by Leo Tolstoy
—But to business.—
Yesterday I got up late, at a quarter to ten, and that was simply because I had gone to bed after midnight the night before. (I long ago set myself the rule of not going to bed later than twelve o’clock, but all the same I find myself doing so some three times each week); however there are certain circumstances in which I would class this not as a crime but rather as a minor lapse: such circumstances are of many kinds, and how it was yesterday I shall now explain.
Here I must beg your indulgence for recounting things which occurred the day before yesterday, but as you are well aware, novelists are given to writing whole histories about their heroes’ immediate forebears.
I was playing cards, but certainly not from any passionate liking for cards, however it may appear. As regards the love of card-playing, it is rather like the case of those people who dance the polka just because they enjoy the exercise. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among the many suggestions he made which no one agreed with, advocated playing with a cup-and-ball [bilboquet] in society in order to give one’s hands something to do; but that does not go far enough, for in society the head too needs to be occupied, or at least it needs some sort of activity about which people can either talk or remain silent.—In our country such an activity has in fact been devised – card-playing.—Persons born in the last century complain that ‘there is no conversation whatever to be had nowadays’. I do not know what people were like in the last century (it seems to me, though, that they have always been pretty much the same); however, genuine conversation is never a real possibility. Conversation merely as a pastime is the stupidest of inventions. It is not because of intellectual inadequacy that there is no conversation, but because of egoism. Everyone wants to speak about himself or about what concerns him; and if one person talks and the other listens, that is not conversation, but lecturing. And even if two people agree to concentrate on the same topic, it only takes the addition of a third person for the whole thing to be ruined: he intervenes, they must do their best to accommodate him, and the conversation goes to the devil.
There are also conversations where two people are interested in the same thing and nobody interferes with them, yet here the situation is even worse. Each of them talks about the same thing, but from his own point of view, measuring everything by his own yardstick, and the longer the conversation goes on, the farther each of them gets from the other, until each realizes that he has ceased to converse, but is preaching with a freedom no one else could equal, setting himself up as an example, and the other person is not really listening, but doing likewise. Have you ever engaged in rolling Easter eggs during Holy Week? You set in motion two identical hard-boiled eggs along the same strip of bast matting, but each egg has in fact a slight irregularity in its side. They may start rolling in the same direction, but then each egg begins to roll in a direction dictated by its own tiny irregularity. In conversation, as in egg-rolling, there are the shlyupiks1 which roll noisily and not very far, and there are the sharp-ended ones which get carried away goodness knows where; but there are no two eggs, shlyupiks apart, which are likely to roll in exactly the same direction. Each one has its own particular irregularity.
I am not referring to those conversations which occur because it would be improper not to say something, in the same way that it would be improper not to wear a necktie. One party is thinking: ‘You realize of course that it is no matter to me what I talk about, but I have to do so’; and the other is thinking: ‘Talk on, talk on, you poor fellow, – I accept that it is necessary.’ This is not conversation, but rather – like black tail-coats, visiting cards and gloves – a matter of propriety.
That is why I say that card-playing is an excellent invention. During the game it is possible to converse a little and flatter one’s self-esteem, to let fall some charming little mot, without being obliged to continue in the same vein, as one would have to do in a society where there was nothing but conversation available.
It is essential to keep back your final volley of wit for the last circle of acquaintances you encounter that evening, just as you are taking your hat: this is the moment to squander all the reserves you have been holding on to. Like a horse in the final straight going all out to win. Otherwise you will appear feeble and colourless; and I have noticed that people who are not merely clever, but capable of shining in society, have failed because they have misjudged the level of their remarks. If you say something in the heat of the moment before anyone has had time to get tired of you, and then, feeling bored, you do not wish to converse further, that is how you will be seen as you depart: the final impression is the one which will stick, and people will say ‘How difficult he is …’ But when a card-game is going on no such thing can happen. One is allowed to remain silent without being censured for it.
Besides, if women (young women) are playing, there begins to be something better to aim at – to spend two or three hours in close proximity to the right woman.—And of course if the right woman simply happens to be there, then that is already satisfaction enough.
So there I was playing cards, sitting now on her right, now on her left, now opposite her, and wherever I sat it was all wonderful.
This mode of entertainment went on until a quarter to twelve. Three rubbers had been completed. Why does this woman love me? – how I should like to be able to write that! but I must write instead – Why does this woman love to put me in embarrassing situations? And that apart, I am already hardly in command of myself when I am in her presence: at one moment it seems to me that my hands are really dirty, at another that I am sitting awkwardly, at another that I am tormented by a pimple on my cheek precisely on the side where she can see it.
However, I feel that none of this is her fault – I never feel quite myself when I am with people whom I either dislike or love very much. Why should this be? It is surely because one wants to show one person that one does not like them, and to show another that one loves them, but to show what one wants to show is very difficult. In my case it always comes out the wrong way round: you wish to appear chilly, but then you feel you are overdoing it, and you make yourself too affable; and although being with people you really and truly love is delightful, the idea that they may think you love them in a dishonourable way confounds you, and you end up making your manner curt and abrupt.
