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By Root 2130 0

having made up his mind to do something practical. He returned to his father, who gave him a hundred thalers and a new knapsack and sent him out into the world. Since that day he had never seen his father or his native country. For six years he had wandered about in Switzerland and Austria, and for twenty years he had lived in Russia, blessing his lucky stars. He had been to a university and made up his mind that his son should go to a university, although it could not be a German university, although a Russian university was bound to revolutionize his son’s life and take him a long way off the track his father had mentally marked out for him. And he had done it all so simply: he drew a straight line from his grandfather to his future grandson and did not worry any more, and it never occurred to him that Herz’s variations, his wife’s stories and dreams, the galleries and drawing-rooms in the prince’s mansion would transform the narrow German track into a road wider than his grandfather, his father, and himself ever dreamed of. However, he was no pedant, and in this instance he would not have insisted on his own plan; he merely could not conceive of any other road in his son’s life. It did not worry him, either. When his son returned from the university and spent three months at home, he told Andrey that he had nothing more to do at Verkhlyovo, that even Oblomov had been sent to Petersburg, and that it was therefore time for him to go too. He did not ask himself why his son had to go to Petersburg and why he could not stay in Verkhlyovo and help with the management of the estate: he merely remembered that when he had finished his course at the university, his own father had sent him away; so he, too, sent away his son – such was the custom in Germany. His wife was dead and there was no one to oppose him.

On the day of Andrey’s departure his father gave him a hundred roubles in notes.

‘You’ll ride to the town,’ he said, ‘and there Kalinnikov will give you three hundred and fifty roubles. You can leave the horse with him. If he isn’t in town, you can sell the horse. There is going to be a fair there soon and you’ll easily get four hundred roubles for it from anyone. Your fares to Moscow will be about forty roubles and from there to Petersburg, seventy-five. You will have enough left. After that you can do as you like. You have been in business with me and so you know that I have a small capital, but don’t count on getting any of it before my death. I’ll probably live for another twenty years, unless a stone falls on my head. The lamp still burns brightly and there is plenty of oil in it. You have received a good education and all careers are open to you. You can enter the Civil Service, or become a business man, or even a writer, if you like – I don’t know the one you will choose, which you feel most attracted to.…’

‘I’ll see whether I can’t do all at once,’ said Andrey.

His father burst out laughing with all his might and began patting his son’s shoulders so vigorously that a horse would not have stood it, but Andrey did not mind.

‘Well, and if your ability should not be equal to the task, and if you should find it difficult to strike the right road all at once and would like to ask someone’s advice, go and see Reinhold – he’ll tell you. Oh,’ he added, rubbing his hands and shaking his head, ‘he is – he is – –’ he wanted to say something in Reinhold’s praise, but could not find the right words; ‘We came together from Saxony. He owns a house of four stories. I’ll give you his address – –’

‘Don’t bother, I don’t want it,’ said Andrey. ‘I’ll go and see him when I have a house of four stories, and at present I shall do without him.’

There was more patting on the shoulder.

Andrey jumped on to his horse. Two bags were tied to the saddle: one had an oilskin cape, a pair of thick, nail-studded boots, and a few shirts made of Verkhlyovo linen – things he had bought and taken at his father’s insistent request; in the other was an elegant dress-coat of fine cloth, a thick overcoat, a dozen fine shirts, and shoes