Classic Audiobook Collection - Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy audiobook. Genre: drama Leo Tolstoy's Boyhood continues the intimate, semi-autobiographical story of Nikolai Irtenyev as he leaves the relative shelter of childhood and steps into the restless, self-conscious world of early adolescence. Now moving between the routines of study, the expectations of adults, and the sharp hierarchies of aristocratic society, Nikolai begins to measure himself against friends, rivals, and the ideals he longs to embody. Small social missteps feel catastrophic, private feelings take on new intensity, and every glance or comment seems to carry hidden judgment. At home, shifting family dynamics and the presence of tutors, relatives, and visitors expose him to competing models of masculinity, honor, and faith. In school and in drawing rooms alike, he faces the central conflict of growing up: how to be sincere and good when pride, envy, and the desire to belong keep tugging him off course. With psychological precision and quiet emotional power, Tolstoy captures the awkwardness, wonder, and moral searching of boyhood as Nikolai tries to understand who he is becoming. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:33:52) Chapter 02 (00:59:44) Chapter 03 (01:26:25) Chapter 04 (01:53:54) Chapter 05 (02:22:12) Chapter 06 (02:37:29) Chapter 07 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

boyhood by leal tolstoy translated by c j hogarth section number one chapters one through four chapter one a slow journey again two carriages stood at the front door of the house at petrovske in one of them sat mimi the two girls and their maid with the bailiff yakoff on the box while in the other abrichka sat walota myself and our servant wasili papa who was to follow us to moscow in a few days was standing bareheaded on the entrance steps he made the sign of the cross at the windows of the carriages and said christ go with you good-bye jacoff and our coachman for we had our own horses lifted their caps in answer and also made the sign of the cross amen god go with us the carriages began to roll away and the birch-trees of the great avenue filed out of sight i was not in the least depressed on this occasion for my mind was not so much turned upon what i had left as upon what was awaiting me in proportion as the various objects connected with the sad recollections which had recently filled my imagination receded behind me those recollections lost their power and gave place to a consolatory feeling of life youthful vigor freshness and hope seldom have i spent four days more well i will not say gaily since i should have shrunk from appearing gay but more agreeably and pleasantly than those occupied by our journey no longer were my eyes confronted with the closed door of mamma's room which i had never been able to pass without a pang nor with the covered piano which nobody opened now and at which i could never look without trembling nor with morning dresses we had each of us on our ordinary travelling clothes nor with all those other other

objects which recalled to me so vividly our irreparable loss and forced me to abstain from any manifestation of merriment lest i should unwittingly offend against her memory on the contrary a continual succession of new and exciting objects and places now caught and held my attention and the charms of spring awakened in my soul a soothing sense of satisfaction with the present and of blissful hope for the future very early next morning the merciless who had only just entered our service and was therefore like most people in such a position zealous to a fault came and stripped off my counterpane affirming that it was time for me to get up since everything was in readiness for us to continue our journey though i felt inclined to stretch myself and rebel though i would gladly have spent another quarter of an hour in sweet enjoyment of my morning slumber wassley's inexorable face showed that he would grant me no respite but that he was ready to tear away the counterpane twenty times more if necessary accordingly i submitted myself to the inevitable and ran down into the courtyard to wash myself at the fountain in the coffee-room a tea-kettle was already surmounting the fire which milk of the obfirm as red in the face as a crab was blowing with a pair of bellows all was gray and misty in the courtyard like steam from a smoking dung-hill but in the eastern sky the sun was diffusing a clear cheerful radiance and making the straw roofs of the sheds around the courtyard sparkle with the night dew beneath them stood our horses tied to mangers and i could hear the ceaseless sound of their chewing a curly-haired dog which had been spending the night on a dry dung hill now rose in lazy fashion and wagging its tail walked slowly across the courtyard the bustling landlady opened the creaking gates turned her meditative cows into the street whence came the lowing and bellowing of other cattle and exchanged a word or two with a sleepy neighbor philip with his shirt-sleeves rolled up was working the windless of a draw-well

and sending sparkling fresh water coursing into an oaken trough while in the pool beneath it some early rising ducks were taking a bath it gave me pleasure to watch his strongly marked bearded face and the veins and muscles as they stood out upon his great powerful hands whenever he made an extra effort in the room behind the partition wall where mimi and the girls had slept yet so near to ourselves that we had exchanged confidences over night movements now became audible their maid kept passing in and out with clothes and at last the door opened and we were summoned to breakfast walota however remained in a state of bustle throughout as he ran to fetch first one article and then another and urged the maid to hasten her preparations the horses were put to and showed their impatience by tinkling their bells parcels trunks dressing-cases and boxes were replaced and we set about taking our seats yet every time that we got in the mountain of luggage in the britchka seemed to have grown larger than before and we had much ado to understand how we had much ado to understand how things had been arranged yesterday, and how we should sit now. A tea-chest in particular greatly inconvenienced me, but Wassily declared that things will soon write themselves, and I had no choice but to believe him. The sun was just rising, covered with dense white clouds, and every object around us was

standing out in a cheerful, calm sort of radiance. The whole was beautiful to look at, and I felt comfortable and light of heart. Before us the road ran like a broad, sinuous ribbon through cornfields glittering with dew here and there a dark bush or young birch-tree cast a long shadow over the ruts and scattered grass tufts of the track yet even the monotonous din of our carriage-wheels and collar-bells could not drown the joyous song of soaring larks nor the combined odor of moth-eaten cloth dust and sourness peculiar to our britchka overpower the fresh sense of the morning i felt in my heart that delightful impulse to be up and doing which is a sign of sincere enjoyment as i had not been able to say my prayers in the courtyard of the inn but had nevertheless been assured once than on the very first day when i omitted to perform that ceremony some misfortune would overtake me i now hastened to rectify the omission taking off my cap and stooping down in a corner of the britchka i duly recited my orisons and unobtrusively signed the sign of the cross beneath my coat yet all the while a thousand different objects were distracting my attention and more than once i inadvertently repeated a prayer twice over soon on the little foot-path beside the road became visible some slowly moving figures they were pilgrims on their heads they had dirty handkerchiefs on their backs wallets of birch-bark and on their feet bundles of soiled rags and heavy bast shoes moving their staffs in regular rhythm and scarcely throwing us a glance they pressed onward

with heavy tread and in single file. "'Where have they come from?' I wondered to myself, and whither are they bound. Is it a long pilgrimage they are making?' But soon the shadows they cast on the road became indistinguishable from the shadows of the bushes which they passed. Next a carriage and four could be seen approaching us. In two seconds the faces which looked out at us from it,

with smiling curiosity, had vanished. How strange it seemed that those faces, faces should have nothing in common with me, and that in all probability they would never meet my eyes again. Next came a pair of post-horses, with the traces looped up to their collars. On one of them a young postillion, his lamb's wool cap cocked to one side, was negligently kicking his booted legs against the flanks of his steed as he sang a melancholy ditty. Yet his face and attitude seemed to me to express such perfect carelessness and indolent ease that

I imagined it to be the height of happiness, to be a postillion, and to sing melancholy songs. Far off, through a cutting in the road there soon stood out against the light blue sky, the green roof of a village church. Presently the village itself became visible, together with the roof of the manor house and the garden attached to it. Who lived in that house? Children, parents, teachers? Why should we not call there and make the acquaintance of its inmates?" Next we overtook a file of its inmates. of loaded wagons, a procession to which our vehicles had to yield the road.

What have you got in there? asked Wassily of one wagoner who was dangling his legs lazily over the splashboard of his conveyance, and flicking his whip about as he gazed at us with a stolid, vacant look. But he only made answer when we were too far off to catch what he said. And what have you got? asked Wassily of a second waggoner who was lying at full length under a new rug on the driving seat of his vehicle. The red pall and the red face beneath it lifted them up for a second from the folds of the rug measured our britchka with a cold contemptuous look and lay down again whereupon i concluded that the driver was wondering to himself who we were whence we had come and whither we were going these various objects of interest had absorbed so much of my time that as yet i had paid no attention to the crooked figures on the versed posts as we passed them in rapid succession but in time the sun began to burn my head and back the road to become increasingly dusty the impedimenta on the carriage to grow more and more uncomfortable and myself to feel more and more cramped consequently i relapsed into devoting my whole faculties to the distance posts

and their numerals and to solving difficult mathematical problems for reckoning the time when we should arrive at the next posting-house twelve verses are a third of thirty six and in all there are forty one to we have done a third and how much then and so forth and so forth wasa lee was my next remark on observing that he was beginning to nod on the box seat suppose we change seats will you wassalee agreed and had no sooner stretched himself out in the body of the vehicle than he began to snore to me on my new perch however a most interesting spectacle now became visible namely our horses all of which were familiar to me down to the smallest detail why is diachik on the right to-day philip not on the left i asked knowingly and nurechinka is not doing her proper share of the pulling one could not put diachik on the left replied philip altogether ignoring my last remark he is not the kind of horse to put there at all a horse like the one on the left now is the right kind of one for the job after this fragment of eloquence philip turned towards diachic and began to do his best to worry the poor animal by jogging at the reins in spite of the fact that diachik was doing well and dragging the vehicle almost unaided this philip continued to do until he found it convenient to breathe and rest himself awhile and to settle his cap askew though it had looked well enough before i profited by the opportunity to ask him to let me have the reins to hold until the whole six in my hand as well as the whip i had attained complete happiness several times i asked whether i was doing things right but as usual philip was never satisfied and soon destroyed my felicity the heat increased until a hand showed itself at the carriage window and waved a bottle and a parcel of eatables whereupon wosceli leapt briskly from the britchka and ran forward to get us something to eat and drink

when we arrived at a steep descent we all got out and ran down it to a little bridge while wassley and jacoff followed supporting the carriage on either side as though to hold it up in the event of its threatening to upset after that mimi gave permission for a change of seats and sometimes walota or myself would ride in the carriage and lubachka or katenka in the britchka this arrangement greatly pleased the girls since much more fun went on in the brichka just when the day was at its hottest we got out at a wood and breaking off a quantity of branches transformed our vehicle into a bower this traveling arbor then bustled on to catch the carriage up and had the effect of exciting to one of those piercing shrieks of delight which she was in the habit of occasionally emitting at last we drew near the village where we were to halt and dine already we could perceive the smell of the place the smell of smoke and tar and sheep and distinguished the sound of voices footsteps and carts the bells on our horses began to ring less clearly than they had done in the open country and on both sides the road became lined with huts dwellings with straw roofs carvers and car-anded and the open country and on both sides the road became lined with huts dwellings with straw roofs carvers and car porches and small red or green painted shutters to the windows, through which here and there was a woman's face looking inquisitively out. Peasant children clad in smocks only stood staring open-eyed, or stretching out their arms to us ran barefooted through the dust to

climb onto the luggage behind, despite Philip's menacing gestures. Likewise, red-haired waiters came darting around the carriages to invite us with words and signs to select their several hostelries as our halting place. Presently a gate creaked, and we entered a courtyard. Four hours of rest and liberty now awaited us. Chapter 2. The Thunderstorm. The sun was sinking towards the west, and his long hot rays were burning my neck and cheeks beyond endurance, while thick clouds of dust were rising from the road and filling the whole air. Not the slightest wind was there to carry it away. I could not think what to do. neither the dust-blackened face of waloda dozing in a corner nor the motion of philip's back nor the long shadow of our britchka as it came bowling along behind us brought me any relief

i concentrated my whole attention upon the distance posts ahead and the clouds which hitherto dispersed over the sky were now assuming a menacing blackness and beginning to form themselves into a single solid mass from time to time distant thunder could be heard a circumstance which greatly increased my impatience to arrive at the inn where we were to spend the night a thunderstorm always communicated to me an inexpressibly oppressive feeling of fear and gloom yet we were still ten versts from the next village and in the meanwhile the large purple cloud-bank arisen from no one knows where was advancing steadily towards us the sun not yet obscured was picking out its fuscus shape with dazzling light and marking its front with gray stripes running right down to the horizon at intervals vivid lightning could be seen in the distance followed by low rumbles which increased steadily in volume until they merged into a prolonged roll which seemed to embrace the entire heavens at length wassilly got up and covered over the britchka the coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak and lifted his cap to make the sign of the cross at each successive thunder-clap and the horses pricked up their ears and snorted as though to drink in the fresh air which the flying clouds were out distancing the brichka began to roll more swiftly along the dusty road and i felt uneasy and as though the blood were coursing more quickly through my veins soon the clouds had veiled the face of the sun, and though he threw a last gleam of light to the dark and terrifying horizon, he had no choice but to disappear behind them. Suddenly everything

around us seemed changed and assumed a gloomy aspect. A wood of aspen trees which we were passing seemed to be all in a tremble, with its leaves showing white against the dark lilac background of the clouds, murmuring together in an agitated manner. The tops of the larger trees began to bend to and fro, and dried leaves and grass to whirl about in eddies over the road. Swallows and white-breasted swifts came darting around the britchka, and even passing in front of the forelegs of the horses, while rooks, despite their outstretched wings, were laid as it were on their keels by the wind. Finally the leather apron which covered us began to flutter about and to beat against the sides of the conveyance.

