O family customs and the traditions of the count family tells Valeria Dmitrieva, researcher of the department traveling exhibitions Museum-Estate "Yasnaya Polyana"

Valeria Dmitrieva

Before meeting Sofya Andreevna, Lev Nikolayevich, at that time a young writer and an enviable groom, had been trying to find a bride for several years. He was gladly received in houses where there were girls of marriageable age. He corresponded with many potential brides, looked, chose, evaluated ... And then one day Lucky case brought him to the house of the Berses, with whom he was familiar. This wonderful family brought up three daughters at once: the eldest Lisa, the middle Sonya and the youngest Tanya. Lisa was passionately in love with Count Tolstoy. The girl did not hide her feelings, and those around her already considered Tolstoy to be the eldest of the sisters. But Lev Nikolayevich had a different opinion.

The writer himself had tender feelings for Sonya Bers, which he hinted to her in his famous message.

On the card table, the count wrote with chalk the first letters of three sentences: “V. m. and p. s. with. well. n. m.m.s. and n. with. In c. with. with. l. in. n. m. and c. with. L. Z. m. from v. with. T". Later Tolstoy wrote that it was from this moment that his whole future life depended.

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, photo, 1868

According to his plan, Sofya Andreevna had to unravel the message. If she deciphers the text, then she is his destiny. And Sofya Andreevna understood what Lev Nikolaevich meant: “Your youth and the need for happiness remind me too vividly of my old age and the impossibility of happiness. There is a false view of me and your sister Lisa in your family. Protect me, you and your sister Tanechka. She wrote that it was providence. By the way, Tolstoy later described this moment in the novel Anna Karenina. It was with chalk on the card table that Konstantin Levin encrypted Kitty's marriage proposal.

Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya, 1860s

Happy Lev Nikolayevich wrote a marriage proposal and sent it to the Bers. Both the girl and her parents agreed. The modest wedding took place on September 23, 1862. The couple got married in Moscow, in the Kremlin Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Immediately after the ceremony, Tolstoy asked his young wife how she wanted to continue family life: whether to go on a honeymoon abroad, whether to stay in Moscow with parents or move to Yasnaya Polyana. Sofya Andreevna replied that she immediately wanted to start a serious family life in Yasnaya Polyana. Later, the countess often regretted her decision and how early her girlhood ended and that she never went anywhere.

In the autumn of 1862, Sofya Andreevna moved to live in her husband's estate Yasnaya Polyana, this place became her love and her destiny. Both remember the first 20 years of their lives as very happy. Sofya Andreevna looked at her husband with adoration and admiration. He treated her with great tenderness, reverently and with love. When Lev Nikolaevich left the estate on business, they always wrote letters to each other.

Lev Nikolaevich:

“I am glad that this day was entertained for me, otherwise, dear, I was already scared and sad for you. It's funny to say: as I left, I felt how terrible it was to leave you. - Farewell, darling, be a good boy and write. 1865 July 27. Warrior.

“How sweet you are to me; how you are better for me, cleaner, more honest, dearer, sweeter than everyone in the world. I look at your children's portraits and rejoice. 1867 June 18. Moscow.

Sofia Andreevna:

“Lyovochka, my dear darling, I really want to see you at this moment, and again in Nikolsky we will drink tea together under the windows, and run away on foot to Aleksandrovka and again live our sweet life at home. Farewell, darling, dear, I kiss you tightly. Write and take care of yourself, this is my testament. July 29, 1865"

“My dear Lyovochka, I survived the whole day without you, and with such a joyful heart I sit down to write to you. This is my real and greatest consolation to write to you even about the most insignificant things. June 17, 1867"

“It is such a labor to live in the world without you; everything is not right, everything seems wrong and not worth it. I did not want to write you anything like that, but it broke so badly. And everything is so cramped, so petty, something better is needed, and this is the best - it's only you, and you are always alone. September 4, 1869"

Fat people loved to spend time all over big family. They were great inventors, and Sofya Andreevna herself managed to create a special family world with her own traditions. Most of all it was felt in the days family holidays, as well as at Christmas, Easter, Trinity. They were very much loved in Yasnaya Polyana. The Tolstoy went to the liturgy at the parish church of St. Nicholas, located two kilometers south of the estate.

For a festive dinner, a turkey and a signature dish - Ankov pie were served. Sofya Andreevna brought his recipe to Yasnaya Polyana from her family, to whom the doctor and friend Professor Anke gave it.

Tolstoy's son Ilya Lvovich recalls:

“Since I can remember myself, on all solemn occasions of life, in big holidays and on name days, always and invariably served in the form of an Ankov pie. Without this, the dinner was not a dinner and the celebration was not a celebration.

Summer at the estate turned into an endless holiday with frequent picnics, tea parties with jam and outdoor games. They played croquet and tennis, swam in the Funnel, and went boating. arranged musical evenings home performances...

The Tolstoy family playing tennis. From the photo album of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya

We often dined in the yard, and drank tea on the veranda. In the 1870s, Tolstoy brought such fun to children as "giant steps". This is a large pole with ropes tied at the top, on which there is a loop. One leg was inserted into the loop, the other was pushed off the ground and thus jumped. The children liked these "giant steps" so much that Sofya Andreevna recalled how difficult it was to tear them away from the fun: the children did not want to eat or sleep.

At 66, Tolstoy began cycling. The whole family worried about him, wrote letters to him so that he would leave this dangerous occupation. But the count said that he was experiencing sincere childish joy and in no case would he leave the bicycle. Lev Nikolayevich even studied cycling at the Manezh, and the city council issued him a ticket with permission to ride the streets of the city.

