Childhood, Boyhood, Youth

by Leo Tolstoy

  "Just look how delicious this is!"

  The girls smelt it and cried, "A-ah!" but Mimi shrieked to me to go

  away, for fear I should be run over by the wheels.

  "Oh, but smell how delicious it is!" I persisted.

  III. A NEW POINT OF VIEW

  Katenka was with me in the britchka; her lovely head inclined as she

  gazed pensively at the roadway. I looked at her in silence and wondered

  what had brought the unchildlike expression of sadness to her face which

  I now observed for the first time there.

  "We shall soon be in Moscow," I said at last. "How large do you suppose

  it is?"

  "I don't know," she replied.

  "Well, but how large do you IMAGINE? As large as Serpukhov?"

  "What do you say?"

  "Nothing."

  Yet the instinctive feeling which enables one person to guess the

  thoughts of another and serves as a guiding thread in conversation

  soon made Katenka feel that her indifference was disagreeable to me;

  wherefore she raised her head presently, and, turning round, said:

  "Did your Papa tell you that we girls too were going to live at your

  Grandmamma's?"

  "Yes, he said that we should ALL live there."

  "ALL live there?"

  "Yes, of course. We shall have one half of the upper floor, and you the

  other half, and Papa the wing; but we shall all of us dine together with

  Grandmamma downstairs."

  "But Mamma says that your Grandmamma is so very grave and so easily made

  angry?"

  "No, she only SEEMS like that at first. She is grave, but not

  bad-tempered. On the contrary, she is both kind and cheerful. If you

  could only have seen the ball at her house!"

  "All the same, I am afraid of her. Besides, who knows whether we--"

  Katenka stopped short, and once again became thoughtful.

  "What?" I asked with some anxiety.

  "Nothing, I only said that--"

  "No. You said, 'Who knows whether we--'"

  "And YOU said, didn't you, that once there was ever such a ball at

  Grandmamma's?"

  "Yes. It is a pity you were not there. There were heaps of guests--about

  a thousand people, and all of them princes or generals, and there was

  music, and I danced--But, Katenka" I broke off, "you are not listening

  to me?"

  "Oh yes, I am listening. You said that you danced--?"

  "Why are you so serious?"

  "Well, one cannot ALWAYS be gay."

  "But you have changed tremendously since Woloda and I first went

  to Moscow. Tell me the truth, now: why are you so odd?" My tone was

  resolute.

  "AM I so odd?" said Katenka with an animation which showed me that my

  question had interested her. "I don't see that I am so at all."

  "Well, you are not the same as you were before," I continued. "Once upon

  a time any one could see that you were our equal in everything, and that

  you loved us like relations, just as we did you; but now you are always

  serious, and keep yourself apart from us."

  "Oh, not at all."

  "But let me finish, please," I interrupted, already conscious of a

  slight tickling in my nose--the precursor of the tears which usually

  came to my eyes whenever I had to vent any long pent-up feeling. "You

  avoid us, and talk to no one but Mimi, as though you had no wish for our

  further acquaintance."

  "But one cannot always remain the same--one must change a little

  sometimes," replied Katenka, who had an inveterate habit of pleading

  some such fatalistic necessity whenever she did not know what else to

  say.

  I recollect that once, when having a quarrel with Lubotshka, who had

  called her "a stupid girl," she (Katenka) retorted that EVERYBODY

  could not be wise, seeing that a certain number of stupid people was

  a necessity in the world. However, on the present occasion, I was not

  satisfied that any such inevitable necessity for "changing sometimes"

  existed, and asked further:

  "WHY is it necessary?"

  "Well, you see, we MAY not always go on living together as we are doing

  now," said Katenka, colouring slightly, and regarding Philip's back with

  a grave expression on her face. "My Mamma was able to live with your

  mother because she was her friend; but will a similar arrangement always

  suit the Countess, who, they say, is so easily offended? Besides, in

  any case, we shall have to separate SOME day. You are rich--you have

  Petrovskoe, while we are poor--Mamma has nothing."

  "You are rich," "we are poor"--both the words and the ideas which they

  connoted seemed to me extremely strange. Hitherto, I had conceived that

  only beggars and peasants were poor and could not reconcile in my mind

  the idea of poverty and the graceful, charming Katenka. I felt that Mimi

  and her daughter ought to live with us ALWAYS and to share everything

  that we possessed. Things ought never to be otherwise. Yet, at this

  moment, a thousand new thoughts with regard to their lonely position

  came crowding into my head, and I felt so remorseful at the notion

  that we were rich and they poor, that I coloured up and could not look

  Katenka in the face.

