II.
MAMMA
Mother was sitting in the drawing-room and pouring out tea. With one hand she held the teapot, with the other the faucet of the samovár, from which the water ran over the teapot to the tray. Though she was looking fixedly at it, she did not notice it, nor that we had entered.
So many memories of the past rise before one, trying to resurrect in imagination the features of a beloved being, that one sees them dimly through these recollections as through tears. When I try to recall my mother as she was at that time, I can think only of her brown eyes, which always expressed the same kindness and love, of a birthmark upon her neck, a little below the place where the small hairs curled, of her white linen collar, of her tender dry hand which had so often fondled me, and which I had so often kissed; her general expression escapes me.
To the left of the sofa stood an old English grand piano. At the piano was seated my swarthy sister Lyúbochka, who with her rosy fingers that had just been washed in cold water was playing with evident expression Clementi's Etudes. She was eleven years old. She wore a short gingham dress and white, lace-bordered pantalets, and she could encompass octaves only by arpeggio. Near her, and half turned around, sat Márya Ivánovna, in a cap with rose-coloured ribbons, and wearing a blue jersey.
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