The lightning flashed right into the brichka, as cleaving the obscurity for a second it lit up the gray cloth and silk galoon of the lining and Waloda's figure pressed back into a corner. Next came a terrible sound which rising higher and higher and spreading further and further increased until it reached its climax in a deafening thunder-clap which made us tremble and hold our breaths. The wrath of God! What poetry there is in that simple popular conception! The pace of the vehicle was continually increasing, and from Phillips and Vasili's back, the former was tugging furiously at the reins i could see that they too were alarmed bowling rapidly down an incline the britchka cannoned violently against a wooden bridge at the bottom i dared not stir and expected destruction every moment crack a trace had given way and in spite of the ceaseless deafening thunder-claps we had to pull up on the bridge leaning my head despairingly against the side of the brichka

i followed with a beating heart the movements of philip's great black fingers as he tied up the broken trace and with hands and the butt-end of the whip pushed the harness vigorously back into its place my sense of terror was increasing with the violence of the thunder indeed at the moment of supreme silence which generally perceived the greatest intensity of a storm it mounted to such a height that i felt as though another quarter of an hour of this emotion would kill me just then there appeared from beneath the bridge a human being who clad in a torn filthy smock and sported on a pair of thin shanks bare of muscles thrust an idiotic face a tremulous bare-shaven head and a pair of red shining stumps in place of hands into the brichka my lord a copic for for god's sake groaned a feeble voice as at each word the wretched being made the sign of the cross and bowed himself to the ground i cannot describe the chill feeling of horror which penetrated my heart at that moment a shudder crept through all my hair and my eyes stared in vacant terror at the outcast wasssaly who was charged with the apportioning of alms during the journey was busy helping philip and only when everything had been put straight and philip had resumed the reins again had he time to look for his purse hardly had the britchka begun to move when a blinding flash filled the welcome with a blaze of light which brought the horses to their haunches then the flash was followed by such an ear-splitting roar that the very vault of heaven seemed to be descending upon our heads the wind blew harder than ever and wasaely's cloak, the manes and tails of the horses, and the carriage apron were all slanted in one direction,

as they waved furiously in the violent blast. Presently upon the Britchka's top there fell some large drops of rain. One, two, three. Then suddenly, as though a roll of drums were being beaten over our heads, the whole countryside resounded with the clatter of the deluge. From Wasali's movements I could see that he had now got his purse open, and that the poor outcast was still bowing and making the sign of the cross as he ran beside the wheels of the vehicle, at the imminent risk of being run over, and reiterated from time to time his plea,

"'For—for God's sake!' At last a Copic rolled upon the ground, and the miserable creature, his mutilated arms with their sleeves wet through and through held out before him, stopped perplexed in the roadway, and vanished from my sight. The heavy rain, driven before the tempestuous wind, poured down in pailfuls, and, dripping from Wassily's thick cloak, formed a series of pools on the apron. The dust became changed to a paste which clung to the wheels, and the ruts became transformed into muddy rivulets. At last, however, the lightning grew paler and more diffuse, and the thunderclaps lost some of their terror amid the monotonous rattling of the downpour. Then the rain also abated, and the clouds began to disperse, in the region of the sun a light of

lightness appeared, and between the white-gray clouds could be caught glimpses of an azure sky. Finally, a dazzling ray shot across the pools on the road, shot through the threads of rain, now falling thin and straight as from a sieve, and fell upon the fresh leaves and blades of grass. The great cloud was still lowering, black, and threatening on the far horizon, but I no longer felt afraid of it. I felt only an inexpressibly pleasant hopefulness in proportion. portion, as trust in life replaced the late burden of fear. Indeed, my heart was smiling like that of refreshed, revivified nature herself. Wasily took off his cloak and wrung the water from it. Woloda flung back the apron, and I stood up in the Britchka to drink in the new, fresh,

balm-laden air. In front of us was the carriage, rolling along and looking as wet and resplendent in the sunlight as though it had just been polished. On one side of the road, boundless oat fields intersected in places by small ravines which now showed bright with their moist earth and greenery stretched to the far horizon like a checkered carpet while on the other side of us an aspen wood intermingled with hazel bushes and parquade with wild thyme in joyous profusion no longer rustled and trembled but slowly dropped rich sparkling diamonds from its newly bathed branches on to the withered leaves of last year from above us from every side came the happy songs of little birds calling to one another among the dripping brushwood while clear from the inmost depths of the wood sounded the voice of the cuckoo so delicious was the wondrous scent of the wood the scent of the wood the scent which follows a thunderstorm in spring the scent of birch trees violets mushrooms and thyme that i could no longer remain in the brichka jumping out i ran to some bushes and regardless of the showers of drops discharged upon me tore off a few sprigs of time and buried my face in them to smell their glorious scent then despite the mud which had got into my boots as also the fact that my stockings were soaked i went skipping through the puddles to the window of the carriage lubachka katenka i shouted as i handed them some of the time just look how delicious this is the girl smelt it and cried 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 chapter three 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 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 serpakov 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 kentka 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 Grandmama downstairs. But Mama says that your grandmamma is so very grave and 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—' Ketinka 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 Grandin' 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 Ketanka, 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 Mast's. "'Tell me the truth now. Why are you so odd?' my tone was resolute. "'Am I so odd?' said Ketenko 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 anyone 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 Lubachka, who had called her a stupid girl, she, Katanka, 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 Katanka, coloring slightly and regarding Phillips' 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 Petrovsky. While we are poor. Mama 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 Kattenka. 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 colored up and could not look Ketanka 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 Katinka 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. 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 favorite 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 Kattenka. 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 aside 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, in other words our family, were not the only persons in the world, that not every conceivable interest was centered 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 conversation with conversation with kitenka 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 chapter four 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 Grandmama 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 Lubachka'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 evanitch whom grandmamma always called uncle and who heaven knows why had taken it into his head to adorn the 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 on campagna and that everything was now going to be different end of section one recording by bill borsed section number two of boyhood by leo tolstoy translated by c j hogarth this libravox recording is in the public domain section number two chapters five through eight chapter five my elder brother i was only a year and some odd months younger than walota 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 walodas equal either in years in tastes or in capabilities i even began to fancy that walota 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 waloda 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 waloda 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 waloda 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 waloda 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-colored smelling-bottle who gave you leave to touch my things asked waloda chancing to enter the room at that moment and at once perceiving the room at once perceiving the room at once perceiving the room at one 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 favor, 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 favor 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 walota 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 walota giving me a slight push go away don't you push me go away i say again don't you push me walota 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 walota 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 waloda 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 note-book and moved towards the door just as i passed walota i pouted and pulled an angry face though in reality i should have liked to make my peace with him at the same moment he lifted his head and with a barely perceptible and good-humoredly 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 mocking pathetic way you have been angry with me long enough i am sorry if i offended you and he tendered me his hand it was as though something welled up from my heart and nearly choked me presently it passed away the tears rushed to my eyes and i felt immensely relieved i too am sorry sorry wotah i said taking his hand yet he only looked at me with an expression as though he could not understand why there should be tears in my eyes chapter six masha none of the changes produced in my conception of things were so striking as the one which led me to cease to see in one of our chambermaids a mere servant of the female sex but on the contrary a woman upon whom depended to a certain extent my peace of mind and happiness. From the time of my earliest recollection I can remember Masha an inmate of our house,

yet never until the occurrence of which I am going to speak, an occurrence which entirely altered my impression of her, had I bestowed the smallest attention upon her. She was twenty-five years old, while I was but fourteen. Also, she was very beautiful, but I had to be stowed, but I had to be able, but I hesitate to give a further description of her, lest my imagination should once more picture the bewitching, though deceptive, conception of her which filled my mind during the period of my passion. To be frank, I will only say that she was extraordinarily handsome, magnificently developed, and a woman,

as also that I was but fourteen. At one of those moments when lesson-book in hand I would pace the room and try to keep strictly to one particular crack in the floor as I hummed a fragment of some tune or repeated some vague formula. In short, at one of those moments when the mind leaves off thinking and the imagination gains the upper hand, and yearns for new impressions, I leapt the school-room, and turned, with no definite purpose in view, towards the head of the staircase. Somebody in slippers was ascending the second flight of stairs. Of course I felt curious to see who it was, but the footsteps ceased abruptly, and then I heard Masha's voice say,

"'Go away! What nonsense! What would Maria Ivanova think if she were to come now?' "'Oh, but she will not come!' answered Willota's voice in a whisper. "'Well, go away, you silly boy, and Masha came running up and fled past me. I cannot describe the way in which this discovery confounded me. Nevertheless, the feeling of amazement soon gave place to a kind of sympathy with Willow's conduct. I found myself wondering less at the conduct itself than at his ability to behave so agreeably. Also I found myself involuntarily desiring to imitate him. Sometimes I would pace the landing for an hour at a time with no other thought in my head than to watch for movements from above.

Yet although I longed beyond all things to do as Waloda had done, I could not bring myself to the point. At other times, filled with a sense of envious jealousy, I would conceal myself behind a door and listen to the sounds which came from the maid-servant's room until the thought would occur to my mind how if i were to go in now and like waloda kiss what should i say when she asked me me with the huge nose and the tuft on the top of my head what i wanted sometimes too i could hear her saying to waloda that serves you right go away nicholas petrovitch never comes in here with such nonsense alas she did not know that nicholas petrovitch was sitting on the staircase just below and feeling that he would give all he possessed to be in that bold fellow wolodagh's place i was shy by nature and rendered worse in that respect by a consciousness of my own ugliness i am certain that nothing so much influences the development of a man as his exterior though the exterior itself less than his belief in its plainness or beauty yet i was too conceited altogether to resign myself to my fate i tried to comfort myself much as the fox did when he declared that the grapes were sour that is to say i tried to make light of the satisfaction to be gained from making such use of a pleasing exterior as i believed waloda to employ satisfaction which i nevertheless envied him from my heart and endeavored with every faculty of my intellect and imagination to console myself with a pride of my heart-and endeavored with every faculty of my intellect and imagination to console myself with a pride of my heart

in my isolation. Chapter 7. Small shot. Good gracious, powder! exclaimed Mimi, in a voice trembling with alarm. Whatever are you doing, you will set the house on fire in a moment, and be the death of us all. Upon that, with an indescribable expression of firmness, Mimi ordered everyone to stand aside, and regardless of all possible danger from a premature explosion strode with long and resolute steps to where some small shot was scattered about the floor and began to trample upon it. When, in her opinion, the peril was at least lessened,

she called for Michael and commanded him to throw the powder away into some remote spot, or better still, to immerse it in water, after which she adjusted her cap and returned proudly to the drawing-room, murmuring as she went, At least I can say that they are well looked after. When Papa issued from his room and took us to see Grandmama, we found Mimi sitting by the window and glancing with a grave, mysterious official expression towards the door. In her hand she was holding something carefully wrapped in paper. I guessed that that something was the small shot, and that Grandmama had been informed of the occurrence.

In the room also were the maid-servant, Gasha, who took her. who judged by her angry flushed face was in a state of great irritation, and Dr. Blumenthal, the latter a little man pitted with smallpox, who was endeavoring by tacit, pacificatory signs with his head and eyes to reassure the perturbed gasha. Grandmamma was sitting a little askew and playing that variety of patience which is called the traveler, two unmistakable signs of her displeasure. How are you to-day, Mama, said Papa, as he kissed her hand respectfully. Have you had a good night? yes very good my dear you know that i always enjoy sound health replied grandmamma in a tone implying that papa's inquiries were out of place and highly offensive

please give me a clean pocket-handkerchief she added to gasha i have given you one madam answered gasha pointing to the snow-white cambric handkerchief which she had just laid on the arm of grandmamma's chair no it's a nasty dirty thing take it away and bring me a clean one my dear gasha went to a cupboard and slammed the door of it back so violently that every window rattled grandmamma glared angrily at each of us and then turned her attention to following the movements of the servant after the latter had presented her with what i suspected to be the same handkerchief as before grandmamma continued and when do you mean to cut me some snuff my dear when i have time what do you say to-day to-day if you don't want to continue in my service you had better say so at once i would have sent you away long ago had i known that you wished it it wouldn't have broken my heart if you had muttered the woman in an undertone here the doctor winked at her again but she returned his gaze so firmly and wrathfully that he soon lowered it and went on playing with his watch-key you see my dear how people speak to me in my own house said grandmamma to papa when gasha had left the room grumbling well mamma i will cut you some snuff myself replied papa though evidently at a loss how to proceed now that he had made this rash promise no no i thank you probably she is cross because she knows that no one except herself can cut the snuff just as i like it do you know my dear she went on after a pause that your children very nearly set the house on fire this morning papa gazed at grandmamma with respectful astonishment yes they were playing with something or another tell him the story she added to mimi

papa could not help smiling as he took the shot in his hand this is only small shot mamma he remarked and could never be dangerous i thank you my dear for your instruction but i am rather too old for that sort of thing nerves nerves whispered the doctor Papa turned to us and asked us where we had got the stuff and how we could dare to play with it. Don't ask them. Ask that useless uncle, rather, put in Grandmama, laying a peculiar stress upon the word, uncle. What else is he for? Willota says that Carl Ivanovich gave him the powder himself, declared Mimi. Then you can see for yourself what use he is, continued Grandmama, and where is he, this precious uncle, How is one to get hold of him? Send him here.'

