by Leo Tolstoy
third--sometimes of a taciturn and wholly uninteresting person--sufficed
to plunge us into the most varied and engrossing of discussions. The
truth was that we knew one another too well, and to know a person either
too well or too little acts as a bar to intimacy.
"Is Woloda at home?" came in Dubkoff's voice from the ante-room.
"Yes!" shouted Woloda, springing up and throwing aside his book.
Dubkoff and Nechludoff entered.
"Are you coming to the theatre, Woloda?"
"No, I have no time," he replied with a blush.
"Oh, never mind that. Come along."
"But I haven't got a ticket."
"Tickets, as many as you like, at the entrance."
"Very well, then; I'll be back in a minute," said Woloda evasively as
he left the room. I knew very well that he wanted to go, but that he
had declined because he had no money, and had now gone to borrow five
roubles of one of the servants--to be repaid when he got his next
allowance.
"How do you do, DIPLOMAT?" said Dubkoff to me as he shook me by the
hand. Woloda's friends had called me by that nickname since the day when
Grandmamma had said at luncheon that Woloda must go into the army, but
that she would like to see me in the diplomatic service, dressed in a
black frock-coat, and with my hair arranged a la coq (the two essential
requirements, in her opinion, of a DIPLOMAT).
"Where has Woloda gone to?" asked Nechludoff.
"I don't know," I replied, blushing to think that nevertheless they had
probably guessed his errand.
"I suppose he has no money? Yes, I can see I am right, O diplomatist,"
he added, taking my smile as an answer in the affirmative. "Well, I have
none, either. Have you any, Dubkoff?"
"I'll see," replied Dubkoff, feeling for his pocket, and rummaging
gingerly about with his squat little fingers among his small change.
"Yes, here are five copecks-twenty, but that's all," he concluded with a
comic gesture of his hand.
At this point Woloda re-entered.
"Are we going?"
"No."
"What an odd fellow you are!" said Nechludoff. "Why don't you say that
you have no money? Here, take my ticket."
"But what are you going to do?"
"He can go into his cousin's box," said Dubkoff.
"No, I'm not going at all," replied Nechludoff.
"Why?"
"Because I hate sitting in a box."
"And for what reason?"
"I don't know. Somehow I feel uncomfortable there."
"Always the same! I can't understand a fellow feeling uncomfortable
when he is sitting with people who are fond of him. It is unnatural, mon
cher."
"But what else is there to be done si je suis tant timide? You never
blushed in your life, but I do at the least trifle," and he blushed at
that moment.
"Do you know what that nervousness of yours proceeds from?" said Dubkoff
in a protecting sort of tone, "D'un exces d'amour propre, mon cher."
"What do you mean by 'exces d'amour propre'?" asked Nechludoff, highly
offended. "On the contrary, I am shy just because I have TOO LITTLE
amour propre. I always feel as though I were being tiresome and
disagreeable, and therefore--"
"Well, get ready, Woloda," interrupted Dubkoff, tapping my brother on
the shoulder and handing him his cloak. "Ignaz, get your master ready."
"Therefore," continued Nechludoff, "it often happens with me that--"
But Dubkoff was not listening. "Tra-la-la-la," and he hummed a popular
air.
"Oh, but I'm not going to let you off," went on Nechludoff. "I mean to
prove to you that my shyness is not the result of conceit."
"You can prove it as we go along."
"But I have told you that I am NOT going."
"Well, then, stay here and prove it to the DIPLOMAT, and he can tell us
all about it when we return."
"Yes, that's what I WILL do," said Nechludoff with boyish obstinacy, "so
hurry up with your return."
"Well, do you think I am egotistic?" he continued, seating himself
beside me.
True, I had a definite opinion on the subject, but I felt so taken aback
by this unexpected question that at first I could make no reply.
"Yes, I DO think so," I said at length in a faltering voice, and
colouring at the thought that at last the moment had come when I could
show him that I was clever. "I think that EVERYBODY is egotistic, and
that everything we do is done out of egotism."
"But what do you call egotism?" asked Nechludoff--smiling, as I thought,
a little contemptuously.
"Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than any one
else," I replied.
"But how can we ALL be filled with this conviction?" he inquired.
"Well, I don't know if I am right or not--certainly no one but myself
seems to hold the opinion--but I believe that I am wiser than any one
else in the world, and that all of you know it."
