Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (Penguin ed.)

by Leo Tolstoy

  I’ve never seen in any other family a resemblance like that between my sister and mama. It wasn’t in Lyubochka’s face or figure, but in something more elusive: her hands, the way she walked, and especially her voice and some of her expressions. When she got angry and said, ‘We haven’t been let out for ages,’ the phrase ‘for ages’, which maman also had the habit of using, was enunciated in a way that made it sound drawn out: ‘for a-a-ges’. But the most extraordinary resemblance was in the way Lyubochka played the piano and all her little manoeuvres when she did so: just like maman, she would smooth her dress, turn the pages with her left hand from above and, whenever a difficult passage was slow in coming, pound the keys with her fist in vexation and say ‘Good Lord!’ Her playing also had the same elusive tenderness and precision, the same lovely Field style that has been so well termed ‘jeu perlé’38 and whose charm will not be forgotten, despite the hocus-pocus of the newest pianists.

  Papa came into the room with quick little steps and went over to Lyubochka, who stopped playing when she saw him.

  ‘No, don’t stop, Lyuba, keep on playing,’ he said, sitting her back down. ‘You know how much I enjoy listening to you …’

  Lyubochka continued to play, and Papa sat across from her a long time, resting on his elbow. Then with a sudden shrug of his shoulder, he got up and started to walk around the room. Each time he came to the piano, he stopped and gazed at Lyubochka. I could see from his movements and the way he walked that he was agitated. After going around the salon several times, he stopped behind Lyubochka’s seat, kissed her dark head, then quickly turned and continued to pace. When she finished the piece and went over to him to ask ‘Was it all right?’ he silently took her head in his hands and began to kiss her forehead and eyes with a tenderness I had never seen in him before.

  ‘Good Lord, you’re crying!’ Lyubochka suddenly said, letting go of his watch chain and fixing her large, astonished eyes on his face. ‘Forgive me, darling Papa, I completely forgot it was Mama’s piece.’

  ‘No, my friend, play it more often,’ he said in a voice trembling with feeling. ‘If you only knew how good it is for me to have a cry with you …’

  He kissed her again and, trying to control his inner turmoil, shrugged his shoulder and went out of the door leading through the hallway to Volodya’s room.

  ‘Woldemar! Are you just about ready?’ he shouted, stopping in the middle of the hallway. At that moment the chambermaid Masha was passing through and, seeing the master, she lowered her eyes and tried to get by him. He stopped her.

  ‘You’re getting prettier and prettier,’ he said, leaning over her.

  Masha blushed and lowered her head even more.

  ‘Please allow me to pass,’ she whispered.

  ‘Woldemar, how about it, are you quite ready?’ Papa repeated, shrugging his shoulder and coughing after Masha had gone past and he saw me.

  I love my father, but the human mind lives independently of the heart and often contains thoughts that offend our feeling and seem incomprehensible and cruel to it.

  And such thoughts come to me despite my effort to dispel them …

  TWENTY-THREE

  Grandmother

  Grandmother has been getting weaker each day. Her little bell, Gasha’s grumbling voice, and the sound of slamming doors have been heard more frequently in her room, and she no longer receives us in the study in her Voltaire armchair, but in her bedroom on her high bed with its lace-edged pillows. Greeting her, I notice a shiny, pale-yellowish growth on her hand and the same oppressive odour that I was aware of in Mama’s room five years before. The doctor sees her three times a day, and there have been several consultations with specialists. But her character and her proud, imperious treatment of the entire household, and especially of Papa, haven’t changed at all. She draws out her words just as before, and raises her eyebrows and says ‘my dear’.

  And then for several days we aren’t allowed in to see her and one morning during lessons St-Jérôme suggests that I go for a ride with Lyubochka and Katenka. Although I notice as I’m getting into the sleigh that the pavement in front of Grandmother’s windows is covered with straw and that people in long blue coats are standing by our gate, I don’t at all understand why we’ve been sent for a ride at such an inappropriate hour. That day Lyubochka and I are for some reason in an especially merry mood the whole way, and every little occasion, every word, every movement makes us laugh.

