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

smiled on seeing us, and went on talking to a general decorated with the order of St. Andrew. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a terrible scar across his cheek from the mouth to the ear. It was Orlov, le Balafre. I had never seen him before.

My favourite little dog, Michot, sprang from the foot of grandmother’s dress, and began pawing me and ticking my face. We came up to grandmother and kissed her plump yellow hand. She put it under my chin, and began to caress me with her bent fingers. In spite of her perfumes, I felt that unpleasant odour about her. She continued talking to the Balafre. “Is he not a fine fellow?” she said, pointing to me. “You haven’t seen him before, have you, Count?”

“They are both fine fellows,” the Count replied, kissing our hands in turn.

“All right, all right!” she said to the maid, who was arranging a cap on her head. It was dear Marie Stepanovna, powdered and painted, who was always kind to me.

Lanskoy came up with an open snuffbox. Grandmother took some snuff, and smiled as she caught sight of Matriona Denisovna, her jester, who was just coming in.⁠ ⁠…

(Here the papers break off.)

A Prayer

“Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.”

—⁠Matthew 6:8

“No, no, no! It can’t be.⁠ ⁠… Doctor! Surely something can be done? Why do neither of you speak?” said a young mother, as with long, firm steps she came out of the nursery, where her three-year-old child, her first and only son, lay dying of water on the brain.

Her husband and the doctor, who had been talking together in subdued tones, became silent. With a deep sigh the husband timidly approached her, and tenderly stroked her dishevelled hair. The doctor stood with bowed head, and his silence and immobility showed the hopelessness of the case.

“What’s to be done?” said the husband. “What’s to be done, dear?⁠ ⁠…”

“Ah! Don’t⁠ ⁠… don’t!” cried she; and there was a note of anger or reproach in her voice as she suddenly turned back to the nursery.

Her husband tried to stop her.

“Kitty, don’t go there⁠ ⁠…”

She glanced at him with large, weary eyes, and, without answering, entered the nursery.

The boy lay in his nurse’s arms, a white pillow under his head. His eyes were open, but he did not see with them; and from his closed lips came bubbles of foam. The nurse sat with stern and solemn mien, looking across him, and did not move when the mother entered. Only when the latter came close to her and put her hand under the pillow to take the child, the nurse said gently:

“He is passing away!” and turned aside. But his mother, nevertheless, with a deft and practised movement, took the boy into her own arms. His long wavy hair had got tangled. She smoothed it, and looked into his face.

“No, I can’t⁠ ⁠…” she muttered, and quickly but carefully handed him back to the nurse, and left the room.

It was the second week of the boy’s illness, and all that time his mother had wavered between despair and hope. During all that time she had not slept two hours a day. Several times each day she had gone to her bedroom, and, standing before the large icon of the Saviour, in its gold-embossed covering, had prayed God to save her boy. The dark-faced Saviour held in his small dark hand a gilt book, on which was written in black enamel: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

She prayed with all the strength of her soul before that icon. And though in the depth of her heart, even while she prayed, she felt that the mountain would not be removed, and God would not do as she willed, but as He willed, she still prayed, repeating the familiar prayers, and some that she composed herself and repeated aloud with special fervour.

Now that she knew he was dead, she felt as if something had snapped in her head and was whirling round; and when she reached her bedroom she looked at all the things there with astonishment, as though not recognizing the place. Then she lay down on the bed, her head falling not on the pillow but on her husband’s folded dressing-gown, and she lost consciousness in sleep.

In her sleep she saw her Kóstya, with his curly hair and thin white neck, healthy and merry, sitting in his little armchair, swinging his plump little legs, pouting his lips, and carefully seating his boy-doll on the papier-mâché horse which had lost one leg and had a hole in its back.

“What a good thing he is alive!” she thought, “and how cruel it was that he died! Why was it? Why should God⁠—to whom I prayed so earnestly⁠—let him die? Why should God wish it?⁠ ⁠… He did no harm to anyone.⁠ ⁠… Doesn’t God know that my whole life is wrapped up in him, and that I cannot live without him? To take such an unfortunate, dear, innocent being, and torture him⁠ ⁠… and in answer to all my prayers, to shatter my life, and let his eyes set, and his body stretch out and grow stiff and cold!⁠ ⁠…”

Again she saw him coming. Such a little fellow, passing in at such big doors, swinging his little arms as grown-up people do. And he looked and smiled.⁠ ⁠… “The darling!⁠ ⁠… and God wants to torture and destroy him! Why pray to Him, if He does such horrible things?”

Suddenly Molly, the under-nurse, began to say something very strange. The mother knew it was the girl Molly, yet it was both Molly and an angel at the same time.

“But if she is an angel, why has she no wings on her back?” thought the mother.

She remembered, however, that someone⁠—she did not know who, but some trustworthy person⁠—had told her that there were angels without wings now.

And Molly, the angel, said:

“You do wrong, ma’am, to be