  "Yet what does it matter," I thought, "that we are well off and they are

  not? Why should that necessitate a separation? Why should we not share

  in common what we possess?" Yet, I had a feeling that I could not talk

  to Katenka on the subject, since a certain practical instinct, opposed

  to all logical reasoning, warned me that, right though she possibly was,

  I should do wrong to tell her so.

  "It is impossible that you should leave us. How could we ever live

  apart?"

  "Yet what else is there to be done? Certainly I do not WANT to do it;

  yet, if it HAS to be done, I know what my plan in life will be."

  "Yes, to become an actress! How absurd!" I exclaimed (for I knew that to

  enter that profession had always been her favourite dream).

  "Oh no. I only used to say that when I was a little girl."

  "Well, then? What?"

  "To go into a convent and live there. Then I could walk out in a black

  dress and velvet cap!" cried Katenka.

  Has it ever befallen you, my readers, to become suddenly aware that your

  conception of things has altered--as though every object in life

  had unexpectedly turned a side towards you of which you had hitherto

  remained unaware? Such a species of moral change occurred, as regards

  myself, during this journey, and therefore from it I date the beginning

  of my boyhood. For the first time in my life, I then envisaged the idea

  that we--i.e. our family--were not the only persons in the world; that

  not every conceivable interest was centred in ourselves; and that there

  existed numbers of people who had nothing in common with us, cared

  nothing for us, and even knew nothing of our existence. No doubt I had

  known all this before--only I had not known it then as I knew it now; I

  had never properly felt or understood it.

  Thought merges into conviction through paths of its own, as well as,

  sometimes, with great suddenness and by methods wholly different from

  those which have brought other intellects to the same conclusion. For me

 
the conversation with Katenka--striking deeply as it did, and forcing me

  to reflect on her future position--constituted such a path. As I gazed

  at the towns and villages through which we passed, and in each house of

  which lived at least one family like our own, as well as at the women

  and children who stared with curiosity at our carriages and then became

  lost to sight for ever, and the peasants and workmen who did not even

  look at us, much less make us any obeisance, the question arose for the

  first time in my thoughts, "Whom else do they care for if not for us?"

  And this question was followed by others, such as, "To what end do

  they live?" "How do they educate their children?" "Do they teach their

  children and let them play? What are their names?" and so forth.

  IV. IN MOSCOW

  From the time of our arrival in Moscow, the change in my conception of

  objects, of persons, and of my connection with them became increasingly

  perceptible. When at my first meeting with Grandmamma, I saw her thin,

  wrinkled face and faded eyes, the mingled respect and fear with which

  she had hitherto inspired me gave place to compassion, and when, laying

  her cheek against Lubotshka's head, she sobbed as though she saw before

  her the corpse of her beloved daughter, my compassion grew to love.

  I felt deeply sorry to see her grief at our meeting, even though I knew

  that in ourselves we represented nothing in her eyes, but were dear to

  her only as reminders of our mother--that every kiss which she imprinted

  upon my cheeks expressed the one thought, "She is no more--she is dead,

  and I shall never see her again."

  Papa, who took little notice of us here in Moscow, and whose face was

  perpetually preoccupied on the rare occasions when he came in his black

  dress-coat to take formal dinner with us, lost much in my eyes at this

  period, in spite of his turned-up ruffles, robes de chambre, overseers,

  bailiffs, expeditions to the estate, and hunting exploits.

  Karl Ivanitch--whom Grandmamma always called "Uncle," and who (Heaven

  knows why!) had taken it into his head to adorn the bald pate of my

  childhood's days with a red wig parted in the middle--now looked to me

  so strange and ridiculous that I wondered how I could ever have failed

  to observe the fact before. Even between the girls and ourselves there

  seemed to have sprung up an invisible barrier. They, too, began to have

  secrets among themselves, as well as to evince a desire to show off

  their ever-lengthening skirts even as we boys did our trousers and

  ankle-straps. As for Mimi, she appeared at luncheon, the first Sunday,

  in such a gorgeous dress and with so many ribbons in her cap that it was

  clear that we were no longer en campagne, and that everything was now

  going to be different.

  V. MY ELDER BROTHER

  I was only a year and some odd months younger than Woloda, and from the

  first we had grown up and studied and played together. Hitherto, the

  difference between elder and younger brother had never been felt between

  us, but at the period of which I am speaking, I began to have a

  notion that I was not Woloda's equal either in years, in tastes, or in

  capabilities. I even began to fancy that Woloda himself was aware of

  his superiority and that he was proud of it, and, though, perhaps, I

  was wrong, the idea wounded my conceit--already suffering from frequent

  comparison with him. He was my superior in everything--in games, in

  studies, in quarrels, and in deportment. All this brought about an

  estrangement between us and occasioned me moral sufferings which I had

  never hitherto experienced.

