First Grief

When Grisha went out onto the balcony, he had only to squint his large blue eyes to see through the open stable gates the round light hindquarters of Lovky in his stall, a row of bridles on the partition, and the coachman Ignat in his old sleeveless jacket with his ever-lit pipe in his teeth. Usually Grisha did not long resist temptation: he would thrust both hands into the pockets of his short trousers, descend the balcony steps, and walk across the large overgrown courtyard straight to the stable.

“Well, what’s new?” he would ask Ignat, surveying the familiar and dear surroundings of the coach shed. “Is the left one still limping?”

“Still limping, still limping!” Ignat would reply with complete readiness to keep up the conversation.

“And did you fix the collar?”

“I’m fixing it right now.”

“Make sure: today nobody gets my Korolyok!”

“Is that up to me? They’ll say: ‘We need to go to the station or to the village—harness Korolyok’… and I’ll harness him.”

“What is this, really! Always my horse, always my…” the boy would remark grumblingly. “Did you give her oats?”

“Where would I get them if I wasn’t told to?” Ignat answered, and his bearded, usually gloomy face took on a sly expression. “Papa didn’t order it.”

“Without oats!” Grisha cried out in despair, and angry tears welled up in his eyes.

Ignat laughed cheerfully and affectionately.

“Look at you, what a hothead! Really, a hothead,” he said soothingly. “Don’t worry: I won’t neglect your Korolyok. I’ll take from the others, but my Korolyok is always completely satisfied.”

He looked affectionately into the boy’s eyes and ran his gnarled, rough hand over his head. Grisha calmed down and began his usual rounds. He sat in turn in all the carriages, climbed up onto the driver’s seat, and made his observations as he went.

“A go-ood little cart!” he said in the tone of a connoisseur.

“Nothing bad about it!” Ignat responded sympathetically.

“And is it sturdy?”

“You’ll get tar all over yourself, you rascal!” the coachman warned. “Nanny will scold you.”

Ignat had been working at the estate for only his first year, but he had quickly become close to the young master, and a strange but sincere friendship had developed between them.

“When I worked for the Lukhovsky masters,” Ignat would begin, “they had a horse…”

“You worked for them before us?”

“No. Before you I worked here for a merchant… Out of necessity, of course… Without need I wouldn’t have stayed a day with him!.. Taking me to court too!.. And why would he take me to court? Did I take what wasn’t mine?”

“Did the merchant want to sue you?”

“Want to! He went straight ahead and filed a complaint. Claiming I stole his horse and cart from him. He hadn’t paid my wages for a whole year, but he wouldn’t let me go either. Just live there! My wife and I tried this and that. He was taking advantage of the fact that I didn’t have my passport. What could you do? So Matrena, my wife, and I harnessed a horse to a cart at night, and… went home. Were we supposed to walk, with a small child, sixty versts to home? The merchant looked for us, but we’d vanished without a trace. I would have returned his horse. Would I really keep it? But he, you see, got furious that his free worker had left, and off to court, and a complaint: they robbed me, that’s what.”

“And did they try you?”

“They say they did.”

“Well, what happened?”

“This is what happened!” Ignat answered vaguely, and his thick eyebrows furrowed anxiously, and his whole face took on a sullen, almost suffering expression for a long time.

“You should have said you weren’t guilty,” Grisha advised seriously.

“Did anyone ask me? What kind of courts do we have? Where is justice, dear boy? They tried and tried me and made me a thief. That’s how it is!”

“How did they make you?” the boy asked eagerly.

“That’s how!” Ignat answered, frowning and smiling bitterly.

Sometimes the conversation took a different direction.

“Is Matrena really your wife?” Grisha asked.

“Whose else would she be!” Ignat responded good-naturedly.

“Then why isn’t she with you but always baking bread in the dugout?”

Ignat smiled.

“What would she do here with me? Tell me stories?”

“Why stories?” the boy objected heatedly. “Mama doesn’t tell Papa stories, but she lives with him… So Polka is your daughter?”

“That’s right, my daughter.”

