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

had taken up their quarters for the whole of St. Peter’s Fast in the leafy borders. The tops of the round lilac bushes had a sprinkling of white and purple⁠—a sign that their flowers were ready to open. The foliage of the birch avenue was all transparent in the light of the setting sun. In the veranda there was shade and freshness. The evening dew was sure to be heavy in the grass. Out of doors beyond the garden the last sounds of day were audible, and the noise of the sheep and cattle, as they were driven home. Níkon, the half-witted boy, was driving his water-cart along the path outside the veranda, and a cold stream of water from the sprinkler made dark circles on the mould round the stems and supports of the dahlias. In our veranda the polished samovar shone and hissed on the white tablecloth; there were cracknels and biscuits and cream on the table. Kátya was busy washing the cups with her plump hands. I was too hungry after bathing to wait for tea, and was eating bread with thick fresh cream. I was wearing a gingham blouse with loose sleeves, and my hair, still wet, was covered with a kerchief. Kátya saw him first, even before he came in.

“You, Sergéy Mikháylych!” she cried. “Why, we were just talking about you.”

I got up, meaning to go and change my dress, but he caught me just by the door.

“Why stand on such ceremony in the country?” he said, looking with a smile at the kerchief on my head. “You don’t mind the presence of your butler, and I am really the same to you as Grigóri is.” But I felt just then that he was looking at me in a way quite unlike Grigóri’s way, and I was uncomfortable.

“I shall come back at once,” I said, as I left them.

“But what is wrong?” he called out after me; “it’s just the dress of a young peasant woman.”

“How strangely he looked at me!” I said to myself as I was quickly changing upstairs. “Well, I’m glad he has come; things will be more lively.” After a look in the glass I ran gaily downstairs and into the veranda; I was out of breath and did not disguise my haste. He was sitting at the table, talking to Kátya about our affairs. He glanced at me and smiled; then he went on talking. From what he said it appeared that our affairs were in capital shape: it was now possible for us, after spending the summer in the country, to go either to Petersburg for Sónya’s education, or abroad.

“If only you would go abroad with us⁠—” said Kátya; “without you we shall be quite lost there.”

“Oh, I should like to go round the world with you,” he said, half in jest and half in earnest.

“All right,” I said; “let us start off and go round the world.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“What about my mother? What about my business?” he said. “But that’s not the question just now: I want to know how you have been spending your time. Not depressed again, I hope?”

When I told him that I had been busy and not bored during his absence, and when Kátya confirmed my report, he praised me as if he had a right to do so, and his words and looks were kind, as they might have been to a child. I felt obliged to tell him, in detail and with perfect frankness, all my good actions, and to confess, as if I were in church, all that he might disapprove of. The evening was so fine that we stayed in the veranda after tea was cleared away; and the conversation interested me so much that I did not notice how we ceased by degrees to hear any sound of the servants indoors. The scent of flowers grew stronger and came from all sides; the grass was drenched with dew; a nightingale struck up in a lilac bush close by and then stopped on hearing our voices; the starry sky seemed to come down lower over our heads.

It was growing dusk, but I did not notice it till a bat suddenly and silently flew in beneath the veranda awning and began to flutter round my white shawl. I shrank back against the wall and nearly cried out; but the bat as silently and swiftly dived out from under the awning and disappeared in the half-darkness of the garden.

“How fond I am of this place of yours!” he said, changing the conversation;

“I wish I could spend all my life here, sitting in this veranda.”

“Well, do then!” said Kátya.

“That’s all very well,” he said, “but life won’t sit still.”

“Why don’t you marry?” asked Kátya; “you would make an excellent husband.”

“Because I like sitting still?” and he laughed. “No, Katerína Kárlovna, too late for you and me to marry. People have long ceased to think of me as a marrying man, and I am even surer of it myself; and I declare I have felt quite comfortable since the matter was settled.”

It seemed to me that he said this in an unnaturally persuasive way.

“Nonsense!” said Kátya; “a man of thirty-six makes out that he is too old!”

“Too old indeed,” he went on, “when all one wants is to sit still. For a man who is going to marry that’s not enough. Just you ask her,” he added, nodding at me; “people of her age should marry, and you and I can rejoice in their happiness.”

The sadness and constraint latent in his voice was not lost upon me. He was silent for a little, and neither Kátya nor I spoke.

“Well, just fancy,” he went on, turning a little on his seat; “suppose that by some mischance I married a girl of seventeen, Másha, if you like⁠—I mean, Márya Alexándrovna. The instance is good; I am glad it turned up; there could not be a better instance.”

I laughed; but I could not understand why