"'He is gone on an errand for me,' said Papa. "'That is not at all right,' rejoined Grand-Mama. "'He ought to always be here. "'True, the children are yours, not mine, "'and I have nothing to do with them, "'seeing that you are so much cleverer than I am. "'Yet all the same, I think it is time we had a regular tutor for them, "'and not this uncle of a German,

"'a stupid fellow who knows only how to teach them rude manners "'and Tyrolean songs.' Is it necessary, I ask you, that they should learn Tyrolean songs? However, there is no one for me to consult about it, and you must do just as you like. The word now meant, Now that they have no mother, and suddenly awakened sad recollections in Grandmama's heart. She threw a glance at the snuff-box bearing Mama's portrait and sighed. I thought of all this long ago, said Papa eagerly,

as well as taking your advice on the subject how would you like st jerome to superintend their lessons oh i think he would do excellently my friend said grandmamma in a mollified tone he is at least a tutor com il foe and knows how to instruct des enfons de bon he is not a mere uncle who is good only for taking them out walking very well i will talk to him to-morrow said papa and sure enough two days later saw karl ivanovitch forced to retire in favor of the young frenchman referred to chapter eight karl evanitch's history the evening before the day when carl was to leave us for ever he was standing clad as usual in his wadded dressing-gowned red cap near the bed in his room and bending down over a trunk as he carefully packed his belongings his behavior towards us had been very cool of late and he had seemed to shrink from all contact with us consequently when i entered his room on the present occasion he only glanced at me for a second and then went on with his occupation Even though I proceeded to jump onto his bed, a thing hitherto always forbidden me to do, he said not a word, and the idea that he would soon be scolding or forgiving us no longer, no longer having anything to do with us, reminded me vividly of the impending separation.

I felt grieved to think that he had ceased to love us, and wanted to show him my grief. "'Will you let me help you?' I said approaching him. He looked at me for a moment and turned away again, yet the expression of pain in his eyes showed that his coldness was not the result of indifference, but rather of sincere and concentrated sorrow. "'God sees and knows everything,' he said at length, raising himself to his full height and drawing a deep sigh. "'Yes, Nicolinka,' he went on, observing, the expression of sincere pity on my face,

"'my fate has been an unhappy one from the cradle, and will continue so to the grave. the good that i have done to people has always been repaid with evil yet though i shall receive no reward here i shall find one there he pointed upwards ah if only you knew my whole story and all that i have endured in this life i who have been a boot-maker a soldier a deserter a factory hand and a teacher yet now now i am nothing and like the son of man have nowhere to lay my head sitting down upon a chair he covered his eyes with his hand seeing that he was in the introspective mood in which a man pays no attention to his listener as he cons over his secret thoughts i remained silent and seating myself upon the bed continued to watch his kind face you are no longer a child you can understand things now and i will tell you my whole story and all that i have undergone some day my children you may remember the old friend who loved you so much. He lent his elbow upon the table by his side, took a pinch of snuff, and in the peculiarly measured guttural tone in which he used to dictate us our lessons, began the story of his career. Since he many times in later years repeated the whole to me again,

always in the same order, and with the same expressions and the same unvarying intonation, I will try to render it literally, and without omitting the innumerable grammatical errors into which he always strayed when speaking in Russian. Whether it was really the history of his life, or whether it was the mere product of his imagination, that is to say some narrative which he had conceived during his lonely residence in our house, and had at last from endless repetition come to believe in himself, or whether he was adorning with imaginary facts the true record of his career, I have never quite been able to make out. On the one hand, there was too much depth of feeling and practical consistency in its recital for it to be wholly incredible, while in the other hand

the abundance of poetical beauty which it contained tended to raise doubts in the mind of the listener. Me ver very unhappy from the time of my birth, he began with a profound sigh. The noble blood of the countess of Zomerblot flows in my veins. Me were born six weeks after the vetting. The man of my mother, I called him Papa, were farmer to the Count von Zomerblatt. He could not forget my mother's shame, and loft me not.

I had a youngster brother, Johann, and two sister. But me were strange between my own family. Then Johann made several, silly trick, Papa said, With this child, Carl, I am never to have one moment tranquil, and then he scolded and punished me. When the sister quarreled among themselves, Papa said, Carl will never be one obedient boy, and still scolded and punished me.

My good mamma alone loved untentered me. Often she said to me, "'Carle, come in my room.' "'And there she kissed me secretly. "'Poorly, poorly, Carl,' she said. "'Nobody love you. "'But I will not exchange you for somebody in the world.' "'One thing your mutter pegs you to remember,' she said to me.

"'Learn well, and be ever one honest man.' "'Zan God will not forsake you. "'And I tried so. so to become. Then my fourteen year had expired, and me could partake of the Holy Supper, my mother said to my father, Carl is one big boy now, Gustav. What shall we do with him? Aunt Papa said, Me don't know. Then Mama said, Let us give him to town at Mr. Shultzans, and he may be shoemaker. And my vater said, good, six year and seven months lived I in town with

the Mr. Shoemaker, and he loved me. He said, Carl are one good workman, and shall soon become my jessel. But man makes the preposition and God the deposition. In the year 1796, one conscription took place, and each which was serviceable from the eighteenth to the twenty-first year had to go to town. My father and my brother, Johan, come to town, and we go together to throw the lot for which should be soljot. Johan drew the veto number, and me was not necessary to be solchot. And Papa said, I have only one son, and with him I must now separate. Then I take his hand, and says, Why you say so, Papa? Come with me, and I will say you something. And Papa come, and we seat together at the public's house, and me said,

Vater, give us one beer-cug, and he gives us one. we trink altogether and brother johan also drink papa said me don't say that you have only one son and with it you must separate my heart was breaking venus says this brother johan must not serve me shall be soljot karl is for nobody necessary and karl shall be soljot you is one honest man carol said papa and kissed me and me was sojot end of section two recording by bill borsed section three of boyhood by leo tolstoy translated by c j hogarth this librovoc's recording is in the public domain section three chapters nine through twelve chapter nine chapter nine continuation of karl's narrative that was a terrible time nicolinka continued karl avanitch the time of napoleon he wanted to conquer germany and we protected our vauterland to the last trap of plot me ver at ulm mever at austerlitz mever at wagram did you really fight i asked with a gaze of astonishment did you really kill anybody karl instantly reassured me on this point once one french grenadier was left behind and fell to the ground i sprang forwards with my gun and were about to kill him

Wurt'stine givier in a rife. Pardon, and I let him loose. At Wagram, Napoleon cut us open, and surrounded us in such a way as there was no helping. Three days had we no provisions, and stood in the water up to the knees. The evil Napoleon neither let us go loose nor catched us. On the fourth day they took us prison,

Thank God, and sent us to one fortress. Upon me was one blue trousers, uniforms of very good clothes, fifteen of tollers, and one silver clock which my vater had given me. The France Zoldaten took from me everything. For my happiness there was three ducats on me which my mamma had sewn in my shirt of flannel. nobody found them i liked not long to stay in the fortresses and resoluted to run away one day one pig holiday says i to the sergeant which had to look ater us mr sergeant to-day is a pig holiday and me wants to celebrate it bring here if you please two bottle matera and we shall drink them with each other and the sergeant says good when the sergeant bring de matura and we trink it out to the last drop i take't his hand

and says mr sergeant perhaps you have still one vater and one mutter he says so i have mr maher my vater and mutter not seen me eight year i go's on to him and say no not if i am yet a loth butt'r i go's on to him and say no not if i am yet a lot or if my bones be reposing in the grave. O Mr. Sargent, I have two truckets, which is in my shirt of flannel. Take them, and let me loose. You will be my benefactor, and my mutter will be praying for you all her life to the almighty God. The sergeant emptied his glass of Matera and says, Mr. Mayor, I love and pity you very much, but you is one prisoner and I one soldier,

so i take his hunt and says mr sergeant and the sergeant says you is one poor man and i will not take your money but i will help you then i go to sleep buy one pail of pranti for de sultan and they will sleep me will not look after you sys was one good man i puyit ze pail of pronti and then the sotatin and then the sotatin was drunken, me dressed in one old coat, and gang in silence out of the doone. I go to the wall, and will leap down, but there is water below, and I will not spoil my last dressing, so I go to the gate. The sentry go up and down with one gun, and look at me. Who goes there, and I was silent? Who goes there the second time, and I was silent?

who go there the third time and i run away i sprang in the water climb up to the other side and walk on the entire night i run on the but when daylight came i was afraid that they would catch me and i hit myself in the high corn there i kneel'd down zank at the water in heaven for my safety and fall asleep with a tranquil feeling i wakened up in the evening and gang furser at once one large german carriage with two raven black horse came alongside me in the carriage sit one well-dressed man smoking pipe and look at me i go slowly so that the carriage shall have time to pass me but i go slowly and the carriage go slowly and the man look at me i go quick and the carriage go quick and the man stop its two horses and look at me young man says he where go you so late i says i go to frankfort sit in the carriage there is room enough and i will track you he says but why have you nosing about you your boots is dirty and your beard not shaven i seated with him and says i've been one poor man and i would like to pussy myself with something in a manufactory my tressing is dirty because i fell in the mud on the mud on the the road. You tell me untruth, young man, says he. The road is quite dry now. I was silent. Tell me the whole truth, goes on the good man, who you are and where you go to. I like your

face, and when you is one honest man, so I will help you. And I tell all. Good, young man, he says, come to my manufactory of rope, and I will give you work and dress and money and you can live with us. I says good. I go to the manufacturing of rope, and the good man says to his woman, Here is one young man who defended his waterland and ran away from prisons. He has not house, nor tresses, nor preet. He will live with us, give him clean linen, and nourish him. I lived one and a half year in the manufacturing of rope, and my landlord, loved me so much that he would not let me loose, and I felt very good. I were then handsome man, young, of pig stature, with blue eyes and romish nose, and Mrs. L., I like not to say her name,

she was the woman of my landlord, was young and handsome lady, and she fell in love with me. Here Carl Avanich made a long pause, lowered his kindly blue eyes, shook his head quietly, and smiled as people always do under the influence of a pleasing recollection. Yes, he resumed as he leant back in his arm-chair and adjusted his dressing-gown. I have experienced many things in my life, but there is my witness. Here he pointed to an image of the Savior, embroidered on wool, which was hanging over his bed. That nobody in the world can say that Carl Avanich has been one dishonest man. I would not repay black ingratitude for the gut which Mr. L. did me, and I resoluted to run away.

So in the evening, then all were asleep, I write it one letter to my landlord, and laid it on the table in his room. Then I take my tresses, tree-taller of money, and go mysteriously into the street. Nobody have seen me, and I go on ze wrote. Chapter 10. Conclusion of Carl's narrative. I had not seen my mama for nine year, and I know not whether she lived or whether her bones had long since lain in the dark grave. Then I come to my own country and go to the town, I ask, where live? Gustav Meyer, who was farmer to the Count von Zomerblatt.

And they answer me, Graf Zomerblatt is dead. And Gustav Mayer live now in the pig-o'-mere. live now in the pig-omerblatt. street and keep a public house. So I tress in my new waistcoat, and one noble coat which the manufacturer's presented me, arranged my hairs nice, and go to the public house of my papa. Sister Maryschen was sitting on a pinch, and she asked me what I want. I says, Might I drink one glass of brandy? And she says, Vater, here is a young man who wished to drink one glass of branty. And Papa says, give him the glass i set to the table drink my glass at brante smoke my pipe and look at papa mereschen and johan who also come into the shop

in the conversation papa says you know perhaps young man who stands our army and i say i myself am come from the army and it stands now at our son says papa is a soldat and now is it nine years since he wrote never one word and we know not whether he is alive or dead my woman cry continually for him i still fumigate the pipe and say what was your son's name and where served he perhaps i may know him his name was carl mayor and he served in the austrian jaggers he wear a pig stature and a handsome man like yourself puts in merrishen i say i know your carl amalia exclaimed my vater come here here is young man which knows our carl and my dear mutter comes out from a back door i knew her directly you know our carl says she and looks at me and white all over trembles yes i have seen him i says without ze courage to look at her for my heart did almost burst. My Carl is alive, she cry? Then thank God!

Where is he, my Carl? I would die in peace if I could see him once more, my darling son. But God will not have it so. Then she cried, and I could no longer stand it. Darling, mamma, I say. I am your son. I am your Carl, and she fell into my arms. Carl, Avannich covered his eyes, and his lips were quivering.

Mother, saqte I. i bin ee son ee ben ir karl and se stirs de me in the army he repeated recovering a little and wiping the tears from his eyes but god did not wish me to finish my days in my own town i were pursued by fate i lived in my own town only three months one sunday i sit in a coffee-house and drink at one pint of pier on fumigated my pipe and speak it with some friends of politic, of the Emperor Franz, of Napoleon, of the war, and anybody might say his opinion. But next to us sits a strange gentleman in a gray uberach, who drink coffee, fumigate the pipe, and says nothing. When the night watchman shouted ten o'clock, I take to my hat, paid the money, and go home. At the middle of the night, someone knock at the door.

I rise and says, Who is there? "'Open,' says someone. "'I shout again. First say who is there, and I will open. "'Open in the name of the law,' say someone behind the door. "'I now do so. "'Two soldatin with guns stand at the door, "'and into the room steps the man in the grey Uberak, "'who had sat with us in the coffee-house.

