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

She won’t mind. Volia No, don’t. I cannot let her know about it. Fedia Nonsense. You did it by mistake; it can’t be helped. I will tell her in a minute. Runs away. Volia Fedia, Fedia, wait! He is gone⁠—I just tasted it, and then I don’t remember how I did it. What am I to do now! Sobbing. Fedia Comes running back. Stop your bawling, I say. I told you nurse would forgive you. She only said, “Oh, the darling!” Volia She is not cross with me? Fedia Not a bit. She said, “I don’t care for the cake; I would have given it to him anyhow.” Volia But I didn’t mean to eat it. Cries again. Fedia Why are you crying again? We won’t tell mother. Nurse has quite forgiven you. Volia Nurse has forgiven me. I know she is kind and good. But me, I am a wicked boy, and that’s what makes me cry. On Art

Footman

Housekeeper

Natasha (a little girl)

Footman With a tray. Almond milk for the tea, and rum⁠— Housekeeper Knitting a stocking and counting the stitches. Twenty-three, twenty-four⁠— Footman I say, Avdotia Vasilievna, can’t you hear? Housekeeper I hear, I hear. I’ll give it to you presently. I can’t tear myself to pieces to do all kinds of work at the same moment. To Natasha. Yes, darling; I will bring you the prunes presently. Just wait a moment, till I have given him the milk. Strains the almond milk. Footman Sitting down. I tell you I have seen something tonight. To think that they pay good money for that! Housekeeper Oh, you have been to the theatre. You were out late tonight. Footman An opera is always a long affair. I have always to wait hours and hours. Tonight they were kind, and let me in to see the performance. The kitchen-maid, the manservant Pavel enters with the cream and stands listening. Housekeeper Then there was singing tonight? Footman Singing⁠—humph! Just silly, loud screaming, not a bit like real singing. “I,” he said⁠—“I love her so much.” And he puts it all to a tune, and it is not like anything under heaven. Then they had a row, and ought to have fought it out; but they started singing instead. Housekeeper And yet I’ve heard it costs a lot to get seats for the season. Footman Our box cost three hundred roubles for twelve nights. Pavel Shaking his head. Three hundred! And who does that money go to? Footman Why, the people who sing are paid for it. I was told a lady singer makes fifty thousand a year. Pavel You talk of thousands⁠—why, three hundred is a pile of money in the country. Some folks toil their whole life long, and can’t even get together one hundred. Nina, a schoolgirl, enters the servants’ pantry. Nina Is Natasha here? Why don’t you come? Mother wants you. Natasha Munching a prune. I am coming. Nina To Pavel. What were you saying about a hundred roubles? Housekeeper Simeon pointing to the footman was just telling us about the singing he listened to tonight in the theatre, and about the lady singers being paid such a lot of money. That’s what made Pavel wonder. Is that really true, Nina Mikhailovna, that a lady may get fifty thousand for her singing? Nina More than that. A lady has been engaged to sing in America for a hundred and fifty thousand roubles. But even better than that, yesterday’s paper says a musician has been paid fifty thousand roubles for his fingernail. Pavel The papers write all sorts of nonsense. That couldn’t be. How could he be paid that? Nina Evidently pleased. He was, I tell you. Pavel Just for a fingernail? Natasha How is that possible? Nina He was a pianist, and was insured for that amount in case anything happened to his hand, and he couldn’t go on playing the piano. Pavel Well, I’ll be blowed! Senichka A schoolboy in the upper class of the school, entering the pantry. You’ve got a regular meeting here. What is it all about? Nina tells him what they have been talking about. Senichka With still more complacency than Nina. That story of the nail is nothing at all. Why, a dancer in Paris had her foot insured for two hundred thousand roubles, in case she sprained it and was not able to go on dancing. Footman That’s them girls⁠—excuse me for mentioning it⁠—that work with their legs without any stockings on. Pavel You call that work! And they are paid for it! Senichka But everyone cannot do that kind of work⁠—and she had to study a good many years. Pavel What did she study that did any good? Mere hopping about? Senichka You don’t understand. Art is a great thing. Pavel I think it is all nonsense. People spend money like that because they have such an easy time. If they had to bend their backs as we do to make a living, there wouldn’t be all these singing and dancing girls. They ain’t worth anything⁠—but what is the use of saying so? Senichka There we have the outcome of ignorance. To him Beethoven and Viardot and Rafael are utter folly. Natasha Well, I think what he says is so. Nina Come, let’s go. On Science

Two schoolboys, one a pupil of the real gymnasium328 and the other of the classical gymnasium

Two twins, brothers of the latter; Volodia and Petrusha, eight years of age

Science Scholar What do I want with Latin and Greek, when everything of any value has been translated into the modern languages? Classical Scholar You will never understand the Iliad unless you read it in Greek. Science Scholar But I don’t see the use of reading it. I don’t want to. Volodia What is the Iliad? Science Scholar A story. Classical Scholar Yes, a story, but one that has not its equal in the world. Petrusha What is it that makes the story so particularly good? Science Scholar Nothing. It is just a story, and nothing else. Classical Scholar Yes; but you cannot really understand antiquity without