Family Happiness by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (books to read this summer .TXT) 📖

Chapter 2

Meanwhile spring arrived. My old dejection passed away and gave place to the

unrest which spring brings with it, full of dreams and vague hopes and

desires. Instead of living as I had done at the beginning of winter, I read

and played the piano and gave lessons to Sonya; but also I often went into

the garden and wandered for long alone through the avenues, or sat on a

bench there; and Heaven knows what my thoughts and wishes and hopes were at

such times. Sometimes at night, especially if there was a moon, I sat by my

bedroom window till dawn; sometimes, when Katya was not watching, I stole

out into the garden wearing only a wrapper and ran through the dew as far as

the pond; and once I went all the way to the open fields and walked right

round the garden alone at night.

 

I find it difficult now to recall and understand the dreams which then

filled my imagination. Even when I can recall them, I find it hard to

believe that my dreams were just like that: they were so strange and so

remote from life. Sergey Mikhaylych kept his promise: he returned from his

travels at the end of May. His first visit to us was in the evening and was

quite unexpected. We were sitting in the veranda, preparing for tea. By this

time the garden was all green, and the nightingales had taken up their

quarters for the whole of St. Peter’s Fast in the leafy borders. The tops of

the round lilac bushes had a sprinkling of white and purple — a sign that

their flowers were ready to open. The foliage of the birch avenue was all

transparent in the light of the setting sun. In the veranda there was shade

and freshness. The evening dew was sure to be heavy in the grass. Out of

doors beyond the garden the last sounds of day were audible, and the noise

of the sheep and cattle, as they were driven home. Nikon, the half-witted

boy, was driving his water-cart along the path outside the veranda, and a

cold stream of water from the sprinkler made dark circles on the mould round

the stems and supports of the dahlias. In our veranda the polished samovar

shone and hissed on the white table-cloth; there were cracknels and biscuits

and cream on the table. Katya was busy washing the cups with her plump

hands. I was too hungry after bathing to wait for tea, and was eating bread

with thick fresh cream. I was wearing a gingham blouse with loose sleeves,

and my hair, still wet, was covered with a kerchief. Katya saw him first,

even before he came in.

 

“You, Sergey Mikhaylych!” she cried. “Why, we were just talking about

you.”

 

I got up, meaning to go and change my dress, but he caught me just by the

door.

 

“Why stand on such ceremony in the country?” he said, looking with a smile

at the kerchief on my head. “You don’t mind the presence of your butler, and

I am really the same to you as Grigori is.” But I felt just then that he was

looking at me in a way quite unlike Grigori’s way, and I was uncomfortable.

 

“I shall come back at once,” I said, as I left them.

 

“But what is wrong?” he called out after me; “it’s just the dress of a young

peasant woman.”

 

“How strangely he looked at me!” I said to myself as I was quickly changing

upstairs. “Well, I’m glad he has come; things will be more lively.” After a

look in the glass I ran gaily downstairs and into the veranda; I was out of

breath and did not disguise my haste. He was sitting at the table, talking

to Katya about our affairs. He glanced at me and smiled; then he went on

talking. From what he said it appeared that our affairs were in capital

shape: it was now possible for us, after spending the summer in the country,

to go either to Petersburg for Sonya’s education, or abroad.

 

“If only you would go abroad with us —” said Katya; “without you we shall be

quite lost there.”

 

“Oh, I should like to go round the world with you,” he said, half in jest

and half in earnest.

 

“All right,” I said; let us start off and go round the world.”

 

He smiled and shook his head.

 

“What about my mother? What about my business, he said. “But that’s not the

question just now: I want to know how you have been spending your time. Not

depressed again, I hope?

 

When I told him that I had been busy and not bored during his absence, and

when Katya confirmed my report, he praised me as if he had a right to do so,

and his words and looks were kind, as they might have been to a child. I

felt obliged to tell him, in detail and with perfect frankness, all my good

actions, and to confess, as if I were in church, all that he might

disapprove of. The evening was so fine that we stayed in the veranda after

tea was cleared away; and the conversation interested me so much that I did

not notice how we ceased by degrees to hear any sound of the servants

indoors. The scent of flowers grew stronger and came from all sides; the

grass was drenched with dew; a nightingale struck up in a lilac bush close

by and then stopped on hearing our voices; the starry sky seemed to come

down lower over our heads.

 

It was growing dusk, but I did not notice it till a bat suddenly and

silently flew in beneath the veranda awning and began to flutter round my

white shawl. I shrank back against the wall and nearly cried out; but the

bat as silently and swiftly dived out from under the awning and disappeared

in the half-darkness of the garden.

 

“How fond I am of this place of yours!” he said, changing the conversation;

“I wish I could spend all my life here, sitting in this veranda.”

 

“Well, do then!” said Katya.

 

“That’s all very well,” he said, “but life won’t sit still.”

 

“Why don’t you marry?” asked Katya; you would make an excellent husband.

 

“Because I like sitting still?” and he laughed. “No, Katerina Karlovna, too

late for you and me to marry. People have long ceased to think of me as a

marrying man, and I am even surer of it myself; and I declare I have felt

quite comfortable since the matter was settled.”

 

It seemed to me that he said this in an unnaturally persuasive way.

 

“Nonsense!” said Katya; “a man of thirty-six makes out that he is too

old!”

 

“Too old indeed,” he went on, “when all one wants is to sit still. For a man

who is going to marry that’s not enough. Just you ask her,” he added,

nodding at me; “people of her age should marry, and you and I can rejoice in

their happiness.”

 

The sadness and constraint latent in his voice was not lost upon me. He was

silent for a little, and neither Katya nor I spoke.

 

“Well, just fancy,” he went on, turning a little on his seat; “suppose that

by some mischance I married a girl of seventeen, Masha, if you like — I

mean, Marya Aleksandrovna. The instance is good; I am glad it turned up;

there could