Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (Penguin ed.)

by Leo Tolstoy

  Then Papa mounted his horse and we were off.

  SEVEN

  The Hunt

  Wearing a shaggy cap and carrying a knife in his belt and an enormous horn over his shoulder, the master of hounds, nicknamed Turka, rode in front of everyone on a blue roan with a bent nose. From his sullen, ferocious look, you might have thought he was going into deadly combat rather than off on a hunt. Around the hind legs of his horse trotted the leashed hounds in an excited, motley throng. It was pitiful to behold the fate of any unfortunate who thought of lagging behind. A great effort was needed to pull his leashmate back, but no sooner had he done so than one of the whippers-in riding behind would unfailingly whack him with his riding crop and say, ‘Back to the pack!’ Coming out of the gate, Papa ordered the hunters and the rest of us to proceed down the road, while he turned into the rye field.

  Harvesting was at its height. The immense, brilliant-yellow field was limited on one side only by a tall bluish wood that at the time seemed to me a most remote and mysterious place, beyond which either the world came to an end or uninhabited regions began. The field was covered with people and ricks of grain. Visible here and there in a harvested strip of the tall, dense rye were the bent back of a reaper, the sweeping movement of the ears as she grasped them between her fingers, a woman leaning over a cradle in the shade, and sheaves strewn about the cornflower-dotted stubble. Standing on carts on the other side and wearing only their shirts, men were stacking the sheaves in ricks and raising the dust on the dry, sun-baked ground. Noticing Papa in the distance, the headman, in tall boots with a heavy coat thrown over his shoulders and tally sticks in his hand, removed his felt hat, wiped his red hair and beard with a towel and shouted at the women. The little sorrel Papa was riding moved with a light, frolicking gait, from time to time dropping her head to her chest, pulling the reins taut, and swishing with her thick tail the flies and botflies that were greedily clinging to her. Two Borzois, lifting their legs high and holding their tails in the air like sickles, followed behind the horse’s feet in graceful bounds over the tall stubble. Milka ran in front, her head turned back in anticipation of a treat.23 The voices of people, the clattering of horses and carts, the merry chirping of quail, the hum of insects hovering in motionless swarms, the smell of wormwood, straw and horse sweat, the myriad colours and shadows the scorching sun cast upon the light-yellow stubble, the distant blue wood and pale-lilac clouds, and the white gossamer carried through the air or lying across the stubble – all that I saw, heard and felt.

  When we reached Kalinov’s wood, we found the wagonette already there and, beyond all expectation, a one-horse cart with a serving man sitting in the middle. Sticking out from under the straw were a samovar, a tub with an ice-cream mould and various other enticing little boxes and bundles. There was no mistaking it: we were going to have tea outside in the fresh air with ice cream and fruit. Seeing the cart, we noisily expressed our delight, since drinking tea in the wood on the grass and in a place where no one had ever drunk tea before was considered a great treat.

  Turka rode up to the grove, stopped, and, after listening intently to Papa’s detailed instructions as to where to line up and where to come out (although he never followed the instructions but did everything his own way), unleashed the dogs, leisurely tied the leashes to his saddle, mounted his horse and, with a whistle, disappeared behind the young birches. The unleashed hounds first expressed their pleasure by wagging their tails, then shook themselves, straightened up, and trotted off in various directions, sniffing and wagging.

  ‘Have you got a handkerchief?’ Papa asked.

  I pulled one out of my pocket and showed him.

  ‘Well, tie it around that grey dog …’

  ‘You mean Zhiran?’ I asked with an expert look.

  ‘Yes, and then run along the road. Stop when you come to a little clearing and keep your eyes open. And don’t come back to me without a hare!’

  I tied my handkerchief around Zhiran’s shaggy neck and started running headlong towards the designated place. Papa laughed and called out after me, ‘Hurry or you’ll be too late!’

