Market, together with English comforts and luxuries dragged all the way
from London. Moreover, Markovitch figured very slightly in the
consciousness of his guests, and the rest of the flat was roomy and
clean and light. It was, like most of the homes of the Russian
Intelligentzia over-burdened with family history. Amazing the things
that Russians will gather together and keep, one must suppose, only
because they are too lethargic to do away with them. On the walls of the
Markovitch dining-room all kinds of pictures were hung--old family
photographs yellow and dusty, old calendars, prints of ships at sea, and
young men hanging over stiles, and old ladies having tea, photographs of
the Kremlin and the Lavra at Kieff, copies of Ivan and his murdered son
and Serov's portrait of Chaliapine as Boris Godounov. Bookcases there
were with tattered editions of Pushkin and Lermontov. The middle of the
living-room was occupied with an enormous table covered by a dark red
cloth, and this table was the centre of the life of the family. A large
clock wheezed and groaned against the wall, and various chairs of
different shapes and sizes filled up most of the remaining space.
Nevertheless, although everything in the room looked old except the
white and gleaming stove, Vera Michailovna spread over the place the
impress of her strong and active personality. It was not a sluggish
room, nor was it untidy as so many Russian rooms are. Around the table
everybody sat. It seemed that at all hours of the day and night some
kind of meal was in progress there; and it was almost certain that from
half-past two in the afternoon until half-past two on the following
morning the samovar would be found there, presiding with sleepy dignity
over the whole family and caring nothing for anybody. I can smell now
that especial smell of tea and radishes and salted fish, and can hear
the wheeze of the clock, the hum of the samovar, Nina's shrill laugh and
Boris's deep voice.... I owe that room a great deal. It was there that I
was taken out of myself and memories that fared no better for their