by Leo Tolstoy
‘No, I won’t marry anyone else! I don’t love anyone else, even if you beat me to death over him!’ Masha said, bursting into tears.
I watched Masha a long time as she sat on a trunk, wiping her tears with her kerchief, and I tried in every way I could to change my idea of Vasily, seeking the point of view from which he could be so attractive to her. But although I sincerely sympathized with her sorrow, I still couldn’t grasp how a creature as charming as Masha seemed in my own eyes could ever love Vasily.
‘When I’m grown up,’ I reasoned with myself after I had gone back up to my room, ‘Petrovskoye will be mine, and Vasily and Masha will be my serfs. I’ll be sitting in my study smoking a pipe, and Masha will pass by with an iron on her way to the kitchen. I’ll say, “Send Masha to me.” She’ll come and no one else will be in the room. Then Vasily will come, too, and on seeing Masha will say, “This body’s done for!” and Masha will start to cry. And I’ll say, “Vasily! I know that you love her and that she loves you. Here’s a thousand roubles. Marry her, and may God grant you happiness,” and I’ll go out to the sitting room.’ Among the countless thoughts and daydreams that pass through your mind and imagination without a trace, there are a few that leave a deep, sensitive furrow behind, so that even after you’ve forgotten the essence of the thought, you still remember that there was something good in your mind and sense the thought’s trace and try to reproduce it. The thought of sacrificing my feelings for the happiness that Masha could only find in marriage to Vasily had left just such a deep furrow in my own mind.
NINETEEN
Boyhood
It will scarcely be believed what my favourite and most constant subjects of reflection were in boyhood, so incompatible were they with my age and position. But a lack of compatibility between a person’s position and his mental activity is, in my opinion, the surest sign of truth.
During the year in which I led a solitary mental life concentrated on itself alone, all the abstract questions about human purpose, the future life and immortality of the soul had already presented themselves to me, and my feeble child’s intellect tried with all the ardour of inexperience to make sense of those questions, the posing of which is the highest rung the human intellect can reach, even if the answers aren’t given to it.
I believe that the development of the intellect in each person follows the same path that it takes over whole generations – that the ideas that have served as the foundations of various philosophical theories are integral parts of the intellect, and that everyone becomes more or less clearly aware of them, even before knowing about the existence of the philosophical theories themselves.
Those ideas presented themselves to my own intellect so clearly and strikingly that I even tried to apply them to life, imagining that I was the first to discover such great and useful truths.
Once the idea came to me that happiness depends not on external circumstances but on our attitude towards them – that the person who has learned to tolerate suffering cannot be unhappy, and to inure myself to it, I would hold Tatishchev’s lexicons at arm’s length for five minutes, despite the terrific pain, or go to the storage closet and lash my bare back with a rope so hard that my eyes would water.
Another time, after suddenly remembering that death could come to me at any hour or minute, I decided, not understanding why people hadn’t realized it before, that there’s no other way to be happy than to enjoy the present without any thought for the future, and under the influence of that idea I abandoned lessons for three days and did nothing but lie in bed reading some novel and eating spice cakes with Krohn34 mead that I had bought with the last of my money.
Yet another time as I was standing at the blackboard drawing various shapes with chalk, I was suddenly struck by the thought: why is symmetry pleasant to the eye? What is symmetry? It’s an innate feeling, I answered myself. But on what is it based? Is there symmetry in everything in life? On the contrary, here’s life, and I drew an oval on the blackboard. After life, the soul enters eternity; here’s eternity, and I made a line extending from the oval all the way to the edge of the blackboard. But why isn’t there another line on the other side? And, indeed, what sort of eternity could there be on only one side? We probably existed before this life, although we’ve lost all memory of it.
That argument, which seemed extraordinarily novel and lucid to me, although I can barely make sense of it now, pleased me very much, and getting out a sheet of paper I thought I would put it down in writing. But such a welter of thoughts came to me in the meantime that I had to get up and walk around the room. When I reached the window, my attention was caught by the water horse, which the coachman happened to be harnessing, and all my thoughts were directed at answering a new question: into what animal or person would the soul of the water horse pass when it died? Volodya, who was walking through the room just then, smiled on noticing that I was pondering something, and that smile was enough to make me realize that everything I had been thinking about was the most awful rubbish.
I’ve recounted this instance, memorable to me for some reason, to give the reader an idea of the nature of my cogitations.
But there was no philosophical outlook that I was more taken with than scepticism, which for a while brought me to a state verging on lunacy. I imagined that except for me, no one and nothing else existed in the whole world, that things weren’t things but images that existed only when I directed my attention to them, and that as soon as I stopped thinking about them those images would instantly vanish. In a word, I converged with Schelling35 in the conviction that it isn’t things that exist but my relation to them. There were moments under the influence of that ‘fixed idea’ when I reached such a degree of extravagance that I would suddenly turn around, hoping to catch nothingness (néant) by surprise where I no longer was.
What a pitiful, insignificant mainspring of mental activity the human intellect is!
My own feeble intellect couldn’t penetrate the impenetrable, and one after another, in an effort beyond my strength, I lost all the convictions that for the sake of my own happiness I should never have touched.