  Zhiran kept stopping and pricking up his ears in response to the hallooing of the hunters. I wasn’t strong enough to pull him from his spot, so I started to yell, ‘Tally-ho! Tally-ho!’ Then he strained so hard it was all I could do to hold him back, and I fell down more than once before I reached the clearing. Choosing a flat, shady spot at the foot of a large oak, I took my place on the grass, sat Zhiran down beside me and began my vigil. As invariably happens in such situations, my imagination far outstripped reality. When only the first hound was giving tongue in the wood, I imagined that I was already on my third hare. Turka’s voice boomed ever more loudly and excitedly through the wood. A hound yelped, its voice was heard more and more frequently, then another base voice joined in, and after that a third and a fourth. Then the voices either fell silent or broke in on one another. Gradually they grew stronger and more continuous, finally merging in a single undulating drone. ‘The wood had acquired a voice and the hounds were in full pursuit.’24

  Hearing it, I froze in place. Directing my gaze to the edge of the wood, I smiled pointlessly and the sweat poured from me in streams, and even though the drops rolling down my chin tickled, I didn’t wipe them away. I thought that nothing could be more critical than that moment. But a position of such intensity was too unnatural to hold for very long. The hounds were baying either at the very edge of the wood or gradually moving away. There was no hare to be seen. I started to look along the sides. It was the same with Zhiran: first he strained and whimpered, then lay down beside me with his muzzle in my lap and was silent.

  On the grey, dry ground next to the exposed roots of the oak under which I was sitting, ants were swarming among the dry oak leaves, acorns, desiccated moss-covered twigs, yellow-green moss and occasional thin blades of grass poking through. One after another the ants proceeded along the smooth paths they had worn: some with loads, others carrying nothing. I picked up a twig and blocked their path. It had to be seen how one ant, despising the danger, crawled under the twig, while others, especially those with loads, were completely at a loss and didn’t know what to do. They stopped, looked for a way around, turned back, or moved along the twig to my hand, apparently meaning to go up the sleeve of my jacket. I was diverted from those interesting observations by an exceptionally attractive butterfly with yellow wings hovering in front of me. As soon as I turned my attention to it, it flew a couple of paces away, came to a stop over an almost completely wilted floweret of white clover, and then settled on it. I don’t know if it was sunning itself or drawing nectar from the clover; all that was clear was that it was happy. It moved its wings from time to time, pressing itself against the floweret, and then became completely still. I rested my head on my arms and watched it with pleasure.

  Suddenly Zhiran began to whine and strain with such force that I almost fell over. I looked around. At the edge of the wood hopped a hare with one of its ears erect and the other flat. The blood rushed to my head and in an instant I forgot everything. I shouted something in a frenzied voice, released the dog and rushed after him. But no sooner had I done so than I regretted it: the hare leaned back on its haunches, sprang into the air and disappeared from sight.

  But what was my shame when right after the hounds, whose baying had led him to the edge of the wood, Turka appeared from behind a bush! He had seen my blunder (which consisted of not waiting) and, looking at me with scorn, he merely said, ‘Oh, master!’ Only it’s necessary to know how he said it! It would have been easier for me if he had tossed me over his saddle like a hare.

  I stood rooted in the same spot for a long time in deep despair, without calling the dog back, but repeating over and over, while pounding my thighs, ‘My goodness, what have I done!’

  I heard the hounds in pursuit farther on, the tally-hoes of the men on the other side of the grove, the retrieving of a hare and then Tu
rka calling in the dogs with his enormous horn – but I still didn’t move from my spot.

  EIGHT

  Games

  The hunt was over. A rug had been spread out in the shade of the young birches and the whole company was sitting around it. The serving man Gavrilo, who had trampled down the juicy green grass next to himself, was wiping the plates and taking leaf-wrapped plums and peaches out of a box. The sun shone through the green branches of the young birches and cast round shimmering shafts of light on the designs of the rug, my legs, and even the bald, perspiring head of Gavrilo. The light breeze blowing through the leaves of the trees and my hair and over my perspiring face was extraordinarily refreshing.

