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

the English club, with snow-white hair and beard, with a good, proud glance and energetic movements? Who was that tall lady with that determined gait, and those weary, dimmed, large, beautiful eyes? Who was that fresh, stately, strong young lady, neither fashionable, nor timid? Merchants? No, no merchants. Germans? No, no Germans. Gentlefolk? No, they are different⁠—they are distinguished people. Thus thought those who saw them in church, and for some reason more readily and cheerfully made way for them than for men in thick epaulets. Peter Ivánovich bore himself just as majestically as at the entrance, and prayed quietly, with reserve, and without forgetting himself. Natálya Nikoláevna glided down on her knees, took out a handkerchief, and wept much during the cherubical song. Sónya seemed to be making an effort over herself in order to pray. Devotion did not come to her, but she did not look around, and diligently made the signs of the cross.

Serézha stayed at home, partly because he had overslept himself, partly because he did not like to stand through a mass, which made his legs faint⁠—a matter he was unable to understand, since it was a mere trifle for him to walk forty miles on snowshoes, whereas standing through twelve pericopes was the greatest physical torture for him⁠—but chiefly because he felt that more than anything he needed a new suit of clothes. He dressed himself and went to Blacksmith Bridge. He had plenty of money. His father had made it a rule, ever since his son had passed his twenty-first year, to let him have as much money as he wished. It lay with him to leave his parents entirely without money.

How sorry I am for the 250 roubles which he threw away in Kuntz’s shop of ready-made clothes! Any one of the gentlemen who met Serézha would have been only too happy to show him around, and would have regarded it as a piece of happiness to go with him to get his clothes made. But, as it was, he was a stranger in the crowd, and, making his way in his cap along Blacksmith Bridge, he went to the end, without looking into the shops, opened the door, and came out from it in a cinnamon-coloured half-dress coat, which was tight (though at that time they wore wide coats), and in loose black trousers (though they wore tight trousers), and in a flowery atlas waistcoat, which not one of the gentlemen, who were in Chevalier’s special room, would have allowed their lackeys to wear, and bought a number of other a things; on the other hand, Kuntz marvelled at the young man’s slender waist, the like of which, as he explained to everybody, he had never seen. Serézha knew that he had a beautiful waist, and he was very much flattered by the praise of a stranger, such as Kuntz was.

He came out with 250 roubles less, but was dressed badly, in fact so badly that his apparel two days later passed over into Vasíli’s possession and always remained a disagreeable memory for Serézha.

At home he went downstairs, seated himself in the large hall, looking now and then into the sanctum, and ordered a breakfast of such strange dishes that the servant in the kitchen had to laugh. Then he asked for a periodical, and pretended to be reading. When the servant, encouraged by the inexperience of the young man, addressed some questions to him, Serézha said, “Go to your place!” and blushed. But he said this so proudly that the servant obeyed. Mother, father, and daughter, upon returning home, found his clothes excellent.

Do you remember that joyous sensation of childhood, when you were dressed up for your name-day and taken to mass, and when, upon returning with a holiday expression in your clothes, upon your countenance, and in your soul, you found toys and guests at home? You knew that on that day there would be no classes, that even the grownups celebrated on that day, and that that was a day of exceptions and pleasures for the whole house; you knew that you alone were the cause of that holiday, and that you would be forgiven, no matter what you might do, and you were surprised to see that the people in the streets did not celebrate along with your home folk, and the sounds were more audible, and the colours brighter⁠—in short, a name-day sensation. It was a sensation of that kind that Peter Ivánovich experienced on his return from church.

Pákhtin’s solicitude of the evening before did not pass in vain: instead of toys Peter Ivánovich found at home several visiting-cards of distinguished Muscovites, who, in the year ’56, regarded it as their peremptory duty to show every attention possible to a famous exile, whom they would under no consideration have wished to see three years before. In the eyes of Chevalier, the porter, and the servants of the hotel, the appearance of carriages asking for Peter Ivánovich, on that one morning increased their respect and subserviency tenfold.

All those were name-day toys for Peter Ivánovich. No matter how much tried in life, how clever a man may be, the expression of respect from people respected by a large number of men is always agreeable. Peter Ivánovich felt light of heart when Chevalier, bowing, offered to change his apartments and asked him to order anything he might need, and assured him that he regarded Peter Ivánovich’s visit as a piece of luck, and when, examining the visiting-cards and throwing them into a vase, he called out the names of Count S⁠⸺, Prince D⁠⸺, and so forth.

Natálya Nikoláevna said that she would not receive anybody and that she would go at once to the house of Márya Ivánovna, to which Peter Ivánovich consented, though he wished very much to talk to some of the visitors.

Only one visitor managed to get through before the refusal to meet him. That was Pákhtin. If this man had been asked why he went away