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Updated: June 1, 2025
Alexyéi Sergyéitch really was somewhat eccentric, but the soul within him was not of the petty sort. I will narrate a few things about him. I never found out authoritatively what were his political views, if, indeed, one can apply to him such a very new-fangled expression; but he was, in his way, rather an aristocrat than a nobly-born master of serfs.
The following incident was ineffaceably retained in the memory of Alexyéi Sergyéitch. He was standing one day on the inner watch in the palace, and he was only sixteen years of age.
And for the most part they were old, sinewy, hairy, grumbling, stoop-shouldered, clad in long-skirted nankeen kaftans, and imbued with a strong acrid odour! And in the women's department nothing was to be heard but the trampling of bare feet, and the rustling of petticoats. The head valet was named Irinárkh, and Alexyéi Sergyéitch always summoned him with a long-drawn-out call: "I-ri-na-a-árkh!"
And what amazed me was, that no matter at what time Alexyéi Sergyéitch called his valet, the man instantly presented himself, just as though he had sprung out of the earth, and placing his heels together, and putting his hands behind his back, stood before his master a grim and, as it were, an irate but zealous servant!
"My faithful companion," he stammered, "my respected spouse, I would like to bow myself to thy feet for all thy love and faithfulness but how am I to rise? Let me at least sign thee with the cross." Malánya Pávlovna drew nearer, bent over.... But the hand which had been raised fell back powerless on the coverlet, and a few moments later Alexyéi Sergyéitch ceased to be.
"Okh, what a naughty little tongue, on my honour, what a naughty little tongue!" repeated Alexyéi Sergyéitch, tapping her on the cheek. To mention Malánya Pávlovna's "convictions" would be still more out of place than to mention those of Alexyéi Sergyéitch; but I once chanced to be the witness of a strange manifestation of my aunt's hidden feelings.
And lo, the Empress passes him he presents arms.... "And she," cried Alexyéi Sergyéitch, again with rapture, "smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand to kiss, and patted me on the cheek, and inquired who I was, and whence I came, and from what family?
Alexyéi Sergyéitch had resided for nearly seventy years in succession in his Sukhodól, having almost no dealings whatever with the superior authorities, with the military officials, or the courts. "The court is for the bandit, the military officer for the soldier," he was wont to say; "but I, God be thanked, am neither a bandit nor a soldier."
The merry, bird-like dancer reached the mines and there vanished forever.... Yes; involuntarily although in a different sense, one repeats with Alexyéi Sergyéitch: "The old times were good ... well, yes, but God be with them! I want nothing to do with them!" Wage du zu irren und zu träumen! The following is what I read in an Italian manuscript:
They had had two daughters who had been married long before, and rarely visited Sukhodól; there had been quarrels between them and their parents, and Alexyéi Sergyéitch hardly ever mentioned them. I see that ancient, truly noble steppe home as though it stood before me now.
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