My father, Andrei Petrovich Grinev, served under Count Munnich in his youth. He returned with the rank of major in 17. From then on, he lived on his estate in Simbirsk Province, where he married the maiden Avdotia Vasilevna Iu., daughter of an impecunious local squire. They had nine children, but all my brothers and sisters died in infancy.

I was still in my dear mother's womb when they registered me as a sergeant in the Semenovskii Regiment, thanks to the good offices of Major of the Guards Prince B., a close relative of ours. If against all expectations my mother had delivered a baby girl, my father would have simply informed the appropriate authorities that the sergeant could not report for duty because he had died, and that would have been the end of that. I was considered to be on leave until the completion of my studies. But in those days schooling was not what it is today. At the age of five I was entrusted to the care of the groom Savelich, appointed to be my personal attendant in recognition of his sober conduct. Under his supervision I had learned to read and write Russian by the age of twelve, and acquired a sound judgement of the qualities of chase hounds. Then my dear father hired a Frenchman for me, Monsieur Beaupré, who had been ordered by mail from Moscow along with our annual supply of wine and cooking oil. This
man's arrival greatly displeased Savelich.

"Heaven be thanked," he muttered under his breath, "the child's kept clean, well-combed, and fed. What need is there to throw away money hiring this mounseer, as if there weren't enough of our own folk?"

In his homeland Beaupré had been a barber; then he did some soldiering in Prussia; and finally he came to Russia pour être outchitel, though he did not quite understand the meaning of that title. He was a good-natured fellow, but irresponsible and dissolute in the extreme. His main weakness was a passion for the fair sex; his amorous advances frequently earned him raps and knocks that would make him groan for days. Moreover, he was (as he himself put it) "no enemy of the bottle," that is (in plain Russian), he loved to take a drop too much. In our house, however, wine was served only with dinner, a glass at a time, and they usually forgot to offer even that to the tutor. For this reason he soon grew accustomed to homemade Russian vodka, eventually even preferring it to the wines of his homeland as a drink incomparably better for the stomach. He and I hit it off immediately. Although by his contract he was supposed to teach me "French, German, and all the sciences," in practice he chose to learn Russian from me, soon acquiring enough to prattle after a fashion; and from then on we each went about our own business. We lived in perfect harmony. I could not have wished for a better mentor. Fate, however, soon separated us, due to
the following incident.

The washerwoman Palashka, a fat and pockmarked wench, and the one-eyed dairymaid Akulka somehow decided to throw themselves at my mother's feet at the same time, confessing to a reprehensible weakness and complaining in tears against the mounseer, who had seduced their innocence. My mother did not treat such things lightly, and complained to my father. He brought the matter to a fast conclusion. He immediately sent for that rascal of a Frenchman, and when he was told that monsieur was giving me a lesson, he came to my room. Beaupré at this time was sleeping the sleep of the innocent on my bed. I was engrossed in work. It must be mentioned that a map had been obtained for me from Moscow and had been hanging on the wall of my room without being of the slightest use to anyone; it had been tempting me with the width and quality of its paper for a long time. 1 decided to make it into a kite and, taking advantage of Beaupré's sleep, had set about the task. At the time my father entered the room I was just fixing a bast tail to the Cape of Good Hope. Seeing me thus engaged in the study of geography, my father pulled my ear, then stepped up to Beaupré, woke him none too gently, and showered reproaches on him. Beaupré, all confused, tried to get up but could not: the hapless Frenchman was dead dunk. As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb: my father lifted him off the bed by the collar, shoved him through the door, and that very day banished him from the house, to Savelich's indescribable joy. Thus ended my education.

I lived the life of a young oaf, chasing pigeons and playing leapfrog with the serving boys. Meanwhile I had turned sixteen. Then the course of my life changed.

One autumn day my mother was making preserves with honey in the parlour,
while I, licking my chops,. was watching the boiling froth. My father was seated by the window, reading the Court Calendar, which he received each year. This book always had a strong effect on him; he could never leaf through it without getting involved, and reading it never failed to rouse his spleen. My mother, who knew all his habits inside out, always tried to tuck away the unfortunate book in some hidden corner, and therefore the Court Calendar sometimes did not catch his eye for whole months. But if he did chance to come across it, he did not let it out of his hands for hours on end. This time, too, he kept reading it, occasionally shrugging his shoulders and muttering:

"Lieutenant general! He used to be a sergeant in my platoon! Decorated with both Russian crosses! It was only the other day that he and I..."

At length father tossed the Calendar on the sofa, and sank into a reverie that augured little good.

Suddenly he turned to mother. "Avdotia Vasilevna, how old is Petrusha?"

"He's going on seventeen," answered mother. "Petrusha was born the same year that Auntie Nastasia Gerasimovna lost an eye and when..."

"Very well," interrupted father, "it's time for him to enter the service. He's had quite enough of hanging around the maidservants' quarters and climbing up to the pigeon lofts."

The idea of soon having to part with me upset my mother so much that she dropped the spoon into the saucepan, and tears started streaming from her eyes. By contrast, my rapture would be hard to describe. The thought of entering the service was connected in my mind with notions of freedom and the pleasures of Petersburg life. I imagined myself an officer of the Guards - a status that in my opinion was the ultimate in the well-being of men.

Father did not like either to change his mind or to postpone carrying out his decisions. The day for my departure was fixed. The evening before I was to leave, father declared his intention to furnish me with a letter to my future commanding officer, and he asked for pen and paper.

"Don't forget to give my regards to Prince B.," said mother. "Tell him I
hope he'll take Petrusha under his protection."

"What nonsense is this?" father answered, frowning. "Why should I be writing to Prince B.?'

"Why, you did say it was your pleasure to write to Petrusha's commander."

"That's right. And what then?"

"Well, isn't Prince B. his commander? He is, after all, registered with the Semenovskii Regiment."

"Registered! What business of mine is it that he's registered? Petrusha is not going to Petersburg. What would he learn if he served there? To squander and to sow wild oats? No, let him serve in the army, let him learn to sweat and get used to the smell of gun powder, let him become a soldier, not an idler. Registered with the Guards! Where is his passport? Give it here."

Mother, searched out my passport, which she kept in a box together with my baptismal shirt, and gave it to father with a trembling hand. He read it carefully, put it on the table in front of him, and began his letter.

Curiosity was tormenting me; where was I being sent if not to Petersburg? I could not take my eyes off father's pen, which was moving rather slowly. At last he finished and sealed the letter in an envelope along with my passport. He took his glasses off, called me over to him, and said, "Here's a letter to Andrei Karlovich R., an old comrade and friend. You're going to Orenburg to serve under his command."

All my brilliant hopes were dashed to the ground! Instead of the merry life in St. Petersburg, boredom awaited me in some remote godforsaken region. The service, which I had contemplated with such enthusiasm even a minute before, now seemed like a burden or some chore. But there was no arguing with my father. The next morning a covered wagon was brought up to the front porch, and the servants piled into it my trunk, a hamper with a tea service, and bundles with rolls and pies - the last tokens of a pampered domestic life. My parents blessed me. Father said, "Good-bye, Petr. Serve faithfully the Sovereign to whom you swear allegiance; obey your superiors don't curry favor with them; don't volunteer for duty, but don't shirk it either; and remember the proverb, 'Take care of your clothes while they're still new; cherish your honor from a tender age.' "

My dear mother admonished me in tears to take care of my heart and exhorted Savelich to look after her child. They helped me, into a hareskin coat, and a fox overcoat. I got into the wagon with Savelich and set out on my journey, shedding floods of tears.