She is the woman for me because she possesses those sweet qualities which compel me to love them, or better still, to love her, for I do love her; but not because she would be capable of giving herself to a lover. That thought does not enter my head. She has the unpleasing habit of billing and cooing with her husband in the presence of others, but that is no business of mine; it would be all the same to me if she were to choose to kiss the stove or the table – she is simply playing with her husband, as a swallow might play with a wisp of fluff, because she has a kindly soul and this makes her cheerful.—
She is a coquette; no, not a coquette, but she does enjoy being liked, and turning men’s heads. I would not call her a coquette, because either the word itself is bad, or the connotations attached to it are bad. People apply the term ‘coquetry’ to the display of bare flesh, or falseness in love – this is not coquetry, but insolent and ill-bred behaviour.—No, but the desire to please and to turn heads is a fine and attractive thing, it harms no one, because there are no Werthers here, and it gives her and others innocent pleasure. Here am I, for example, utterly content that she pleases me and desiring nothing further. And then there is intelligent coquetry and stupid coquetry: the intelligent sort is when the coquetry is unobtrusive and there is no villain to be caught red-handed; the stupid sort is just the opposite, where nothing is concealed. And this is how it finds expression: ‘I may not be particularly beautiful in myself, but just look what pretty feet I have! Just look: do you see? Well, do you like them?’—Your feet are perhaps pretty, but I did not take any notice of your feet, because you deliberately made a display of them.—Intelligent coquetry says: ‘It is all one and the same to me whether you look at me or you
don’t, but I feel warm, so I have taken off my hat.’—I look at you all the time.—‘And why should I mind?’ Hers is the innocent and intelligent sort.
I glanced at my watch and got up. It is astonishing: except when I am speaking to her I have never seen her glance resting on me, and yet she sees my every movement.—‘Oh, what a lovely rose-tinted watch-face he has!’—I was greatly offended that anyone should comment on my Bréguet time-piece being rose-coloured, in the same way that I should be annoyed to be told that I was wearing a pink waistcoat. I must have looked visibly embarrassed, because when I said that it was actually an extremely fine watch, she in her turn looked embarrassed. No doubt she regretted having said something which put me in an awkward position. We both realized the absurdity of it, and smiled. A stupid thing, but we were sharing in it.—I adore these secret relationships which express themselves by an unobtrusive little smile and by the expression of the eyes, and which cannot be openly declared. It is not that one of us has suddenly understood the other, but each understands that the other understands that he or she is understood, etc., etc.
Whether she wanted to put an end to this conversation which I found so pleasant, or to watch me refuse to stay, or to know whether I would refuse, or simply to go on playing, – the fact was that she glanced at the numbers written on the card table, ran the chalk across its surface, drew some kind of figure unrecognized in mathematics or in painting, looked first at her husband and then from him to me, and said: ‘Let us play three more rubbers.’ I was so absorbed in watching, not these movements but the whole phenomenon known as charme, which it is impossible to describe, that my imagination was far, far away and my mind was unable to clothe my words in any appropriate form; I simply said ‘No, I cannot.’ No sooner had I managed to say this, than I started to regret it, – that is to say, not all of me, but just one part of me.—There is no action which some little part of the soul would not condemn; on the other hand there is always some part to be found which will say approvingly: What does it matter if you get to bed after twelve, and anyway, how do you know if you will ever have such a successful evening again? Evidently this part of me spoke up most eloquently and persuasively (though I am unable to convey just what it said), for I became alarmed and began to seek for excuses.—In the first place, there won’t be much enjoyment in it, I said to myself: you don’t really like her at all and you are in an awkward position; and then you have already said that you can’t stay, and you have lost face …
‘Comme il est aimable, ce jeune homme.’2
This sentence, following straight after mine, interrupted my reflections.—I began to apologize for not being able to stay, but as this required no thought, I went on arguing with myself: How I love her referring to me in the third person. In German it’s rude, but I should love it, even in German. And why can’t she find a suitable form of address for me? It’s obvious that she is uncomfortable calling me by my Christian name, or by my surname and title. Can it possibly be because I … ‘Do stay and have some supper,’ said her husband. Since I was busy pondering the matter of third person forms of address, I failed to notice that my body, having made the politest possible excuses for being unable to stay, had put down my hat again and sunk calmly into an armchair. It was evident that the intellectual side of me was taking no part in this folly. I began to feel extremely vexed, and was just starting to take myself to task when I was diverted by a most agreeable development. She was sketching something with great attention, what it was I could not see, then she raised the piece of chalk slightly higher than necessary and put it down on the table. Then, resting her arms on the sofa she was sitting on and shifting herself from one side to the other, she drew herself up against the back of the sofa and raised her charming little head – her head with the delicately curving profile of her face and her dark, half-closed yet animated eyes, her slender and so, so sharp little nose, and a mouth that, with her eyes, composed a unity and at every moment seemed to convey something quite new. How could one say what, at that instant, it expressed? There was pensiveness, mockery, fragility, the desire not to laugh, self-importance, capriciousness, intelligence, stupidity, passion, apathy, and who knows what else in that expression.—A few moments later her husband went out, no doubt to order supper to be served.