  When for the first time Woloda wore Dutch pleated shirts, I at once said

  that I was greatly put out at not being given similar ones, and each

  time that he arranged his collar, I felt that he was doing so on purpose

  to offend me. But, what tormented me most of all was the idea that

  Woloda could see through me, yet did not choose to show it.

  Who has not known those secret, wordless communications which spring

  from some barely perceptible smile or movement--from a casual glance

  between two persons who live as constantly together as do brothers,

  friends, man and wife, or master and servant--particularly if those

  two persons do not in all things cultivate mutual frankness? How many

  half-expressed wishes, thoughts, and meanings which one shrinks from

  revealing are made plain by a single accidental glance which timidly and

  irresolutely meets the eye!

  However, in my own case I may have been deceived by my excessive

  capacity for, and love of, analysis. Possibly Woloda did not feel at

  all as I did. Passionate and frank, but unstable in his likings, he was

  attracted by the most diverse things, and always surrendered himself

  wholly to such attraction. For instance, he suddenly conceived a passion

  for pictures, spent all his money on their purchase, begged Papa,

  Grandmamma, and his drawing master to add to their number, and applied

  himself with enthusiasm to art. Next came a sudden rage for curios, with

  which he covered his table, and for which he ransacked the whole house.

  Following upon that, he took to violent novel-reading--procuring such

  works by stealth, and devouring them day and night. Involuntarily I was

  influenced by his whims, for, though too proud to imitate him, I was

  also too young and too lacking in independence to choose my own way.

  Above all, I envied Woloda his happy, nobly frank character, which

  showed itself most strikingly when we quarrelled. I always felt that

  he was in the right, yet could not imitate him. For instance, on one

  occasion when his passion for curios was at its height, I went to his

  table and accidentally broke an empty many-coloured smelling-bottle.

  "Who gave you leave to touch my things?" asked Woloda, chancing to enter

  the room at that moment and at once perceiving the disorder which I had

  occasioned in the orderly arrangement of the treasures on his table.

  "And where is that smelling bottle? Perhaps you--?"

  "I let it fall, and it smashed to pieces; but what does that matter?"

  "Well, please do me the favour never to DARE to touch my things again,"

  he said as he gathered up the broken fragments and looked at them

  vexedly.

  "And will YOU please do me the favour never to ORDER me to do anything

  whatever," I retorted. "When a thing's broken, it's broken, and there is

  no more to be said." Then I smiled, though I hardly felt like smiling.

  "Oh, it may mean nothing to you, but to me it means a good deal," said

  Woloda, shrugging his shoulders (a habit he had caught from Papa).

  "First of all you go and break my things, and then you laugh. What a

  nuisance a little boy can be!"

  "LITTLE boy, indeed? Then YOU, I suppose, are a man, and ever so wise?"

  "I do not intend to quarrel with you," said Woloda, giving me a slight

  push. "Go away."

  "Don't you push me!"

  "Go away."

  "I say again--don't you push me!"

  Woloda took me by the hand and tried to drag me away from the table, but

  I was excited to the last degree, and gave the table such a push
with

  my foot that I upset the whole concern, and brought china and crystal

  ornaments and everything else with a crash to the floor.

  "You disgusting little brute!" exclaimed Woloda, trying to save some of

  his falling treasures.

  "At last all is over between us," I thought to myself as I strode from

  the room. "We are separated now for ever."

  It was not until evening that we again exchanged a word. Yet I felt

  guilty, and was afraid to look at him, and remained at a loose end all

  day.

  Woloda, on the contrary, did his lessons as diligently as ever, and

  passed the time after luncheon in talking and laughing with the girls.

  As soon, again, as afternoon lessons were over I left the room, for

  it would have been terribly embarrassing for me to be alone with my

  brother. When, too, the evening class in history was ended I took my

  notebook and moved towards the door. Just as I passed Woloda, I pouted

  and pulled an angry face, though in reality I should have liked to have

  made my peace with him. At the same moment he lifted his head, and with

  a barely perceptible and good-humouredly satirical smile looked me full

  in the face. Our eyes met, and I saw that he understood me, while he,

  for his part, saw that I knew that he understood me; yet a feeling

  stronger than myself obliged me to turn away from him.

  "Nicolinka," he said in a perfectly simple and anything but