  A hawker grabs his tray and scampers across the street and we laugh. A dilapidated hack, flapping the ends of its reins, overtakes our sleigh at a gallop and we guffaw. Filipp gets his whip caught under the sleigh’s runners and, turning around, says ‘Oh, my!’ and we collapse in hilarity. Mimi says with a disapproving look that only ‘silly people’ laugh for no reason, and Lyubochka, her face red from the effort not to laugh, looks at me from under her brow, our eyes meet, and we let loose such Homeric guffawing that there are tears in our eyes and we’re no longer capable of holding back the explosions of laughter that overcome us. No sooner do we calm down a bit than I look over at Lyubochka and say a cryptic little word that has lately been in favour with us and that always produces a laugh, and we’re overcome again.

  Approaching the house on the way back, I’ve just opened my mouth to make one more excellent face at Lyubochka when I’m startled to see a black coffin cover leaning against one side of the front door, and my mouth remains fixed in the same distorted position.

  ‘Votre grande-mère est morte,’39 St-Jérôme says with an ashen face as he comes out to meet us.

  The whole time Grandmother’s body is in the house, I’m oppressed by the fear of death; that is, her dead body vividly and unpleasantly reminds me that some day I too must die – a feeling that for some reason we confuse with sorrow. I’m not sorry about Grandmother, nor is hardly anyone else truly sorry about her either. Although the house is full of visitors in mourning, no one feels sorry about her death, except for one person whose frenzied grief is inexpressibly astonishing to me. That person is the chambermaid Gasha. She goes up to the attic, locks herself in, can’t stop crying, curses herself, tears her hair, won’t listen to any counsel, and says that death remains the only comfort for her after the loss of her beloved mistress.

  I repeat that implausibility in matters of feeling is the surest sign of truth.

  Grandmother is no more, but memories and various rumours about her live on in our home. Those rumours mostly pertain to the will she made just before her death, and about which no one but her executor, Prince Ivan Ivanych, knows anything. I observe a certain anxiety among Grandmother’s serfs and hear frequent talk about who will go to whom, and, I’ll admit, I involuntarily have glad thoughts about our receiving a legacy.

  Six weeks later Nikolay, a perpetual source of news in our home, informs me that Grandmother has left her entire estate to Lyubochka, naming as its trustee until she marries not Papa but Prince Ivan Ivanych.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Me

  I have only a few months left before my university entrance examinations. I have been studying hard, and not only await the teachers without fear but even take pleasure in my classes.

  It’s fun for me to recite the memorized lessons clearly and precisely. I’m preparing for the mathematics department and, to tell the truth, the only reason I chose it is that I have an exceptional liking for the words ‘sine’, ‘tangent’, ‘differential’, ‘integral’, etc.

  I’m much shorter than Volodya, but broad-shouldered, muscular and just as ugly as before and just as tormented by it. I try to seem original. One thing comforts me: that Papa once said of me that I have a ‘clever mug’, and my faith in that is complete.

  St-Jérôme is satisfied with me and praises me, and not only do I not hate him, but when he sometimes says that ‘with your abilities, with your mind’ it would be a shame not to do this or that, I even think I like him.

  My surveillance of the maids�
� room is a thing of the past. I’m ashamed to hide behind the door, and the certainty that Masha was in love with Vasily has, I’ll admit, rather cooled my ardour anyway. I was finally cured of that unhappy infatuation by their marriage, for which I myself asked Papa’s permission at Vasily’s request.

  When the young people came to Papa with sweets on a tray to express their thanks, and Masha, in a bonnet with blue ribbons, also thanked us all for something, kissing the shoulder of each, I was aware of the smell of rose pomade in her hair but of no feeling at all in myself.

