The Cossacks by graf Tolstoy Leo (best book series to read TXT) 📕

about and swayed by the tugs the side-horses gave at the frozen

traces, and again he repeated: ‘First rate … very fond!’ and

once he even said: ‘And how it seizes one … excellent!’ and

wondered what made him say it. ‘Dear me, am I drunk?’ he asked

himself. He had had a couple of bottles of wine, but it was not

the wine alone that was having this effect on Olenin. He

remembered all the words of friendship heartily, bashfully,

spontaneously (as he believed) addressed to him on his departure.

He remembered the clasp of hands, glances, the moments of silence,

and the sound of a voice saying, ‘Good-bye, Mitya!’ when he was

already in the sledge. He remembered his own deliberate frankness.

And all this had a touching significance for him. Not only friends

and relatives, not only people who had been indifferent to him,

but even those who did not like him, seemed to have agreed to

become fonder of him, or to forgive him, before his departure, as

people do before confession or death. ‘Perhaps I shall not return

from the Caucasus,’ he thought. And he felt that he loved his

friends and some one besides. He was sorry for himself. But it was

not love for his friends that so stirred and uplifted his heart

that he could not repress the meaningless words that seemed to

rise of themselves to his lips; nor was it love for a woman (he

had never yet been in love) that had brought on this mood. Love

for himself, love full of hope—warm young love for all that was

good in his own soul (and at that moment it seemed to him that

there was nothing but good in it)—compelled him to weep and to

mutter incoherent words.

Olenin was a youth who had never completed his university course,

never served anywhere (having only a nominal post in some

government office or other), who had squandered half his fortune

and had reached the age of twenty-four without having done

anything or even chosen a career. He was what in Moscow society is

termed un jeune homme.

At the age of eighteen he was free—as only rich young Russians in

the ‘forties who had lost their parents at an early age could be.

Neither physical nor moral fetters of any kind existed for him; he

could do as he liked, lacking nothing and bound by nothing.

Neither relatives, nor fatherland, nor religion, nor wants,

existed for him. He believed in nothing and admitted nothing. But

although he believed in nothing he was not a morose or blase young

man, nor self-opinionated, but on the contrary continually let

himself be carried away. He had come to the conclusion that there

is no such thing as love, yet his heart always overflowed in the

presence of any young and attractive woman. He had long been aware

that honours and position were nonsense, yet involuntarily he felt

pleased when at a ball Prince Sergius came up and spoke to him

affably. But he yielded to his impulses only in so far as they did

not limit his freedom. As soon as he had yielded to any influence

and became conscious of its leading on to labour and struggle, he

instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or

activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom.

In this way he experimented with society-life, the civil service,

farming, music—to which at one time he intended to devote his

life—and even with the love of women in which he did not believe.

He meditated on the use to which he should devote that power of

youth which is granted to man only once in a lifetime: that force

which gives a man the power of making himself, or even—as it

seemed to him—of making the universe, into anything he wishes:

should it be to art, to science, to love of woman, or to practical

activities? It is true that some people are devoid of this

impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the

first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it for the

rest of their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the

presence of that all-powerful God of Youth—of that capacity to be

entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea—the capacity to

wish and to do—to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss

without knowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness

within himself, was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy

in that consciousness. Up to that time he had loved only himself,

and could not help loving himself, for he expected nothing but

good of himself and had not yet had time to be disillusioned. On

leaving Moscow he was in that happy state of mind in which a young

man, conscious of past mistakes, suddenly says to himself, ‘That

was not the real thing.’ All that had gone before was accidental

and unimportant. Till then he had not really tried to live, but

now with his departure from Moscow a new life was beginning—a

life in which there would be no mistakes, no remorse, and

certainly nothing but happiness.

It is always the case on a long journey that till the first two or

three stages have been passed imagination continues to dwell on

the place left behind, but with the first morning on the road it

leaps to the end of the journey and there begins building castles

in the air. So it happened to Olenin.

After leaving the town behind, he gazed at the snowy fields and

felt glad to be alone in their midst. Wrapping himself in his fur

coat, he lay at the bottom of the sledge, became tranquil, and

fell into a doze. The parting with his friends had touched him

deeply, and memories of that last winter spent in Moscow and

images of the past, mingled with vague thoughts and regrets, rose

unbidden in his imagination.

