CONTENTS.
PAGE
A Russian Proprietor
1
Lucerne
87
Recollections of a Scorer
123
Albert
148
Two Hussars
190
Three Deaths
286
A Prisoner in the Caucasus
308 (From: Gutenberg.org.)
The following tales are, with one exception, taken from the second volume of Count L. N. Tolstoï's collected works, and are representative of his literary activity between 1852 and 1859.
The first story, though only a fragment of a projected novel to be called "A Russian Proprietor," is perfect and complete in itself. One cannot help feeling that it is autobiographical; Count Tolstoï himself, it will be remembered, having suddenly quitted the University of Kazan, in spite of the entreaties of his friends, and retired to his paternal estate of Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula. The aunt whose letter is quoted in the first chapter must have been Count Tolstoï's aunt, mentioned in the second chapter of "My Confession."
The "Recollect... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Prince Nekhliudof was nineteen years of age when, at the end of his third term at the university, he came to spend his summer vacation on his estate. He was alone there all the summer.
In the autumn he wrote in his unformed, boyish hand, a letter to his aunt, the Countess Biéloretskaïa, who, according to his notion, was his best friend, and the most genial woman in the world. The letter was in French, and was to the following effect:—
"Dear Auntie,—I have adopted a resolution upon which must depend the fate of my whole existence. I have left the university in order to devote myself to a country life, because I feel that I was born for it. For God's sake, dear auntie, don't make sport of me. You say that I am young... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
The young proprietor had, as he wrote his aunt, devised a plan of action in the management of his estate; and his whole life and activity were measured by hours, days, and months.
Sunday was reserved for the reception of petitioners, domestic servants, and peasants, for the visitation of the poor serfs belonging to the estate, and the distribution of assistance with the approval of the Commune, which met every Sunday evening, and was obliged to decide who should have help, and what amount should be given.
In such employments passed more than a year, and the young man was now no longer a novice either in the practical or theoretical knowledge of estate management.
It was a clear July Sunday when Nekhliudof, having finished his coffee and ... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Nekhliudof went into the hut. The uneven smoke-begrimed walls of the dwelling were hung with various rags and clothes; and, in the living-room, were literally covered with reddish cockroaches clustering around the holy images and benches.
In the middle of this dark, fetid apartment, not fourteen feet square, was a huge crack in the ceiling; and in spite of the fact that it was braced up in two places, the ceiling hung down so that it threatened to fall from moment to moment.
"Yes, the hut is very miserable," said the bárin, looking into the face of Churis, who, it seems, had not cared to speak first about this state of things.
"It will crush us to death; it will crush the children," said the woman in a tearful voice, attending to ... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
The young proprietor evidently desired to ask some more questions of the peasants. He did not move from the bench; and he glanced irresolutely, now at Churis, now at the empty, unlighted stove.
"Well, have you had dinner yet?" he asked at last.
A mocking smile arose to Churis's lips, as though it were ridiculous to him for his master to ask such foolish questions; he made no reply.
"What do you mean,—dinner, benefactor?" said the old woman, sighing deeply. "We've eaten a little bread; that's our dinner. We couldn't get any vegetables to-day so as to boil some soup,[9] but we had a little kvas,—enough for the children."
"To-day was a fast-day for us, your excellency," remarked Churis sarcastically, taking up his wife's words.... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"There's one other thing I wished to speak to you about," said Nekhliudof. "Why don't you haul out your manure?"
"What manure, sir,[14] your excellency? There isn't any to haul out. What cattle have I got? One mare and colt; and last autumn I sold my heifer to the porter,—that's all the cattle I've got."
"I know you haven't much, but why did you sell your heifer?" asked the bárin in amazement.
"What have I got to feed her on?"
"Didn't you have some straw for feeding the cow? The others did."
"The others have their fields manured, but my land's all clay. I can't do any thing with it."
"Why don't you dress it, then, so it won't be clay? Then the land would give you grain, and you'd have something to feed to your stock."
"B... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"Yukhvanka the clever[18] wants to sell a horse," was what Nekhliudof next read in his note-book; and he proceeded along the street to Yukhvanka's place.[19] Yukhvanka's hut was carefully thatched with straw from the threshing-floor of the estate; the frame-work was of new light-gray aspen-wood (also from stock belonging to the estate), had two handsome painted shutters for the window, and a porch with eaves and ingenious balustrades cut out of deal planks.
The narrow entry and the cold hut were also in perfect order; but the general impression of sufficiency and comfort given by this establishment was somewhat injured by a barn enclosed in the gates, which had a dilapidated hedge and a sagging pent roof, appearing from behind it.