"'He were spion. "'Come with me,' says the spion. "'Very good, I say. "'I dressed myself in. boots, trousers, and coat, and go through the room. Then I come to the wall where my gun hangs, I take it and says, You are a spian, so defend you. I give one stroke left, one right, and one on the head. The spion lay precipitated on the floor. Then I take my cloak-bag and money, and jumped out of the vinto. I went to Ems, where I was acquainted with one general

Sassin, who loved me, gave me a passport from the embassy, and take me to Rusland to learn his children. When General Sassin died, your mama called for me and says, Carl Avanich, I give you my children, love them, and I will never leave you and will take care of your old age. Now she is dead, and all is forgotten. For my twenty-year full of service, I must now go into the street, and seek for a try crust of bread for my old age. God sees all this, and knows all this. His holy will

be done. Only, only I yearn for you my children, and Carl drew me to him and kissed me on the forehead. Chapter 11. One mark only. The year of morning over, Grand Mama recovered a little from her grief and once more took to receiving occasional guests, especially children of the same age as ourselves. On the 13th of December, Lubachka's birthday, the Princess Kornikov and her daughters, with Madame Velakkin, Stonetschka, Elinka Grapp, and the two younger twins arrived at our house before luncheon. Though we could hear the sounds of talking, laughter, and movements going on in the drawing-room, we could not join the party until our morning lessons were finished.

The table of studies in the schoolroom said, lundee de de de a three maitre d'estoire and de geographie and this infernal matre d'istoire we must await listen to and see the back of before we could gain our liberty already it was twenty minutes past two and nothing was to be heard of the tutor nor yet anything to be seen of him in the street although i kept looking up and down it with the greatest impatience and with an emphatic longing never to see the matre again i believe he is not coming to-day said walota looking up for a moment from his lesson-book i hope he is not please the lord i answered but in a despondent tone yet there he does come i believe all the same not he why that is a gentleman said walota likewise looking out of the window let us wait till half-past two and then ask st jerome if we may put away our books yes and wish them au revoir i added stretching my arms with the book clasped my hands over my head. Having hitherto idled away my time, I now opened the book at the place where the lesson was to begin, and started to learn it. It was long and difficult, and, moreover, I was in the mood when one's thoughts refused to be arrested by anything at all. Consequently,

I made no progress. After our last lesson in history, which always seemed to me a peculiarly arduous and wearisome subject, the history master had complained to St. Jerome of me because only two good marks stood to my credit in the register, a very small total. St. Jerome had then told me that if I failed to gain less than three marks at the next lesson I should be severely punished. The next lesson was now imminent, and I confess that I felt a little nervous. So absorbed, however, did I become in my reading that the sound of galoshes being taken off in the ante-room came upon me almost as a shock. I had just time to look up when there appeared in the doorway the servile and to me very disgusting face and form of the master,

clad in a blue frock-coat with brass buttons. Slowly he set down his hat and books and adjusted the folds of his coat, as though such a thing were necessary, and seated himself in his place. Well, gentlemen, he said, rubbing his hands, let us first of all repeat the general contents of the last lesson, after which I will proceed to narrate the succeeding events of the Middle Ages. this meant say over the last lesson while walota was answering the master with the entire ease and confidence which come of knowing a subject well i went aimlessly out on to the landing and since i was not allowed to go down stairs what more natural than that i should involuntarily turn towards the alcove on the landing yet before i had time to establish myself in my usual coin of vantage behind the door i found myself pounced upon by mimi always the cause of my misfortune

"'You here?' she said, looking severely, first at myself and then at the maid-servant store, and then at myself again. I felt thoroughly guilty, firstly because I was not in the schoolroom, and secondly because I was in a forbidden place. So I remained silent, and, dropping my head, assumed a touching expression of contrition. "'Indeed, this is too bad,' Mimi went on. "'What are you doing here?' "'Still, I said nothing.'

"'Well, it shall not rest where it is,' she added. tapping the banister with her yellow fingers, I shall inform the countess. It was five minutes to three when I re-entered the schoolroom. The master, as though oblivious of my presence or absence, was explaining the new lesson to Waloda. When he had finished doing this and had put his books together while Waloda went into the other room to fetch his ticket,

the comforting idea occurred to me that perhaps the whole thing was over now, and that the master had forgotten me. But suddenly he turned in my direction with a malicious smile, and said as he rubbed his hands anew, I hope you have learnt your lesson? Yes, I replied. Would you be so kind, then, as to tell me something about St. Louis's crusade? He went on, balancing himself on his chair and looking gravely at his feet.

Firstly, tell me something about the reasons which induced the French king to assume the cross. Here he raised his eyebrows and pointed to the inkstand. Then explained to me the general characteristics of the crusade, Here he made a sweeping gesture with his hand, as though to seize hold of something with it. And lastly, expound to me the influence of this crusade upon the European states in general, drawing the copy-books to the left side of the table, and upon the French state, in particular, drawing one of them to the right

and inclining his head in the same direction. I swallowed a few times, coughed, bent forward, and was silent, then taking a pen from the table I began to pick it to peck it to peck, pieces, yet still said nothing. "'Allow me the pen. I shall want it,' said the master. "'Well?' "'Louis the—er—saint was—was a very good and wise king.' "'What?'

"'King.' He took it into his head to go to Jerusalem and handed over the reins of government to his mother. "'What was her name?' "'Belanka.' "'What? Belanka?' "'I laughed in a rather forced sense. smile. "'Well, is that all you know?' he asked again, smiling. I had nothing to lose now, so I began chattering the first thing that came into my head.

The master remained silent as he gathered together the remains of the pen which I had left strewn about the table, looked gravely past my ear at the wall, and repeated from time to time, very well, very well. Though I was conscious that I knew nothing whatever and was expressing myself all wrong. I felt much hurt at the fact that he never either corrected or interrupted me. What made him think of going to Jerusalem, he asked at last, repeating some words of my own? Because—because—that is to say, my confusion was complete, and I relapsed into silence. I felt that even if this disgusting history master were to go on putting questions to me and gazing inquiringly into my face for a year, I should never be able to be able to

to enunciate another syllable after staring at me for some three minutes he suddenly assumed a mournful cast of countenance and said in an agitated voice to waloda who was just re-entering the room allow me the register i will write my remarks he opened the book thoughtfully and in his fine calligraphy marked five for waloda for diligence and the same for good behavior then resting his pen on the line where my report was to go he looked at me and in his fine calligraphy marked five for waloda for diligence and the same for good behavior then resting his pen on the line where my report was to go he looked at me and he looked at and reflected suddenly his hand made a decisive movement and behold against my name stood a clearly marked one with a full stop after it another movement and in the behavior column there stood another one and another full stop quietly closing the book the master then rose and moved towards the door as though unconscious of my look of entreaty despair and reproach michael levyonitch i said no he replied as though knowing beforehand what i was about to say it is impossible for you to learn in that way i am not going to earn my money for nothing he put on his galoshes and cloak and then slowly tied a scarf about his neck to think that he could care about such trifles after what had just happened to me to him it was all a mere stroke of the pen but to me it meant the direst misfortune is the lesson over asked st jerome entering yes and was the master pleased with you yes how many marks did he give you five and to nicholas i was silent i think four said walota his idea was to save me for at least to-day if punishment there must be it need not be awarded while we had guests voyon monsieur st jerome was forever saying voyon fete votte votte votte dsendon chapter twelve the key

we had hardly descended and greeted our guests when luncheon was announced papa was in the highest of spirits since for some time past he had been winning he had presented lubachka with a silver tea service and suddenly remembered after luncheon that he had forgotten a box of bonbons which she was to have too why send a servant for it you had better go cocoa he said to me jestingly the keys are in the tray on the table you know take them and with the largest one open the second drawer on the right there you will find the box of bonbons bring it here shall i get you some cigars as well i said knowing that he always smoked after luncheon yes do but don't touch anything else i found the keys and was about to carry out my orders when i was seized with a desire to know what the smallest of the key on the bunch belonged to on the table i saw among many other things a padlocked portfolio and at once felt curious to see if that was what the key fitted my experiment was crowned with success the portfolio opened and disclosed a number of papers curiosity so strongly urged me also to ascertain what those papers contained that the voice of conscience was stilled and i began to read their contents my childish feeling of unlimited respect for my elders especially for Papa, was so strong within me that my intellect involuntarily refused to draw any conclusions from what I had seen. I felt that Papa was living in a sphere completely apart from, incomprehensible by, and unattainable for me, as well as one that was in every way excellent,

and that any attempt on my part to criticize the secrets of his life would constitute something like sacrilege. For this reason, the discovery which I made from Papa's portfolio left no clear impression upon my mind, but only a dim consciousness that I had done wrong. I felt ashamed and confused. The feeling made me eager to shut the portfolio again as quickly as possible, but it seemed as though on this unlucky day I was destined to experience every possible kind of adversity. I put the key back into the padlock and turned it round, but not in the right direction. Thinking that the portfolio was now locked, I pulled at the key and, oh horror, found my hand come away with only the top half of the key in it. In vain did I try to put the two halves together

and to extract the portion that was sticking in the padlock. At last I had to resign myself to the dreadful thought that I had committed a new crime, one which would be discovered today as soon as ever Papa returned to his study. First of all, Mimi's accusation on the staircase, and then that one mark, and then this key. Nothing worse could happen now. This very evening I should be assailed successively by Grandmama, because of Mimi's denunciation, by St. Jerome because of the solitary mark, and by Papa because of the matter of this key. Yes, all in one evening. What on earth is to become of me? What have I done, I exclaimed as I paced the soft carpet. Well, I went on with sudden determination, what must come, must, that's all. And taking up the

bonbons and the cigars, I ran back to the other part of the house. The fatalistic formula, with which I had concluded and which was one that I often heard Nicola Utter during my childhood, always produced in me at the more difficult crises of my life a momentarily soothing, beneficial effect. Consequently, when I re-entered the drawing-room, I was in a rather excited, unnatural mood, yet one that was perfectly cheerful. End of Section 3. Recording by Bill Borsed. Section 4 of Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by C.J. Hogarth. This Librivox recording is in the public domain.

Section 4. Chapter 13 through 16 Chapter 13 The Tratress After luncheon we began to play at round games in which I took a lively part. While indulging in cat and mouse, I happened to cannon rather awkwardly against Kornikov's governess, who was playing with us, and stepping on her dress, tore a lot of. large hole in it. Seeing that the girls, particularly Sanechka, were anything but displeased at the spectacle of the governess angrily departing to the maid-servant's room to have her dress mended,

I resolved to procure them the satisfaction of a second time. Accordingly, in pursuance of this amiable resolution, I waited until my victim returned and then began to gallop madly round her until a favorable moment occurred for once more planting my heel upon her dress and reopening the rent. Senekka and the young princesses had much ado to restrain their laughter, which excited my conceit the more, but St. Jerome, who had probably divined my tricks, came up to me with the frown which I could never abide in him, and said that since I seemed disposed to mischief, he would have to send me away if I did not moderate my behavior. However, I was in the desperate position of a person who, having staked more than he has in his pocket,

and feeling that he can never make up his account continues to plunge on unlucky cards, not because he hopes to regain his losses, but because it will not do for him to stop and consider. So I merely laughed in an impudent fashion and flung away from my monitor. After Cat and Mouse another game followed in which the gentlemen sit on one row of chairs and the ladies on another and choose each other for partners. The youngest princess always chose the younger Iwin, katenka either waloda or elinka and sonechka syriotia nor to my extreme astonishment did sonechka seem at all embarrassed when her cavalier went and sat down beside her

on the contrary she only laughed her sweet musical laugh and made a sign with her head that he had chosen right since nobody chose me i always had the mortification of finding myself left over and of hearing them say who has been left out oh nicolinka well do take him somebody consequently whenever it came to my turn to guess who had chosen me i had to go either to my sister or to one of the ugly elder princesses sonachka seemed so absorbed in seriocia that in her eyes i clearly existed no longer i do not quite know why i called her the traitress in my thoughts since she had never promised to choose me instead of seriocia but for all that i felt convinced that she was treating me in a very abominable fashion after the game was finished i actually saw the traitress from whom i nevertheless could not withdraw my eyes go with seriocia and kentka into a corner and engage in the game was finished i actually saw the traitress from whom i nevertheless could not withdraw my eyes go with seriocia and kentka into a corner and engage in engage in secret confabulation. Stealing softly round the piano, which masked the conclave, I beheld the following. Katenka was holding up a pocket-handkerchief by two of its corners, so as to form a screen for the heads of her two companions. No, you have lost, you must pay the forfeit, cried Siriocia at that moment,

and Sonechka, who was standing in front of him, blushed like a criminal, as she replied, No, I have not lost. Have I? Mademoiselle Catherine. Well, I must speak the truth, answered Ketanka, and say that you have lost, my dear. Scarcely had she spoken the words when Seriocia embraced Senechka and kissed her right on her rosy lips, and Sonechka smiled as though it were nothing but merely something very pleasant. Horrors The Artful Traitress Chapter 14 The Retribution

Instantly I began to feel a strong contempt for the female sex in general and Senechka in particular. I began to think that it was nothing at all amusing in these games, that they were only fit for girls and felt as though I should like to make a great noise, or to do something of such extraordinary boldness that everyone would be forced to admire it. The opportunity soon arrived. St. Jerome said something to Mimi and then left the room. I could hear his footsteps ascending the staircase. and then passing across the schoolroom, and the idea occurred to me that Mimi must have told

him her story about my being found on the landing, and thereupon he had gone to look at the register, in those days it must be remembered, I believed that St. Jerome's whole aim in life was to annoy me. Somewhere I have read that, not infrequently, children of from twelve to fourteen years of age, that is to say children just passing from childhood to adolescence, are addicted to incendiary or even to murder. As I look back on my childhood, and particularly upon the mood in which I was on that particular for myself most unlucky day, I can quite understand a possibility of such terrible crimes being committed by children without any real aim in view, without any wish to do wrong, but merely out of curiosity or under the influence of an unconscious necessity for action.

