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40
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
rings out in my very ear, and Dunyåsha, with pitiless
hand, drags off the coverlet.
Day is but just breaking out of doors, and the first
pale rays of the cold winter morning, mingling with
the yellowish light of the stearin caudle, impart to
everything a sort of dead, unnatural look. Is there
anything more disagreeable in the world than getting
up by candlelight? I sit up in bed, squatted on my
heels, and begin mechanically to dress myself; but
my eyes involuntarily close again, and my uplifted
hand, which grasps a stocking, becomes rigid in that
position.
Behind the screen where the governess sleeps, the
sound of splashing water is already audible,
accompanied by snorting and vigorous rubbing.
" Don’t dawdle, Sönya; if you are not ready in a
quarter of an hour, you will bear the ticket ’lazy’ on
your back during luncheon," rings out the
threatening voice of my governess.
This threat is no jest. Corporeal punishment has
been banished from our educational system, but my
governess has taken it into her head to replace it by
other means of intimidation. If I am guilty of
anything, she pins upon my back a paper on which my
fault is stated in large letters, and with this
decoration I must present myself at table. I fear this
chastisement like death; hence the governess’s threat
has the power to banish my sleep instantaneously. I
immediately leap from the bed. At the wash-stand
the maid is already awaiting me, with an uplifted jug
in one hand and with a shaggy towel in the other. Cold
water is poured over me every morning, after the
English fashion. One second of sharp,
breath-destroying cold, then boiling water seems to flow through my
veins, and then a wonderfully agreeable sensation of
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