At that time I was only just fourteen years old. It was at this juncture that Anna Fyodorovna paid us a visit. She kept saying that she was some kind of landowner, and also that she was some kind ofrelative of ours. Mother, too, said that Anna Fyodorovna was a relative of ours, only a very distant one. Anna Fyodorovna had never come to see us while Father was alive. She appeared with tears in her eyes, said that she had the greatest sympathy for us; she commiserated with us in our loss and in our wretched position, and added that Father himself had been to blame: that he had not lived according to his means, had overreached himself and had placed too much faith in his own powers. She confessed a desire to get to know us better, offered to forget our mutual disagreements; and when Mother declared that she had never had any bad feelings for her, she shed a few tears, took Mother into a church and ordered a requiem mass for the âdarling manâ (that was how she referred to Father). Having done that, she solemnly made her peace with Mother.
After many lengthy preambles and forewarnings, Anna Fyodorovna, having depicted to us in vivid colours our wretched position, our orphaned state, our hopelessness and helplessness, invited us, as she put it, to take shelter with her. Mother thanked her, but was for a long time unable to make up her mind; but as there was nothing to be done, and no other way of making any satisfactory arrangements, she finally announced to Anna Fyodorovna that we would accept her proposal with gratitude. I can still now remember the morning on which we moved from the St Petersburg Side to Vassilevsky Island. It was a clear, dry, frosty autumn morning. Mother was in tears; I felt terribly sad; my breast felt as though it were bursting, and my heart ached with a dreadful, inexplicable pain⦠It was a distressing timeâ¦
II
Initially, until we â Mother and I, that is â had grown accustomed to our new abode, we both found life in Anna Fyodorovnaâs house a strange and in some ways terrifying experience. Anna Fyodorovna lived in a house of her own on the Sixth Line. There were only five habitable rooms in the house. Three of them were occupied by Anna Fyodorovna and my female cousin Sasha, whom she was bringing up â Sasha was just a child, an orphan who had no father or mother. We lived in one of the remaining rooms, and the other, next to ours, housed a poor student named Pokrovsky, Anna Fyodorovnaâs lodger. Anna Fyodorovna lived very well, better than one might have supposed; but the sources of her capital were mysterious, as werethe tasks that kept her busy. She was always bustling about, always preoccupied; went out by carriage or on foot several times a day; but what she did, what preoccupied her and why, I was never able to fathom. The circle of her acquaintances was large and varied. She had a constant stream of visitors, and Lord only knows what kind of
Poor Fatherâs worries, troubles and failures tortured him in the extreme: he became mistrustful and splenetic; he was frequently close to despair, began to neglect his health, caught a cold and suddenly fell ill. His sufferings did not last long; he died so abruptly and so without warning that for several days we were all stunned by the blow. Mother was in a kind of rigid trance; I even feared for her sanity. No sooner had Father died than his creditors appeared before us as if they had sprung from the ground; they hurled themselves upon us in a crowd. We had to give them everything we possessed. Even our little house on the St Petersburg Side, the one Father had bought six months after we moved to St Petersburg, was sold. I donât know how the rest of the business was settled, but we ourselves were left without a roof over our heads, without anywhere to go, and without our daily bread. Mother was suffering from a wasting disease, we were unable to provide for ourselves, and before us lay ruin. At that time I was only just fourteen years old. It was at this juncture that Anna Fyodorovna paid us a visit. She kept saying that she was some kind of landowner, and also that she was some kind ofrelative of ours. Mother, too, said that Anna Fyodorovna was a relative of ours, only a very distant one. Anna Fyodorovna had never come to see us while Father was alive. She appeared with tears in her eyes, said that she had the greatest sympathy for us; she commiserated with us in our loss and in our wretched position, and added that Father himself had been to blame: that he had not lived according to his means, had overreached himself and had placed too much faith in his own powers. She confessed a desire to get to know us better, offered to forget our mutual disagreements; and when Mother declared that she had never had any bad feelings for her, she shed a few tears, took Mother into a church and ordered a requiem mass for the âdarling manâ (that was how she referred to Father). Having done that, she solemnly made her peace with Mother.
After many lengthy preambles and forewarnings, Anna Fyodorovna, having depicted to us in vivid colours our wretched position, our orphaned state, our hopelessness and helplessness, invited us, as she put it, to take shelter with her. Mother thanked her, but was for a long time unable to make up her mind; but as there was nothing to be done, and no other way of making any satisfactory arrangements, she finally announced to Anna Fyodorovna that we would accept her proposal with gratitude. I can still now remember the morning on which we moved from the St Petersburg Side to Vassilevsky Island. It was a clear, dry, frosty autumn morning. Mother was in tears; I felt terribly sad; my breast felt as though it were bursting, and my heart ached with a dreadful, inexplicable pain⦠It was a distressing timeâ¦
II
Initially, until we â Mother and I, that is â had grown accustomed to our new abode, we both found life in Anna Fyodorovnaâs house a strange and in some ways terrifying experience. Anna Fyodorovna lived in a house of her own on the Sixth Line. There were only five habitable rooms in the house. Three of them were occupied by Anna Fyodorovna and my female cousin Sasha, whom she was bringing up â Sasha was just a child, an orphan who had no father or mother. We lived in one of the remaining rooms, and the other, next to ours, housed a poor student named Pokrovsky, Anna Fyodorovnaâs lodger. Anna Fyodorovna lived very well, better than one might have supposed; but the sources of her capital were mysterious, as werethe tasks that kept her busy. She was always bustling about, always preoccupied; went out by carriage or on foot several times a day; but what she did, what preoccupied her and why, I was never able to fathom. The circle of her acquaintances was large and varied. She had a constant stream of visitors, and Lord only knows what kind of
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