Just as... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Almost stumbling against the prince, the young wife precipitately set down the tub, showed a little embarrassment, dropped a courtesy, and then with shining eyes glanced up at him, and, endeavoring to hide a slight smile behind the sleeve of her embroidered shirt, ran up the steps, clattering in her wooden shoes.
"Mother,[20] you take the water-yoke to aunt Nastásia," said she, pausing at the door, and addressing the old woman.
The modest young proprietor looked sternly but scrutinizingly at the rosy woman, frowned, and turned to the old dame, who, seizing the yoke with her crooked fingers, submissively lifted it to her shoulder, and was about to direct her steps to the adjacent hut.
"Your son at home?" asked the prince.
The old ... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"Come, show me your horses. Are they in the yard?"[23]
"Indeed they are, 'slency. I have done as I was told, 'slency. Could we fail to heed you, 'slency? Yakof Ilyitch told me not to send the horses out to pasture. 'The prince,' says he, 'is coming to look at them,' and so we didn't send them. For, of course, we shouldn't dare to disobey you, 'slency."
While Nekhliudof was on his way to the door, Yukhvanka snatched down his pipe from the loft, and flung it into the stove. His lips were still drawn in with the same expression of constraint as when the prince was looking at him.
A wretched little gray mare, with thin tail, all stuck up with burrs, was sniffing at the filthy straw under the pent roof. A long-legged colt two months old, of s... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"Davidka Byélui[25] asks for grain and posts," was what followed Yukhvanka's case in the note-book.
After passing by a number of places, Nekhliudof came to a turn in the lane, and there fell in with his overseer Yakof Alpátitch, who, while the prince was still at a distance, took off his oiled cap, and pulling out a crumpled bandanna handkerchief began to wipe his fat red face.
"Cover yourself, Yakof! Yakof, cover yourself, I tell you."
"Where do you wish to go, your excellency?" asked Yakof, using his cap to shield his eyes from the sun, but not putting it on.
"I have been at Yukhvanka's. Tell me, pray, why does he act so?" asked the prince as he walked along the street.
"Why indeed, your excellency!" echoed the overseer... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
At this moment, the window was darkened by the head of a peasant woman who passed carrying some linen on a yoke, and presently Davidka's mother came into the hovel. She was a tall woman, fifty years old, very fresh and lively. Her ugly face was covered with pock-marks and wrinkles; but her straight, firm nose, her delicate, compressed lips, and her keen gray eyes gave witness to her mental strength and energy.
The angularity of her shoulders, the flatness of her chest, the thinness of her hands, and the solid muscles of her black bare legs, made it evident that she had long ago ceased to be a woman, and had become a mere drudge.
She came hurrying into the hovel, shut the door, set down her linen, and looked angrily at her son.
Nekhliudof... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"How did she die?" inquired Nekhliudof, somewhat skeptically.
"She died of hard work, as God knows, benefactor. We brought her last year from Baburin," she continued, suddenly changing her wrathful expression to one of tearfulness and grief. "Well, the woman[38] was young, fresh, obliging, good stuff. As a girl, she lived at home with her father in clover, never knew want; and when she came to us, then she learned to do our work,—for the estate and at home and everywhere.... She and I—that was all to do it. What was it to me? I was used to it. She was going to have a baby, good father; and she began to suffer pain; and all because she worked beyond her strength. Well, she did herself harm, the poor little sweetheart. Last summe... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"O-okh! alas for my wretchedness!" exclaimed Arína, sighing deeply.
She paused, and looked angrily at her son. Davidka immediately turned around, and, clumsily lifting his stout leg incased in a huge dirty boot over the threshold, took refuge in the opposite door.
"What shall I do with him, father?" continued Arína, turning to the prince. "You yourself see what he is. He is not a bad man;[40] doesn't get drunk, and is peaceable; wouldn't hurt a little child. It's a sin to say hard things of him. There's nothing bad about him, and God knows what has taken place in him to make him so bad to himself. You see he himself does not like it. Would you believe it, father,[41] my heart bleeds when I look at him, and see what suffering... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"That's the way I'll do," said Nekhliudof to himself with a pleasant self-consciousness; and then, recollecting that he had still to go to the rich peasant Dutlof, he directed his steps toward a lofty and ample establishment, with two chimneys, standing in the midst of the village.
As he passed a neighboring hut on his way thither, he stopped to speak with a tall, disorderly-looking peasant-woman of forty summers, who came to meet him.
"A pleasant holiday, father,"[42] she said, with some show of assurance, stopping at a little distance from him with a pleased smile and a low obeisance.
"Good-morning, my nurse. How are you? I was just going to see your neighbor."
"Pretty well, your excellency, my father. It's a good idea. But won't you ... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"Hadn't I better go home?" mused Nekhliudof, as he strode along toward the Dutlof enclosure, and felt a boundless melancholy and moral weariness.
