Childhood, Boyhood, Youth

by Leo Tolstoy

  push from him.

  "No, I will not go away!" I continued, seizing his coat. "Every one else

  hates me--I know that, but do YOU listen to me and protect me, or else

  send me away altogether. I cannot live with HIM. He tries to humiliate

  me--he tells me to kneel before him, and wants to strike me. I can't

  stand it. I'm not a baby. I can't stand it--I shall die, I shall kill

  myself. HE told Grandmamma that I was naughty, and now she is ill--she

  will die through me. It is all his fault. Please let me--W-why

  should-he-tor-ment me?"

  The tears choked my further speech. I sat down on the sofa, and, with

  my head buried on Papa's knees, sobbed until I thought I should die of

  grief.

  "Come, come! Why are you such a water-pump?" said Papa compassionately,

  as he stooped over me.

  "He is such a bully! He is murdering me! I shall die! Nobody loves me at

  all!" I gasped almost inaudibly, and went into convulsions.

  Papa lifted me up, and carried me to my bedroom, where I fell asleep.

  When I awoke it was late. Only a solitary candle burned in the room,

  while beside the bed there were seated Mimi, Lubotshka, and our doctor.

  In their faces I could discern anxiety for my health, so, although

  I felt so well after my twelve-hours' sleep that I could have got up

  directly, I thought it best to let them continue thinking that I was

  unwell.

  XVII. HATRED

  Yes, it was the real feeling of hatred that was mine now--not the hatred

  of which one reads in novels, and in the existence of which I do

  not believe--the hatred which finds satisfaction in doing harm to a

  fellow-creature, but the hatred which consists of an unconquerable

  aversion to a person who may be wholly deserving of your esteem, yet

  whose very hair, neck, walk, voice, limbs, movements, and everything

  else are disgusting to you, while all the while an incomprehensible

  force attracts you towards him, and compels you to follow his slightest

  acts with anxious attention.

  This was the feeling which I cherished for St. Jerome, who had lived

  with us now for a year and a half.

  Judging coolly of the man at this time of day, I find that he was a true

  Frenchman, but a Frenchman in the better acceptation of the term. He was

  fairly well educated, and fulfilled his duties to us conscientiously,

  but he had the peculiar features of fickle egotism, boastfulness,

  impertinence, and ignorant self-assurance which are common to all his

  countrymen, as well as entirely opposed to the Russian character.

  All this set me against him, Grandmamma had signified to him her dislike

  for corporal punishment, and therefore he dared not beat us, but he

  frequently THREATENED us, particularly myself, with the cane, and would

  utter the word fouetter as though it were fouatter in an expressive

  and detestable way which always gave me the idea that to whip me would

  afford him the greatest possible satisfaction.

  I was not in the least afraid of the bodily pain, for I had never

  experienced it. It was the mere idea that he could beat me that threw me

  into such paroxysms of wrath and despair.

  True, Karl Ivanitch sometimes (in moments of exasperation) had recourse

  to a ruler or to his braces, but that I can look back upon without

  anger. Even if he had struck me at the time of which I am now speaking

  (namely, when I was fourteen years old), I should have submitted quietly

  to the correction, for I loved him, and had known him all my life,

  and looked upon him as a member of our family, but St. Jerome was a

  conceited, opinionated fellow for whom I felt merely the unwilling

  respect which I entertained for all persons older than myself. Karl

  Ivanitch was a comical old "Uncle" whom I loved with my whole heart, but

  who, according to my childish conception of social distinctions, ranked

  below us, whereas St. Jerome was a well-educated, handsome young dandy

  who was for showing himself the equal of any one.

  Karl Ivanitch had always scolded and punished us coolly, as though he

  thought it a necessary, but extremely disagreeable, duty. St. Jerome,

  on the contrary, always liked to emphasise his part as JUDGE when

  correcting us, and clearly did it as much for his own satisfaction

  as for our good. He loved authority. Nevertheless, I always found his

  grandiloquent French phrases (which he pronounced with a strong emphasis

  on all the final syllables) inexpressibly disgusting, whereas Karl, when

  angry, had never said anything beyond, "What a foolish puppet-comedy it

  is!" or "You boys are as irritating as Spanish fly!" (which he always

  called "Spaniard" fly). St. Jerome, however, had names for us like

  "mauvais sujet," "villain," "garnement," and so forth--epithets which

  greatly offended my self-respect. When Karl Ivanitch ordered us to

  kneel in the corner with our faces to the wall, the punishment consisted

  merely in the bodily discomfort of the position, whereas St. Jerome, in

  such cases, always assumed a haughty air, made a grandiose gesture with

  his hand, and exclaiming in a pseudo-tragic tone, "A genoux, mauvais

  sujet!" ordered us to kneel with our faces towards him, and to crave his

  pardon. His punishment consisted in humiliation.