Moscow city government. Ticket number 2300 issued to Tolstoy for cycling through the streets of Moscow. 1896

In winter, the Tolstoys enthusiastically skated, Lev Nikolaevich loved this business very much. He spent at least an hour at the rink, taught his sons, and Sofya Andreevna taught his daughters. Near the house in Khamovniki, he poured the ice rink himself.

Traditional home entertainment in the family: reading aloud and literary bingo. Excerpts from works were written on the cards, it was necessary to guess the name of the author. In later years, Tolstoy was read an excerpt from Anna Karenina, he listened and, not recognizing his text, highly appreciated it.

The family loved to play in the mailbox. Throughout the week, family members dropped leaflets with anecdotes, poems, or notes about what was bothering them into it. On Sunday the whole family sat in a circle, opened the mailbox and read aloud. If they were playful poems or short stories, they tried to guess who could write it. If personal experiences - understood. Modern families we can take this experience into service, because now we talk so little with each other.

By Christmas, a Christmas tree was always put up in the Tolstoy house. They prepared decorations for it themselves: gilded nuts, figurines of animals cut out of cardboard, wooden dolls dressed in different costumes, and much more. A masquerade was organized on the estate, in which both Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna, and their children, and guests, and courtyards, and peasant children took part.

“On Christmas Day 1867, the Englishwoman Hannah and I longed to make a Christmas tree. But Lev Nikolaevich did not like either Christmas trees or any festivities and then strictly forbade buying toys for children. But Hannah and I asked permission for a Christmas tree and for us to be allowed to buy Serezha only a horse, and Tanya only a doll. We decided to call both yard and peasant children. For them, in addition to various sweet things, gilded nuts, gingerbread and other things, we bought naked wooden skeleton dolls, and dressed them in a wide variety of costumes, to the great delight of our children ... about 40 guys gathered from the household and from the village, and the children and I were joyfully handing out everything from the Christmas tree to the children.

Skeleton dolls, English plum pudding (a pudding doused with rum was lit while serving), a masquerade become an integral part of the Christmas holidays in Yasnaya Polyana.

Sofya Andreevna was mainly engaged in the upbringing of children in the Tolstoy family. The children wrote that most of the time their mother spent with them, but they all respected their father very much and were afraid in a good way. His word was the last and decisive, that is, the law. The children wrote that if they needed a quarter for something, they could go up to their mother and ask. She will ask in detail what you need, and with persuasion to spend carefully will give money. And it was possible to approach the father, who would simply look at point-blank range, burn with his eyes and say: “Take it on the table.” He looked so penetratingly that everyone preferred to beg for money from their mother.

Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna Tolstoy with family and guests. September 1-8, 1892

A lot of money in the Tolstoy family was spent on the education of children. They all got good homemade elementary education, and the boys then studied at the Tula and Moscow gymnasiums, but only the eldest son Sergei Tolstoy graduated from the university.

The most important thing that children in the Tolstoy family were taught was to be sincere, kind people and treat each other well.

In the marriage of Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna, 13 children were born, but only eight of them survived to adulthood.

Death was the biggest loss for the family. last son Vanya. When the baby was born, Sofya Andreevna was 43 years old, Lev Nikolaevich - 59 years old.

Vanechka Tolstoy

Vanya was a real peacemaker and united the whole family with his love. Lev Nikolayevich and Sofya Andreevna loved him very much and experienced an untimely death from scarlet fever of their youngest son, who did not live to see seven years of age.

“Nature is trying to give the best and, seeing that the world is not yet ready for them, takes them back ...”, - Tolstoy said these words after the death of Vanechka.

AT last years During his life, Lev Nikolayevich felt unwell and often gave his relatives cause for serious concern. In January 1902 Sofya Andreevna wrote:

“My Lyovochka is dying ... And I realized that my life cannot remain in me without him. I have lived with him for forty years. For everyone he is a celebrity, for me he is my whole existence, our lives went one into another, and, my God! How much guilt, repentance has accumulated ... It's all over, you can't return it. Help, Lord! How much love and tenderness I gave him, but how much of my weaknesses grieved him! Forgive me, Lord! Forgive me, my dear, dear dear husband!”

But Tolstoy understood all his life what a treasure he got. A few months before his death, in July 1910, he wrote:

“My assessment of your life with me is this: I, a depraved, deeply vicious sexually man, no longer my first youth, married you, a clean, good, smart 18-year-old girl, and despite this, my dirty, vicious past you for almost 50 years she lived with me, loving me, working, hard life, giving birth, feeding, raising, caring for children and me, not succumbing to those temptations that could so easily seize any woman in your position, strong, healthy, beautiful. But you lived in such a way that I have nothing to reproach you with.”

