The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Sofiia Kovalevskaia (1850–1891) wrote an engaging memoir of her youth. Well received, the book was translated into eight languages. Autobiographical works by women were not an uncommon feature of the Russian literary landscape. Kovalevskaia’s case was unique because she was an internationally renowned mathematician and a professor of mathematics at the University of Stockholm. The introduction to the English language edition of her memoir cites mathematical circles proclaiming her as “the most important woman mathematician prior to the twentieth century.” Her talented life was cut short by pneumonia at the age of forty-one. Taken from Sofiia Ko-valevskaia, A Russian Childhood. Trans. Beatrice Stillman. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1978.

When I was about six years old my father retired from Army service and settled in his family estate of Palibino, in the province of Vitebsk. At that time persistent rumors of an imminent “emancipation of the serfs” were already making the rounds, and these rumors impelled my father to occupy himself more seriously with farming, which up to that time had been given over to a steward.

Soon after our arrival in the country an episode occurred in our household which remained vividly in my memory. Moreover, its effect on everyone else in the house was so strong that it was often recalled afterward. And so my own impressions became intermingled with the subsequent stories about it, and I was no longer able to distinguish one from the other. Therefore, I shall describe this episode as I understand it now.

Various articles suddenly began vanishing from our nursery: now one thing, now another. Whenever Nanny forgot about some article over a period

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Sofiia Kovalevskaia, A Thief in the House

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of time and then needed it later, it was nowhere to be found, although she was ready to swear that she herself, with her own two hands, had laid it away in the cupboard or the bureau. These disappearances were treated rather calmly at first but when they began to occur more and more often and to include articles of ever increasing value, when a silver spoon, a gold thimble and a mother-of-pearl penknife suddenly vanished in succession, an alarm was raised. It was clear that we had a thief in our house. Nanny, who considered herself responsible for keeping the children’s belongings safe, was more upset than anyone, and she resolved to unmask the thief at all costs.

It was natural that suspicion should fall first of all on poor Feklusha, the girl who had been appointed to serve in the nursery. True, Feklusha had been with us for about three years, and Nanny had never noticed anything of the sort in all that time. In her opinion, however, this fact didn’t prove a thing.

“Before this, the girl was little and didn’t understand the value of things,” Nanny reasoned. “But now she’s older and smarter. And on top of that, her family lives in the village. So she must be snitching the master’s property for them.”

Reasoning in this fashion, Nanny reached such a deep inner conviction of Feklusha’s guilt that she began behaving toward her with ever greater harshness and severity. And the hapless, intimidated Feklusha, feeling instinctively that she was under suspicion, began to acquire an ever more guilty air.

But no matter how stealthily Nanny watched over Feklusha, she was not able to put her finger on anything specific for a long time. And meanwhile the missing articles did not turn up, and new items kept disappearing. One day Aniuta’s money-box, which always stood in Nanny’s cupboard and contained about forty rubles (if not more), was gone. The news of this last disappearance reached even my father. He summoned Nanny and gave strict orders that the thief must be found without fail. At this point we all realized that the matter was no joke.

Nanny was desperate. But then one night she woke up and heard something: a peculiar munching sound was coming from Feklusha’s corner. Already inclined to suspicion, she stealthily, noiselessly stretched out her hand to a box of matches and lit the candle all of a sudden. And what did she see? There was Feklusha squatting on her heels and holding a huge jam jar between her knees, stuffing jam into both her cheeks and even wiping up the jar with a crust of bread. I should add that our housekeeper had complained a few days before that jam was disappearing from her pantry cupboard. To jump out of bed and grab the criminal by her pigtail was, it goes without saying, the work of a single second for Nanny.

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Chapter Three

“Aha! Caught you, you no-good! Speak up—where did you get that jam?” she shouted in a voice like thunder, mercilessly pulling the girl about by the hair.

“Nanny dear! I didn’t do anything wrong, and that’s the truth!” Feklusha implored. “It was the seamstress, Maria Vasilievna, it was her gave me the jam last night. But she ordered me not to show it to you.”