Mothers & Daughters: Nanny Nastya

NANNY NASTYA

Winter 1840.

“Baba Kapka” was the nickname in the household for the fat little housekeeper named Varvara. She was a good and honest woman, but an absurd woman; a big grumbler, and a terror for all the young maids and courtyard children. During prayer, she stood in front of the icons in the morning and evening and often interrupted herself with grumbling and attacks on the maids, which only caused them to laugh at her not fear her.[1]

Nanny Nastya was different. Everyone in the house loved and respected Nanny Nastya, but they were also quite afraid of her. Without any anger or scolding, Nanny Nastya knew how to command respect, and the children were afraid of her displeasing look. Nanny Nastya, however, never punished the children herself (and even hated to see them being punished by others.) She endured, with great difficulty, the very rare sight of the children sitting on their knees in the corner. If she happened to notice that they were being threatened—God forbid! Not even Helena Andreevna was permitted when Nanny Nastya was around.

“We’re going to flog you if you misbehave,” Helena Andreevna would threaten. “Either Dede Andrushka, Baba Lena, Nanny Nastya, or I, will punish you without ceremony.”

“Why did you make this up?” Nanny Nastya would shout at her during these rare occasions. “Your mother raised you, I nursed you, and not one of us laid a finger on you! Are you going to flog your children?! No! I never beat you, and I won’t let you beat your children! Don’t blame me, madam! Children must be taken in with affection and persuasion, and not with kicks and slaps. I suppose everyone will be able to give them spanks—but that is not what children need from their mother!”

It was true; Helena Andreevna was always more strict when they visited Dede Andrushka and Baba Lena, but it would be unfair to judge her too harshly. She was afraid that her parents would completely spoil the girls without a heavy counterweight for balance.

It often happened that Nanny Nastya would take the children into another room when Helena Andreevna was angry, and return to thoroughly scold her on behalf of the children. Helena Andreevna would laugh joyfully at her anger so that Nanny Nastya could not stand it. Forgetting that the girls were not far away, they would both laugh at themselves, not knowing Lelya and Vera were eavesdropping and laughing along with them.

Nanny Nastya loved and took pity on all the children. She would always knit stockings, sweaters, and warm hats for some poor children. She couldn’t see well, and she sewed with difficulty, but she was nevertheless a skillful knitter. She always undertook to knit several pairs of stockings for the girls’ maids so that they would sew some kind of work for her, and this work was almost always underwear, a dress, or a blanket for a child. In the nursery of the Hahn girls, there was a stove with a large bed. Nanny Nastya always puts bundles of their old dresses and shoes on it, saving them for all the poor children she met. Yes, she pitied and cared for every child, as she did for every creature of the Lord. God forbid if someone killed a spider or a fly, or indifferently stepped on some bug.

“So what does that matter to you?” she angrily asked the bug-killer. “You can’t kill all of them! You killed one, and ten will attack you. Remember, you can’t give back the life that was taken away. If you kill, you will kill, but you will never be able to resurrect. Don’t you dare kill. Let them live. If God gave them life, it means they are needed for something.”

Nanny Nastya was just as angry when she saw someone hurting an animal. She was so kind, but she went in swinging and running with her little old lady steps to rescue the unfortunate cat, puppy, or bird. “Here I am, you scoundrel!” she would say. “Don’t be mischievous! Leave God’s creation alone, so that the Lord does not become angry with you and punish you for his creation.”

Such was Nanny Nastya’s disposition, and yet the children were afraid of her! Perhaps it was the way she used to look gravely from under her gray eyebrows and shake her head sternly. Her disapproval was punishment enough. The children wanted to ask Nanny Nastya not to be cross, but they were afraid to approach her until she looked more kindly. There was something very special in her anger—some magic power.

She was a good storyteller. Nanny Nastya knew a lot of fairy tales and told them well. The children were all terribly happy when they managed to get her to tell them a fairy tale—which was not entirely easy. To do this, she had to be persuaded for a long time, and if she was angry or saddened by something, she would never agree.

“Tell us a story, Nanny Nastya, tell us a story!”

