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

to do anything, unable to think, unable

to understand my own feelings. I thought of the joy of the whole family, and

of what they would say of their benefactor; and I felt sorry that I had not

given them the money myself. I thought too of what Sergey Mikhaylych would

say, if he knew what I had done; and I was glad to think that no one would

ever find out. I was so happy, and I felt myself and everyone else so bad,

and yet was so kindly disposed to myself and to all the world, that the

thought of death came to me as a dream of happiness. I smiled and prayed and

wept, and felt at that moment a burning passion of love for all the world,

myself included. Between services I used to read the Gospel; and the book

became more and more intelligible to me, and the story of that divine life

simpler and more touching; and the depths of thought and feeling I found in

studying it became more awful and impenetrable. On the other hand, how clear

and simple everything seemed to me when I rose from the study of this book

and looked again on life around me and reflected on it! It was so difficult,

I felt, to lead a bad life, and so simple to love everyone and be loved. All

were so kind and gentle to me; even sonya, whose lessons I had not broken

off, was quite different — trying to understand and please me and not to vex

me. Everyone treated me as I treated them. Thinking over my enemies, of whom

I must ask pardon before confession, I could only remember one — one of our

neighbors, a girl whom I had made fun of in company a year ago, and who had

ceased to visit us. I wrote to her, confessing my fault and asking her

forgiveness. she replied that she forgave me and wished me to forgive her. I

cried for joy over her simple words, and saw in them, at the time, a deep

and touching feeling. My old nurse cried, when I asked her to forgive me.

“What makes them all so kind to me? what have I done to deserve their

love?” I asked myself. Sergey Mikhaylych would come into my mind, and I

thought for long about him. I could not help it, and I did not consider

these thoughts sinful. But my thoughts of him were quite different from what

they had been on the night when I first realized that I loved him: he seemed

to me now like a second self, and became a part of every plan for the

future. The inferiority which I had always felt in his presence had vanished

entirely: I felt myself his equal and could understand him thoroughly from

the moral elevation I had reached. What had seemed strange in him was now

quite clear to me. Now I could see what he meant by saying to live for

others was the only true happiness, and I agreed with him perfectly. I

believed that our life together would be endlessly happy and untroubled. I

looked forward, not to foreign tours or fashionable society or display, but

to a quite different scene — a quiet family life in the country, with

constant self-sacrifice, constant mutual love, and constant recognition in

all things of the kind hand of Providence.

 

I carried out my plan of taking the Communion on my birthday. When I came

back from church that day, my heart was so swelling with happiness that I

was afraid of life, afraid of any feeling that might break in on that

happiness. We had hardly left the carriage for the steps in front of the

house, when there was a sound of wheels on the bridge, and I saw Sergey

Mikhaylych drive up in his well-known trap. He congratulated me, and we went

together to the parlour. Never since I had known him had I been so much at

my ease with him and so self-possessed as on that morning. I felt in myself

a whole new world out of his reach and beyond his comprehension. I was not

consciousl of the slightest embarrassment in speaking to him. He must have

understood the cause of this feeling; for he was tender and gentle beyond

his wont and showed a kind of reverent consideration for me. When I made for

the piano, he locked it and put the key in his pocket.

 

“Don’t spoil your present mood,” he said, “you have the sweetest of all

music in your soul just now.”

 

I was grateful for his words, and yet I was not quite pleased at his

understanding too easily and clearly what ought to have been an exclusive

secret in my heart. At dinner he said that he had come to congratulate me

and also to say goodby; for he must go to Moscow tomorrow. FHe looked at

Katya as he spoke; but then he stole a glance at me, and I saw that he was

afraid he might detect signs of emotion on my face. But I was neither

surprised nor agitated; I did not even ask whether he would be long away. I

knew he would say this, and I knew that he would not go. How did I know? I

cannot explain that to myself now; but on that memorable day it seemed that

I knew everything that had been and that would be. It was like a delightful

dream, when all that happenes seems to have happened already and to be quite

familiar, and it will all happen over again, and one knows that it will

happen.