“Did you have other children?”

“No, that’s all.”

“Why didn’t you have more?”

Ignat laughed and shook his head.

“What a child you are!” he said.

“What are you laughing at?” Grisha continued, slightly offended and explaining his thought. “Look, Papa and Mama have three children… Ignat!” he pleaded tenderly right away, looking into his friend’s eyes, “when we go to the city, please take care of my Korolyok.”

“I’ll take care of her! I’ll take care!” Ignat promised. “But, my dear, what if I have to leave before you?”

“Where?” the boy asked in surprise.

“Well… there!” Ignat answered with his usual enigmatic manner.

Often the friends’ heartfelt conversation was interrupted by the old nanny.

“Grishenka! Are you here?” she would ask, peering into the shed. “What is this, really,” she would continue grumblingly, “a master’s child practically living in the stable. I’ll complain to Mama! Just imagine: found himself a friend. Come now, come! And you, good-for-nothing,” she would turn to Ignat, “instead of bringing the child to his senses, you lure him in even more.”

“What have I done, Anna Gerasimovna? Nothing,” Ignat would justify himself in confusion. “If I were teaching him something bad…”

“As if we’d have you for a teacher!” the nanny would remark contemptuously. “Come, you rascal, come!”

Grisha saw his father and mother mostly only at the table. Father was always busy, and Mother sat in her bedroom all day and was considered unwell. When her head didn’t ache, something else did that wouldn’t let her bear the noisy company of children or even the bright daylight. When Grisha got the idea to run to see her, she would caress him, kiss him impetuously countless times, and immediately ask him to go away and not disturb her.

Sometimes Grisha resisted.

“Mama,” he would say, “I’ll sit quietly, very quietly.”

He would sit in the armchair and fold his hands on his knees.

“Are you well?” Mother would ask anxiously.

“Yes,” he would answer absently, occupied with some other thought, and immediately turn to whatever question interested him.

He spoke in a whisper so as not to disturb the general atmosphere of quiet and calm.

“Mama,” he whispered, “why is it that when it’s hot, you definitely sweat?”

“Are you hot?” Mother would ask.

“Hot… Do you think I’m wearing two shirts?”

“Are you in just one?”

“Of course just one! Look!” Grisha cried out ringingly, and unbuttoning the collar of his calico peasant shirt, showed his bare chest.

Mother winced painfully.

“Why are you shouting?” she reproached him.

“Oh, I forgot!” the boy said guiltily and fell silent. “Mama!” he whispered again a minute later, “tell me: what’s a tail for?”

“What tail?”

“On horses, on dogs?”

“What do you mean, what for? Just a tail. That’s how they’re made.”

“Not just! To swish away flies. What else would they swish flies with?”

The boy’s chatter was beginning to irritate the nervous woman, but she still endured in silence, fully confident that Grisha himself would tire of the room’s semi-darkness and would leave. But Grisha slid down the back of the armchair, lay with his back on the seat, and raised his legs, crossing one over the other.

“Mama!” he said again, “do you know where fleas breed?”

Mother wrinkled her face squeamishly and closed her eyes.

“Really, Grisha! What kind of talk is that!”

“In the tugs. If fleas breed, you have to throw away the tugs and get new ones…”

“That’s what comes from being in the stables all the time! In the autumn I’ll hire a governess for you. I’m ashamed of you!”

“Why ashamed?” the boy asked.

“Well, all right. Now go! Go to Nanny and your sisters. You’re always either alone or with peasants.”

Grisha sighed deeply, got up reluctantly from the armchair, and sighed again: he didn’t yet want to leave the cool room, or his sad, sickly, but still tenderly beloved Mama.

“Kiss me!” Mother said softly.

He kissed her, rubbed his face against hers, and she felt for his sharp little shoulder blades under his shirt and lapsed into a plaintive tone:

“You’re so thin! So pale! Grisha, why are you like this?”

“I’m naughty!” the boy answered out of habit, but his mother’s compassionate tenderness affected his nerves and made him plaintive too.