Lev Tolstoy
FAMILY HAPPINESS
PART ONE
I
We wore mourning for our mother, who died in the autumn, and lived all winter in the country, alone with Katya and Sonya.
Katya was old friend at home, the governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved since I could remember myself. Sonya was my younger sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsky house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts piled up above the windows; the windows were almost always cold and dim, and for almost a whole winter we did not go anywhere or go anywhere. Few people came to us; Yes, whoever came did not add fun and joy to our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, did not laugh, sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. Death still seemed to be felt in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mother's room was locked, and I felt terrible, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I went to sleep past her.
I was then seventeen years old, and in the very year of her death my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a great grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief, it was also felt that I was young, good, as everyone told me, but for nothing, in solitude, I kill the second winter in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of longing of loneliness and simply boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya persuaded me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my the best time? What for? And to "why" there was no other answer than tears.
I was told that I lost weight and became ugly at this time, but it did not even interest me. What for? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass like this in this lonely wilderness and helpless anguish, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength and even the desire to get out. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this needed money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we were waiting for a guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs.
In March, a guardian arrived.
- Well, thank God! - Katya once said to me, when I, like a shadow, idle, without thought, without desires, went from corner to corner, - Sergey Mikhailych came, sent to ask about us and wanted to be at dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha," she added, "otherwise what will he think of you? He loved all of you so much.
Sergei Mikhailovich was a close neighbor of ours and a friend of our late father, although much younger than he was. In addition to the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, from childhood I got used to love and respect him, and Katya, advising me to shake things up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would be most painful for me to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailovich . In addition to the fact that I, like everyone else in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had special meaning one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. Then it seemed to me surprising and even unpleasant; My hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailovich was no longer young, tall, stout, and, it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite the fact that these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and even six years ago, when I was eleven years old and he told me you, played with me and called me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear, what will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?
Before dinner, to which Katya added a cake, cream and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailovich arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sled, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I did not expect him at all. But, hearing the sound of feet in the hall, his loud voice and Katya's steps, I could not resist and went to meet him myself. He, holding Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blush.
- Ah! is it you! he said with his resolute and simple manner, spreading his arms and leading me towards me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! Here is the violet! You have become a rose.
He took his big hand my hand and shook so hard, honestly, it just didn't hurt. I thought that he would kiss my hand, and I bent down to him, but he shook my hand again and looked straight into my eyes with his firm and cheerful look.
I haven't seen him for six years. He has changed a lot; aged, blackened and overgrown with whiskers, which did not go well with him; but there were the same simple manners, an open, honest face with large features, intelligent sparkling eyes, and an affectionate smile, as if of a child.
Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was evident from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.
He did not behave at all like the neighbors who came after the death of my mother and considered it necessary to be silent and cry while sitting with us; he, on the contrary, was talkative, cheerful, and did not say a word about my mother, so that at first this indifference seemed to me strange and even indecent on the part of such loved one. But then I realized that it was not indifference, but sincerity, and I was grateful for it.
In the evening Katya sat down to pour tea in the old place in the drawing-room, as she used to do with her mother; Sonya and I sat down beside her; old Grigory brought him a pipe he had found, and he, as in the old days, began to pace up and down the room.
- How many terrible changes in this house, as you think! he said, stopping.
“Yes,” said Katya with a sigh and, covering the samovar with a lid, looked at him, ready to burst into tears.
- You, I think, remember your father? he turned to me.
“Not enough,” I replied.
- And how good it would be for you now with him! he said, looking quietly and thoughtfully at my head above my eyes. - I really loved your father! he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shining.
- And then God took her! - Katya said, and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.
“Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall. I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he left.
- This is such a nice friend! - she said.
And indeed, somehow I felt warm and good from the sympathy of this stranger and good man.
Sonya's squeaking and his fussing with her were heard from the living room. I sent him tea; and one could hear how he sat down at the pianoforte and began to beat the keys with Sonya's little hands.
- Maria Alexandrovna! - I heard his voice. - Come here, play something.
I was pleased that he addressed me in such a simple and friendly-imperious manner; I got up and walked over to him.
“Play this,” he said, opening Beethoven's notebook to the adagio of the quasi una fantasia sonata. “Let’s see how you play,” he added, and walked away with a glass to a corner of the hall.
For some reason, I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse and make prefaces with him, that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as well as I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The adagio was in the tone of that feeling of reminiscence which was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I seemed to play decently. But he wouldn't let me play the scherzo. “No, you don’t play well,” he said, coming up to me, “leave that one, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music.” This moderate praise pleased me so much that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father's friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer as with a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.
He told me about my father, about how he got along with him, how they lived happily once, when I was still sitting at books and toys; and my father in his stories for the first time seemed to me a simple and sweet man, as I had not known him until now. He also asked me about what I like, what I read, what I intend to do, and gave advice. He was now for me not a joker and a merry fellow who teased me and made toys, but a serious, simple and loving person, for whom I felt an involuntary respect and sympathy. It was easy and pleasant for me, and at the same time I felt an involuntary tension when talking to him. I was afraid for my every word; I wanted so much to earn his love myself, which was already acquired by me only because I was my father's daughter.
After putting Sonya to bed, Katya joined us and complained to him about my apathy, about which I did not say anything.
“She didn’t tell me the most important thing,” he said, smiling and shaking his head reproachfully at me.
- What to tell! - I said. - It's very boring, and it will pass. (It really seemed to me now that not only would my melancholy pass, but that it had already passed and that it had never been.)
- It's not good not to be able to endure loneliness, - he said, - are you really a young lady?
“Of course, young lady,” I answered, laughing.
- No, a bad young lady, who is only alive while they admire her, and as soon as one is left, she sinks, and nothing is sweet to her; everything is just for show, but nothing for yourself.
"You have a good opinion of me," I said to say something.
- Not! he said, after a pause. - No wonder you look like your father. There is in you, - and his kind, attentive look again flattered me and joyfully embarrassed me.
