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

and lighted his pipe. He was not in a cheerful mood.

“So here we are,” he said, “and I am glad that we shall not see anyone tonight; this is the last evening we shall pass with the family,” and he washed these words down with a large mouthful of tea.

“Why the last, Pierre?”

“Why? Because the eaglets have learned to fly, and they have to make their own nests, and from here they will fly each in a different direction⁠—”

“What nonsense!” said Sónya, taking his glass from him, and smiling at him, as she smiled at everything. “The old nest is good enough!”

“The old nest is a sad nest; the old man did not know how to make it⁠—he was caught in a cage, and in the cage he reared his young ones, and was let out only when his wings no longer would hold him up. No, the eaglets must make their nests higher up, more auspiciously, nearer to the sun; that is what they are his children for, that his example might serve them; but the old one will look on, so long as he is not blind, and will listen, when he becomes blind⁠—Pour in some rum, more, more⁠—enough!”

“We shall see who is going to leave,” replied Sónya, casting a cursory glance at her mother, as though she felt uneasy speaking in her presence. “We shall see who is going to leave,” she continued. “I am not afraid for myself, neither am I for Serézha.” (Serézha was walking up and down in the room, thinking of how clothes would be ordered for him tomorrow, and wondering whether he had better go to the tailor, or send for him; he was not interested in Sónya’s conversation with his father.) Sónya began to laugh.

“What is the matter? What?” asked her father.

“You are younger than we, papa. Much younger, indeed,” she said, again bursting out into a laugh.

“Indeed!” said the old man, and his austere wrinkles formed themselves into a gentle, and yet contemptuous, smile.

Natálya Nikoláevna bent away from the samovar which prevented her seeing her husband.

“Sónya is right. You are still sixteen years old, Pierre. Serézha is younger in feelings, but you are younger in soul. I can foresee what he will do, but you will astound me yet.”

Whether he recognized the justice of this remark, or was flattered by it, he did not know what reply to make, and only smoked in silence, drank his tea, and beamed with his eyes. But Serézha, with characteristic egoism of youth, interested in what was said about him, entered into the conversation and affirmed that he was really old, that his arrival in Moscow and the new life, which was opening before him, did not gladden him in the least, and that he calmly reflected on the future and looked forward toward it.

“Still, it is the last evening,” repeated Peter Ivánovich. “It will not be again tomorrow.”

And he poured a little more rum into his glass. He sat for a long time at the tea-table, with an expression as though he wished to say many things, but had no hearers. He moved up the rum toward him, but his daughter softly carried away the bottle.

II

When M. Chevalier, who had been upstairs to look after his guests, returned to his room and gave the benefit of his observations on the newcomers to his life companion, in laces and a silk garment, who in Parisian fashion was sitting back of the counter, several habitual visitors of the establishment were sitting in the room. Serézha, who had been downstairs, had taken notice of that room and of its visitors. If you have been in Moscow, you have, no doubt, noticed that room yourself.

If you, a modest man who do not know Moscow, have missed a dinner to which you are invited, or have made a mistake in your calculations, imagining that the hospitable Muscovites would invite you to dinner, or simply wish to dine in the best restaurant, you enter the lackeys’ room. Three or four lackeys jump up: one of them takes off your fur coat and congratulates you on the occasion of the New Year, or of the Butter-week, or of your arrival, or simply remarks that you have not called for a long while, though you have never been in that establishment before.

You enter, and the first thing that strikes your eyes is a table set, as you in the first moment imagine, with an endless quantity of palatable dishes. But that is only an optical illusion, for the greater part of that table is occupied by pheasants in feather, raw lobsters, boxes with perfume and pomatum, and bottles with cosmetics and candy. Only at the very edge, if you look well, will you find the vodka and a piece of bread with butter and sardines, under a wire globe, which is quite useless in Moscow in the month of December, even though it is precisely such as those which are used in Paris. Then, beyond the table, you see the room, where behind a counter sits a Frenchwoman, of extremely repulsive exterior, but wearing the cleanest of gloves and a most exquisite, fashionable gown. Near the Frenchwoman you will see an officer in unbuttoned uniform, taking a dram of vodka, a civilian reading a newspaper, and somebody’s military or civilian legs lying on a velvet chair, and you will hear French conversation, and more or less sincere, loud laughter.

If you wish to know what is going on in that room, I should advise you not to enter within, but only to look in, as though merely passing by to take a sandwich. Otherwise you will feel ill at ease from the interrogative silence and glances, and you will certainly take your tail between your legs and skulk away to one of the tables in the large hall, or to the winter garden. Nobody will keep you from doing so. These tables are for everybody, and there, in your