He remembered the friend who had seen him off and his relations

with the girl they had talked about. The girl was rich. “How could

he love her knowing that she loved me?” thought he, and evil

suspicions crossed his mind. “There is much dishonesty in men when

one comes to reflect.” Then he was confronted by the question:

“But really, how is it I have never been in love? Every one tells

me that I never have. Can it be that I am a moral monstrosity?”

And he began to recall all his infatuations. He recalled his entry

into society, and a friend’s sister with whom he spent several

evenings at a table with a lamp on it which lit up her slender

fingers busy with needlework, and the lower part of her pretty

delicate face. He recalled their conversations that dragged on

like the game in which one passes on a stick which one keeps

alight as long as possible, and the general awkwardness and

restraint and his continual feeling of rebellion at all that

conventionality. Some voice had always whispered: “That’s not it,

that’s not it,” and so it had proved. Then he remembered a ball

and the mazurka he danced with the beautiful D–-. “How much in

love I was that night and how happy! And how hurt and vexed I was

next morning when I woke and felt myself still free! Why does not

love come and bind me hand and foot?” thought he. “No, there is no

such thing as love! That neighbour who used to tell me, as she

told Dubrovin and the Marshal, that she loved the stars, was not

IT either.” And now his farming and work in the country recurred

to his mind, and in those recollections also there was nothing to

dwell on with pleasure. “Will they talk long of my departure?”

came into his head; but who “they” were he did not quite know.

Next came a thought that made him wince and mutter incoherently.

It was the recollection of M. Cappele the tailor, and the six

hundred and seventy-eight rubles he still owed him, and he

recalled the words in which he had begged him to wait another

year, and the look of perplexity and resignation which had

appeared on the tailor’s face. ‘Oh, my God, my God!’ he repeated,

wincing and trying to drive away the intolerable thought. ‘All the

same and in spite of everything she loved me,’ thought he of the

girl they had talked about at the farewell supper. ‘Yes, had I

married her I should not now be owing anything, and as it is I am

in debt to Vasilyev.’ Then he remembered the last night he had

played with Vasilyev at the club (just after leaving her), and he

recalled his humiliating requests for another game and the other’s

cold refusal. ‘A year’s economizing and they will all be paid, and

the devil take them!’… But despite this assurance he again began

calculating his outstanding debts, their dates, and when he could

hope to pay them off. ‘And I owe something to Morell as well as to

Chevalier,’ thought he, recalling the night when he had run up so

large a debt. It was at a carousel at the gipsies arranged by some

fellows from Petersburg: Sashka B–, an aide-de-camp to the Tsar,

Prince D–, and that pompous old–-. ‘How is it those gentlemen

are so self-satisfied?’ thought he, ‘and by what right do they

form a clique to which they think others must be highly flattered

to be admitted? Can it be because they are on the Emperor’s staff?

Why, it’s awful what fools and scoundrels they consider other

people to be! But I showed them that I at any rate, on the

contrary, do not at all want their intimacy. All the same, I fancy

Andrew, the steward, would be amazed to know that I am on familiar

terms with a man like Sashka B–, a colonel and an aide-de-camp

to the Tsar! Yes, and no one drank more than I did that evening,

and I taught the gipsies a new song and everyone listened to it.

Though I have done many foolish things, all the same I am a very

good fellow,’ thought he.

Morning found him at the third post-stage. He drank tea, and

himself helped Vanyusha to move his bundles and trunks and sat

down among them, sensible, erect, and precise, knowing where all

his belongings were, how much money he had and where it was, where

he had put his passport and the post-horse requisition and toll-gate papers, and it all seemed to him so well arranged that he

grew quite cheerful and the long journey before him seemed an

extended pleasure-trip.

All that morning and noon he was deep in calculations of how many

versts he had travelled, how many remained to the next stage, how

many to the next town, to the place where he would dine, to the

place where he would drink tea, and to Stavropol, and what

fraction of the whole journey was already accomplished. He also

calculated how much money he had with him, how much would be left

over, how much would pay off all his debts, and what proportion of

his income he would spend each month. Towards evening, after tea,

he calculated that to Stavropol there still remained seven-elevenths of the whole journey, that his debts would require seven

months’ economy and one-eighth of his whole fortune; and then,

tranquillized, he wrapped himself up, lay down in the sledge, and

again dozed off. His imagination was now turned to the future: to

the Caucasus. All his dreams of the future were mingled with

pictures of Amalat-Beks, Circassian women, mountains, precipices,

terrible torrents, and perils. All these things were vague and

dim, but the love of fame and the danger of death furnished