It was only now that I noticed, because of his seemingly cheerful face, this look that belonged to him alone - at first clear, and then more and more attentive and somewhat sad.
“You shouldn’t and shouldn’t be bored,” he said, “you have music that you understand, books, learning, you have a whole life ahead of you, for which now you can only prepare so as not to regret it later. In a year it will be too late.
He spoke to me like a father or an uncle, and I felt that he was constantly held back to be on a par with me. I was both offended that he considered me below himself, and pleased that for one of me he considers it necessary to try to be different.
The rest of the evening he talked about business with Katya.
“Well, goodbye, dear friends,” he said, getting up and coming up to me and taking my hand.
- When will we see you again? - asked Katya.
“In the spring,” he answered, continuing to hold my hand. - Now I will go to Danilovka (our other village); I'll find out there, I'll arrange what I can, I'll go to Moscow on my own business, and we'll see each other in the summer.
- Nu that OK this you so long? - I said terribly sad; and indeed, I hoped to see him every day, and I suddenly felt sorry and afraid that my longing would return again. It must have been expressed in my look and tone.
- Yes; do more, don’t be moping,” he said, in what seemed to me a too coldly simple tone. “And in the spring I will examine you,” he added, releasing my hand and not looking at me.
In the anteroom, where we stood seeing him off, he hurried on, putting on his fur coat, and again glanced around me. "He's trying in vain!" I thought. "Does he really think that I'm so pleased that he looks at me? He's a good man, very good ... but that's all."
However, that evening, Katya and I did not fall asleep for a long time and everyone talked, not about him, but about how we would spend this summer, where and how we would live the winter. A terrible question: why? no longer appeared to me. It seemed to me very simple and clear that one must live in order to be happy, and in the future there was a lot of happiness. As if suddenly our old, gloomy pokrovskiy house was filled with life and light.
II
Meanwhile, spring came. My former melancholy has passed and has been replaced by a dreamy springtime melancholy of incomprehensible hopes and desires. Although I didn’t live the way I did at the beginning of winter, but occupied myself with Sonya, and music, and reading, I often went into the garden and wandered alone along the alleys for a long, long time or sat on a bench, God knows what, thinking, wishing and hoping . Sometimes for whole nights, especially when I was on my period, I would sit until morning at the window of my room, sometimes in one blouse, quietly from Katya, I would go out into the garden and run through the dew to the pond, and once I even went out into the field and alone at night went around the whole garden around .
Now it is difficult for me to remember and understand the dreams that then filled my imagination. Even when I remember, I can’t believe that these were definitely my dreams. So they were strange and far from life.
At the end of May, Sergei Mikhailovich, as promised, returned from his trip.
The first time he arrived in the evening, when we did not expect him at all. We sat on the terrace and were going to drink tea. The garden was already full of greenery, nightingales had already settled in the overgrown flower beds all over Petrovka. Curly lilac bushes here and there seemed to have been sprinkled on top with something white and purple. These flowers were about to bloom. The foliage of the birch alley was all transparent in the setting sun. There was fresh shade on the terrace. Strong evening dew should have fallen on the grass. In the yard behind the garden the last sounds of the day were heard, the noise of the driven herd; the fool Nikon rode along the path in front of the terrace with a barrel, and a cold jet of water from a watering can ink circles around the dug-up earth near the trunks of dahlias and props. On our terrace, on a white tablecloth, a light-cleaned samovar gleamed and boiled; there were cream, pretzels, and biscuits. Katya was washing the cups with her plump hands. I, without waiting for tea and hungry after bathing, ate bread with thick fresh cream. I was wearing a linen blouse with open sleeves, and my head was tied with a handkerchief through my wet hair. Katya was the first to see him through the window.
- BUT! Sergei Mikhailovich! she said. - We just talked about you.
I got up and wanted to leave to change, but he caught me while I was already at the door.
“Well, what kind of ceremonies in the countryside,” he said, looking at my head in a scarf and smiling, “after all, you are not ashamed of Gregory, but I, really, Gregory for you. - But just now it seemed to me that he was looking at me in a completely different way than Grigory could look, and I felt embarrassed.
"I'll be right back," I said, walking away from him.
- What's wrong with that? he shouted after me. - Like a young peasant woman.
"How strangely he looked at me," I thought as I hurriedly changed upstairs. "Well, thank God that he has come, it will be more fun!" And, looking in the mirror, she merrily ran down the stairs and, not hiding the fact that she was in a hurry, out of breath, entered the terrace. He sat at the table and told Katya about our affairs. Looking at me, he smiled and continued to speak. Our affairs, he said, were in an excellent position. Now we only had to spend the summer in the countryside, and then either go to Petersburg to educate Sonya, or go abroad.
“Yes, if you would go abroad with us,” said Katya, “otherwise we will be alone in the forest there.”
- Ah! how I would go around the world with you, ”he said, half in jest, half seriously.
"So," I said, "let's go around the world."
He smiled and shook his head.
- And mother? What about things? - he said. - Well, that's not the point. Tell me, how did you spend this time? Did they freak out again?
When I told him that I studied without him and didn’t get bored, and Katya confirmed my words, he praised me and caressed me with words and looks like a child, as if he had a right to it. It seemed to me necessary to tell him in detail and especially sincerely everything that I did good, and to confess, as in confession, everything that he could be dissatisfied with. The evening was so good that tea was taken away, and we remained on the terrace, and the conversation was so entertaining for me that I did not notice how the human sounds around us gradually died down. There was a stronger smell of flowers everywhere, abundant dew doused the grass, a nightingale clicked nearby in a lilac bush and fell silent when he heard our voices; the starry sky seemed to descend above us.
I noticed that it was already getting dark, just because bat suddenly flew silently under the canvas of the terrace and fluttered about my white handkerchief. I pressed myself against the wall and was about to scream, but the mouse just as silently and quickly emerged from under the shed and disappeared into the semi-darkness of the garden.
“How I love your Pokrovskoe,” he said, interrupting the conversation. - So I would have sat here on the terrace all my life.
“Well then, sit down,” said Katya.
“Yes, sit,” he said, “life does not sit.
- Why don't you get married? Katya said. - You would be a great husband.
"Because I like to sit," he laughed. - No, Katerina Karlovna, you and I can't get married. Everyone stopped looking at me a long time ago as a person who can be married. And I myself am even more so, and since then I have felt so good, it has become, really.
It seemed to me that he somehow unnaturally-fascinatingly says this.
- That's good! thirty-six years old, already outlived, - said Katya.
- Yes, how outlived, - he continued, - only to sit and want to. And to get married, you need something else. Just ask her,” he added, pointing his head at me. - These should be married. And we will rejoice in them.
There was a hidden sadness and tension in his tone, which did not hide from me. He paused a little; neither I nor Katya said anything.
“Well, just imagine,” he continued, turning in his chair, “if I suddenly married, by some accident, a seventeen-year-old girl, even Mash ... Marya Alexandrovna. This is a great example, I'm very happy that this is how it turns out ... and this is the best example.
I laughed and did not understand what he was so happy about, and what it was like that...
“Well, tell me the truth, hand on heart,” he said, addressing me jokingly, “wouldn’t it be a misfortune for you to join your life with an old, obsolete man who only wants to sit, while God knows what roam what you want.
I felt embarrassed, I was silent, not knowing what to answer.
“After all, I’m not making you an offer,” he said, laughing, “but tell the truth, you don’t dream of such a husband when you walk alone along the avenue in the evenings; and that would be a disaster, wouldn't it?
- No misfortune ... - I began.
“Well, that’s not good,” he finished.
Yes, but I could be wrong...
But again he interrupted me.
- Well, you see, and she is absolutely right, and I am grateful to her for her sincerity and I am very glad that we had this conversation. Not only that, it would be the greatest misfortune for me,” he added.
“What an eccentric you are, nothing has changed,” Katya said and went out of the terrace to order dinner to be served.
