Family Happiness, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [best books for students to read TXT] 📗

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no good. At that time you had not got near the end of that charming nonsense

which I admired in you. So I let you go through it alone, feeling that I had

no right to put pressure on you, though my own time for that sort of thing

was long past.”

 

“If you loved me,” I said, “how could you stand beside me and suffer me to

go through it?”

 

“Because it was impossible for you to take my word for it, though you would

have tried to. Personal experience was necessary, and now you have had

it.”

 

“There was much calculation in all that,” I said, “but little love.”

 

And again we were silent.

 

“What you said just now is severe, but it is true,” he began, rising

suddenly and beginning to walk about the veranda. “Yes, it is true. I was to

blame,” he added, stopping opposite me; “I ought either to have kept myself

from loving you at all, or to have loved you in a simpler way.”

 

“Let us forget it all,” I said timidly.

 

“No,” he said; “the past can never come back, never;” and his voice softened

as he spoke.

 

“It is restored already,” I said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

 

He took my hand away and pressed it.

 

“I was wrong when I said that I did not regret the past. I do regret it; I

weep for that past love which can never return. Who is to blame, I do not

know. Love remains, but not the old love; its place remains, but it all

wasted away and has lost all strength and substance; recollections are still

left, and gratitude; but …”

 

“Do not say that!” I broke in. “Let all be as it was before! Surely that is

possible?” I asked, looking into his eyes; but their gaze was clear and

calm, and did not look deeply into mine.

 

Even while I spoke, I knew that my wishes and my petition were impossible.

He smiled calmly and gently; and I thought it the smile of an old man.

 

“How young you are still!” he said, “and I am so old. What you seek in me is

no longer there. Why deceive ourselves?” he added, still smiling.

 

I stood silent opposite to him, and my heart grew calmer.

 

“Don’t let us try to repeat life,” he went on. “Don’t let us make pretences

to ourselves. Let us be thankful that there is an end of the old emotions

and excitements. The excitement of searching is over for us; our quest is

done, and happiness enough has fallen to our lot. Now we must stand aside

and make room — for him, if you like,” he said, pointing to the nurse who

was carrying Vanya out and had stopped at the veranda door. “that’s the

truth, my dear one,” he said, drawing down my head and kissing it, not a

lover any longer but an old friend.

 

The fragrant freshness of the night rose ever stronger and sweeter from the

garden; the sounds and the silence grew more solemn; star after star began

to twinkle overhead. I looked at him, and suddenly my heart grew light; it

seemed that the cause of my suffering had been removed like an aching nerve.

Suddenly I realized clearly and calmly that the past feeling, like the past

time itself, was gone beyond recall, and that it would be not only

impossible but painful and uncomfortable to bring it back. And after all,

was that time so good which seemed to me so happy? and it was all so long,

long ago!

 

“Time for tea!” he said, and we went together to the parlour. At the door we

met the nurse with the baby. I took him in my arms, covered his bare little

red legs, pressed him to me, and kissed him with the lightest touch of my

lips. Half asleep, he moved the parted fingers of one creased little hand

and opened dim little eyes, as if he was looking for something or recalling

something. all at once his eyes rested on me, a spark of consciousness shone

in them, the little pouting lips, parted before, now met and opened in a

smile. “Mine, mine, mine!” I thought, pressing him to my breast with such an

impulse of joy in every limb that I found it hard to restrain myself from

hurting him. I fell to kissing the cold little feet, his stomach and hand

and head with its thin covering of down. My husband came up to me, and I

quickly covered the child’s face and uncovered it again.

 

“Ivan Sergeich!” said my husband, tickling him under the chin. But I made

haste to cover Ivan Sergeich up again. None but I had any business to look

long at him. I glanced at my husband. His eyes smiled as he looked at me;

and Ii looked into them with an ease and happiness which I had not felt for

a long time.

 

That day ended the romance of our marriage; the old feeling became a

precious irrecoverable remembrance; but a new feeling of love for my

children and the father of my children laid the foundation of a new life and

a quite different happiness; and that life and happiness have lasted to the

present time.