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

like to have seen what that hussar is like,” she thought, “brown or fair? And he would have been glad to make our acquaintance I should think.⁠ ⁠… But he will pass and never know that I was here, and thought about him. And how many such have already passed me by? Who sees me here except uncle and Oustúshka? Whichever way I do my hair, whatever sleeves I put on, no one looks at me with pleasure,” she thought, with a sigh, as she looked at her plump, white arm; “I suppose he is tall, with large eyes, and, certainly, little black moustaches⁠ ⁠… No, I am more than twenty-two, and no one has fallen in love with me, except the pockmarked Iván Ipátitch, and I looked still better four years ago.⁠ ⁠… And so my early womanhood has passed without gladdening anyone. Oh poor, poor country lass that I am!”

Her mother’s voice, calling her to pour out the tea, roused the country lass from this momentary meditation. She lifted her head with a start and went into the tearoom.

Often the best results are obtained accidentally, and the more one tries the worse things turn out. In the country, people rarely try to educate their children, and therefore, unwittingly, usually give them an excellent education. This was particularly so in Lisa’s case. Anna Fyódorovna, with her limited intellect and careless temperament, gave Lisa no education⁠—did not teach her music or that very useful French language⁠—but having accidentally borne a healthy, pretty child by her deceased husband, she gave her little daughter over to a wet-nurse and a dry-nurse, fed her, dressed her in cotton prints and goatskin shoes, sent her out to walk and to gather mushrooms and wild berries, engaged a pupil of the seminary to teach her reading, writing, and arithmetic, and when sixteen years had passed, she accidentally found in Lisa a friend, an ever-cheerful and kindhearted being, and an active housekeeper. Anna Fyódorovna, being kindhearted, always had some children to bring up: either serf children or foundlings. Lisa began looking after them when she was ten years old: teaching them, dressing them, taking them to church, and checking them when they played too many pranks. Later on, the decrepit, kindly uncle, who had to be tended like a child, appeared on the scene. Then the servants and peasants came to the young lady with various requests and with ailments, which latter she treated with elderberry, peppermint, and camphorated spirits. Then there was the household management, which all fell of itself onto her shoulders. Then an unsatisfied longing for love awoke and found outlet only in nature and religion. And Lisa accidentally grew into an active, good-naturedly cheerful, self-reliant, pure, and deeply religious woman. It is true she suffered from vanity a little when she saw neighbours standing by her in church with fashionable bonnets brought from K⁠⸺ on their heads; and sometimes she was vexed to tears with her grumbling old mother and her whims. She had dreams of love, too, in most absurd and sometimes crude forms; but her useful activity, which had grown into a necessity, dissipated them, and at the age of twenty-two there was not one spot, not one sting of remorse, in the clear, calm soul of the physically and morally beautifully developed maiden. Lisa was of medium height, rather plump than thin, her eyes were hazel, not large, and had slight shadows on the lower lids, and she had a long, light-brown plait of hair. She walked with big steps and with a slight sway⁠—a “duck’s waddle,” as the saying is. Her face, when she was occupied and not agitated by anything in particular, seemed to say to everyone who looked into it, “It is good and gladsome to live in the world when one has people to love and one’s conscience is clear.” Even in moments of vexation, trouble, excitement, or sadness, in spite of herself, there shone⁠—through the tear in her eye, her frowning left eyebrow, and her compressed lips⁠—a kind, straightforward spirit unspoilt by the intellect; it shone in the dimples of her cheeks, in the corners of her mouth, and in her glistening eyes, accustomed to smile and to feel joy in life.

X

The air was still hot though the sun was setting, when the squadron entered Morózovka. Before them, along the dusty village street, trotted a brindled cow separated from the herd, looking round and now and then stopping and lowing, but never suspecting that all she had to do was to turn aside. The peasants⁠—old men, women and children⁠—and servants from the manor-house, crowded on both sides of the street, gazing eagerly at the hussars. The hussars were riding their black, curbed horses, which now and then stamped and snorted, through a thick cloud of dust. To the right of the squadron two officers rode carelessly on their fine black horses. One was the Commander, Count Toúrbin, the other a very young man who had not long been promoted from a cadet: his name was Pólozof.

An hussar in a white linen coat came out of the best of the huts, raised his cap, and approached the officers.

“Where are the quarters assigned for us?”

“For your excellency?” answered the Quartermaster, with a start of the whole of his body: “The village elder’s hut has been cleaned out. I wanted to get quarters at the manor-house, but they say there is no room there. The proprietress is such a vixen.”

“All right!” said the Count, dismounting and stretching his legs as he reached the village elder’s hut. “And has my phaeton arrived?”

“It has deigned to arrive, your excellency!” answered the Quartermaster, pointing with his cap to the leather body of a carriage visible through the gateway, and rushing forward to the hut’s entrance, which was thronged with members of the peasant family collected to look at the officer. One old woman he even pushed over as he briskly opened the door of the cleaned-up hut, and stepped