There are moments when the human being sees the future in such luridly. colors that he shrinks from fixing his mental eye upon it, puts a check upon all his intellectual activity, and tries to feel convinced that the future will never be, and that the past has never been. At such moments, moments when thought does not shrink from manifestations of will, and the carnal instincts alone constitute the springs of life, I can understand that want of experience, which is a particularly predisposing factor in this connection, might very possibly lead a child, eye, without fear or hesitation, but rather with a smile of curiosity on its face, to set fire to the house in which its parents and brothers and sisters, beings whom it tenderly

loves, are lying asleep. It would be under the same influence of momentary absence of thought, almost absence of mind, that a peasant boy of seventeen might catch sight of the edge of a newly sharpened axe, reposing near the bench on which his aged father was lying asleep, face downwards, and suddenly raised the implement in order to observe with unconscious curiosity how the blood would come spurting out upon the floor if he made a wound in the sleeper's neck. It is under the same influence, the same absence of thought, the same instinctive curiosity, that a man finds delight in standing on the brink of an abyss and thinking to himself, how if I were to throw myself down, or in holding to his brow a loaded pistol and wondering,

what if I were to pull the trigger? Or in feeling, when he catches sight of some universally respected personage, that he would like to go up to him, pull his nose hard, and say, How do you do, old boy? Under the spell, then, of this instinctive agitation and lack of reflection, I was moved to put out my tongue, and to say that I would not move, when St. Jerome came down and told me that I had behaved so badly that day, as well as done my lesson so ill, that I had no right to be where I was

must go upstairs directly. At first, from astonishment and anger, he could not utter a word. "'Sept bien,' he exclaimed eventually as he darted towards me, "'several times have I promised to punish you, and you have been saved from it by your grandmamma, but now I see that nothing but the cane will teach you obedience, and you shall therefore taste it. This was said loud enough for everyone to hear. The blood rushed to my heart with such vehemence that I could feel that organ beating violently, could feel the color rising to my cheeks and my lips trembling. Probably I looked horrible at that moment, for, avoiding my eye, St. Jerome stepped forward and caught me by the hand. Hardly feeling his touch, I pulled away my hand

in blind fury, and with all my childish might, struck him. "'What are you doing?' said Willota, who had seen my behavior, and now approached me an alarm at astonishment. "'Let me alone,' I exclaimed, the tears flowing fast. "'Not a single one of you loves me or understands how miserable I am. You are all of you odious and disgusting,' I added bluntly, turning to the company at large. At this moment St. Jerome, his face pale but determined, approached me again, and with a movement too quick to admit of any defense, seized my hands as with a pair of tongs and dragged me away.

My head swam with excitement, and I can only remember that so long as I had strength to do it I fought with head and legs, that my nose several times collided with a pair of knees, that my teeth tore someone's coat, that all around me I could hear the shuffling of feet, and that I could smell dust and the scent of violets with which St. Jerome used to perfume himself. Five minutes later the door of the storeroom closed behind me. "'Basil,' said a triumphant but detestable voice, Bring me the cane

Chapter 15 Dreams Could I at that moment have supposed that I should ever live to survive the misfortunes of that day or that there would ever come a time when I should be able to look back upon those misfortunes composedly? As I sat there thinking over what I had done I could not imagine what the matter had been with me. I only felt with despair that I was forever lost. At first the most profound stillness. reigned around me. At least so it appeared to me as compared with the violent internal emotion

which I have been experiencing. But by and by I began to distinguish various sounds. Basil brought something downstairs which he laid upon a chest outside. It sounded like a broomstick. Below me I could hear St. Jerome's grumbling voice. Probably he was speaking of me. And then children's voices and laughter and footsteps, until in a few moments everything seemed to have regained its normal course in the house, as though nobody knew or cared to know that here I was sitting alone in the dark storeroom. I did not cry, but something lay heavy like a stone upon my heart. Ideas and pictures passed with extraordinary rapidity before my troubled imagination, yet through their fantastic sequence broke continually the remembrance of the misfortune

which had befallen me as I once again plunged into an interminable labyrinth of conjectures as to the punishment, the fate, and the despair that were awaiting me. The thought occurred to me that there must be some reason for the general dislike, even contempt, which I fancy to be felt for me by others. I was firmly convinced that everyone, from Grandmama down to the coachman Philip, despised me, and found pleasure in my sufferings. Next, an idea struck me that perhaps I was not the son of my father and mother at all, nor Waloda's brother, but only some unfortunate orphan who had been adopted by them out of compassion. And this absurd notion not only afforded me a certain melancholy consolation,

but seemed to me quite probable. I found it comforting to think that I was unhappy, not through my own fault, but because I was fated to, be so from my birth, and conceived that my destiny was very much like poor Carl Evaniches. Why conceal the secret any longer now that I have discovered it?" I reflected. "'Tomorrow I will go to Papa and say to him, "'It is in vain for you to try and conceal for me the mystery of my birth.

I know it already.' And he will answer me, "'What else could I do, my good fellow? Sooner or later you would have had to know that you are not my son but were adopted as such?' Nevertheless, so long as you remain worthy of my love, I will never cast you out. Then I shall say, Papa, though I have no right to call you by that name, and am now doing so for the last time, I have always loved you, and shall always retain that love. At the same time, while I can never forget that you have been my benefactor, I cannot remain longer in your house.

Nobody here loves me, and St. Jerome has wrought my ruin. Either he or I must go forth, since I cannot answer for myself. I hate the man so that I could do anything. I could even kill him. Papa will begin to entreat me, but I shall make a gesture and say, No, no, my friend and benefactor, we cannot live together. Let me go. And for the last time I shall embrace him and say in French,

O mon per, O mon benfeture, Don me, for la dernier, foe, ta bennier. an addiction, and that la volante de dieu'est was fete. I sobbed bitterly at these thoughts as I sat on a trunk in that dark storeroom. Then suddenly recollecting the shameful punishment which was awaiting me, I would find myself back again in actuality, and the dreams had fled. Soon again I began to fancy myself far away from the house and alone in the world. I enter a husser regiment and go to war, surrounded by the foe on every side I wave my sword, and kill one of them and wound another, then a third,

then a fourth. At last, exhausted with loss of blood and fatigue, I fall to the ground and cry, Victory! The General comes to look for me, asking, Where is our Savior? Whereupon I am pointed out to him, he embraces me, and in his turn exclaimed with tears of joy, Victory! I recover, and with my arm in a black sling go to walk on the boulevards. i am a general now i meet the emperor who asks who is this young man who has been wounded he is told that it is the famous hero nicholas whereupon he approaches me and says my thanks to you whatsoever you may ask for i will grant it to this i bow respectfully and leaning on my sword reply i am happy most august emperor that i have been able to shed my blood for my country i would gladly have died for it

yet since you are so generous as to grant any wish of mine i venture to ask of you permission to annihilate my enemy the foreigner st jerome and then i stepped fiercely before st jerome and say you were the cause of all my fortunes down now on your knees unfortunately this recalled to my mind the fact that at any moment the real st jerome might be entering with the cane so that once more i saw myself not a general in the saviour of my country but an unhappy pitiful creature then the idea of god occurred to me and i asked him boldly why he had punished me thus seeing that i had never forgotten to say my prayers either morning or evening indeed i can positively declare that it was during that hour in the store-room that I took the first step towards the religious doubt which afterwards assailed me during my youth. Not that mere misfortune could arouse me to infidelity and murmuring, but that at moments of utter contrition and solitude, the idea of the injustice of Providence took root in me as readily as bad seed takes root in land while soaked with rain.

Also, I imagined that I was going to die there and then, and drew vivid pictures of St. Jerome's astonishment when he entered the storeroom and found a corpse there instead of myself. Likewise, recollecting what Natalia Savishna had told me of the forty days during which the souls of the departed must hover around their earthly home, I imagined myself flying through the rooms of Grandmama's house and seeing Lubachka's bitter tears and hearing Grandmama's lamentations and listening to Papa and St. Jerome talking together.

He was a fine boy, Papa would say with tears in his eyes. Yes, St. Jerome would reply, but a sad, scapegrace and good for nothing. But you should respect the dead, would expostulate Papa. You were the cause of his death. You frightened him until he could no longer bear the thought of humiliation, which you were about to inflict upon him. Away for me, criminal. Upon that, St. Jerome would fall upon his knees and implore forgiveness,

and when the forty days were ended my soul would fly to heaven and see there something wonderfully beautiful white and transparent and know that it was mamma and that something would embrace me and caress me yet all at once i should feel troubled and not know her if it be you i should say to her show yourself more distinctly so that i may embrace you in return and her voice would answer me do you not feel happy thus and i should reply yes i do but you cannot really caress me and i cannot really kiss your hand like this but it is not necessary she would say there can be happiness here without that and i should feel that it was so and we should ascend together ever higher and higher until suddenly i feel as though i am being thrown down again and find myself sitting on the trunk in the dark storeroom my cheeks wet with tears and my thoughts in a mist yet still repeating the words let us ascend together higher and higher indeed it was a long long while before i could remember where i was for at that moment my mind's eyes saw only a dark dreadful illimitable void i tried to renew the happy consoling dream which had been thus interrupted by the return to reality but to my surprise i found that as soon as ever i attempted to re-enter former dreams their continuation became impossible while which astonished me even more they no longer gave me pleasure chapter sixteen keep on grinding and you'll have flour i passed the night in the storeroom and nothing further happened except that on the following morning a sunday i was removed to a small chamber adjoining the schoolroom and once more shut up i began to hope that my punishment was going to be limited to confinement and found my thoughts growing calmer under the influence of a sound soft sleep the clear sunlight playing upon the frost crystals of the window-panes and the familiar noises in the street

nevertheless solitude gradually became intolerable i wanted to move about and to communicate to some one all that was lying upon my heart but not a living creature was near me the position was the more unpleasant because willy-nilly i could hear st jerome walking about in his room and softly whistling some hackneyed tune somehow i felt convinced that he was whistling not because he wanted to but because he knew it annoyed me at two o'clock he and walota departed downstairs and nicola brought me up some luncheon when i told him what i had done and what was awaiting me he said pshaw sir don't be alarmed keep on grinding and you'll have flour although this expression which also in later days has more than once helped me to preserve my firmness of mind brought me a little comfort the fact that i received not bread and water only but a whole luncheon and even dessert and even dessert gave me much to think about if they had sent me no desert it would have meant that my punishment was to be limited to confinement whereas it was now evident that i was looked upon as not yet punished that i was only being kept away from the others as an evil-doer until the due time of punishment while i was still debating the question the key of my prison turned and st jerome entered with a severe official air come down and see your grandmamma he said without looking at me me. I should have liked first to have brushed my jacket, since it was covered with dust, but St. Jerome said that was quite unnecessary since I was in such a deplorable moral condition

that my exterior was not worth considering. As he led me through the salon, Katanka, Lubachka, and Waloda looked at me with much the same expression as we were wont to look at the convicts, who on certain days file past my grandmother's house. Likewise, when I approached Grandmamma's armchair to kiss her hand she withdrew it and thrust it under her mantilla well my dear she began after a long pause during which she regarded me from head to foot with the kind of expression which makes one uncertain where to look or what to do i must say that you seem to value my love very highly and afford me great consolation then she went on with an emphasis on each word monsieur st jerome who at my request undertook your education says that he can no longer remain in the house and why simply because of you another pause ensued presently she continued in a tone which clearly showed that her speech had been prepared beforehand i had hoped that you would be grateful for all his care and for all the trouble that he has taken with you that you would have appreciated his services but you you baby you silly boy you actually dare to raise your hand against him very well very good i am beginning to think that you cannot understand kind treatment but require to be treated in a very different and humiliating fashion go now directly and beg his pardon she added in a stern and peremptory tone

as she pointed to St. Jerome. Do you hear me? I followed the direction of her finger with my eye, but on that member alighting upon St. Jerome's coat I turned my head away, and felt once more my heart beating violently as I remained where I was. What? Did you not hear me when I told you what to do? I was trembling all over, but I would not stir. Coco, went on my grandmother, probably divining my inward sufferings. Coco, she repeated in a voice tender rather than heart. is this you grandmamma i cannot beg his pardon for it and i stopped suddenly for i felt the next word refused to come for the tears that were choking me but i ordered you i begged of you to do so what is the matter with you i i will not i cannot i gasped and the tears long pent up and accumulated in my breast burst forth like a stream which breaks its dykes and goes flowing madly over the country.

