patted my cheek, and asked me "who I was? where I came from? of what family?" and then' . . . here the old man's voice usually broke . . . 'then she bade me greet my mother in her name and thank her for having brought up her children so well. And whether I was on earth or in heaven, and how and where she deigned to vanish, whether she floated away into the heights or went her way into the other apartments . . . to this day I do not know!'
More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away times, about the people who made up the empress's circle. . . . But for the most part he edged off the subject. 'What's the use of talking about old times?' he used to say . . . 'it's only making one's self miserable, remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn't a tooth left in one's head. And what is there to say? They were good old times . . . but there, enough of them! And as for those folks—you were asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!—haven't you seen how a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow—a perfect rainbow or diamond you'd say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there's no trace of it left. And so it was with those folks.'
'But how about Potiomkin?' I once inquired.
184