But at this moment the new deal gates were thrown open before him with a creaking sound; and a handsome, ruddy fellow of eighteen in wagoner's attire appeared, leading a troïka of powerful-limbed and still sweaty horses. He hastily brushed back his blond hair, and bowed to the prince.
"Well, is your father at home, Ilya?" asked Nekhliudof.
"At the bee-house, back of the yard," replied the youth, driving the horses, one after the other, through the half-opened gates.
"I will not give it up. I will make the proposal. I will do the best I can," reflected Nekhliudof; and, after waiting till t... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Nekhliudof, stooping low, passed through the low gate, under the gloomy shed, to the apiary, which was situated behind the yard.
A small space, surrounded by straw and a wattled hedge, through the chinks of which the light streamed, was filled with bee-hives symmetrically arranged, and covered with shavings, while the golden bees were humming around them. Every thing was bathed in the warm and brilliant rays of the July sun.
From the gate a well-trodden footway led through the middle to a wooden side-building, with a tin-foil image on it gleaming brightly in the sun.
A few orderly young lindens lifting, above the thatched roof of the neighboring court-yard, their bushy tops, almost audibly rustled their dark-green, fresh foliage, in unis... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"I wanted to ask you something about my sons, your excellency," said the old man, either pretending not to notice, or really not noticing, the prince's angry face.
"What?"
"Well, we are well provided with horses, praise the Lord! and that's our trade, and so we don't have to work on your land."
"What do you mean?"
"If you would only be kind enough to let my sons have leave of absence, then Ilyushka and Ignát would take three troïkas, and go out teaming for all summer. Maybe they'd earn something."
"Where would they go?"
"Just as it happened," replied Ilyushka, who at this moment, having put the horses under the shed, joined his father. "The Kadminski boys went with eight horses to Romen. Not only earned their own living, t... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
As soon as he got into the house, the old man bowed once more; then using his coat-tail to dust the bench in the front of the room, he smiled, and said,—
"What do you want of us, your excellency?"
The hut was bright and roomy, with a chimney; and it had a loft and berths. The fresh aspen-wood beams, between which could be seen the moss, scarcely faded, were as yet not turned dark. The new benches and the loft were not polished smooth, and the floor was not worn. One young peasant woman, rather lean, with a serious oval face, was sitting on a berth, and using her foot to rock a hanging cradle that was suspended from the ceiling by a long hook. This was Ilya's wife.
In the cradle lay at full length a suckling child, scarcely breathin... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"My God! my God!" was Nekhliudof's mental exclamation, as with long strides he hastened home through the shady alleys of his weed-grown garden, and, absent-mindedly, snapped off the leaves and branches which fell in his way.
"Is it possible that my dreams about the ends and duties of my life are all idle nonsense? Why is it hard for me, and mournful, as though I were dissatisfied with myself because I imagined that having once begun this course I should constantly experience the fullness of the morally pleasant feeling which I had when, for the first time, these thoughts came to me?"
And with extraordinary vividness and distinctness he saw in his imagination that happy moment which he had experienced a year before.
He had arisen very ear... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"Where are those dreams?" the young man now asked himself as he walked home after his round of visits. "Here more than a year has passed since I have been seeking for happiness in this course, and what have I found? It is true, I sometimes feel that I can be contented with myself; but this is a dry, doubtful kind of content. Yet, no; I am simply dissatisfied! I am dissatisfied because I find no happiness here; and I desire, I passionately long for, happiness. I have not experienced delight, I have cut myself off from all that gives it. Wherefore? for what end? Does that make it easier for any one?
"My aunt was right when she wrote that it is easier to find happiness than to give it to others. Have my peasants become any richer? Have they l... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
In the small room occupied by Nekhliudof stood an old leather sofa decorated with copper nails, a few chairs of the same description, an old-fashioned inlaid extension-table with scallops and brass mountings, and strewn with papers, and an old-fashioned English grand with narrow keys, broken and twisted.
Between the windows hung a large mirror with an old carved frame gilded. On the floor, near the table, lay packages of papers, books, and accounts.
This room, on the whole, had a characterless and disorderly appearance; and this lively disorder presented a sharp contrast with the affectedly aristocratic arrangement of the other rooms of the great mansion.
When Nekhliudof reached his room, he flung his hat angrily on the table, and sat do... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
July 20,1857.
Yesterday evening I arrived at Lucerne, and put up at the best inn there, the Schweitzerhof.
"Lucerne, the chief city of the canton, situated on the shore of the Vierwaldstätter See," says Murray, "is one of the most romantic places of Switzerland: here cross three important highways, and it is only an hour's distance by steamboat to Mount Righi, from which is obtained one of the most magnificent views in the world."
