Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

than you. No one ever will play more on that instrument!”

These words which he understood seemed suddenly so wise, so novel, and so true, to Albert, that he stopped playing, and, while trying not to move, lifted his eyes and his arms toward heaven. He felt that he was beautiful and happy. Although no one was in the hall, Albert expanded his chest, and proudly lifted his head, and stood on the platform so that all might see him.

Suddenly someone’s hand was gently laid on his shoulder; he turned around, and in the half light saw a woman. She looked pityingly at him, and shook her head. He immediately became conscious that what he was doing was wrong, and a sense of shame came over him.

“Where shall I go?” he asked her. Once more she gazed long and fixedly at him, and bent her head pityingly. She was the one, the very one whom he loved, and her dress was the same; on her round white neck was the pearl necklace, and her lovely arms were bare above the elbows.

She took him in her arms, and bore him away through the hall. At the entrance of the hall, Albert saw the moon and water. But the water was not below as is usually the case, and the moon was not above; there was a white circle in one place as sometimes happens. The moon and the water were together⁠—everywhere, above and below, and on all sides and around them both. Albert and his love darted off toward the moon and the water, and he now realized that she whom he loved more than all in the world was in his arms: he embraced her, and felt inexpressible felicity.

“Is not this a dream?” he asked himself. But no, it was the reality, it was more than reality: it was reality and recollection combined.

Then he felt that the indescribable pleasure which he had felt during the last moment was gone, and would never be renewed.

“Why am I weeping?” he asked of her. She looked at him in silence, with pitying eyes. Albert understood what she desired to say in reply. “Just as when I was alive,” he went on to say. She, without replying, looked straight forward.

“This is terrible! How can I explain to her that I am alive?” he asked himself in horror. “My God, I am alive! Do understand me,” he whispered.

“He is better and happier,” said a voice.

But something kept oppressing Albert ever more powerfully. Whether it was the moon or the water, or her embrace or his tears, he could not tell, but he was conscious that he could not say all that it was his duty to say, and that all would be quickly over.

Two guests coming out from Anna Ivánovna’s rooms stumbled against Albert lying on the threshold. One of them went back to Anna Ivánovna, and called her. “That was heartless,” he said. “You might let a man freeze to death that way.”

“Akh! why, that is my Albert. See where he was lying!” exclaimed the hostess. “Annushka, have him brought into the room; find a place for him somewhere,” she added, addressing the maid.

“Oh! I am alive, why do you bury me?” muttered Albert, as they brought him unconscious into the room.

Two Hussars A Story

Early in the nineteenth century, in the days when there were no railways or macadamised roads, no gaslight, no stearine candles, no low couches with spring cushions, no unvarnished furniture, no disillusioned youths with eyeglasses, no liberal women-philosophers, nor any charming dames aux caméllias, of whom there are so many in our times; in those naive days, when leaving Moscow for Petersburg in a coach or carriage provided with a kitchenful of homemade provisions, one travelled for eight days along a soft, dusty, or muddy road, and had faith in chopped cutlets, in sleigh-bells and plain rolls; when in the long autumn evenings the tallow candles, around which family groups of twenty or thirty people gathered, had to be snuffed; when ballrooms were illuminated by candelabra with wax or spermaceti candles; when furniture was arranged symmetrically; when our fathers were still young, and proved it not only by the absence of wrinkles and grey hair, but by fighting duels for the sake of a woman and by rushing from the opposite corner of a room to pick up a bit of a handkerchief dropped purposely or accidentally; when our mothers wore short-waisted dresses and enormous sleeves, and decided family affairs by casting lots; when the charming dames aux caméllias hid from the light of day⁠—in the naive days of Freemasons’ lodges,178 Martinists,179 and Tugendbunds,180 the days of Milorádovitches181 and Davídofs182 and Poúshkins⁠—a meeting of landed proprietors was held at the Government town of K⁠⸺ and the nobility183 elections were over.

I

“Well, never mind, the saloon will do,” said a young officer wearing a fur cloak and hussar’s cap, who had just got out of a post-sledge and was entering the best hotel in the town of K⁠⸺.

“The meeting, your excellency, is enormous,” said the boots, who had already managed to learn from the Orderly that the hussar’s name was Count Toúrbin, and therefore addressed him as “your excellency.”

“The proprietress of Afrémovo with her daughters has said she will leave this evening, so No. 11 will be at your disposal as soon as they go,” continued the boots, stepping softly before the Count along the passage, and continually looking back.

In the general saloon, at a little table under the blackened full-length portrait of the Emperor Alexander I, several men, probably belonging to the local nobility, sat drinking champagne, and at one side sat some travellers: tradesmen in blue, fur-lined cloaks.

Entering the room and calling in Blücher, a gigantic grey mastiff he had brought with him, the Count threw off his cloak, the