  In general, I’m starting to recover little by little from my boyhood defects, except, of course, the main one, which is destined to do a good deal of harm in my life – my penchant for philosophizing.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Volodya’s Friends

  Even though the role I played in the company of Volodya’s friends hurt my pride, I still liked to sit in his room when he had guests and silently observe everything that went on there. The aide-de-camp Dubkov and the student Prince Nekhlyudov visited Volodya more than the others. Dubkov was a small, wiry brunet, no longer in the first bloom of youth, a bit short of leg, but not bad-looking and always jovial. He was one of those limited people who are especially agreeable thanks to their limitations, people who are incapable of looking at things from different sides, but are invariably enthusiastic. Their judgements are one-sided and mistaken, but are always pure of heart and attractive. Even their narrow egoism somehow seems forgivable and nice. Dubkov had in addition to that a double charm for Volodya and me: his martial appearance and – the main thing – his age, which young people for some reason are wont to confuse with the idea of respectability (comme il faut),40 held in very high regard in those years. But Dubkov really was what is called un homme comme il faut.41 The only unpleasant part of it for me was that Volodya sometimes seemed ashamed before Dubkov of my most innocent actions, but most of all of my being so young.

  Nekhlyudov wasn’t good-looking. His little grey eyes, low, sloping forehead and disproportionately long arms and legs couldn’t be called handsome. His only good features were his unusually tall stature, fair complexion and excellent teeth. But such original and energetic character was imparted to his face by his narrow gleaming eyes and the constantly changing expression of his smile, now stern, now childishly vague, that you couldn’t help but notice it.

  He was, I think, quite shy, since every little thing made him blush to his very ears, but his shyness differed from mine. The more he blushed, the more determined his face became, as if he were angry with himself for his weakness.

  Although he seemed to be on very friendly terms with Dubkov and Volodya, it was clear that he and they had only come together by chance. Their outlooks were completely different from his. Volodya and Dubkov seemed to be afraid of anything resembling serious discussion or sensitivity; Nekhlyudov, on the contrary, was enthusiastic to the highest degree about such things, and often, despite their mocking, would launch into a discussion of philosophical questions and feelings. Volodya and Dubkov liked to talk about the objects of their love (and were in love with several ladies at once, and often the same ones); Nekhlyudov, on the contrary, always got extremely angry whenever his love for a certain ‘redhead’ was mentioned.

  Volodya and Dubkov often allowed themselves to joke about their relatives, even though they loved them; Nekhlyudov, on the contrary, could be sent into a fury by any untoward reference to his aunt, whom he regarded with a kind of rapturous adoration. After supper, Volodya and Dubkov would go off somewhere without Nekhlyudov, calling him a ‘blushing girl’.

  Prince Nekhlyudov impressed me from the start with his conversation as much as with his appearance. Yet even though I found in his outlook much in common with my own, or perhaps simply because I did, the feeling he inspired in me the first time we met was far from amicable.

  I disliked his quick glance, hard voice and proud appearance, but most of all his complete indifference to me. Often in conversation I badly wanted to contradict him and, as a punishment for his pride, better him in argument and prove to him that I was clever, even if he didn’t want to pay any attention to me.

  But my shyness prevented it.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Discussions

  Volodya was lying on his sofa, propped on his elbow with his feet up and reading a French novel, when I made my usual visit to his room after my evening classes. He lifted his head for a second to look at me, before continuing to read, a movement of the simplest and most natural kind, but it made me flush. It seemed to me that expressed in the look was a question about why I had come, and in the quick lowering of his head, a wish to conceal the look’s meaning from me. That tendency to attribute significance to the simplest movements was a characteristic of mine at that age. I went over to the desk and picked up a book, too, but before I started to read, it occurred to me that since we hadn’t seen each other all day, there was something ridiculous about our not saying anything to each other.

  ‘So, are you going to be at home this evening?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ I said, and realizing that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, I took the book and started to read.