Whether that be true or no, other Guides say the same thing, and consequently at Lucerne there are throngs of travelers of all nationalities, especially the English.
The magnificent five-storied building of the Hotel Schweitzerhof is situated on the quay, at the very edge of the lake, where in olden time... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Well, it happened about three o'clock. The gentlemen were playing. There was the big stranger, as our men called him. The prince was there,—the two are always together. The whiskered bárin was there; also the little hussar, Oliver, who was an actor, and there was the pan.[50] It was a pretty good crowd.
The big stranger and the prince were playing together. Now, here I was walking up and down around the billiard-table with my stick, keeping tally,—ten and forty-seven, twelve and forty-seven.
Everybody knows it's our business to score. You don't get a chance to get a bite of any thing, and you don't get to bed till two o'clock o' nights, but you're always being screamed at to bring the balls.
I was keeping tally; and I ... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
1857.
Five rich young men went at three o'clock in the morning to a ball in Petersburg to have a good time.
Much champagne was drunk; a majority of the gentlemen were very young; the girls were pretty; a pianist and a fiddler played indefatigably one polka after another; there was no cease to the noise of conversation and dancing. But there was a sense of awkwardness and constraint; every one felt somehow or other—and this is not unusual—that all was not as it should be.
There were several attempts made to make things more lively, but simulated liveliness is much worse than melancholy.
One of the five young men, who was more discontented than any one else, both with himself and with the others, and who had been feeling all... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Albert by this time, not paying attention to any one, had raised his violin to his shoulder, and was slowly crossing over to the piano, and tuning his instrument. His lips were drawn into an expression of indifference, his eyes were almost shut; but his lank, bony back, his long white neck, his crooked legs, and disorderly black hair presented a strange but somehow not entirely ridiculous appearance. After he had tuned his violin, he struck a quick chord, and, throwing back his head, turned to the pianist who was waiting to accompany him. "Melancholie, G sharp," he said, turning to the pianist with a peremptory gesture. And immediately after, as though in apology for his peremptory gesture, he smiled sweetly, and with the same smile turned ... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
Something strange came over all the audience, and something strange was noticeable in the dead silence that succeeded Albert's playing. It was as though each desired, and yet dared not, to acknowledge the meaning of it all.
What did it mean,—this brightly lighted, warm room, these brilliant women, the dawn just appearing at the windows, these hurrying pulses, and the pure impressions made by the fleeting tones of music? But no one ventured to acknowledge the meaning of it all; on the contrary, almost all, feeling incapable of throwing themselves completely under the influence of what the new impression concealed from them, rebelled against it.
"Well, now, he plays mighty well," said the officer.
"Wonderfully," replied Delesof, stea... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
The next morning when Delesof was awakened to go to his office, he saw, with an unpleasant feeling of surprise, his old screen, his old servant, and his clock on the table.
"What did I expect to see if not the usual objects that surround me?" he asked himself.
Then he recollected the musician's black eyes and happy smile; the motive of the Melancholie and all the strange experiences of the night came back into his consciousness. It was never his way, however, to reconsider whether he had done wisely or foolishly in taking the musician home with him. After he had dressed, he carefully laid out his plans for the day: he took some paper, wrote out some necessary directions for the house, and hastily put on his cloak and galoshes.
As he went... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
"You don't mean to say that you've gone to bed at this time," said Albert with a smile. "I was there again, at Anna Ivánovna's. I spent a very pleasant evening. We had music, told stories; there was a very pleasant company there. Please let me have a glass of something to drink," he added, seizing a carafe of water that stood on the table, "only not water."
Albert was just as he had been the night before,—the same lovely smiling eyes and lips, the same fresh inspired brow, and weak features. Zakhár's overcoat fitted him as though it had been made for him, and the clean, tall, stiffly-starched collar of the dress-shirt picturesquely fitted around his delicate white neck, giving him a peculiarly childlike and innocent app... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
The next day was a holiday. Delesof, on waking, sat in his parlor, drinking his coffee and reading a book. Albert, who was in the next room, had not yet moved. Zakhár discreetly opened the door, and looked into the dining-room.
"Would you believe it, Dmitri Ivánovitch, there he lies asleep on the bare sofa. I would not send him away for any thing, God knows. He's like a little child. Indeed, he's an artist!"
At twelve o'clock, there was a sound of yawning and coughing on the other side of the door.
Zakhár again crept into the dining-room; and the bárin heard his wheedling voice, and Albert's gentle, beseeching voice.
"Well, how is he?" asked Delesof, when Zakhár came out.
"He feels blue, Dmitri Iv&aac... (From: Gutenberg.org.)