  After we had all been presented with ice cream and fruit, there was nothing left to do on the rug, and despite the oblique, scorching rays of the sun, we got up and went off to play.

  ‘All right, what will it be?’ Lyubochka asked, squinting in the sunlight and hopping about on the grass. ‘Let’s play Robinson.’

  ‘No, it’s boring,’ Volodya said, lazily collapsing on the grass and chewing some leaves. ‘It’s always Robinson! But if you all really want to, then let’s build an arbour.’

  Volodya was plainly putting on airs. Probably he was proud of having ridden there on a courser and was pretending to be worn out. Or maybe it was because he had too much common sense and too little power of imagination to enjoy the game of Robinson completely. It consisted of acting out scenes from Robinson Suisse,25 which we had just been reading.

  ‘Oh, please … Why won’t you give us the pleasure?’ the girls pleaded with him. ‘You can be Charles or Ernest or the father, or anyone you like,’ Katenka said, trying to pull him up by the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘The truth is I just don’t feel like it. It’s boring!’ Volodya said with a complacent smile, stretching out where he lay.

  ‘It would have been better to stay at home if nobody wants to play,’ Lyubochka stammered through her tears.

  She was a terrible crybaby.

  ‘Well, all right then. Only please don’t cry. I can’t stand it!’

  Volodya’s patronizing attitude gave us very little pleasure; quite the contrary, his bored, indolent look took all the fun out of the game. When we sat on the ground and pretended we were going fishing in a boat and started to row with all our might, Volodya sat with his arms crossed in a posture that had nothing whatever to do with that of a fisherman. I observed as much to him, but he answered that whether we moved our arms more or moved them less wouldn’t gain or lose anything or get us very far. I was forced to agree. When I set off for the wood with a stick over my shoulder, pretending I was going hunting, Volodya lay down on his back, put his hands behind his head, and said that it was as if he were going with me, too. Such words and actions, cooling our ardour for the game, were quite unpleasant, all the more so since you couldn’t help but agree in your heart that his behaviour made sense.

  I myself knew that the stick not only wouldn’t kill birds, but wouldn’t even shoot. It was a game. If you were going to look at it like that, then you couldn’t ride chairs either, and I think Volodya himself remembered how on the long winter evenings we covered an armchair with shawls and made a barouche out of it, with one of us the driver and the other a footman, and the girls in the middle, and three chairs a troika of horses as we set off down the road. And what adventures we had along the way! How happily and quickly we passed those winter evenings! If you’re going to judge by what’s real, there can be no play at all. And if there’s no play, what’s left?

  NINE

  Something Like First Love

  Pretending to pick some American fruit from a tree, Lyubochka tore off a leaf with an enormous worm on it and threw it in horror on the ground, raised her arms and jumped back, as if afraid the worm might squirt something. The game came to a halt and we got down on the ground with our heads together to examine the curiosity.

  I watched over Katenka’s shoulder as she tried to lift up the worm on a leaf by placing it in its path.

  I’ve noticed that many girls have a habit of hitching their shoulders in an attempt thereby to return to its proper place an open-neck dress that has slipped down. I also remember that Mimi would always get angry about it and say, ‘C’est un geste de femme de chambre.’26 Bent over the worm, Katenka made that movement at the same time that the breeze lifted her kerchief from her white cheek. During the movement her little shoulder was two fingers from my lips. I wasn’t looking at the worm any more but at Katenka’s shoulder, which I kept staring at and then kissed as hard as I could. She didn’t turn around, although I could see that her cheek and ear had turned red. Without looking up, Volodya said with disdain, ‘Why the tenderness?’

  But there were tears in my eyes.

  I couldn’t stop looking at Katenka. I had long been used to her fresh, fair little face and had always been fond of it. But now I began to look at it more closely and to like it even more. When we returned to the grown-ups, Papa announced to our great delight that at Mama’s request our departure had been postponed until morning.