“You’re my poor little one! It’s not easy for you either! Your little soul often feels sad, my boy!”

And it happened that, moved by her pity and words he did not yet understand, Grisha would suddenly begin to sob on her shoulder.

“What’s wrong? What are you crying about?” his mother would ask in alarm and touch his head to see if he had a fever.

But Grisha would calm down at once and leave. And before he reached the door, he would already have forgotten his causeless tears, occupied with some new interesting thought. Something still trembled and sobbed in his chest, but he was already joyfully feeling in his pocket for a forgotten piece of string and thinking what would be the best use to make of it.

But meanwhile, his first serious grief already hung over his head.

One morning Father, not looking up from his newspaper, said to Mama across the table:

“Yes… did you know? They’ve come for Ignat!”

“They’ve come? Already?” Mama asked in alarm and, as if thinking something over, set down her unfinished cup on the table.

“Couldn’t anything have been done? After all, they have children,” she said quietly.

“What would you have me do?” Father said with a shrug. “I’m not going to get involved with that scoundrel… What’s his name again? That merchant… I know him a little: a tight-fisted crook.”

“Well, you see, all the more so,” said Mama.

“What do you mean, all the more so? He took a horse, and besides the lock was broken, so that means theft with breaking and entering… The case is clear.”

“But what were they supposed to do?” Mama asked. “After all, that man took advantage of some delay with the passport, didn’t pay wages, extorted free labor… Ignat simply escaped from bondage…”

“But still, he shouldn’t have taken the horse! Well, enough, what’s the use of talking now!” Father answered with annoyance and buried himself in the newspaper again.

Grisha listened eagerly and understood nothing.

“Mama, where are they taking Ignat?” he asked, opening his eyes wide.

Mother looked at him absently, but suddenly remembered the boy’s friendship with the coachman, frowned slightly, and looked away.

“Who has come for Ignat, Mama?” Grisha continued to press.

“Why not tell him?” Father began in a displeased tone. “What is this eternal fear of upsetting him, affecting his nerves? And he’ll turn out some sort of wet hen, a rag instead of a man.”

“My God, tell him yourself, I’m not stopping you!” Mama cried out with tears in her eyes, raised her hands to her temples, and left the table.

“Eternal scenes! Eternal scenes!” Father shouted after her.

“Your Ignat is being taken to prison for theft with breaking and entering. Understand?” he said harshly. Grisha turned pale. “Ignat for theft, and his wife Matrena as an accomplice. Him for three years, and her for a year and a half.”

“And Polka?” asked Grisha.

“And Polka… Well, what about Polka? Of course she’s not going to prison… I don’t really know where… Polka.”

Grisha stared at his father, and his eyes grew shining and angry. He kept growing paler, but he was afraid of his father and held himself back as best he could.

“What for?” he asked in a challenging tone.

“He stole, I’m telling you. Or as good as stole.”

“It’s not at all the same!.. And you yourself said the merchant is a crook.”

“Well, I said it.”

“So what is this? How can this be? Is this really possible?”

Father suddenly grew angry.

“Please, please, no dramatics! He’s so spoiled there’s no dealing with him.”

Restraining himself as best he could, Grisha got up and left the room. But the moment he was outside the door, anger and resentment toward someone seemed to squeeze his throat. He ran down the corridor and burst out onto the balcony. His first thought was to see Ignat, but the stable gates were closed, and that meant Ignat wasn’t there. Grisha ran to the servants’ room. There at the table sat Nanny drinking tea, and across from her sat some man in military uniform whom Grisha did not know. The soldier, affecting a pose with his elbow jutting out, took jam from a jar and ate it, washing it down with tea. Grisha immediately recognized Nanny’s jar and understood that Nanny was treating the soldier, but he was so preoccupied with the unexpected news of Ignat’s departure that he paid no attention to the presence of Nanny’s guest.

“Nanny, who has come for Ignat?” he asked in a trembling voice.

Nanny did not answer at once.

“Yes, they’ll take your darling now; you won’t be running away from Nanny anymore.”

“Who has come, Nanny?”

