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

things to people he liked very much.

“Why do you think so? The same kind of food, or the same dress, one may get tired of, but not of a beautiful garden if one is fond of walking⁠—especially when the moon is still higher. From uncle’s window you can see the whole pond. I shall be seeing it tonight.”

“But I don’t think you have any nightingales?” said the Count, very dissatisfied that the Cornet had come and prevented his ascertaining more definitely the terms of the rendezvous.

“No, but there always were until last year, when some sportsmen caught one, and this year, only last week, one began to sing beautifully, but the police-officer came to see us and his carriage-bells frightened it away. Two years ago uncle and I used to sit in the covered alley and listen to them for two hours or more at a time.”

“What is this chatterbox telling you?” said her uncle, coming up to them. “Won’t you come and have something to eat?”

After supper, during which the Count, by praising the food and by his appetite, had somewhat dissipated the ill-humour of the hostess, the officers said good night and went into their room. The Count shook hands with the uncle, and, to Anna Fyódorovna’s surprise, shook her hand also without kissing it, and also shook Lisa’s, looking straight into her eyes the while and slightly smiling his pleasant smile. This look again abashed the girl.

“He is very good-looking,” she thought, “only he thinks too much of himself.”

XIV

“I say, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” said Pólozof, when they were in their room. “I tried to lose on purpose, and touched you under the table. Are you not ashamed? The old lady was quite upset, you know.”

The Count laughed most heartily.

“She was killing, that old lady⁠ ⁠… How offended she was!⁠ ⁠…”

And he again began laughing so merrily that even Johann, who stood in front of him, cast down his eyes and turned away with a slight smile.

“And with the son of a friend of the family! Ha-ha-ha!⁠ ⁠…” the Count continued to laugh.

“No, really, it was too bad. I was quite sorry for her,” said the Cornet.

“What nonsense! How young you still are! Why, did you wish me to lose? Why should one lose? I used to lose before I knew how to play! Ten roubles, my dear fellow, may come in useful. One must look at life practically, or else you’ll always be left in the lurch.”

Pólozof was silenced; besides, he wished to be quiet and to think about Lisa, who seemed to him an unusually pure and beautiful creature. He undressed, and lay down in the soft clean bed prepared for him.

“What nonsense all this military honour and glory is!” he thought, looking at the window curtained by the shawl, through which the white moonbeams stole in. “Happiness would be: to live in a quiet nook with a dear, wise, simple-hearted wife; that is lasting and true happiness!”

“Why don’t you undress?” he asked the Count, who was walking up and down the room.

“I don’t yet feel sleepy, somehow. You can put out the candle if you like, I shall lie down so.”

And he continued to walk up and down.

“Don’t yet feel sleepy, somehow,” repeated Pólozof, feeling, after this last evening, more than ever dissatisfied with the Count’s influence over him, and inclined to rebel against it. “I can imagine,” he said mentally, addressing Toúrbin, “what thoughts are now passing through that well-brushed head of yours! I saw how you admired her. But you are not capable of understanding such a simple, honest creature: you want a Mína and a colonel’s epaulets. I shall really ask him how he liked her.”

And Pólozof turned towards him⁠—but changed his mind. He felt he would not be able to hold his own with the Count if the latter’s opinion concerning Lisa were what he supposed it to be, and that he would even be unable not to agree with him, so used was he to bow to the Count’s influence, which he every day more and more felt to be oppressive and unjust.

“Where are you going?” he asked, when the Count put on his cap and went to the door.

“I shall go and see if things are all right in the stables.”

“Strange!” thought the Cornet, but he put out the candle and turned over on his other side, trying to drive away the absurdly jealous and hostile thoughts concerning his former friend, that crowded into his head.

Anna Fyódorovna, meanwhile, having as usual kissed her brother, daughter, and ward, and made the sign of the cross over each of them, also retired to her room. It was long since the old lady had experienced so many strong emotions in one day, and she could not even pray quietly: sad and vivid memories of the deceased Count, and of the young dandy who had plundered her so unmercifully, would not leave her head. However, she undressed us usual, drank half a tumbler of kvass200 that stood ready for her on a little table by her bed, and lay down. Her favourite cat crept softly into the room; she called her up and began to stroke her, listened to her purring, but could not fall asleep.

“It’s the cat that keeps me awake,” she thought, and turned her away. The cat fell softly onto the floor and, gently moving her bushy tail, leapt onto the stove. But now the maid, who always slept on the floor in Anna Fyódorovna’s room, came and spread the piece of felt that served her for a mattress, put out the candle, and lit the lamp in front of the icon. At last the maid began to snore, but sleep would not come to soothe Anna Fyódorovna’s excited imagination. The hussar’s face appeared to her when she closed her eyes, and she seemed to see it in the room in various forms when she opened her eyes and, by the dim light of