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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD 57
removed from the sphere of every-day life, she would
suddenly espy grounds for condemning Aniuta’s
behavior—grounds so original and unexpected that
none of us could do anything but raise our hands in
amazement.
Aniuta did not remain in her debt, and retorted in
so bold and vicious a way that the governess would
jump up from the table, and declare that after such
an insult she would not remain in our house.
Every one who was present felt awkward. Mama,
who hated disputes and scenes, took upon herself the
part of mediator, and the matter ended in the
conclusion of a peace after long negotiations.
I can even yet recall what a storm was raised in
our house by two articles in the " Revue des Deux
Mondes," one on the "Conservation of Energy" (an
account of Helmholtz’s pamphlet), the other on the
experiments of Claude-Bernard on the excision of
portions of the brain in the pigeon. Probably Claudet
Bernard and Helmholtz would have been greatly
astonished if they had known what an apple of
discord they had flung into a peaceful Russian family
dwelling somewhere in the waste places of the
government of Vitebsk.
But it was not alone politics and the accounts of
new discoveries which possessed the power of
upsetting the temper of my uncle Piötr Vasilievitch. He
read romances and travels and historical articles with
equal enthusiasm. He was even willing to read our
children’s books in the absence of anything better.
I never met with such a passion for reading as he had
in any one, unless in a few half-grown boys. It would
seem as if there could not be a more innocent passion,
or one which a wealthy landed proprietor could more
easily indulge. Nevertheless Uncle Piötr Vasilievitch
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