  It’s strange that although Volodya and I could spend whole hours side by side without a word, it was enough for a third person, even a silent one, to be present for the most interesting and varied conversations to start up between us. We sensed that we knew each other too well. And knowing too much or too little about someone may each get in the way of closeness.

  ‘Is Volodya at home?’ Dubkov’s voice was heard in the entry.

  ‘I am,’ Volodya said, dropping his feet to the floor and putting his book on the desk.

  Dubkov and Nekhlyudov came into the room in their overcoats and hats.

  ‘Well, what do you say, Volodya, shall we go to the theatre?’

  ‘No, I don’t have time to,’ Volodya replied, turning red.

  ‘What nonsense! Come with us, please.’

  ‘But I don’t have a ticket.’

  ‘You can get as many tickets as you like at the door.’

  ‘Just a moment, I’ll be right back,’ Volodya answered evasively, and with a shrug of his shoulder went out of the room.

  I knew that he very much wanted to go to the theatre with Dubkov, and that the reason he had refused was because he didn’t have any money, and therefore had gone to borrow five roubles from the butler until he got his next allowance.

  ‘Hello, Diplomat!’ Dubkov said, shaking my hand.

  Volodya’s friends called me ‘Diplomat’, because my late Grandmother, while talking once about our futures in their presence after dinner, had said that Volodya would join the army, while she hoped to see me as a diplomat in a black tailcoat with my hair combed à la coq,42 a necessary condition of the diplomatic calling, in her view.

  ‘Where did Volodya go?’ Nekhlyudov asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I answered, blushing at the thought that they had probably already guessed why he had left.

  ‘He probably hasn’t any money! True? Oh, Diplomat!’ he added in reply to my smile. ‘I don’t either! How about you, Dubkov?’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ Dubkov said, getting out his coin purse and carefully feeling around inside with his stubby fingers. ‘Here’s a five-kopek piece, and here’s a twenty-kopek piece, but otherwise poof-f-f!’ he said, making a comical gesture with his hand.

  At that moment Volodya came back.

  ‘Well, are we going, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How ridiculous you are!’ Nekhlyudov said. ‘Why didn’t you say you had no money? Take my ticket, if you like.’

  ‘But what about you?’

  ‘He’ll join his cousins in their box,’ Dubkov said.

  ‘No, I won’t go at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, you know, I don’t like sitting in the
box.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t like it. I feel awkward about it.’

  ‘The same old stuff! I don’t understand how it can be awkward for you where everyone’s so glad to see you. It’s ridiculous, mon cher.’

  ‘What can I do, si je suis timide?43 I’m sure that you’ve never blushed in your life, but I do it all the time over the smallest things!’ he said, blushing then, too.

  ‘Savez-vous d’où vient votre timidité? D’un excès d’amour propre, mon cher,’44 Dubkov said in a patronizing tone.

  ‘Just what excès d’amour propre do you mean?’ Nekhlyudov replied, stung to the quick. ‘On the contrary, I’m shy because I have too little amour propre. On the contrary, I always think that I’m unpleasant and boring to be with … As a result –’

  ‘Get dressed, Volodya,’ Dubkov said, taking him by the shoulders and removing his frock coat. ‘Ignat, the gentleman needs to get ready!’

  ‘As a result, it often happens to me that –’ Nekhlyudov continued.

  But Dubkov was no longer listening to him. ‘Tra-la-la, ta-ra-ra-la-la!’ he started to sing some tune.

  ‘You won’t get off that easily,’ Nekhlyudov said. ‘I’ll prove to you that shyness doesn’t come from pride at all.’

  ‘You will if you come with us.’

  ‘I said I’m not going.’

  ‘Well, then stay here and prove it to Diplomat, and he’ll tell us about it when we come back.’

  ‘And I will prove it,’ Nekhlyudov retorted with childish obstinacy. ‘Only come back soon. What do you think, am I proud?’ he asked, sitting down next to me.

  Even though I had an opinion about it, I was so disconcerted by the unexpectedness of the question that it took me a moment to answer.