We both calmed down after Katya left, and everything around us was quiet. Only the nightingale, no longer in the evening, abruptly and hesitantly, but in the night, slowly, calmly, flooded the whole garden, and another down from the ravine, for the first time this evening, responded to him from afar. The nearest fell silent, as if listening for a moment, and burst into a friable, ringing trill even sharper and more intensely. And these voices resounded royally calmly in their night world, alien to us. The gardener went to sleep in the greenhouse, his steps in thick boots, moving away, sounded along the path. Someone whistled piercingly twice under the mountain, and everything was quiet again. A leaf trembled a little audibly, the canvas of the terrace burst, and, oscillating in the air, something fragrant reached the terrace and spilled over it. I was embarrassed to remain silent after what had been said, but I did not know what to say. I looked at him. Brilliant eyes looked back at me in the semi-darkness.
- It's great to live in the world! he said.
I sighed for some reason.
- What?
- It's great to live in the world! I repeated.
And again we fell silent, and again I felt embarrassed. It kept coming to my mind that I had upset him by agreeing with him that he was old, and I wanted to comfort him, but did not know how to do it.
“But goodbye,” he said, getting up, “mother is expecting me for supper.” I hardly saw her today.
“And I wanted to play you a new sonata,” I said.
"Another time," he said coldly, I thought.
- Farewell.
It seemed to me even more now that I had upset him, and I felt sorry for him. Katya and I escorted him to the porch and stood in the yard, looking down the road along which he had disappeared. When the clatter of his horse had already died down, I went around to the terrace and again began to look into the garden, and in the dewy fog, in which the night sounds stood, for a long time I saw and heard everything that I wanted to see and hear.
He came a second time, a third time, and the awkwardness resulting from the strange conversation that had taken place between us completely vanished and never recurred. During the whole summer he came to us two or three times a week; and I got so used to him that when he did not come for a long time, it seemed awkward to me to live alone, and I got angry with him and found that he was doing bad things by leaving me. He treated me like a young beloved comrade, questioned me, called me to the most sincere frankness, gave advice, encouraged, sometimes scolded and stopped me. But, despite all his efforts to constantly be on a par with me, I felt that behind what I understood in him, there was still a whole alien world into which he did not consider it necessary to let me in, and this was what supported me most of all. respect and attracted to him. I knew from Katya and from the neighbors that, in addition to caring for his old mother, with whom he lived, in addition to his household and our guardianship, he had some noble affairs, for which he was in great trouble; but how he looked at all this, what were his convictions, plans, hopes, I could never learn anything from him. As soon as I brought the conversation to his affairs, he grimaced in his special manner, as if saying: "Complete, please, what do you care about this," and turned the conversation to something else. At first it offended me, but then I got so used to the fact that we always talked only about things that concerned me that I already found it natural.
What I also did not like at first, and then, on the contrary, became pleasant, was his complete indifference and, as it were, contempt for my appearance. He never hinted to me with a look or a word that I was good, but, on the contrary, frowned and laughed when they called me pretty in his presence. He even liked to find external flaws in me and teased me with them. Fashionable dresses and hairstyles, in which Katya liked to dress me up on solemn days, caused only his ridicule, which upset the kind Katya and at first confused me. Katya, having decided in her mind that he liked me, could not understand how not to love that the woman she likes showed herself in the most favorable light. I soon realized what he needed. He wanted to believe that there was no coquetry in me. And when I realized this, there really wasn’t even a shadow of coquetry of outfits, hairstyles, movements left in me; but on the other hand, there appeared, embroidered with white thread, the coquetry of simplicity, while I could not yet be simple. I knew that he loved me - as a child, or as a woman, I have not yet asked myself; I cherished this love, and feeling that he considered me the best girl in the world, I could not help wishing that this deceit remained in him. And I unwittingly deceived him. But, deceiving him, she herself became better. I felt how better and more worthy it was for me to show before him the best sides of my soul than of my body. My hair, hands, face, habits, whatever they were, good or bad, it seemed to me that he immediately appreciated and knew so that I could add nothing but a desire for deception to my appearance. But he did not know my soul; because I loved her, because at that very time she grew and developed, and then I could deceive and deceive him. And how easy it became for me with him when I clearly understood this! These unreasonable embarrassments, the constraint of movement completely disappeared in me. I felt that it was in front; whether he sees me from the side, sitting or standing, with my hair up or down, he knew all of me and, it seemed to me, was pleased with me as I was. I think that if he, contrary to his habits, like others, suddenly told me that I have a beautiful face, I would not even be glad at all. But on the other hand, how gratifying and bright my soul became when, after some word of mine, he looked intently at me and said in a touched voice, to which he tried to give a jocular tone:
- Yes, yes, you have. You are a nice girl, I must tell you that.
And after all, why did I receive such awards then, filling my heart with pride and joy? For saying that I sympathize with the love of old Gregory for his granddaughter, or for being moved to tears by a poem or novel I read, or for preferring Mozart to Schulhoff. And it was amazing, I thought, with what extraordinary instinct I then guessed everything that was good and that one should love; although at that time I still did not know what was good and what should be loved. He did not like most of my former habits and tastes, and it was enough to show with a movement of an eyebrow, a look that he did not like what I wanted to say, to put on my special, pitiful, slightly contemptuous face, as it already seemed to me that I did not I love what I loved before. Sometimes he only wanted to advise me something, and I already thought that I knew what he would say. He will ask me, looking into my eyes, and his look draws out of me the thought that he wants. All my thoughts at that time, all my feelings at that time were not mine, but his thoughts and feelings, which suddenly became mine, passed into my life and illuminated it. Quite imperceptibly for myself, I began to look at everything with different eyes: both at Katya, and at our people, and at Sonya, and at myself, and at my studies. Books, which I used to read only to kill boredom, suddenly became for me one of the best pleasures in life; and all just because we talked about books with him, read with him, and he brought them to me. Before classes with Sonya, her lessons were a heavy duty for me, which I intensified to fulfill only out of a sense of duty; he sat at the lesson - and to follow Sonya's progress became a joy for me. To learn a whole piece of music before seemed impossible to me; and now, knowing that he would listen and praise, perhaps - I played one passage forty times in a row, so that poor Katya stuffed her ears with cotton, and I was not bored. The same old sonatas were phrased in a completely different way now and came out completely differently and much better. Even Katya, whom I knew and loved like myself, and she changed in my eyes. Only now I realized that she was not at all obliged to be the mother, friend, slave that she was for us. I understood all the selflessness and devotion of this loving creature, I understood everything that I owe to her; and began to love her even more. He also taught me to look at our people, peasants, courtyards, girls in a completely different way than before. It is ridiculous to say that until the age of seventeen I lived among these people more alien to them than to people whom I had never seen; I never thought that these people love, desire and regret as much as I do. Our garden, our groves, our fields, which I had known so long ago, suddenly became new and beautiful for me. No wonder he said that in life there is only one undoubted happiness - to live for another. It seemed strange to me then, I did not understand it; but this conviction, besides the thought, had already entered my heart. He opened up to me a whole life of joys in the present, without changing anything in my life, adding nothing but himself to every impression. All the same since childhood was silent around me, and as soon as he came, all the same spoke and vied with each other asked for my soul, filling it with happiness.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