"At least I can say for myself," observed Nechludoff, "that I have met a
FEW people whom I believe to excel me in wisdom."
"It is impossible," I replied with conviction.
"Do you really think so?" he said, looking at me gravely.
"Yes, really," I answered, and an idea crossed my mind which I proceeded
to expound further. "Let me prove it to you. Why do we love ourselves
better than any one else? Because we think ourselves BETTER than any
one else--more worthy of our own love. If we THOUGHT others better than
ourselves, we should LOVE them better than ourselves: but that is never
the case. And even if it were so, I should still be right," I added with
an involuntary smile of complacency.
For a few minutes Nechludoff was silent.
"I never thought you were so clever," he said with a smile so
goodhumoured and charming that I at once felt happy.
Praise exercises an all-potent influence, not only upon the feelings,
but also upon the intellect; so that under the influence of that
agreeable sensation I straightway felt much cleverer than before, and
thoughts began to rush with extraordinary rapidity through my head.
From egotism we passed insensibly to the theme of love, which seemed
inexhaustible. Although our reasonings might have sounded nonsensical to
a listener (so vague and one-sided were they), for ourselves they had a
profound significance. Our minds were so perfectly in harmony that not a
chord was struck in the one without awakening an echo in the other, and
in this harmonious striking of different chords we found the greatest
delight. Indeed, we felt as though time and language were insufficient
to express the thoughts which seethed within us.
XXVII. THE BEGINNING OF OUR FRIENDSHIP
From that time forth, a strange, but exceedingly pleasant, relation
subsisted between Dimitri Nechludoff and myself. Before other people he
paid me scanty attention, but as soon as ever we were alone, we would
sit down together in some comfortable corner and, forgetful both of time
and of everything around us, fall to reasoning.
We talked of a future life, of art, service, marriage, and education;
nor did the idea ever occur
to us that very possibly all we said was
shocking nonsense. The reason why it never occurred to us was that the
nonsense which we talked was good, sensible nonsense, and that, so long
as one is young, one can appreciate good nonsense, and believe in it. In
youth the powers of the mind are directed wholly to the future, and
that future assumes such various, vivid, and alluring forms under the
influence of hope--hope based, not upon the experience of the past, but
upon an assumed possibility of happiness to come--that such dreams of
expected felicity constitute in themselves the true happiness of that
period of our life. How I loved those moments in our metaphysical
discussions (discussions which formed the major portion of our
intercourse) when thoughts came thronging faster and faster, and,
succeeding one another at lightning speed, and growing more and more
abstract, at length attained such a pitch of elevation that one felt
powerless to express them, and said something quite different from what
one had intended at first to say! How I liked those moments, too, when,
carried higher and higher into the realms of thought, we suddenly felt
that we could grasp its substance no longer and go no further!
At carnival time Nechludoff was so much taken up with one festivity and
another that, though he came to see us several times a day, he never
addressed a single word to me. This offended me so much that once again
I found myself thinking him a haughty, disagreeable fellow, and only
awaited an opportunity to show him that I no longer valued his company
or felt any particular affection for him. Accordingly, the first time
that he spoke to me after the carnival, I said that I had lessons to do,
and went upstairs, but a quarter of an hour later some one opened the
schoolroom door, and Nechludoff entered.
"Am I disturbing you?" he asked.
"No," I replied, although I had at first intended to say that I had a
great deal to do.
"Then why did you run away just now? It is a long while since we had a
talk together, and I have grown so accustomed to these discussions that
I feel as though something were wanting."
My anger had quite gone now, and Dimitri stood before me the same good
and lovable being as before.
"You know, perhaps, why I ran away?" I said.
"Perhaps I do," he answered, taking a seat near me. "However, though it
is possible I know why, I cannot say it straight out, whereas YOU can."
"Then I will do so. I ran away because I was angry with you--well, not
angry, but grieved. I always have an idea that you despise me for being
so young."
"Well, do you know why I always feel so attracted towards you?" he
replied, meeting my confession with a look of kind understanding, "and
why I like you better than any of my other acquaintances or than any of
the people among whom I mostly have to live? It is because I found out
at once that you have the rare and astonishing gift of sincerity."
"Yes, I always confess the things of which I am most ashamed--but only
to people in whom I trust," I said.
"Ah, but to trust a man you must be his friend completely, and we
are not friends yet, Nicolas. Remember how, when we were speaking of
friendship, we agreed that, to be real friends, we ought to trust one
another implicitly."