“Now he won’t wriggle out of it… Who’s come? Why, this is who’s come.”

Grisha didn’t understand at first. The one who was to take Ignat and Matrena to prison he imagined as enormous, terrifying, and repulsive in appearance, but looking at him was the sunburned, good-natured face of Nanny’s guest, smiling with an either embarrassed or simply stupid smile. Besides him and Nanny, there was no one else in the room. Finally Grisha understood.

“You?” he asked in surprise and disbelief, staring at the soldier.

“That’s right, sir!” the man replied, grinning broadly, evidently uncertain whether to stand before the young master or continue sitting.

“You? You… you’re a good-for-nothing!.. I’ll… I’ll beat you up!” he shrieked and rushed forward.

But suddenly his face twisted, the corners of his mouth trembled, and he began to cry loudly and plaintively, as helpless, grieved children cry. The constable laughed in embarrassment and looked around, spreading his hands…

Grisha ran to the nursery, huddled in the corner by his bed, and pressed against the wall, holding his chest with both hands. Powerless indignation still seethed in him and sought an outlet. He saw his sister’s doll on the floor, began trampling it with his feet, and finally kicked it to the other end of the room. On the wall hung a picture of his own; he tore it down and threw it on the floor. From such vigorous activity his nervous tension somewhat lessened: he sat down, leaned his forehead against the iron of the cot, grew still, and began to dream… He dreamed of strength… He needed strength to take revenge, to punish all these cruel and guilty people: the judges who had condemned Ignat, the constable who was to take him away; Nanny for treating the constable to jam, and even Father… Grisha was indignant with Father for his apparent indifference to Ignat’s fate. He should have defended him, should have driven away the constable, but he remained calm, read his newspapers, and even said that Ignat was “as good as a thief.”

Grisha wanted to take revenge on all these people who so cruelly wronged his friend. He thought of how he would punish Father, Nanny, the constable, and as he invented punishments, he picked with his fingernail at the peeling paint on the iron. Suddenly he pricked up his ears: he thought he heard Father’s loud voice and in response the timid voice of Ignat. In an instant he jumped up and ran out to the servants’ room. In the middle of the room, with heads bowed low, stood Ignat and Matrena, shifting from foot to foot. Beside Matrena, her face buried in the folds of her mother’s dress, stood Polka, and her mother looked down at her, and on her face was more dull bewilderment than fear and grief. Behind them, curious faces of the household servants peered from the doorway.

“Well, all right,” Grisha’s father was saying loudly, “it’s too late now and nothing can be done. Don’t worry about Polka. She won’t be badly off, but life and death are in God’s hands alone. We promise to look after her. Go with God, Ignat! What can you do?!”

Father waved his hand as if to indicate that the farewell was over, but no one moved. Ignat was silent and stared dully at the floor.

“Yes, we promise,” Mama added in a trembling voice, reached out her hand toward Polka, but immediately let it fall and turned away.

“There’s nothing to be done about it now!” Father began again, apparently becoming burdened by the mute scene of these people’s despair. “You just have to somehow… The term isn’t so long, you’ll survive it. What can you do?”

Matrena quietly pushed Polka away, took a step forward, and silently fell at the mistress’s feet, touching her forehead to the floor.

“Matrena!” the mistress cried out, and tears immediately burst from her eyes. “Don’t bow down to me, Matrena! Believe me: I will keep your little girl safe… Don’t bow to the ground!”

She bent down, touched Matrena’s shoulder with a trembling hand, and herself sank to the floor beside her.

“We must endure… Everyone must endure!” she whispered hurriedly. “Everyone must…”

“Well, enough, enough!” Father began, not hiding his impatience. “I’m very sorry. I was pleased with you, Ignat. When you’ve served your term, come back. I’ll take you on. And don’t worry about your daughter. Now go with God!”

He took his wife’s hand and wanted to lead her away with him, but she freed her hand and embraced Matrena once more.

“We must endure!” she whispered again.