I derived nothing from all that hard mental labour except a facility of mind that weakened my willpower, and a habit of continual analysis that destroyed freshness of feeling and clarity of reasoning in me.
Abstract ideas are formed as a result of a person’s ability to capture with his consciousness the state of his mind at a certain moment and transfer it to memory. My penchant for abstract reflection developed consciousness in me to such an unnatural degree that often, when starting to think about the simplest matter, I would fall into a closed circle of analysis of my own thoughts and think not about the question at hand, but about the fact that I was thinking about it. Asking myself, ‘What am I thinking about?’ I would answer, ‘I’m thinking about what I’m thinking about.’ ‘What am I thinking about now?’ ‘I’m thinking about what I’m thinking about what I’m thinking about,’ and so on. I was at the end of my tether …
Nevertheless, the philosophical discoveries I made were extremely flattering to my self-esteem: I frequently imagined myself a great man disclosing new truths for the benefit of all humanity and looked on other mortals with a proud awareness of my own merit. Yet, oddly enough, whenever I came into contact with those other mortals I was intimidated by them, and the higher my regard for myself, the less I was able with others not only to convey an awareness of my own merit but even to get used to not being ashamed of my simplest words and gestures.
TWENTY
Volodya
Yes, the further I go in describing this period of my life, the more distressing and difficult it is for me. Very, very rarely among the memories of that time do I find moments of the truly warm feeling that so brightly and constantly illumined the start of my life. In spite of myself, I want to hurry through the wilderness of boyhood to reach the happy days when truly tender, noble feelings of friendship again lit up that period with a
bright light and marked the beginning of a new one filled with charm and poetry – that of youth.
I won’t retrace my recollections hour by hour, but will quickly look at the main ones between the point to which I’ve already brought my narrative and that of my friendship with an exceptional person who had a decisive and beneficial influence on my character and outlook.
Volodya is to take his entrance examinations for the university in a few days; the teachers have been coming to work separately with him, and I listen with envy and involuntary respect as he briskly taps the blackboard with chalk, while explaining functions, sines, coordinates and the like, all of which seem like expressions of unintelligible intricacy to me. But then one Sunday after dinner, all the teachers and two professors gather in Grandmother’s room, and in the presence of Papa and a few guests conduct a rehearsal for the university examinations, and to Grandmother’s great delight Volodya demonstrates exceptional knowledge. I, too, am asked questions on a few subjects, although I prove to be quite poor, and it’s clear the professors are trying to conceal my ignorance from Grandmother, which only embarrasses me more. Actually, they pay little attention to me at all: I’m only fifteen, which means I have another year before my own examinations. Volodya only comes down for dinner, spending all day and even all evening upstairs at his studies – not from need but because he wants to. He’s extremely proud and means to pass his examinations not with satisfactory but with superior marks.
And now the day of the first examination has arrived. Volodya puts on a blue tailcoat with bronze buttons and a gold watch and patent-leather boots. Papa’s phaeton drives up to the front steps, Nikolay throws back the apron, and Volodya and St-Jérôme set off for the university. The girls, but especially Katenka, look out of the window with joyful, delighted faces at the graceful figure of Volodya in the carriage; Papa says, ‘God willing, God willing’; and Grandmother, who has come to the window, too, makes the sign of the cross at Volodya with tears in her eyes, and whispers something as the phaeton disappears around the corner of our lane.
Volodya returns. All impatiently ask, ‘Well? Good? What mark?’ but it’s clear from his merry face that all went well. He received a five. The next day he’s sent off with the same anxiety and wishes for success and greeted on his return with the same impatience and joy. Thus nine days pass. On the tenth is to be the last and most difficult examination, the one on religion,36 and everyone’s standing by the window and waiting for his return with even greater impatience. It’s already two o’clock, but Volodya still isn’t back.
‘Oh my goodness! Heavenly father! It’s them! It’s them!’ Lyubochka screams, pressed against the glass.
And indeed Volodya is sitting in the phaeton beside St-Jérôme, although no longer in a blue tailcoat and grey cap, but in a student uniform with a light-blue embroidered collar, a cocked hat, and a gilt sword at his side.
‘If only you were alive!’ Grandmother exclaims upon seeing Volodya in his uniform, and then falls back in a swoon.
Volodya runs into the entry room with a beaming face and embraces and kisses me, Lyubochka and Katenka, who blushes to her very ears. Volodya is beside himself with joy. And how handsome he is in his uniform! How well its light-blue collar suits his emerging black moustache! How slim his long waist is and how noble his walk! On that memorable day we all dine in Grandmother’s room, happiness shines in every face, and over the pastries the butler, with an expression both properly dignified and merry, brings a bottle of champagne wrapped in a napkin. It’s the first time Grandmother has drunk champagne since maman’s death and she empties an entire goblet while congratulating Volodya, and weeps again with joy as she gazes at him. Volodya now goes out for drives by himself in his own carriage, receives his own friends, smokes, goes to balls, and has even, as I myself saw, consumed two bottles of champagne in his room with his friends, toasting the health of certain mysterious ladies with each goblet and arguing over who would get le fond de la bouteille.37 He usually dines at home, however, and after dinner goes into the sitting room, just as before, where he talks about something with Katenka, always in private. But as far as I can tell without taking part in their conversations, they’re only talking about the heroes and heroines of novels they’ve read, and about jealousy and love, although I don’t understand at all why those conversations are so interesting to them, or what makes them smile so slyly and argue so vehemently.
