Chapter I
I begin to remember myself from the most tender infancy, and this scene, which remained vividly in my imagination.
The nanny brings me to the big room, dimly lit candle under an umbrella. On the bed under the green curtain is a woman all in white; my father takes me in his arms. She kisses me and weeps. My father crying loudly, I get scared and cry. Babysitting makes me, speaking: "Mom wants to bye-bye". I also remember a great commotion, many guests, people running from room to room. The sun shines all the windows, and I am very happy. Monk with the golden cross on his chest blesses me; at the door endure long red coffin. That's all, that left his mother's funeral in my heart. She was a woman of extraordinary mind and heart, I learned after the stories of people, she did not know the price.
Here my memories get confused. I can give a clear account of himself not as the first so with my age osmiletnego. But first I have to talk about my family.
My father was granted a sergeant, When my grandmother was still their paunchy. He was educated at home until the age of 18. his teacher, m-r Dekor, It was a simple and kind old man, very well acquainted with the French spelling. unknown, whether the father other mentors; but my father, except for the French spelling, it seems, nothing fundamentally not know. He married against the wishes of his parents to a girl, who was older than him by several years, in the same year he retired and moved to Moscow. Old Savelich, his valet, He was telling me, that the first years of marriage were happy. my mother had time to reconcile the husband and his family, in which her loved. But frivolous and fickle nature of my father did not allow her to enjoy the tranquility and happiness. He came into contact with a woman, It is known in the world for its beauty and love affairs. She divorced him for her husband, which gave it to my father for 10 000 and then obedyval we often. My mother knew everything, and silent. Distress upset her health. She took to her bed and never got up.
Father had 5000 shower. consequently, It was one of those nobles, which the late gr. Sheremetev called minor local, wondering from the heart, how they can live! - The fact, that my father did not live worse than Count Sheremetev, even though he was exactly 20 times poorer. Muscovites still remember his lunch, home theater and horn music. About two years after my mother's death, Anna Petrovna Virlatskaya, the culprit of this death, He settled in his house. She was, as the saying goes, vidnaya grandmother, however no longer in their first youth color. I brought the boy in a red jacket with cuffs and told, he told me that brother. I looked at him wide-eyed. Misha shuffled right, shuffled left and wanted to play my ruzhetsom; I snatched the toy from his hands, Misha cried, and father put me in a corner, giving my brother a gun.
This beginning did not bode well for me. And in fact my stay under the paternal roof does not leave anything nice in my imagination. Father certainly loved me, but I do not worry about me and left me in the care of the French, which continually took and released. My first tutor appeared drunk; second, not a stupid man, and not without information, I had such a furious temper, that once almost killed me for a log, that I spilled ink on his vest; third, He lived with us for a year, It was crazy, and the house had just guessed that, when he went to complain to Anna Petrovna at me and Misha for, we persuaded bedbugs all over the house does not give him rest, and that moreover devil got into the habit to nest in his cap. Other French could not get along with Anna Petrovna, which did not give them wine at dinner or horses on Sundays; moreover they were paid very faulty. I was guilty: Anna Petrovna decided, that none of my tutors could not cope with such a Breakfast with Scot. However, and the truth, it was not any of them, which would be in two weeks of taking office, I did not pay in the home jester; with particular pleasure that I make mention of Monsieur Grozhe, fifties venerable Genevans, which I assured, Anna Petrovna was in love with him. One must have seen his chaste horror with some admixture of the evil coquetry, when Anna Petrovna looked at him askance at the table, speak in undertones: "What a glutton!»
I was cut, lazy and quick-tempered, but sensitive and ambitious, and kindness of me could have been achieved in all; unluckily, just interfere with my education, and no one could take for me. Over the teachers I laughed and leprosy; Anna Petrovna cursed tooth for a tooth; with Misha had continual quarrels and fights. With his father often came to dealing stormy, which ended with tears on both sides. Anna Petrovna finally persuaded him to send me to one of the German universities ... I was then 15 years old.
Chapter II
My university life has left me pleasant memories, that, if they disassemble, are insignificant incidents, sometimes unpleasant; but the youth of the great magician: I would dearly gave, to sit again for a beer in the clouds of tobacco smoke, with clubs in their hands and a greasy velvet cap on her head. Expensive I gave for my room, always full of people, and God knows what people; for our Latin songs, student fights and quarrels with filistrami!
Free University Learning Has Benefited Me More, what homework, but generally I learned only decent fencing and making punch. From home I got money in the wrong different dates.
It taught me to be in debt and careless. Three years have passed, and I received from the father of St. Petersburg orders to leave the university and go to Russia to serve. A few words about a disturbed state, about the extra costs, about the change of life struck me as strange, but I did not pay them much attention. When leaving I gave my farewell feast, on which I have sworn to be forever true friendship and humanity and never take positions tsensora, and the next day with a headache and went on the road izgagoyu.