Matrena rose. She swept the room with a bewildered glance and stopped at Grisha. For a moment the woman and the boy looked into each other’s eyes, then Grisha timidly lowered his eyelashes and moved forward.

“Goodbye!” he said very quietly and very tenderly. But Matrena continued to look at him in silence, still puzzling over something. Then Grisha went to Ignat. He held out his hand, Ignat took it and suddenly bent down close to the child’s face.

“Will you… be kind to Polka?” he asked.

“I will!” Grisha answered seriously and solemnly, and with a bold, shining gaze looked into the sad eyes of his friend. Ignat ran his hand over the boy’s head, crossed himself devoutly before the icon, and headed for the door.

“Matrena!” someone from among the servants called. “Matrena! Ignat has gone out. They’re waiting for you, come! The cart is at the porch.”

The young woman started; the dull expression of bewilderment was replaced by fear. Beside her, still pressing her face into the folds of her dress, stood Polka, trembling all over. She slowly turned and went out.

The boy, holding back his sobs, first walked, then ran into the nursery and sat down again behind the bed, looking grimly before him. In the corridor he heard Father’s footsteps. Father came into the nursery and stopped in front of Grisha.

“Why are you sitting here? Go to Nanny,” he said.

The boy was silent and did not move.

“Grisha!” Father called sternly, “am I talking to you or not?”

The child raised his head and fixed on him a serious, unfriendly, intent gaze.

“Listen,” Father began, involuntarily softening, “you seem to be angry with me? What have I to do with it? Am I to blame? I ought to give you a good scolding: how dare you shout at the constable? Well, speak up!” he cried impatiently, feeling that his son’s stubborn gaze irritated and somehow constrained him.

“Let it be…” Grisha said quietly and calmly.

“What let it be?”

“Let you scold me. I don’t care now.”

Father was somewhat at a loss.

“Well, fine!” he said. “I don’t want to talk to you now.”

He turned and headed for the door.

“In your opinion,” Grisha called after him, “in your opinion, he should be fed jam, like Nanny did?”

Father stopped.

“Everyone does their job,” he remarked, “fulfills their duty. The constable was ordered to come for Ignat, and he came. He’s a good, kind man, and you offended him. And you offended me, and Nanny… What for?”

Grisha slowly lowered his eyes, and on his face bewilderment and pain were clearly expressed.

“That’s not right, brother!” Father concluded reproachfully and left the room.

Grisha sat motionless.

“That’s not right, brother!” he remembered Father’s reproachful, almost affectionate voice. “Not right?.. Offended?.. ” the boy thought painfully. “I offended… But they all… Ignat… what for?”

Grisha lowered his head and frowned in a childlike way.

“Everyone does their job… But how did such a wrong, evil thing come about?..”

He raised his eyes, and in his fixed gaze froze an agonizingly heavy question.

—L. Avilova

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Translator’s Notes:

• Lydia Alekseevna Avilova (1864–1943) was a Russian writer known for her prose and her memoirs about Chekhov, with whom she had a complex relationship. Tolstoy selected several of her stories for The Circle of Reading.
• A verst is a Russian unit of distance equal to approximately 1.07 km (0.66 miles), so 60 versts is about 64 km or 40 miles.
• “Korolyok” means “little king” or “kinglet” (also a type of bird)—an affectionate name for the boy’s favorite horse.
• The story illustrates how the legal system criminalizes what is essentially escape from bondage. Ignat was held without his passport (which controlled a peasant’s freedom to move and work), his wages were withheld for a year, and yet when he escaped with the merchant’s horse and cart to return home with his wife and child, he was convicted of “theft with breaking and entering.”
• The constable (uryadnik) represents the banality of injustice—a “good, kind man” who is “just doing his job,” treating this as routine while a family is destroyed.
• Grisha’s agonized final question—“Everyone does their job… But how did such a wrong, evil thing come about?”—goes to the heart of Tolstoy’s critique of social institutions that make ordinary people complicit in systematic injustice.
• The story captures the precise moment when a child’s moral clarity confronts the adult world’s moral compromises, and the pain of discovering that “duty” and justice can be at odds.