“Today is Saturday,” she would say, “the all-night vigil is going on in God’s churches, and you want me to tell you fairy tales! No, children, today is absolutely impossible. Tomorrow is a different matter. And Saturday evening is a holy evening. On Saturdays, we should pray to God, and not tell lies. Now, I’ll light a lamp next to the icons, and Nadenka or Lelya will read the Gospel out loud.”

“No, Nanny Nastya,” said Aunt Nadya, “I’ll go to the theater with Katya and Lenochka (that’s what Aunt Nadya and Aunt Katya called Helena Andreevna.) “And we’ll take Lelya with us.”

Lelya jumped for joy and ran to her mother to find out if it was time to get dressed.

“Look, you found time to watch a comedy!” grumbled Nanny Nastya loudly. “What a shame it is to travel around theaters during God’s service. Elena Pavlovna would—”

“Oh, Nastya! You old cooer!” said Baba Lena, hearing her words from another room. “Stop grumbling! What sin is it to go to the theater? You can find time for everything—both pleasure and prayer!”

“That’s what I’m saying, madam. There is a time for everything! There is an hour for prayer and an hour for fun. Saturday evening, as you know, is a holy evening! God’s evening. It is not for nothing that good people say: ‘Work all your days, pray to God on Saturday, and on the seventh day, having prayed, be merry.’ Orthodox people do this.”

“Eh! That’s enough, my dear!” Baba Lena interrupted. “Leave the fun to the youth; and you and I, the old women, will pray for them. They will have time to sit at home when life gets boring, but for now, let them have fun every day and hour! We will not anger God with fun.”

Nanny Nastya shook her gray head, and frowned for a long time, muttering something to herself in a whisper. She only calmed down after making the sign of the cross and began to fill the lamp near the icon case.

Vera hid quietly in a corner, in the dark recess of a deep window, and watched Nanny Nastya closely. Her brightly lit face, dark, with deep wrinkles, looked solemn and even a bit angry. Her straight, stick-thin, body, dressed in dark chintz and black flannel, seemed like some kind of wooden stand for her low-hanging head, with hair as gray as a harrier escaping from under a dark scarf tied with a cap. She lit the wick of the lamp and carefully pulled up the cord, secured the end to a nail, and took two measured steps back, never taking her eyes off the icons shining high in the corner. Her stern face smoothed out and softened with an expression of kindness and something else—some deep feeling, incomprehensible to me Vera at that time. Something seemed to illuminate her whole being while she whispered a prayer in the shadow of a wide Russian cross.

Vera sat motionless, putting two fingers in her mouth in bewilderment. “Was Nanny Nastya ever young?” she thought. “Was she really little too?! What was she like then?” She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Nanny Nastya’s face as young, rosy, and cheerful. She tried, but she just could not conjure the image. “Did she run? Did she laugh? Did she ever play pranks? Or was she always like she is now? Will I ever be as old and gray? Is it possible that I too will become an old woman?”

“Verochka!” said Baba Lena. “Come here! What are you doing over there?”

Slowly, and reluctantly, Vera climbed down from the window onto the floor and went to another room, looking back along the way at Nanny Nastya praying.

“Come to me, Verochka, sit with me. Nanny Nastya is praying, yes? There is no need to disturb her.”

“I’m not in the way, Butterfly!

“Well, it’s all the same. Don’t go to her.” Baba Lena then produced a box with a game called casse-tête. It consisted of many multi-colored pieces of wood, straight and triangular, from which one created different patterns and designs using drawn pieces of paper. “Here is your brain-teaser,” said Baba Lena. “Lay out the chips and match them according to the pictures.”[2]

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SOURCES:

[1] Zhelihovskaya, Vera Petrovna. My Childhood. A. F. Devrien. St. Petersburg, Russia. (1893.) [Preparation of the text and comments by A.D. Tyurikov. Bahmut Roerich Center.

[2] Zhelihovskaya, Vera Petrovna. How I Was Little. A. F. Devrien. St. Petersburg, Russia. (1898): 41-48.