family happiness

Lev Tolstoy

FAMILY HAPPINESS

PART ONE

We wore mourning for our mother, who died in the autumn, and lived all winter in the country, alone with Katya and Sonya.

Katya was an old friend of the house, the governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved from as long as I could remember myself. Sonya was my younger sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsky house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts piled up above the windows; the windows were almost always cold and dim, and for almost a whole winter we did not go anywhere or go anywhere. Few people came to us; Yes, whoever came did not add fun and joy to our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, did not laugh, sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. Death still seemed to be felt in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mother's room was locked, and I felt terrible, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I went to sleep past her.

I was then seventeen years old, and in the very year of her death my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a great grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief, it was also felt that I was young, good, as everyone told me, but for nothing, in solitude, I kill the second winter in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of longing of loneliness and simply boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya persuaded me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my best time is wasted so much? What for? And to "why" there was no other answer than tears.

I was told that I lost weight and became ugly at this time, but it did not even interest me. What for? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass like this in this lonely wilderness and helpless anguish, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength and even the desire to get out. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this needed money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we were waiting for a guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs.

In March, a guardian arrived.

Well, thank God! - Katya once said to me, when I, like a shadow, idle, without thought, without desires, went from corner to corner, - Sergey Mikhailych came, sent to ask about us and wanted to be at dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha," she added, "otherwise what will he think of you? He loved all of you so much.

Sergei Mikhailovich was a close neighbor of ours and a friend of our late father, although much younger than he was. In addition to the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, from childhood I got used to love and respect him, and Katya, advising me to shake things up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would be most painful for me to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailovich . In addition to the fact that I, like everyone in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had a special meaning for me from one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. Then it seemed to me surprising and even unpleasant; My hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailovich was no longer young, tall, stout, and, it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite the fact that these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and even six years ago, when I was eleven years old and he told me you, played with me and called me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear, what will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?