In general, I’ve noticed that besides their understandable friendship as childhood companions, strange relations of a new kind have developed between Katenka and Volodya that distance them from us and mysteriously connect them to each other.
TWENTY-ONE
Katenka and Lyubochka
Katenka’s sixteen and has grown. The angularity of form, shyness and awkward movements characteristic of girls at a transitional age have all yielded to the harmonious freshness and grace of a just opened flower, although she herself hasn’t changed: the same light-blue eyes and cheerful gaze, the same little nose making an almost straight line with her forehead, the same flared nostrils and small mouth with its bright smile, the same little dimples in her clear pink cheeks, and the same little white hands; and just as before the epithet ‘pure young girl’ for some reason fits her extraordinarily well. The only new things about her are the thick chestnut braid that she wears like a grown-up and her young bosom, whose emergence clearly both pleases and embarrasses her.
Although Lyubochka has grown up and been raised with Katenka, she is in every respect a completely different girl.
Lyubochka is short and, as a result of her rickets, she still has bandy legs and a terrible waist. The only good thing about her appearance is her eyes, which really are beautiful: large, dark and with such an indefinably pleasant expression of gravity and naïveté that they cannot fail to catch your attention. Lyubochka is simple and natural in everything; Katenka, however, seems to want to be like someone else. Lyubochka’s gaze is always direct, and sometimes when she fixes her enormous dark eyes on someone, she doesn’t remove them for such a long time that people rebuke her for it, saying it isn’t polite; Katenka, on the contrary, drops her eyelashes, squints and claims to be short-sighted, although I know very well her vision is perfect. Lyubochka doesn’t like to play-act with strangers, and when anyone tries to kiss her in front of guests, she makes a wry face and says that she can’t stand ‘mushy’ displays; Katenka, by contrast, is always particularly affectionate with Mimi in front of guests and likes to walk around the salon arm in arm with other girls. Lyubochka is an awful giggler, and sometimes in a fit of laughter she flaps her arms and gallops around the room; Katenka, on the contrary, covers her mouth with her handkerchief or her hands whenever she starts to laugh. Lyubochka always sits straight and walks with her arms hanging down; Katenka carries her head slightly to the side and walks with her arms folded in front. Lyubochka is always extremely happy whenever she manages to converse with a grown-up man and says that she’ll certainly marry a hussar; Katenka says that all men are disgusting, that she’ll never marry, and changes completely, as if she were afraid of something, whenever a man speaks to her. Lyubochka is endlessly indignant with Mimi for lacing her up in corsets ‘until she can’t breathe’, and she likes to eat; Katenka, by sticking her finger under the scalloping below her bodice, often shows us how loose it is for her, and eats extraordinarily little. Lyubochka likes to draw heads; Katenka, however, draws only flowers and butterflies. Lyubochka plays Field’s concertos and several of Beethoven’s sonatas with great precision; Katenka plays waltzes and variations, slows down the tempo, bangs the keys, pedals constantly and, before beginning anything, always plays three chords in arpeggio with feeling …
But according to my opinion at the time, Katenka seems more grown-up and is thus much more to my liking.
TWENTY-TWO
Papa
Papa’s been particularly jolly since Volodya entered the university and dines at Grandmother’s more often than
usual. But the real reason for his jollity, as I learned from Nikolay, is that he’s won an extraordinarily large amount of late. It even happens now that before going out to the club in the evening, he drops by to see us, sits down at the piano, gathers us around him, and sings Gypsy songs, while tapping with his soft boots (he can’t stand stacked heels and never wears them). And then you would have to see the absurd delight of his favourite, Lyubochka, who for her part simply adores him. Sometimes he comes up to the classroom and listens with a stern face as I recite my lessons, although from the few words he says by way of correction, I can tell he has little knowledge of what I’m being taught. Sometimes he gives us a sly wink and makes signs to us whenever Grandmother starts to grumble and get angry with us for no reason. ‘Well, we really caught it, didn’t we, children?’ he says afterwards. In general, he’s come down a bit from the unattainable summit on which my childish imagination had placed him. I kiss his large white hand with the same sincere feeling of love and respect, but now permit myself to think about him and judge his actions and, in spite of myself, have thoughts about him that scare me. I’ll never forget the event that inspired many of those thoughts and that was the occasion of a good deal of mental distress in me.
Once, dressed in a black tailcoat and white waistcoat, Papa came into the drawing room late in the evening just before going out to a ball with Volodya, who was still getting ready in his room. Grandmother was waiting for Volodya to come and present himself (it was her custom to call him to her before every ball, bless him, look him over, and give him instructions). Mimi and Katenka were walking up and down the salon, which was lit by a single lamp, and Lyubochka was sitting at the piano practising Field’s second concerto, maman’s favourite.