The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

But this time Aleksandra had such a strange and meaningful expression on her face that Nanny took one look at her and immediately realized that she was not there to repeat her usual empty complaints, but that some truly new and important event had occurred. “Now you just look here, Naniushka— look what a thing I am going to show you,” Aleksandra said mysteriously. And, looking cautiously around the room to make sure that no outsider was there, she drew out from under her apron and handed over to Nanny a mother-of-pearl penknife—our beloved knife, that very knife supposedly among the stolen loot Feklusha had thrown into the pond.

When she saw the knife, Nanny spread her hands helplessly. “Wherever did you find it?” she asked.

“That’s just the point—where I found it,” Aleksandra slowly drawled out her answer. She said nothing for a few seconds, evidently taking pleasure in Nanny’s discomfiture. Finally she said ponderously, “That gardener of ours, Filip Matveevich, gave me his old pants to darn, and I found the knife inside the pocket.”

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Chapter Three

This Filip Matveevich was a German who held one of the leading positions in the servants’ aristocracy. He received a rather large salary, was a bachelor, and although to the unprejudiced eye might have seemed no more than a fat German, no longer young and rather repulsive with his typical reddish squared-off sidewhiskers, still our female servants regarded him as a handsome fellow. Hearing Aleksandra’s strange testimony, Nanny couldn’t take it in for the first minute or two.

“But how could Filip Matveevich get hold of the children’s penknife?” she asked in confusion. “After all, he practically never goes into the nursery! And anyway, how could it be possible that a man like Filip Matveevich would take to stealing things from the children?”

Aleksandra gazed at Nanny in silence with a long, mocking stare. Then she bent down right to her ear, and whispered several sentences in which the name of Maria Vasilievna was repeated more than once. Little by little a ray of light began to penetrate into Nanny’s mind.

“Tut, tut, tut . . . so that’s how it is!” she said, waving her hands helplessly. “Akh, you humble one, you! Oh, you no-good woman, you!” she exclaimed, filled with indignation. “Just you wait, we’ll make you come clean!”

It turned out (as I was later told) that Aleksandra had been nurturing suspicions of Maria Vasilievna for a long time and had observed that the seamstress was carrying on a secret love affair with the gardener.

“Well, then,” she told Nanny, “judge for yourself. Would a fine lad like Filip Matveevich love an old woman like that just for nothing? She was probably buying him with presents.”

And indeed she soon became convinced that Maria Vasilievna was giving the gardener both gifts and money. Where then was she getting these things? And so she set up a regular system of espionage over the unsuspecting Maria Vasilievna. The penknife was only the final link in a long chain of evidence.

The story was turning out to be more fascinating and diverting than would have been possible to predict. Within Nanny had suddenly awakened that passionate detective instinct which so often slumbers in old women’s hearts and incites them to rush fervently into investigating all sorts of complicated affairs which do not concern them in the least. And in this particular instance, Nanny’s zeal was spurred even more because she felt that she had deeply wronged Feklusha, and she burned with the desire to atone post-haste. Right then and there she and Aleksandra formed a defensive and offensive union against Maria Vasilievna.

Since both women were filled with moral certainty of the seamstress’s guilt, they resolved upon an extreme measure: to get hold of her keys and (seizing an opportunity when she would be away) to open up her trunk.

Sofiia Kovalevskaia, A Thief in the House

35

The thought is sister to the act. Alas! Their assumptions, as it turned out, were entirely correct. The contents of the trunk fully confirmed their suspicions and proved beyond any possible doubt that the hapless Maria Vasilievna was the perpetrator of all the petty thefts which had caused so much commotion during the past weeks.

“What a low, nasty thing she is! She even palmed the jam off on poor Fek-lusha to take attention away from herself and throw all the blame on the girl! Oh, the shameless woman! A little child, and she has no pity for her!” said Nanny in disgust and horror, completely forgetting her own role in the episode and how her own cruelty had forced poor Feklusha to give false testimony against herself.

One can picture the indignation of all the servants and of the household in general when the appalling truth was revealed and made known to all.