"I trust you in so far as that I feel convinced that you would never
repeat a word of what I might tell you," I said.
"Yet perhaps the most interesting and important thoughts of all are
just those which we never tell one another, while the mean thoughts
(the thoughts which, if we only knew that we had to confess them to
one another, would probably never have the hardihood to enter our
minds)--Well, do you know what I am thinking of, Nicolas?" he broke off,
rising and taking my hand with a smile. "I propose (and I feel sure
that it would benefit us mutually) that we should pledge our word to one
another to tell each other EVERYTHING. We should then really know each
other, and never have anything on our consciences. And, to guard against
outsiders, let us also agree never to speak of one another to a third
person. Suppose we do that?"
"I agree," I replied. And we did it. What the result was shall be told
hereafter.
Kerr has said that every attachment has two sides: one loves, and the
other allows himself to be loved; one kisses, and the other surrenders
his cheek. That is perfectly true. In the case of our own attachment it
was I who kissed, and Dimitri who surrendered his cheek--though he, in
his turn, was ready to pay me a similar salute. We loved equally because
we knew and appreciated each other thoroughly, but this did not prevent
him from exercising an influence over me, nor myself from rendering him
adoration.
It will readily be understood that Nechludoff's influence caused me
to adopt his bent of mind, the essence of which lay in an enthusiastic
reverence for ideal virtue and a firm belief in man's vocation to
perpetual perfection. To raise mankind, to abolish vice and misery,
seemed at that time a task offering no difficulties. To educate oneself
to every virtue, and so to achieve happiness, seemed a simple and easy
matter.
Only God Himself knows whether those blessed dreams of youth were
ridiculous, or whose the fault was that they never became realised.
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Youth, by Leo Tolstoy
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YOUTH
By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi
Translated by C. J. Hogarth
------------------------------------
I. WHAT I CONSIDER TO HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF MY YOUTH
I have said that my friendship with Dimitri opened up for me a new view of my life and of its aim and relations. The essence of that view lay in the conviction that the destiny of man is to strive for moral improvement, and that such improvement is at once easy, possible, and lasting. Hitherto, however, I had found pleasure only in the new ideas which I discovered to arise from that conviction, and in the forming of brilliant plans for a moral, active future, while all the time my life had been continuing along its old petty, muddled, pleasure-seeking course, and the same virtuous thoughts which I and my adored friend Dimitri ("my own marvellous Mitia," as I used to call him to myself in a whisper) had been wont to exchange with one another still pleased my intellect, but left my sensibility untouched. Nevertheless there came a moment when those thoughts swept into my head with a sudden freshness and force of moral revelation which left me aghast at the amount of time which I had been wasting, and made me feel as though I must at once-that very second-apply those thoughts to life, with the firm intention of never again changing them.
It is from that moment that I date the beginning of my youth.
I was then nearly sixteen. Tutors still attended to give me lessons, St. Jerome still acted as general supervisor of my education, and, willy-nilly, I was being prepared for the University. In addition to my studies, my occupations included certain vague d
reamings and ponderings, a number of gymnastic exercises to make myself the finest athlete in the world, a good deal of aimless, thoughtless wandering through the rooms of the house (but more especially along the maidservants' corridor), and much looking at myself in the mirror. From the latter, however, I always turned away with a vague feeling of depression, almost of repulsion. Not only did I feel sure that my exterior was ugly, but I could derive no comfort from any of the usual consolations under such circumstances. I could not say, for instance, that I had at least an expressive, clever, or refined face, for there was nothing whatever expressive about it. Its features were of the most humdrum, dull, and unbecoming type, with small grey eyes which seemed to me, whenever I regarded them in the mirror, to be stupid rather than clever. Of manly bearing I possessed even less, since, although I was not exactly small of stature, and had, moreover, plenty of strength for my years, every feature in my face was of the meek, sleepy-looking, indefinite type. Even refinement was lacking in it, since, on the contrary, it precisely resembled that of a simple-looking moujik, while I also had the same big hands and feet as he. At the time, all this seemed to me very shameful.
II. SPRINGTIME
Easter of the year when I entered the University fell late in April, so that the examinations were fixed for St. Thomas's Week, [Easter week.] and I had to spend Good Friday in fasting and finally getting myself ready for the ordeal.