 

He meant to go away immediately after dinner; but, as Katya was tired after

church and went to lie down for a little, he had to wait until she woke up

in order to say goodby to her. The sunshone into the drawing room, and we

went out to the veranda. When we were seated, I began at once, quite calmly,

the conversation that was bound to fix the fate of my heart. I began to

speak,no sooner and no later, but at the very moment when we sat down,

before our talk had taken any turn or color that might have hindered me from

saying what I meant to say. I cannot tell myself where it came from — my

coolness and determination and preciseness of expression. It was if

something independent of my will was speaking through my lips. He sat

opposite me with his elbows resting on the rails of the veranda; he pulled a

lilac-branch towards him and stripped the leaves off it. When I began to

speak, he let go the branch and leaned his head on one hand. His attitude

might have shown either perfect calmness or strong emotion.

 

“Why are you going?” I asked, significantly, deliberately, and looking

straight at him.

 

He did not answer at once.

 

“Business!” he muttered at last and dropped his eyes.

 

I realized how difficult he found it to lie to me, and in reply to such a

frank question.

 

“Listen,” I said; you know what today is to me, how important for many

reasons. If I question you, it is not to show an interest in your doings

(you know that I have become intimate with you and fond of you) — I ask you

this question, because I must know the answer. Why are you going?”

 

“It is very hard for me to tell you the true reason,” he said. “During this

week I have thought much about you and about myself, and have decided that I

must go. You understand why; and if you care for me, you will ask no

questions.” He put up a hand to rub his forehead and cover his eyes. “I find

it very difficult … But you will understand.”

 

My heart began to beat fast.

 

“I cannot understand you,” I said; I cannot! you must tell me; in God’s name

and for the sake of this day tell me what you please, and I shall hear it

with calmness,” I said.

 

He changed his position, glanced at me, and again drew the lilac-twig

towards him.

 

“Well!” he said, after a short silence and in a voice that tried in vain to

seem steady, “it’s a foolish business and impossible to put into words, and

I feel the difficulty, but I will try to explain it to you,” he added,

frowning as if in bodily pain.

 

“Well?” I said.

 

“Just imagine the existence of a man — let us call him A — who has left

youth far behind, and of a woman whom we may call B, who is young and happy

and has seen nothing as yet of life or of the world. Family circumstances of

various kinds brought them together, and he grew to love her as a daughter,

and had no fear that his love would change its nature.”

 

He stopped, but I did not interrupt him.

 

“But he forgot that B was so young, that life was still all a May-game to

her,” he went on with a sudden swiftness and determination and without

looking at me, “and that it was easy to fall in love with her in a different

way, and that this would amuse her. He made a mistake and was suddenly aware

of another feeling, as heavy as remorse, making its way into his heart, and

he was afraid. He was afraid that their old friendly relations would be

destroyed, and he made up his mind to go away before that happened.” As he

said this, he began again to rub his eyes with a pretence of indifference,

and to close them.

 

“Why was he afraid to love differently?” I asked very low; but I restrained

my emotion and spokein an even voice. He evidently thought that I was not

serious; for he answered as if he were hurt.

 

“You are young, and I am not young. You want amusement, and I want something

different. Amuse yourself, if you like, but not with me. If you do, I shall

take it seriously; and then I shall be unhappy, and you will repent. That is

what A said,” he added; “however, this is all nonsense; but you understand

why I am going. And don’t let us continue this conversation. Please not!”

 

“No! no!” I said, “we must continue it,” and tears began to tremble in my

voice. “Did he lover her, or not?”

 

He did not answer.

 

“If he did not love her, why did he treat her as a child and pretend to love

her?” I asked.

 

“Yes, A behaved badly,” he interrupted me quickly; “but it all came to an

end and they parted friends.”

 

“This is horrible! Is there no other ending?” I said with a great effort and

then felt afraid of what I had said.

 

“Yes, there is,” he said, showing a face full of emotion and looking

straight at me. “There are two different endings. But, for God’s sake,

listen to me quietly and don’t interrupt. Some say” — here he stood up and

smiled with a smile that was heavy with pain — “some say that A went off his

head, fell passionately in love with B, and told her so. But she only

laughed. To her it was all a jest, but to him a matter of life and death.”

 

I shuddered and tried to interrupt him — tried to say that he must not dare

to speak for me; but he checked me, laying his hand on mine.

 

“Wait!” he said, and his voice shook. “The other story is that she took pity

on him, and