  However, on the present occasion the punishment never came, nor was the

  matter ever referred to again. Yet, I could not forget all that I had

  gone through--the shame, the fear, and the hatred of those two days.

  From that time forth, St. Jerome appeared to give me up in despair, and

  took no further trouble with me, yet I could not bring myself to treat

  him with indifference. Every time that our eyes met I felt that my

  look expressed only too plainly my dislike, and, though I tried hard

  to assume a careless air, he seemed to divine my hypocrisy, until I was

  forced to blush and turn away.

  In short, it was a terrible trial to me to have anything to do with him.

  XVIII. THE MAIDSERVANTS' ROOM

  I BEGAN to feel more and more lonely, until my chief solace lay in

  solitary reflection and observation. Of the favourite subject of

  my reflections I shall speak in the next chapter. The scene where I

  indulged in them was, for preference, the maidservants' room, where

  a plot suitable for a novel was in progress--a plot which touched and

  engrossed me to the highest degree. The heroine of the romance was, of

  course, Masha. She was in love with Basil, who had known her before she

  had become a servant in our house, and who had promised to marry her

  some day. Unfortunately, fate, which had separated them five years ago,

  and afterwards reunited them in Grandmamma's abode, next proceeded to

  interpose an obstacle between them in the shape of Masha's uncle, our

  man Nicola, who would not hear of his niece marrying that "uneducated

  and unbearable fellow," as he called Basil. One effect of the obstacle

  had been to make the otherwise slightly cool and indifferent Basil fall

  as passionately in love with Masha as it is possible for a man to be

  who is only a servant and a tailor, wears a red shirt, and has his hair

  pomaded. Although his methods of expressing his aff
ection were odd (for

  instance, whenever he met Masha he always endeavoured to inflict upon

  her some bodily pain, either by pinching her, giving her a slap with his

  open hand, or squeezing her so hard that she could scarcely breathe),

  that affection was sincere enough, and he proved it by the fact that,

  from the moment when Nicola refused him his niece's hand, his grief led

  him to drinking, and to frequenting taverns, until he proved so

  unruly that more than once he had to be sent to undergo a humiliating

  chastisement at the police-station.

  Nevertheless, these faults of his and their consequences only served to

  elevate him in Masha's eyes, and to increase her love for him. Whenever

  he was in the hands of the police, she would sit crying the whole day,

  and complain to Gasha of her hard fate (Gasha played an active part

  in the affairs of these unfortunate lovers). Then, regardless of her

  uncle's anger and blows, she would stealthily make her way to the

  police-station, there to visit and console her swain.

  Excuse me, reader, for introducing you to such company. Nevertheless, if

  the cords of love and compassion have not wholly snapped in your soul,

  you will find, even in that maidservants' room, something which may

  cause them to vibrate again.

  So, whether you please to follow me or not, I will return to the alcove

  on the staircase whence I was able to observe all that passed in that

  room. From my post I could see the stove-couch, with, upon it, an iron,

  an old cap-stand with its peg bent crooked, a wash-tub, and a basin.

  There, too, was the window, with, in fine disorder before it, a piece

  of black wax, some fragments of silk, a half-eaten cucumber, a box of

  sweets, and so on. There, too, was the large table at which SHE used

  to sit in the pink cotton dress which I admired so much and the

  blue handkerchief which always caught my attention so. She would be

  sewing-though interrupting her work at intervals to scratch her head

  a little, to bite the end of her thread, or to snuff the candle--and I

  would think to myself: "Why was she not born a lady--she with her blue

  eyes, beautiful fair hair, and magnificent bust? How splendid she would

  look if she were sitting in a drawing-room and dressed in a cap with

  pink ribbons and a silk gown--not one like Mimi's, but one like the gown

  which I saw the other day on the Tverski Boulevard!" Yes, she would work

  at the embroidery-frame, and I would sit and look at her in the mirror,

  and be ready to do whatsoever she wanted--to help her on with her mantle

  or to hand her food. As for Basil's drunken face and horrid figure in

  the scanty coat with the red shirt showing beneath it, well, in his

  every gesture, in his every movement of his back, I seemed always to see

  signs of the humiliating chastisements which he had undergone.

  "Ah, Basil! AGAIN?" cried Masha on one occasion as she stuck her needle

  into the pincushion, but without looking up at the person who was

  entering.

  "What is the good of a man like HIM?" was Basil's first remark.

  "Yes. If only he would say something DECISIVE! But I am powerless in the

  matter--I am all at odds and ends, and through his fault, too."

  "Will you have some tea?" put in Madesha (another servant).

  "No, thank you.--But why does he hate me so, that old thief of an uncle

  of yours? Why? Is it because of the clothes I wear, or of my height,

  or of my walk, or what? Well, damn and confound him!" finished Basil,

  snapping his fingers.