"'Cet an si'i'you obeisance to your second mare,' said an see who reconnoissee se bonce,' remarked St. Jerome quietly. "'A jeanoo! Good God! If she had seen this!' exclaimed Grandmama, turning from me and wiping away her tears. If she had seen this! It may be all for the best, yet she could never have survived such grief. and grandmama wept more and more i too wept but it never occurred to me to ask for pardon tranquillyse vu ah nom de siel madame la comtesse said st jerome but grandmamma heard him not she covered her face with her hands and her sobs soon passed to hiccups and hysteria mimi and gasha came running in with frightened faces salts and spirits were applied and the whole house was soon in a ferment

you may feel pleased at your work said st jerome to me as he led me from the room good god what have i done i thought to myself what a terribly bad boy i am as soon as st jerome bidding me to go into his room had returned to grandmamma i all unconscious of what i was doing ran down the grand staircase leading to the front door whether i intended to drown myself or whether merely to run away from home i do not remember i only know that i went blindly on my face covered with my hands that i might see nothing where are you going to asked a well-known voice i want you my boy i would have passed on but papa caught hold of me and said sternly come here you impudent rascal how could you dare to do such a thing as to touch the portfolio in my study he went on as he dragged me into his room oh you are silent eh and he pulled my ear yes i was naughty i said i don't know myself what came over me then so you don't know what came over you you don't know you don't know he repeated as he pulled my ear harder and harder will you go and put your nose where you ought not to again will you will you although my ear was in great pain i did not cry but on the contrary felt a sort of morally pleasing sensation no sooner did he let go of my ear than i seized his hand and covered it with tears and killed it with tears and killed it. his. "'Please whip me,' I cried, sobbing. "'Please hurt me the more and more, for I am a wretched, bad, miserable boy.' "'Why, what on earth is the matter with you?' he said, giving me a

slight push from him. "'No, I will not go away,' I continued seizing his coat. "'Every one else hates me. I know that, but do you listen to me and protect me, or else send me away altogether?' I cannot live with him. He tries to humiliate me. He tells me to kneel before him, and wants to strike me. I can't stand it. I'm not a baby. I can't stand it. I shall die. I shall kill myself. He told Grandmama that I was naughty, and now she is ill. She will die through me. It is all his fault. Please let me—why should he torment me? The tears choked my further speech. I sat down on the sofa and with my head buried on Papa's knees, sobbed until I thought I should

die of grief. "'Come, come. Why are you such a water-pump?' said Papa. compassionately as he stooped over me he is such a bully he is murdering me i shall die nobody loves me at all i gasped almost inaudibly and went into convulsions papa lifted me up and carried me to my bedroom where i fell asleep when i awoke it was late only a solitary candle burned in the room while beside the bed there were seated mimi lubotchka and our doctor in their faces i could discern anxiety for my health so although i felt so well after my twelve hours sleep that i could have got up directly i thought it best to let them continue thinking that i was unwell end of section four recording by bill borsed section five of boyhood by leal tolstoy translated by c j hogarth this liber vogue's recording is in the public domain section five chapter seventeen through twenty chapter seventeen hatred yes it was the real feeling of hatred that was mine now not the hatred of which one reads in novels and in the existence of which i do not believe the hatred which finds satisfaction in doing harm to a fellow-creature but the hatred which consists of an unconquerable aversion to a person who may be wholly deserving of your esteem yet whose very hair neck walk voice limbs movements and everything else are disgusting to you

while all the while an incomprehensible force attracts you towards him and compels you to follow his slightest acts with anxious attention this was the feeling which i cherished for st jerome who had lived with us now for a year and a half judging coolly of the man at this time of day i find that he was a true frenchman but a frenchman in the better acceptation of the term he was fairly well educated and fulfilled his duties to us conscientious and he was fairly well educated and fulfilled his duties to us conscientious but he had the peculiar features of fickle egotism, boastfulness, impertinence, and ignorant self-assurance, which are common to all his countrymen, as well as entirely opposed to the Russian character. All this set me against him. Grandmama had signified to him her dislike for corporal punishment, and therefore he dared not beat us, but he frequently threatened us, particularly myself, with the cane, and would

utter the word fuete as though it were fuete in an expressive and detestable way which always gave me the idea that to whip me would afford him the greatest possible satisfaction. I was not in the least afraid of the bodily pain, for I had never experienced it. It was the mere idea that he could beat me that threw me into such paroxysms of wrath and despair. True, Carl, Evanich, sometimes, in moments of exasperation, had to be able to. It was a mere idea had recourse to a ruler or to his braces, but that I can look back upon without anger. Even if he had struck me at the time of which I am now speaking, namely when I was fourteen years old, I should have submitted quietly to the correction, for I loved him, and had known him

all my life, and looked upon him as a member of our family. But St. Jerome was a conceited, opinionated fellow for whom I felt merely the unwilling respect which I entertained for all persons older than myself. I. A. Vanich was a comical old uncle whom I loved with my whole heart, but who, according to my childish conception of social distinctions, ranked below us, whereas St. Jerome was a well-educated, handsome, young dandy, who was for showing himself the equal of anyone. Carl Avanich had always scolded and punished us coolly, as though he thought it a necessary but extremely disagreeable duty. St. Jerome on the contrary always liked to emphasize his part as judge when correcting us, and clearly did it as much for his own satisfaction as for our good. He loved authority.

Nevertheless, I always found his grandiloquent French phrases, which he pronounced with a strong emphasis on all the final syllables, inexpressibly disgusting, whereas Carl, when angry, had never said anything beyond, what a foolish puppet comedy it is. or, you boys are as irritating as Spanish fly, which he always called Spaniard fly. St. Jerome, however, had names for us like Mouveau-Sugé, Villain, Ghanemont, and so forth, epithets which greatly offended myself respect. When Carl Avanich ordered us to kneel in the corner with our faces to the wall,

the punishment consisted merely in the bodily discomfort of the position. whereas St. Jerome, in such cases, always assumed a haughty air, made a grandiose gesture with his hand, and exclaiming in a pseudo-tragic tone, A genus Movesugei, ordered us to kneel with our faces towards him, and to crave his pardon. His punishment consisted in humiliation. However, on the present occasion the punishment never came, nor was the matter ever referred to again. Yet I could not forget all that I had gone through. the shame the fear and the hatred of those two days from that time forth st jerome appeared to give me up in despair and took no further trouble with me yet i could not bring myself to treat him with indifference every time that our eyes met i felt that my look expressed only too plainly my dislike and though i tried hard to assume a careless air he seemed to divine my hypocrisy until i was forced to blush and turn away

in short it was a terrible trial to me to have anything to do with him chapter eighteen the maid-servant's room i began to feel more and more lonely until my chief solace lay in solitary reflection and observation of the favorite subject of my reflections i shall speak in the next chapter the scene where i indulged in them was for preference the maid-servant's room where a plot suitable for a novel was in progress a plot which touched and engrossed me to the next chapter the scene where i indulged in them was for preference the maid-servant's room where a plot suitable for a novel was in progress a plot which touched and engrossed me to the highest degree. The heroine of the romance was, of course, Masha. She was in love with Basil, who had known her before she had become a servant in our house, and who had promised to marry her some day. Unfortunately, fate, which had separated them five years ago, and afterwards reunited them in grandmamma's abode, next proceeded to interpose an obstacle between them in the shape of Masha's uncle, our man, Nicola, who would not hear of his niece marrying that unedictive. educated and unbearable fellow, as he called Basel.

One effect of the obstacle had been to make the otherwise slightly cool and indifferent Basil fall as passionately in love with Masha as it is possible for a man to be who is only a servant and a tailor, wears a red shirt, and has his hair pomaded. Although his methods of expressing his affection were odd, for instance, whenever he met Masha he always endeavored to inflict upon her some bodily pain, either by pinching her to her, giving her a slap with his open hand, or squeezing her so hard that she could scarcely breathe. That affection was sincere enough, and he proved it by the fact that from the moment when

Nicola refused him his niece's hand, his grief led him to drinking and to frequenting taverns, until he proved so unruly that more than once he had to be sent to undergo a humiliating chastisement at the police-station. Nevertheless, these faults of his and their consequences only served to elevate him. elevate him in Masha's eyes, and to increase her love for him. Whenever he was in the hands of the police, she would sit crying the whole day and complain to Gasha of her hard fate. Gasha played an active part in the affairs of these unfortunate lovers. Then, regardless of her uncle's anger and blows, she would stealthily make her way to the police station,

there to visit and console her swain. "'Excuse me, Reader, for introducing you to such company. Nevertheless, if the cords of love and compassion if not wholly snapped your soul, you will find, even in that maid-servant's room, something which may cause them to vibrate again. So, whether you please to follow me or not, I will return to the alcove on the staircase once I was able to observe all that passed in that room. From my post I could see the stove-couch with a ponnet, an iron, an old cap-stand with its peg-bent, crooked, a wash-tub, and a basin.

There, too, was the window with, in fine disorder before it, a piece of black wax, some fragments of silk, a half-eaten cucumber, a box of sweets, and so on. There, too, was the large table at which she used to sit in the pink cotton dress which I admired so much, and the blue handkerchief which always caught my attention so. She would be sewing, though interrupting her work at intervals to scratch her head a little, to bite the end of her thread, or to snuff the candle, and I with the think to myself, why was she not born a lady, she with her blue eyes, beautiful fair hair, and magnificent bust. How splendid she would look if she were sitting in a drawing-room, and

dressed in a cap with pink ribbons and a silk gown, not one like Mimi's, but one like the gown which I saw the other day at the Trophsky Boulevard. Yes, she would work at the embroidery frame, and I would sit and look at her in the mirror and be ready to do whatsoever she wanted. to help her on with her mantle or to hand her food. As for Basil's drunken face and horrid figure in the scanty coat with the red shirt showing beneath it, well, in his every gesture, in his every movement of his back, I seemed always to see signs of the humiliating chastisements which he had undergone. "'Ah, Basil, again?' cried Masha on one occasion as she stuck her needle into the pin-cushion, but without looking up at the person who was entering. what is the good of a man like him was basil's first remarked yes if only he would say something decisive but i am powerless in the matter i am at odds and ends and through his fault too will you have some tea put in medesha another servant no thank you but why does he hate me so that old thief of an uncle of yours why is it because of the clothes i wear or of my height or of my walk or what

while damn and confound him finished basil snapping his fingers we must be patient said masha threading her needle you are so-it is my nerves that won't stand it that's all at this moment the door of grandmamma's room banged and gasha's angry voice could be heard as she came up the stairs there she muttered with a gesture of her hands try to please people when even they themselves do not know what they want and it is a cursed life sheer hard labor and nothing else if only a certain thing would happen though god forgive me for thinking it good evening agatha mikhilovna said basil rising to greet her you here she answered brusquely as she stared at him that is not very much to your credit what do you come here for is the maid's room a proper place for men i wanted to see how you were said basil soothingly i shall soon be breathing my last that's how i am cried gasha still greatly incensed basel laughed oh there's nothing to laugh at when i say that i shall soon be dead but that's how it will be all the same just look at the drunkard marry her would he the fool come get out of here and with a stamp of her foot on the floor gasha it retreated to her own room and banged the door behind her until the window rattled again for a while she could be heard scolding at everything flinging dresses and other things about and pulling the ears of her favorite cat then the door opened again and puss mewing pitifully was flung forth by the tail i had better come another time for tea said basil in a whisper at some better time for our meeting no no put in medesha i'll go and fetch the urn at once

i mean to put an end to things soon when on basil seating himself beside masha as soon as ever madesha had left the room i had much better go straight to the countess and say so-and-so or i will throw up my situation and go off into the world oh dear oh dear and am i to remain here ah there's the difficulty that's what i feel so badly about you have been my sweetheart so long you see ah dear me why don't you bring me your shirts to wash basil asked mashah after a pause during which she had been inspecting his wristbands at this moment grandmamma's bell rang and gasha issued from her room again what do you want with her you impudent fellow she cried as she pushed basil who had risen at her entrance before her towards the door first you lead a girl on and then you want to lead her further still i suppose it amuses you to see her tears there's the door now off you go we want your room not your company and what good can you see in him she went on turning to mascha has not your uncle been walking into you to-day already no she must stick to her promise forsooth i will have no one but basil fool that you are yes i will have no one but him i'll never love any one else i could kill myself for him poor masha burst out the tears suddenly gushing forth for a while i stood watching her as she wiped away those tears then i fell to contemplating basil attentively in the hope of finding out what there was in him that she found so attractive yet though i sympathized with her sincerely in her grief i could not for the life of me understand how such a charming creature as i considered her to be could love a man like him when i become a man i thought to myself as i returned to my room petrovsky shall be mine and basil and mascha my servants some day when i am sitting in my study and smoking a pie and smoking a pie

wipe, Masha will chance to pass the door on her way to the kitchen with an iron. And I shall say, Masha, come here! And she will enter, and there will be no one else in the room. Then suddenly Basil too will enter, and on seeing her will cry, My sweetheart is lost to me. And Masha will begin to weep. Then I shall say, Basil, I know that you love her, and that she loves you. Here are a thousand roubles for you. Marry her, and may God grant you both happiness.

I shall leave them together. Among the countless thoughts and fancies which pass, without logic or sequence, through the mind and the imagination, there are always some which leave behind them a mark so profound that, without remembering their exact subject, we can at least recall that something good has passed through our brain, and try to retain and reproduce its effect. Such was the mark left upon my consciousness by the idea of sacrificing my feelings to to Masha's happiness, seeing that she believed that she could attain it only through her union with Basel.

