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36
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
I have a confused remembrance of those troubled
days, which followed our escapade, as a sort of
painful domestic calamity. All day long there were tears,
cries, and uproar in the nursery. Everybody
quarreled with everybody else, and everybody caught it,
whether rightly or wrongly. Papa was in a rage,
mama was weeping, nurse roaring, the
Frenchwoman wringing her hands and packing up her
belongings. My sister and I became meek and quiet,
and dared not utter a sound, because every one now
vented his or her wrath on us, and the slightest fault
was reckoned up against us as a heavy crime.
Nevertheless we watched our elders quarreling with
curiosity, and even with a certain childish malicious delight,
and waited " to see how it would all end."
Father, who did not like half measures, decided
upon a radical reform in the system of our education.
The Frenchwoman was dismissed, nurse was released
from the nursery, and set to look after the linen, and
two new persons were taken into the house — a
Polish tutor and an English governess.
The tutor was a quiet, learned man, who gave
splendid lessons, but who had very little real influence
on my education. On the other hand, the governess
introduced an entirely new element into our family.
Although she had been brought up in Russia, and
spoke Russian, she had retained in full the typical
peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon race —
straightforwardness, endurance, and a knowledge how to carry
out any undertaking to the end. These qualities
gave her a great advantage over the rest of the
household, all of whom were distinguished by precisely the
opposite traits, and they explain the influence which
she acquired in our house.
When she came to us all her efforts were directed
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