Before dinner, to which Katya added a cake, cream and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailovich arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sled, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I did not expect him at all. But, hearing the sound of feet in the hall, his loud voice and Katya's steps, I could not resist and went to meet him myself. He, holding Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blush.

Oh! is it you! he said with his resolute and simple manner, spreading his arms and leading me towards me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! Here is the violet! You have become a rose.

He took my hand with his big hand and shook me so hard, honestly, it just didn't hurt. I thought that he would kiss my hand, and I bent down to him, but he shook my hand again and looked straight into my eyes with his firm and cheerful look.

I haven't seen him for six years. He has changed a lot; aged, blackened and overgrown with whiskers, which did not go well with him; but there were the same simple manners, an open, honest face with large features, intelligent sparkling eyes, and an affectionate smile, as if of a child.

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was evident from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

He did not behave at all like the neighbors who came after the death of my mother and considered it necessary to be silent and cry while sitting with us; he, on the contrary, was talkative, cheerful, and did not say a word about my mother, so that at first this indifference seemed to me strange and even indecent on the part of such a close person. But then I realized that it was not indifference, but sincerity, and I was grateful for it.

In the evening Katya sat down to pour tea in the old place in the drawing-room, as she used to do with her mother; Sonya and I sat down beside her; old Grigory brought him a pipe he had found, and he, as in the old days, began to pace up and down the room.

How many terrible changes in this house, what do you think! he said, stopping.

Yes, - said Katya with a sigh and, covering the samovar with a lid, looked at him, already ready to burst into tears.

Do you remember your father? he turned to me.

Few, I replied.

And how good it would be for you now with him! he said, looking quietly and thoughtfully at my head above my eyes. - I really loved your father! he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shining.

And then God took her! - Katya said, and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.

Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall. I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he left.

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

family happiness

Part one

We wore mourning for our mother, who died in the autumn, and lived all winter in the country, alone with Katya and Sonya.

Katya was an old friend of the house, the governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved from as long as I could remember myself. Sonya was my younger sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsky house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts piled up above the windows; the windows were almost always cold and dim, and for almost a whole winter we did not go anywhere or go anywhere. Few people came to us; Yes, whoever came did not add fun and joy to our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, did not laugh, sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. Death still seemed to be felt in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mother's room was locked, and I felt terrible, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I went to sleep past her.

I was then seventeen years old, and in the very year of her death my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a great grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief, it was also felt that I was young, good, as everyone told me, but for nothing, in solitude, I kill the second winter in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of longing of loneliness and simply boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya persuaded me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my best time is wasted so much? What for? And why there was no other answer than tears.

I was told that I lost weight and became ugly at this time, but it did not even interest me. What for? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass like this in this lonely wilderness and helpless anguish, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength and even the desire to get out. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this needed money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we were waiting for a guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs.

In March, a guardian arrived.

- Well, thank God! - Katya once said to me, when I, like a shadow, idle, without thought, without desires, went from corner to corner, - Sergey Mikhailych came, sent to ask about us and wanted to be at dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha," she added, "or what will he think of you? He loved all of you so much.

Sergei Mikhailovich was a close neighbor of ours and a friend of our late father, although much younger than he was. In addition to the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, from childhood I got used to love and respect him, and Katya, advising me to shake things up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would be most painful for me to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailovich . In addition to the fact that I, like everyone in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had a special meaning for me from one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. Then it seemed to me surprising and even unpleasant; My hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailovich was no longer young, tall, stout, and, it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite the fact that these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and even six years ago, when I was eleven years old and he told me you, played with me and called me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear, what will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?

Before dinner, to which Katya added a cream cake and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailovich arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sled, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I did not expect him at all. But, hearing the sound of feet in the hall, his loud voice and Katya's steps, I could not resist and went to meet him myself. He, holding Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blush.

– Ah! is it you? he said with his resolute and simple manner, spreading his arms and coming up to me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! Here are those and the violet! You have become a rose.

He took my hand with his big hand and shook me so hard, honestly, it just didn't hurt. I thought that he would kiss my hand, and I bent down to him, but he shook my hand again and looked straight into my eyes with his firm and cheerful look.

I haven't seen him for six years. He has changed a lot; aged, blackened and overgrown with whiskers, which did not go well with him; but there were the same simple methods, an open, honest face with large features, intelligent sparkling eyes, and an affectionate, as if childish, smile.

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was evident from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

He did not behave at all like the neighbors who came after the death of my mother and considered it necessary to be silent and cry while sitting with us; he, on the contrary, was talkative, cheerful, and did not say a word about my mother, so that at first this indifference seemed to me strange and even indecent on the part of such a close person. But then I realized that it was not indifference, but sincerity, and I was grateful for it.

In the evening Katya sat down to pour tea in the old place in the drawing-room, as she used to do with her mother; Sonya and I sat down beside her; old Grigory brought him a pipe he had found, and he, as in the old days, began to pace up and down the room.

- How many terrible changes in this house, as you think! he said, stopping.

“Yes,” said Katya with a sigh and, covering the samovar with a lid, looked at him, ready to burst into tears.

“You remember your father, I think?” he turned to me.

“Not enough,” I replied.

“And how good it would be for you now with him!” he said, looking quietly and thoughtfully at my head above my eyes. “I loved your father very much! he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shining.

And then God took her! - Katya said and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.

“Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall. I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he left.

- This is such a good friend! - she said. And indeed, I somehow felt warm and good from the sympathy of this strange and good person.