Chapter 19. Boyhood Perhaps people will scarcely believe me when I tell them what were the dearest, most constant objects of my reflections during my boyhood, so little did those objects consort with my age and position. Yet, in my opinion, contrast between a man's actual position and his moral activity constitutes the most reliable sign of his genuineness. During the period when I was leading a solitary and self-centered moral life,

I was much taken up with abstract thoughts on man's destiny, on a future life, and on the immortality of the soul, and with all the ardor of inexperience strove to make my youthful intellect solve those questions, the questions which constitute the highest level of thought to which the human intellect can tend, but a final decision of which the human intellect can never succeed in attaining. I believe the intellect to take the same course of development in the individual as in the mass.

As also that the thoughts which serve as a basis for philosophical theories are an inseparable part of that intellect, and that every man must be more or less conscious of those thoughts before he can know anything of the existence of philosophical theories. To my own mind, those thoughts presented themselves with such class. and force that I tried to apply them to life, in the fond belief that I was the first to have discovered such splendid and invaluable truths. Sometimes I would suppose that happiness depends not upon external causes themselves, but only upon our relation to them, and that, provided a man can accustom himself to bearing suffering, he need never be unhappy. To prove the latter hypothesis I would,

despite the horrible pain, hold out a Tatis Chet's dictionary at arm's length for five minutes at a time or else go into the storeroom and scourge my back with cords until the tears involuntarily came to my eyes another time suddenly be thinking me that death might find me at any hour or any minute i came to the conclusion that man could only be happy by using the present to the full and taking no thought for the future indeed i wondered how people had never found that out before acting under the influence of the new idea i laid my lesson-books aside for two or three days and reposing on my bed gave myself up to novel reading and the eating of gingerbread and honey which i had bought with my last remaining coins again standing one day before the blackboard and smearing figures on it with honey and the honey which i had bought with my last remaining coins again standing one day before the blackboard and smearing figures on it with honey it with honey, I was struck with the thought, why is symmetry so agreeable to the eye? What is symmetry? Of course it is an innate sense, I continued, yet what is its basis? Perhaps everything in life is symmetry?

But no. On the contrary, this is life. And I drew an oblong figure on the board, and after life the soul passes to eternity. Here I drew a line from one end of the oblong figure to the edge of the board. why should there not be a corresponding line on the other side if there can be an eternity on one side there must surely be a corresponding one on the other that means that we have existed in a previous life but have lost the recollection of it this conclusion which seemed to me at the time both clear and novel but the arguments for which it would be difficult for me at this distance of time to piece together pleased me extremely so i took a piece of paper and tried to write it down but at the first attempt such a rush of other thoughts came whirling through my brain that i was obliged to jump up and pace the room at the window my attention was arrested by a driver harnessing a horse to a water-cart and at once my mind concentrated itself upon the decision of the question into what animal or human being will the spirit of that horse pass at death just at that moment waloda passed through the room and smiled to see me absorbed in speculative thoughts

his smile at once made me feel that all that i had been thinking about was utter nonsense i have related all this as i recollect it in order to show the reader the nature of my cogitations no philosophical theory attracted me so much as scepticism which at one period brought me to a state of mind verging upon insanity i took the fancy into my head that no one nor anything really existed in the world except myself that objects were not objects at all but that images of them became manifest only so soon as i turned my attention upon them and vanished again directly that i ceased to think about them in short this idea of mine that real objects do not exist but only one's conception of them brought me to schelling's well-known theory there were moments when the influence of this idea led me to such vagaries as for instance turning sharply round in the hope that by the suddenness of the movement i should come in contact with the void which i believe to be existing where i myself purported to be what a pitiful spring of moral activity is the human intellect my faulty reason could not define the impenetrable consequently it shattered one fruitless conveyorable consequently it shattered one fruitless conviction after another convictions which happily for my after life i never lacked the courage to abandon as soon as they proved inadequate from all this weary mental struggle i derived only a certain pliancy of mind a weakening of the will a habit of perpetual moral analysis and a diminution both of freshness of sentiment and of clearness of thought usually abstract thinking develops man's capacity for apprehending the bent of his mind at certain moments and laying it to heart but my inclination for abstract thought developed my consciousness in such a way

that often when i began to consider even the simplest matter i would lose myself in a labyrinthine analysis of my own thoughts concerning the matter in question that is to say i no longer thought of the matter itself but only of what i was thinking about it if i had then asked myself of what am i thinking the true answer would have been i am thinking of what i am thinking and if i had further asked myself what then are the thoughts of which i am thinking i should have had to reply they are attempts to think of what i am thinking concerning my own thoughts and so on reason with me had to yield to excess of reason every philosophical discovery which i made so flattered my conceit that i often imagined myself to be a great man discovering new truths for the benefit of humanity consequently i looked down with proud dignity upon my fellow-mortals yet strange to state no sooner did i come in contact with those fellow-mortals then i became filled with a stupid shyness of them and the higher i happened to be standing in my own opinion the less did i feel capable of making others perceive my consciousness of my own dignity since i could not rid myself of a sense of diffidence concerning even the simplest of my words and acts chapter twenty waloda the further i advance in the recital of this period of my life the more difficult and onerous does the task become too rarely do i find among the reminiscences of that time any moments full of the ardent feeling of sincerity which so often and so cheeringly illumined my childhood gladly would i pass in haste over my lonely boyhood the sooner to arrive at the happy time when once again a tender sincere and noble friendship marked with a gleam of light at once the termination of that period and the beginning of a phase of my youth which was full of the charm of poetry

therefore i will not pursue my recollections from hour to hour but only throw a cursory glance at the most prominent of them from the time to which i have now carried my tale to the moment of my first contact with the exceptional personality that was fated to exercise such a decisive influence upon my character and ideas walodo was about to enter the university tutors came to give him lessons independently of myself and i listened with envy and involuntary as he drew boldly on the blackboard with white chalk and talked about functions, signs, and so forth, all of which seemed to me terms pertaining to unattainable wisdom. At length, one Sunday before luncheon, all the tutors, and among them two professors, assembled in Grand Mama's room, and in the presence of Papa and some friends, put Willow to a rehearsal of his university examination, in which to Grand Mama's delight he gave evidence of no ordinary amount, of knowledge.

Questions on different subjects were also put to me, but on all of them I showed complete ignorance, while the fact that the professors manifestly endeavored to conceal that ignorance from grandmama only confused me the more. Yet, after all, I was only fifteen, and so had a year before me in which to prepare for the examinations. Willoda now came downstairs for luncheon only, and spent whole days and evenings over his studies in his own room, to which he kept not from necessarital. but because he preferred its seclusion. He was very ambitious, and meant to pass the

examinations not by halves, but with flying colors. The first day arrived. Willota was wearing a new blue frock coat with brass buttons, a gold watch, and shiny boots. At the door stood Papas Fayton, which Nicola duly opened, and presently when Willota and St. Jerome set out for the university the girls, particularly Kattenka, would be seen gazing with beaming faces from the window at Waloda's pleasing figure as it sat in the carriage. Papa said several times, God go with him! And Grandmama, who also had dragged herself to the window, continued to make the sign of the cross as long as the phaeton was visible, as well as to murmur something to herself. When Willowda returned, everyone eagerly crowded

round him. How many marks? Were they good ones? Yes. But his happy face was an answer in itself, he had received five marks the maximum. The next day he sped on his way with the same good wishes and the same anxiety for his success, and was welcomed home with the same eagerness and joy. This lasted for nine days. On the tenth day there was to be the last and most difficult examination of all, the one in divinity. We all stood at the window and watched for him with greater impatience than ever, two o'clock, and yet no waloda. Here they come. We're Come, papa, here they come," suddenly screamed Lubachka, as she peered through the window. Sure enough, the Fatim was driving up with St. Jerome and Willota, the latter no longer

in his gray cap and blue frock-coat, but in the uniform of a student of the university with its embroidered blue collar, three-cornered hat, and gilded sword. Ah, if only she had been alive now, exclaimed Grandmamma, on seeing Walota in this dress, and swooned away. Waloda enters the ante-room with a beaming face and embraces myself, Lubachka, Mimi, and Kattenka, the latter blushing to her ears. He hardly knows himself for joy, and how smart he looks in that uniform, how well the blue collar suits his budding, dark mustache. What a tall, elegant figure is his, and what a distinguished walk. On that memorable day we all lunched

together in Grandmamma's room. Every face expressed delight. and with the dessert which followed the meal the servants with grave but gratified faces brought in bottles of champagne. Grandmama, for the first time since Mama's death, drank a full glass of the wine to Willowda's help, and wept for joy as she looked at him. Henceforth, Willowda drove his own turnout, invited his own friends, smoked, and went to balls. On one occasion I even saw him sharing a couple of bottles of champagne with some guests in his room, and the whole company drinking a toast, with each glass, to some mysterious being, and then quarrelling as to who should have the bottom of the bottle. Nevertheless, he always lunched at home, and after the meal would stretch himself on a sofa

and talk confidentially to Katanka. Yet from what I overheard, while pretending, of course, to pay no attention, I gathered that they were only talking of the heroes and heroines of novels which they had read, or else of jealousy and love and so on. never could i understand what they found so attractive in these conversations nor why they smiled so happily and discussed things with such animation altogether i could see that in addition to the friendships natural to persons who had been companions from childhood there existed between waloda and katenka a relation which differentiated them from us and united them mysteriously to one another end of section five recording by bill section six of boyhood by leo tolstoy translated by c j hogarth this libavoc's recording is in the public domain section six chapters twenty one through twenty four chapter twenty one katenka and lubachka katenka was now sixteen years old quite a grown-up girl and although at that age the angular figures the bashfulness and the gosheri peculiar to girls passing from childhood to youth usually replaced the comely

freshness and graceful half-developed bloom of childhood. She had in no way altered. Still, the blue eyes with their merry glance were hers, the well-shaped nose with firm nostrils, and almost forming a line with the forehead, the little mouth with its charming smile, the dimples in the rosy cheeks, and the small white hands.

To her the epithet of girl, pure and simple, was preeminently applicable, for in her the only new features were a new and young lady-like arrangement of her thick flaxen hair and a youthful bosom. The latter an addition which at once caused her great joy and made her very bashful. Although Lubachka and she had grown up together and received the same education, they were totally unlike one another. Lubachka was not tall, and the rickets from which she had suffered had shaped her feet in goose

fashion and made her figure very bad. The only pretty feature in her face was her eyes, which were indeed wonderful. being large and black, an instinct with such an extremely pleasing expression of mingled gravity and naivete, that she was bound to attract attention. In everything she was simple and natural, so that whereas Katenka always looked as though she were trying to be like someone else, Lubachka looked people straight in the face and sometimes fixed them so long with her splendid black eyes that she got blamed for doing what was thought to be improper. Katenka, on the contrary, always cast her eyelids down, blinked, and pretended that she was

short-sighted, though I knew very well that her sight was excellent. Lubachka hated being shown off before strangers, and when a visitor offered to kiss her, she invariably grew cross, and said that she hated affection, whereas when strangers were present, Katenka was always particularly endearing to Mimi, and loved to walk about the room arm in arm with another girl. Likewise, though Lubachka was a terrible giggler and sometimes ran about the room in convulsions of gesticulating laughter, Katenka always covered her mouth with her hands or her pocket-handkerchief when she wanted to laugh. Lubachka again loved to have grown-up men to talk to, and said that some day she meant to marry a hussar. But Katenka always pretended that all men

were horrid and that she never meant to marry any one of them. While as soon as a male visitor addressed her she changed completely as though she were nervous of something. Likewise, Lubachka was continually at loggerheads with Mimi, because the latter wanted her to have her stays so tight that she could not breathe or eat or drink in comfort, while Ketanka, on the contrary, would often insert her finger into her waistband to show how loose it was, and always ate very little. Lubachka liked to draw heads, Ketanka only flowers and butterflies. The former could play field's concertos and beethoven's sonatas excellently whereas the latter indulged in variations and waltzes retarded the time and used the pedals continuously not to mention the fact that before she began she invariably struck three chords in arpeggio

nevertheless in those days i thought catenka much the grander person of the two and liked her the best chapter twenty two papa papa papa had been in a particularly good humor ever since waloda had passed into the university and came much oftener to dine with grandmamma however i knew from nicola that he had won a great deal lately occasionally he would come and sit with us in the evening before going to the club he used to sit down to the piano and bid us group ourselves around him after which he would beat time with his thin boots he detested heels and never wore them and make us sing gypsy songs at such times you should have seen the quaint enthusiasm of his beloved Lobachka, who adored him. Sometimes, again, he would come to the school-room and listen with a grave face as I said my lessons. Yet by the few words which he would let drop on correcting me, I could see that he knew even less about the subject than I did. Not infrequently, too, he would wink at us and make secret signs when grandmamma was beginning

to scold us and find fault with us all round. So much for us children, he would say. On the whole, however, the impossible pinnacle upon which my childish imagination had placed him had undergone a certain abasement. I still kissed his large white hand with a certain feeling of love and respect, but I also allowed myself to think about him and to criticize his behavior, until involuntarily thoughts occurred to me which alarmed me by their presence. Never shall I forget one incident in particular which awakened thoughts of this kind, and caused me intense astonishment. Late one evening he entered the drawing-room in his black dress coat and white waistcoat to take Waloda, who was still dressing in his bedroom, to a ball. Grandmama was also in her bedroom, but had given orders that, before setting out, Waloda was to come and say goodbye to her.