  "We must be patient," said Masha, threading her needle.

  "You are so--"

  "It is my nerves that won't stand it, that's all."

  At this moment the door of Grandmamma's room banged, and Gasha's angry

  voice could be heard as she came up the stairs.

  "There!" she muttered with a gesture of her hands. "Try to please people

  when even they themselves do not know what they want, and it is a cursed

  life--sheer hard labour, and nothing else! If only a certain thing would

  happen!--though God forgive me for thinking it!"

  "Good evening, Agatha Michaelovna," said Basil, rising to greet her.

  "You here?" she answered brusquely as she stared at him, "That is not

  very much to your credit. What do you come here for? Is the maids' room

  a proper place for men?"

  "I wanted to see how you were," said Basil soothingly.

  "I shall soon be breathing my last--THAT'S how I am!" cried Gasha, still

  greatly incensed.

  Basil laughed.

  "Oh, there's nothing to laugh at when I say that I shall soon be dead.

  But that's how it will be, all the same. Just look at the drunkard!

  Marry her, would he? The fool! Come, get out of here!" and, with a stamp

  of her foot on the floor, Gasha retreated to her own room, and banged

  the door behind her until the window rattled again. For a while she

  could be heard scolding at everything, flinging dresses and other things

  about, and pulling the ears of her favourite cat. Then the door opened

  again, and puss, mewing pitifully, was flung forth by the tail.

  "I had better come another time for tea," said Basil in a whisper--"at

  some better time for our meeting."

  "No, no!" put in Madesha. "I'll go and fetch the urn at once."

  "I mean to put an end to things soon," went on Basil, seating himself

  beside Masha as soon as ever Madesha had left the room. "I had much

  better go straight to the Countess, and say 'so-and-so' or I will throw

  up my situation and go off into the world. Oh dear, oh dear!"

  "And am I to remain here?"

  "Ah, there's the difficulty--that's what I feel so badly about, You have

  been my sweetheart so long, you see. Ah, dear me!"

  "Why don't you bring me your shirts to wash, Basil?" asked Masha after a

  pause, during which she had been inspecting his wrist-bands.

  At this moment Grandmamma's bell rang, and Gasha issued from her room

  again.

  "What do you want with her, you impudent fellow?" she cried as she

  pushed Basil (who had risen at her entrance) before her towards the

  door. "First you lead a girl on, and then you want to lead her further

  still. I suppose it amuses you to see her tears. There's the door, now.

  Off you go! We want your room, not your company. And what good can you

  see in him?" she went on, turning to Masha. "Has not your uncle been

  walking into you to-day already? No; she must stick to her promise,

  forsooth! 'I will have no one but Basil,' Fool that you are!"

  "Yes, I WILL have no one but him! I'll never love any one else! I could

  kill myself for him!" poor Masha burst out, the tears suddenly gushing

  forth.

  For a while I stood watching her as she wiped away those tears. Then I

  fell to contemplating Basil attentively, in the hope of finding out what

  there was in him that she found so attractive; yet, though I sympathised

  with her sincerely in her grief, I could not for the life of me

  understand how such a charming creature as I considered her to be could

  love a man like him.

  "When I become a man," I thought to myself as I returned to my room,

  "Petrovskoe shall be mine, and Basil and Masha my servants.
Some day,

  when I am sitting in my study and smoking a pipe, Masha will chance to

  pass the door on her way to the kitchen with an iron, and I shall say,

  'Masha, come here,' and she will enter, and there will be no one else in

  the room. Then suddenly Basil too will enter, and, on seeing her, will

  cry, 'My sweetheart is lost to me!' and Masha will begin to weep, Then

  I shall say, 'Basil, I know that you love her, and that she loves you.

  Here are a thousand roubles for you. Marry her, and may God grant you

  both happiness!' Then I shall leave them together."

  Among the countless thoughts and fancies which pass, without logic or

  sequence, through the mind and the imagination, there are always some

  which leave behind them a mark so profound that, without remembering

  their exact subject, we can at least recall that something good has

  passed through our brain, and try to retain and reproduce its effect.

  Such was the mark left upon my consciousness by the idea of sacrificing

  my feelings to Masha's happiness, seeing that she believed that she

  could attain it only through a union with Basil.

  XIX. BOYHOOD

  PERHAPS people will scarcely believe me when I tell them what were the

  dearest, most constant, objects of my reflections during my boyhood, so

  little did those objects consort with my age and position. Yet, in my

  opinion, contrast between a man's actual position and his moral activity

  constitutes the most reliable sign of his genuineness.

  During the period when I was leading a solitary and self-centred moral

  life, I was much taken up with abstract thoughts on man's destiny, on