Sonya's squeaking and his fussing with her were heard from the living room. I sent him tea; and one could hear how he sat down at the pianoforte and began to beat the keys with Sonya's little hands.

I was pleased that he addressed me in such a simple and friendly-imperious manner; I got up and walked over to him.

“Play this,” he said, opening Beethoven's notebook to the adagio of the quasi una fantasia sonata. “Let’s see how you play,” he added, and walked away with a glass to a corner of the hall.

For some reason, I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse and make prefaces with him, that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as well as I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The adagio was in the tone of that feeling of reminiscence that was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I seemed to play decently. But he wouldn't let me play the scherzo. “No, you don’t play well,” he said, coming up to me, “leave that one, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music." This moderate praise pleased me so much that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father's friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer as with a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.

He told me about my father, about how he got along with him, how they lived happily once, when I was still sitting at books and toys; and my father in his stories for the first time seemed to me a simple and sweet man, as I had not known him until now. He also asked me about what I like, what I read, what I intend to do, and gave advice. He was now for me not a joker and a merry fellow who teased me and made toys, but a serious, simple and loving person, for whom I felt an involuntary respect and sympathy. It was easy and pleasant for me, and at the same time I felt an involuntary tension when talking to him. I was afraid for my every word; I wanted so much to earn his love myself, which was already acquired by me only because I was my father's daughter.

After putting Sonya to bed, Katya joined us and complained to him about my apathy, about which I did not say anything.

“She didn’t tell me the most important thing,” he said, smiling and shaking his head reproachfully at me.

- What to tell! - I said, - it's very boring, and it will pass. (It really seemed to me now that not only would my melancholy pass, but that it had already passed and that it had never been.)

“It’s not good not to be able to endure loneliness,” he said, “are you really a young lady?

“Of course, young lady,” I answered, laughing.

- No, a bad young lady who is only alive while they admire her, and as soon as one is left, she sinks, and nothing is sweet to her; everything is just for show, but nothing for yourself.

“You have a good opinion of me,” I said, to say something.

PART ONE

We wore mourning for our mother, who died in the autumn, and lived all winter in the country, alone with Katya and Sonya.

Katya was an old friend of the house, the governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved from as long as I could remember myself. Sonya was my younger sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsky house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts piled up above the windows; the windows were almost always cold and dim, and for almost a whole winter we did not go anywhere or go anywhere. Few people came to us; Yes, whoever came did not add fun and joy to our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, did not laugh, sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. Death still seemed to be felt in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mother's room was locked, and I felt terrible, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I went to sleep past her.

I was then seventeen years old, and in the very year of her death my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a great grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief, it was also felt that I was young, good, as everyone told me, but for nothing, in solitude, I kill the second winter in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of longing of loneliness and simply boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya persuaded me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my best time is wasted so much? What for? And to "why" there was no other answer than tears.

I was told that I lost weight and became ugly at this time, but it did not even interest me. What for? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass like this in this lonely wilderness and helpless anguish, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength and even the desire to get out. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this needed money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we were waiting for a guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs.

In March, a guardian arrived.

Well, thank God! - Katya once said to me, when I, like a shadow, idle, without thought, without desires, went from corner to corner, - Sergey Mikhailych came, sent to ask about us and wanted to be at dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha," she added, "otherwise what will he think of you? He loved all of you so much.

Sergei Mikhailovich was a close neighbor of ours and a friend of our late father, although much younger than he was. In addition to the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, from childhood I got used to love and respect him, and Katya, advising me to shake things up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would be most painful for me to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailovich . In addition to the fact that I, like everyone in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had a special meaning for me from one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. Then it seemed to me surprising and even unpleasant; My hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailovich was no longer young, tall, stout, and, it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite the fact that these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and even six years ago, when I was eleven years old and he told me you, played with me and called me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear, what will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?

Before dinner, to which Katya added a cake, cream and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailovich arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sled, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I did not expect him at all. But, hearing the sound of feet in the hall, his loud voice and Katya's steps, I could not resist and went to meet him myself. He, holding Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blush.

Oh! is it you! he said with his resolute and simple manner, spreading his arms and leading me towards me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! Here is the violet! You have become a rose.

He took my hand with his big hand and shook me so hard, honestly, it just didn't hurt. I thought that he would kiss my hand, and I bent down to him, but he shook my hand again and looked straight into my eyes with his firm and cheerful look.

I haven't seen him for six years. He has changed a lot; aged, blackened and overgrown with whiskers, which did not go well with him; but there were the same simple manners, an open, honest face with large features, intelligent sparkling eyes, and an affectionate smile, as if of a child.

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was evident from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

He did not behave at all like the neighbors who came after the death of my mother and considered it necessary to be silent and cry while sitting with us; he, on the contrary, was talkative, cheerful, and did not say a word about my mother, so that at first this indifference seemed to me strange and even indecent on the part of such a close person. But then I realized that it was not indifference, but sincerity, and I was grateful for it.

In the evening Katya sat down to pour tea in the old place in the drawing-room, as she used to do with her mother; Sonya and I sat down beside her; old Grigory brought him a pipe he had found, and he, as in the old days, began to pace up and down the room.

How many terrible changes in this house, what do you think! he said, stopping.

Yes, - said Katya with a sigh and, covering the samovar with a lid, looked at him, already ready to burst into tears.

Do you remember your father? he turned to me.

Few, I replied.

And how good it would be for you now with him! he said, looking quietly and thoughtfully at my head above my eyes. - I really loved your father! he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shining.