It was her invariable custom to inspect him before he went to a ball, and to bless him and direct him as to his behavior. The room where we were was lighted by a solitary lamp. mimi and katenka were walking up and down and lubbatchka was playing field's second concerto mamma's favorite piece at the piano never was there such a family likeness as between mamma and my sister not so much in the face or the stature as in the hands the walk the voice the favorite expressions and above all the way of playing the piano and the whole demeanor at the instrument lebatchka always arranged her dress when sitting down just as mamma had done as well as turned the leaves like her tapped her fingers angrily and said dear me whenever a difficult passage did not go smoothly and in particular played with the delicacy and exquisite purity of touch which in those days caused the execution of field's music to be known characteristically as jean perre and to lie beyond comparison with the humbug of our modern virtuosi Papa entered the room with short, soft steps, and approached Lubachka. On seeing him she stopped playing.

"'No, go on, Luba, go on,' he said, as he forced her to sit down again. She went on playing, while Papa, his head on his hand, sat near her for a while, then suddenly he gave his shoulders a shrug and rising began to pace the room. Every time that he approached the piano, he halted for a moment and looked fixedly at Lubachka. by his walk and his every movement i could see that he was greatly agitated once when he stopped behind lubatka he kissed her black hair and then wheeling quickly round resumed his pacing the piece finished lubatka went up to him and said was it well played whereupon without answering he took her head in his two hands and kissed her forehead and eyes with such tenderness as i had never before seen him display why you are crying lubachka suddenly as she ceased to toy with his watch Jane and stared at him with her great black eyes. "'Pardon me, darling, Papa.

I had quite forgotten that it was dear Mama's piece which I was playing. No, no, my love, play it often,' he said, in a voice trembling with emotion. "'Ah, if only you knew how much good it does me to share your tears!' He kissed her again, and then mastering his feelings and shrugging his shoulders, went to the door leading to the corridor which ran past Waloda's room. "'Waldemar! Shall you be ready soon?' he cried. halting in the middle of the passage just then masha came along why you look prettier every day he said to her she blushed and passed on waldemar shall you be ready soon he cried again with a cough and a shake of his shoulders just as masha slipped away and he first caught sight of me i love papa but the intellect is independent of the heart and often gives birth to thoughts which offend and are harsh and incomprehensible to the feelings and it was thoughts of this kind that for all i strove to put them away arose at that moment in my mind

chapter twenty three grandmamma grandmamma was growing weaker every day her bell gaseous grumbling voice and the slamming of doors in her room were sounds of constant occurrence and she no longer received us sitting in the volterian arm-chair in her boudoir but lying on the bed in her bedroom supported on lace-trimmed cushions one day when she greeted us i noticed a yellowish-white swelling on her hand and smelt the same oppressive odor which i had smelt five years ago in mamma's room the doctor came three times a day and there had been more than one consultation yet the character of her haughty ceremonious bearing towards all who lived with her and particularly towards papay pa never changed in the least she went on emphasizing certain words raising her eyebrows and saying my dear just as she had always done then for a few days we did not see her at all and one morning st jerome proposed to me that walota and i should take catenka and lubachka for a drive during the hours generally allotted to study although i observed that the street was lined with straw under the windows of grandmamma's room and that some men in blue stockings undertaker's men were standing at our gate the reason never dawned upon me why we were being sent out at that unusual hour throughout the drive lubachka and i were in that particularly merry mood when the least trifle the least warder moved set one off laughing a pedlar went trotting across the road with a tray and we laughed some ragged cabmen brandishing their reins and driving at full speed overtook our sledge and we laughed again next philip's whip got caught in the side of the vehicle and the way in which he said bother the thing as he drove to disentangle it almost killed us with mirth mimi looked displeased and said that only silly people laughed for no reason at all

but lubachka her face purple with suppressed merriment needed but to give me a sly glance and we again burst out into such homeric laughter when our eyes met that the tears rushed into them and we could not stop our paroxysms although they nearly choked us hardly again had we desisted a little when i looked at lubachka once more and gave vent to one of the slang words which we then effected among ourselves words which always called forth hilarity and in a moment we were laughing again just as we reached home i was opening my mouth to make a splendid grimace at lubachka when my eye fell upon a black coffin cover which was leaning against the gate and my mouth remained fixed in its gaping position your grandmamma is dead said st jerome as he met us his face was very pale throughout the whole time that grandmamma's body was in the house i was oppressed with the fear of death for the corpse served as a forcible and disagreeable reminder that i too must die some day, a feeling which people often mistake for grief. I had no sincere regret for Grandmama, nor I think had anyone else, since although the house was full of sympathizing callers, nobody seemed to mourn for her from their hearts except one mourner whose genuine grief made a great impression upon me, seeing that the mourner

in question was—Gasha. She shot herself up in the garret, tore her hair, and refused all consolation, saying that now that her mistress was dead she only wished to die herself. I again assert that in matters of feeling it is the unexpected effects that constitute the most reliable signs of sincerity. Though Grandmama was no longer with us, reminiscences and gossip about her long went on in the house. Such gossip referred mostly to her will, which she had made shortly before her death, and of which as yet no one knew the contents except her bosom friend prince ivan ivanovitch i could hear the servants talking excitedly together and making innumerable conjectures as to the amount left and the probable beneficiaries nor can i deny that the idea that we are ourselves were probably the latter greatly pleased me six weeks later nicola who acted as regular news-agent to the house informed me that grandmamma had left the whole of her fortune to lubotka

with as her trustee until her majority not papa but prince ivan ivanovitch chapter twenty four myself only a few months remained before i was to matriculate for the university only a few months remained before i was to matriculate for the university yet i was making such good progress that i felt no apprehensions and even took a pleasure in my studies i kept in good heart and learnt my lessons fluently and intelligently the faculty i had selected was the mathematical one probably to tell the truth because the terms tangent differentials integrals and so forth pleased my fancy though stout and broad-shouldered i was shorter than milota while my ugliness of face still remained and tormented me as much as ever. By way of compensation I tried to appear original, yet one thing comforted me, namely that Papa had said that I had an intelligent face. I quite believed him. St. Jerome was not only satisfied with me, but actually had taken to praising me. Consequently, I had now ceased to hate him. In fact, when one day he said that with my capacities and my intellect it would be shameful for me not to accomplish this, that, or the other thing,

I believe I almost liked him. I had long ago given up keeping observation on the maid-servant's room, for I was now ashamed to hide behind doors. Likewise, I confess that the knowledge of Masha's love for Basil had greatly cooled my ardor for her, and that my passion underwent a final cure by their marriage, a consummation to which I myself contributed by, at Basil's request, asking Papa's consent to the Union.

When the newly married couple brought trays of cakes and sweet meats to Papa as a thank-offering, and Masha in a cap with blue ribbons, kissed each of us on the shoulder in betoken of her gratitude. I merely noticed the scent of the rose-pomade on her hair, but felt no other sensation. In general, I was beginning to get the better of my youthful defects, with the exception of the principal one, the one of which I shall often again have to speak in relating my life's history, namely the tendency to abstract thought. End of Section 6. Recording by Bill Borsed.

Section 7 of Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy, translated by C.J. Hogarth. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Section 7. Chapter 25 through 27. Chapter 25. Waloda's Friends Although, when in the Society of Waloda's Friends, I had to play a part that hurt my pride, I liked sitting in his room when he had visitors, and silently watching all they did. The two who came most frequently to see him were a military adjutant called Dubkopf, and a student named Prince Neckledov.

Dubkov was a little dark-haired, highly-strung man, who, though short of stature and no longer in his first youth, had a pleasing and invariably cheerful air. His was one of those limited natures which are agreeable through their very limitations. natures which cannot regard matters from every point of view, but which are nevertheless attracted by everything. Usually the reasoning of such persons is false and one-sided, yet always genuine and taking, wherefore their narrow egotism seems both amiable and excusable. There were two other reasons why Dupkov had charms for Willowda and myself, namely the fact that he was of military appearance, and secondly and principally, the fact that he was of a certain age, an age of a

age with which young people are apt to associate that quality of gentleman linesse which is so highly esteemed at their time of life however he was in very truth an om com il foe the only thing which i did not like about it all was that in his presence waloda always seemed ashamed of my innocent behavior and still more so of my youthfulness as for prince nekhludoff he was in no way handsome since neither his small gray eyes his low projecting forehead nor his disproportionately long hands and feet could be called good features the only good points about him were his unusually tall stature his delicate coloring and his splendid teeth nevertheless his face was of such an original energetic character owing to his narrow sparkling eyes and ever-changing expression now stern now childlike now smiling indeterminately that it was impossible to help noticing it as a rule he was very shy and would blush to the ears at the smallest trifle but it was a shyness altogether different from mine seeing that the more he blushed the more determined-looking he grew as though he were vexed at his own weakness although he was on very good terms with waloda and dupkoff it was clearly chance which had united them thus since their tastes were entirely dissimilar willota and dubcoff seemed to be afraid of anything like serious consideration or emotion whereas nekhludoff was beyond all things an enthusiast and would often despite their sarcastic remarks plunge into dissertations on philosophical matters or matters of feeling again the two former liked talking about the fair objects of their adoration these were always numerous and always shared by the friends in common whereas nekhludoff invariably grew annoyed when taxed with his love for a certain red-haired lady again waloda and dukev often permitted themselves to critic

their relatives, and to find amusement in so doing, but Nekladov flew into a tremendous rage when on one occasion they referred to some weak points in the character of an aunt of his, whom he adored. Finally, after supper, Willoda and Dupkov would usually go off to some place whither Nekladov would not accompany them, wherefore they called him a dainty girl. The very first time that I ever saw Prince Nekladov I was struck with his exterior and conversation, yet though I could discern a great similarity between his disposition and my own, or perhaps it was because I could so discern it, the impression which he produced upon me at first was anything but agreeable. I liked neither his quick glance, his hard voice, his proud-bearing, nor, least of all, the utter indifference with which he treated me. Often, when conversing, I burned to contradict him, to punish his pride by confuting him, to show him that I was clever in spite of his disdainful neglect of my presence. but i was invariably prevented from doing so by my shyness chapter twenty six discussions walota was lying reading a french novel on the sofa when i paid my usual visit to his room after my evening lessons he looked up at me for a moment from his book and then went on reading this perfectly simple and natural movement however offended me i conceived that the glance implied a question why i had come and a wish to hide his thoughts from me

i may say that at that period a tendency to attach a meaning to the most insignificant of acts formed a prominent feature in my character so i went to the table and also took up a book to read yet even before i had actually begun reading the idea struck me how ridiculous it was that although we had never seen one another all day we should have not a word to exchange are you going to stay in to-night walota i don't know why oh because seeing that the conversation did not promise to be a success i took up my book again and began to read yet it was a strange thing that though we sometimes passed whole hours together without speaking when we were alone the mere presence of a third sometimes of a taciturn and a 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 Willowda at home? Came in Dupkoff's voice from the ante-room. Yes, shouted Willowda,

springing up and throwing aside his book. Dupkoff and Nekladov entered. Are you coming to the theater, Wiloda? 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 Willota, 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 Dupkoff to me as he shook me by the hand. Willota's friends had called me by that nickname since the day when Grandmama had said at luncheon that Willota 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 coke the two essential requirements in her opinion of a diplomat where has waloda gone to asked nikolov 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 dukhov i'll see replied dupkoff feeling for his pocket and rummaging gingerly about with his squat little fingers among his small change yes here are five kopecks twenty but that's all he concluded with a comic gesture of his hand at this point walota re-entered are we going no what an odd fellow you are said nekhludoff why don't you say that you have no money here take my ticket but what are you going to do he can go to his cousin's box said dupov no i'm not going at all replied nekhludoff 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 du shi tte timid 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 dupcoff in a protecting sort of tone than excess d'amor proper mon cher what do you mean by excess d'amor proper asked nekhludoff highly offended on the contrary i am shy just because i have too little amor proper i always feel as though i were being tiresome and disagreeable and therefore well get ready wellota interrupted dupov tapping my brother on the shoulder and handing him his cloak. Ignaz, get your master ready.

Therefore, continued Nekladov, it often happens with me that— But Dupkoff was not listening. Trah la-la-la, and he hummed a popular air. Oh, but I'm not going to let you off, went on Nekladov. 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 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 Nekladov, 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 coloring 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 Neklidov, smiling, as I thought a little contemptuously. Egotism is a conviction that we are better and cleverer than anyone 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 anyone else in the world, and that all of you. All of you know it." At least I can say for myself, observed Neklidov, 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 anyone else? Because we think ourselves better than anyone else, more worthy of our own.

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, Necklidoff was silent. "'I never thought you were so clever,' he said, with a smile so good-humored 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. Chapter 27 The Beginning of Our Friendship From that time forth a strange but exceedingly pleasant relation subsisted between Dmitri Nekladov and myself. Before other people he paid him. 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, Nekladov 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 someone opened the schoolroom door and knackled off 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 dmitri 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, Nicholas. 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 insofar as that I feel convinced 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, Nicholas?" 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 and his term 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 be readily understood that Nekladov'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 realized end of section seven end of boyhood by leal tolstoy