  We rode back with the wagonette. Wishing to outdo each other in bravado and riding skill, Volodya and I pranced alongside. My shadow was longer than before, and judging by it, I supposed that I now had the look of a rather handsome rider. But that self-satisfied feeling was soon spoiled by the following circumstance. Meaning to captivate completely those seated in the wagonette, I first lagged slightly behind and then urged on my little horse with my crop and heels, and assumed a carelessly graceful posture, meaning to rush past in a whirl on the side where Katenka was sitting. Only I didn’t know which would be better: to gallop past silently or with a yell. But when my little horse drew abreast of the horses pulling the wagonette, the insufferable beast came to a stop so abruptly, despite all my efforts, that I was thrown from the saddle onto its neck and nearly went flying.

  TEN

  What Kind of Man Was My Father?

  He was a man of the last century and shared with the youth of that time an elusive character combining chivalry, enterprise, self-assurance, courtesy and profligacy. He regarded people of the present century with scorn; a view derived as much from innate pride as from hidden disappointment that he could have neither the influence nor the success in our century that he had enjoyed in his own. His two chief passions in life were cards and women. He had won several million roubles in his lifetime and had had affairs with countless women of every caste.27

  Tall and imposing with a peculiar shuffling gait, a habit of shrugging his shoulder, constantly smiling little eyes, a large aquiline nose, irregular lips that were somewhat awkwardly yet pleasantly shaped, a defect in pronunciation (a slight lisp) and a large, completely bald head – such was my father’s appearance from my earliest memory of him, an appearance with which he knew not only how to pass for and be a man à bonnes fortunes,28 but also how to be liked by everyone without exception – by people of every caste and circumstance, but especially by those he wanted to like him.

  He also knew how to take the upper hand in his dealings with everyone. Never a man of ‘very high society’ himself, he nevertheless always associated with people of that circle, and in such a way that he was respected. He knew the utmost degree of pride and self-assurance that would, without offending others, elevate him in the eyes of the world. He was eccentric, but not always so, and sometimes used his eccentricity as a substitute for breeding and wealth. Nothing in the world could surprise him, and however brilliant the situation in which he found himself, it seemed that he was born to it. He was so adept at hiding from others and avoiding himself the dark side of life, with its petty vexations and disappointments familiar to everyone, that you couldn’t help envying him. He was an expert in all things that bring comfort and pleasure and knew how to use them. His hobby-horse was his brilliant connections, which he enjoyed partly through my mother’s relatives and partly through the companions of his youth, whom he secr
etly resented for having risen so high in rank, while he remained forever a retired Guards lieutenant. Like all former officers, he didn’t know how to dress fashionably, but on the other hand he did dress with originality and elegance, always in very loose and light clothes with superb linen and large, turned-out collars and cuffs … All of it, however, went with his tall stature, strong build, bald head and calm, self-confident movements. He was sensitive and even given to tears. Often when he came to a passage of heightened feeling when reading out loud, his voice would start to break, his eyes would well up, and he would put the book down in vexation. He was fond of music and, while accompanying himself on the piano, would sing the romances of his friend A., Gypsy songs and several opera airs. But he didn’t care for serious music and, disregarding the common view, frankly admitted that Beethoven’s sonatas put him to sleep and that he knew of nothing better than ‘Do Not Wake Me, a Bride’, sung by Semyonova, and ‘Not Alone’,29 sung by the Gypsy girl Tanyusha. His was one of those natures that require an audience for their good deeds. And the only things he considered good were those that the audience called good. Heaven knows if he had any moral convictions. His life was always so full of enthusiasms of every kind that he never had time to form convictions of his own, and he was, in any case, so fortunate in life that he never saw any need to.

  As he got older he acquired a permanent view of things and unchanging rules, but only in a practical sense: he regarded as good the actions and mode of life that brought him happiness or pleasure, and thought that everyone else should act the same way. He talked very engagingly, and I think that ability increased the elasticity of his rules: he could speak of one and the same action as the sweetest mischief or low villainy.