Reflections: Various Variations on Old Themes

to educate me at home. And my upbringing began, as one might expect, with French grammar. M-r Bouchot Monsieur Bouchot is the first figure to appear alongside Lizaveta Ivanovna in the matter of my education; following him comes Karl Karlovich. M-r Bouchot was a Frenchman from Metz, while Karl Karlovich was a German from Sarepta who taught music. The parallel between these men is not without interest. A man of tall stature, completely bald, except for two or three strands of hair of infinite length at his temples, forever in a blue frock coat of thick cloth with a wool lining—such was M-r Bouchot; gravity was imprinted not only in his every action, but in his every movement (he bowed with his legs, smiled with only his lower lip; his head had not once bent since the days they stopped swaddling him, which was a very long time ago, some hundred and fifty years back).

To all this, one must add a French physiognomy from the end of the last century, with a huge nose and overhanging eyebrows—one of those physiognomies that one can see in good engravings representing folk scenes from the time of the Federation. I feared Bouchot, especially at first. Karl Karlovich was also tall, but so thin and flexible that he resembled an unfolded English folding rule that bends in both directions at every inch; his frock coat was gray, with pearl buttons; his trousers were black, made of some incomprehensible antediluvian material: they hid humbly in his boots à la Souvaroff a style of Hessian boot with tassels, which he ordered from Sarepta; he could easily strike about two octaves on the piano with his dry, barely covered fingers, whose skin was wrinkled like parchment. Having such a decisive talent, is it any wonder that Karl Karlovich devoted himself to "musical playing"? Karl Karlovich spent his life in the purest morality; he was one of those quiet, meek German creatures, full of simplicity of heart, gentleness, and humility, who, unrecognized by anyone, but happy in their own little circle, live, love one another, play the piano, and die quietly and meekly, just as they lived. He had been married in times immemorial; I drank Malaga at his golden wedding anniversary, and truly, the old man and old woman loved each other as if it were their honeymoon.

From what has been said, one can form an idea of Karl Karlo-