When I am left alone with her I always become nervous and clumsy. As I follow with my eyes the people leaving the room I feel as ill at ease as in the fifth figure of the quadrille, when I see my partner crossing to the far side, condemning me to be left alone. I am sure Napoleon did not feel so wretched when the Saxons went over to the enemy at Waterloo, as I did in my early youth when I contemplated this cruel manoeuvre. The tactic I use in dancing the quadrille, I now use in this situation too: I try to give the impression that I have not noticed I am alone. Now even the conversation which had begun before his exit had come to a halt; I repeated the last words I had spoken, adding only: ‘So it had to be,’ and she repeated her previous words, adding ‘Yes’. But alongside this there began at once a second, inaudible conversation.
She: ‘I know why you are repeating what you have already said: you feel embarrassed to be alone with me, and you can see I am embarrassed too – so to appear interested you had to say something. I am grateful to you for your consideration, but you might have said something a bit more intelligent.’—I: ‘That is true, your remark is accurate, but I don’t know why you should feel embarrassed; can you be thinking that if you are alone with me I may start saying the kind of things which you would find unacceptable? Just to prove to you how ready I am to sacrifice my own satisfactions for your benefit, however delightful our present conversation may be to me, I shall now start to speak aloud. Or perhaps you would like to start.’ She: ‘Well then, let us do so!’
I was still composing my mouth to say something of the kind which allows one to be thinking one thing while conversing about something else, when she launched into a conversation out loud which gave the impression that it might go on for some time; but in this sort of situation even the most significant topics fall flat, because that other conversation is still going on. Having produced a sentence each, we fell silent, attempted once more to speak, then lapsed again into silence. The other conversation:—I: ‘No, it is quite impossible to converse. Since I can see that you are embarrassed, it would be preferable if your husband came back.’ She (aloud): ‘Boy, where is Ivan Ivanovich? Go and ask him to come here.’ If anyone did not believe that such secret conversations do exist, I hope this example will convince them.
‘I am very glad we are alone now,’ I continued in the same mode. ‘I have already remarked to you that you often upset me by your lack of trust in me. If I accidentally touch your foot with mine, you at once hasten to apologize, and do not give me time to apologize first, while I, having made sure that it was your foot I touched, wanted simply to apologize. I cannot keep up with you in these matters, yet you still think that I lack delicacy.’
Her husband came back. We sat down to supper and chatted, and I returned home at half-past midnight.
In the sledge
It is spring now, the twenty-fifth of March. The night is still and clear; the new moon has come into view from behind the red roof of the big white house opposite; the snow has mostly melted.
‘Let’s be off, driver!…’
My night-service sledge was the only one waiting near the house porch and Dmitry had evidently heard me coming out without waiting for any shouted summons from the footman, for the smacking noise he made with his lips was audible, as though he were kissing someone in the darkness: a sound which I suppose was meant to tell the little horse to pull the sledge off the stone roadway, on which the runners screeched and scraped unpleasantly. At length the sledge drew up. The obliging footman took my elbow and guided me towards the seat; had he not supported me I should have jumped straight into the sledge, but now, so as not to offend him, I made my way more cautiously and broke through the layer of thin ice on a puddle, wetting my feet. ‘Thank you, m
y man.’—‘Dmitry, is it freezing?’—‘As well as you could wish for, sir; at this time of the year you still get a good light frost any night, sir.’
—How stupid! Why am I asking him?—No, that’s not true, there’s nothing stupid about it: you have an urge to talk, to make contact with people, because you are in a cheerful mood. So why am I cheerful? If I had got into the sledge at any time in the past half-hour I would not have started chatting. It is because you spoke really rather well before taking your leave, and because her husband came out to see you off and said ‘When shall we be seeing one another again?’ And because as soon as the footman caught sight of you he immediately roused himself, and for all that his breath smelt strongly of parsley, he attended to you with such enthusiasm. I once gave him fifty copecks. In all our memories the central part gets lost, but the first and last impressions remain, especially the last. Hence the delightful custom whereby the master of the house sees a guest to the door where, generally standing there with his legs twined together in semi-embarrassment, he cannot avoid saying something kind to his guest: no matter how short the acquaintance may have been, this rule cannot be neglected. Thus, for example, ‘When shall we be seeing each other again?’ means nothing, but the guest out of self-esteem translates it so: when means ‘Please let it be soon’; we means ‘my wife and I, for my wife too greatly enjoys seeing you’; again means ‘We have only just finished spending this evening together, but in your company no one could possibly be bored’; be seeing one another means ‘Please do us the pleasure once more’. And the guest departs with an agreeable impression. It is likewise essential, particularly in less well organized houses where not all the servants, especially the doorman (he is a most important person because he provides one’s first and last impressions) are courteous, to give them some money. They meet you and they see you off just as if you were one of the household, and their obligingness, which may well be the result of a fifty-copeck piece, can be translated so:—‘Everyone here likes you and respects you, and so we try, just as we oblige our masters, to oblige you too.’ Perhaps it is only the footman himself who does really like and respect you, but all the same it is very pleasant. What harm is there if you should be mistaken? If there were no such thing as illusion, that would not mean that …