Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

can see at once you are not a practical man. Why not seize the opportunity when one can, and at least for one night live like human beings? And they, on the contrary, will be very pleased to have us.⁠ ⁠… The worst of it is, if this lady really knew my father⁠ ⁠…” continued the Count, with a smile which displayed his glistening white teeth, “I always have to feel ashamed for my departed papa. There is always some scandalous story or other, or some debt he has left. That is why I hate meeting those acquaintances of my father’s. However, that was the way in those days,” he added, growing serious.

“Did I ever tell you,” said Pólozof, “I once met the Uhlan Brigade-Commander Ilyín? He was very anxious to meet you. He loves your father awfully.”

“He is, I think, an awful good-for-nothing, that Ilyín. But the chief thing is that these good people, who assure me that they knew my father in order to make up to me, while pretending to tell very pleasant things, relate such tales about my father that it makes one ashamed to listen. It is true⁠—and I don’t deceive myself but look at things dispassionately⁠—he had too ardent a nature, and sometimes did things that were not nice. However, that was the way in those times. In our days he might have turned out a very successful man, for, to do him justice, he had extraordinary capacities.”

A quarter of an hour later the servant came back with a request from the proprietress that they would be so good as to spend the night at her house.

XI

Having heard that the hussar officer was the son of Count Fyódor Toúrbin, Anna Fyódorovna began to bustle about.

“Oh, dear me! The darling boy!⁠ ⁠… Daniel! run quick and say your mistress asks them to her house,” she began, jumping up and hurrying with quick steps into the servants’ room. “Lizzie! Oustúshka!⁠ ⁠… Your room must be got ready, Lisa; you can go into your uncle’s room, and you, brother, you’ll not mind sleeping in the drawing-room, brother? It’s only for one night.”

“I don’t mind, sister. I can sleep on the floor.”

“He’s handsome I should think, if he’s like his father. Only to have a look at him, the darling.⁠ ⁠… There now, you look at him, Lisa! The father was handsome. Where are you taking that table to? Leave it here,” said Anna Fyódorovna, bustling about. “Bring two beds⁠—take one from the foreman’s⁠—and get the crystal candlestick brother gave me for my birthday⁠—it’s on the whatnot⁠—and put in a stearine candle.”

At last everything was ready. In spite of her mother’s interference, Lisa arranged the room for the two officers her own way. She took out clean bedclothes scented with mignonette, and made the beds; had a bottle of water and candles put on a little table near the beds; fumigated the servants’ room with scented paper, and moved her own bedding into her uncle’s room. Anna Fyódorovna quieted down a little, settled in her own place, and even took up the cards again, but instead of laying them out she leaned her plump elbow on the table and became thoughtful.

“Ah, time, time, how it flies!” she whispered to herself. “Is it so long ago?⁠—it is as if I could see him now. Ah, he was a madcap!⁠ ⁠…” and tears came into her eyes. “And now there’s Lizzie⁠ ⁠… but still, she’s not what I was at her age; she’s a nice girl, but no, not like that⁠ ⁠…”

“Lisa, you should put on your mousseline-de-laine dress for the evening.”

“Why, mother, you are not going to ask them in here? Better not,” said Lisa, unable to master her excitement at the thought of seeing the officers: “Better not, mama!”

And really, the desire of seeing them was less strong than the fear of the agitating joy which, as she imagined, awaited her.

“Maybe they themselves will feel inclined to make our acquaintance, Lizzie!” said Anna Fyódorovna, stroking her head and thinking, “No, her hair is not what mine was at her age⁠ ⁠… No, Lizzie, how I should like you to⁠ ⁠…” And she really did very earnestly desire something for her daughter. But a marriage with the Count was out of the question, and relations such as she had had with the father she could not desire for her daughter; but still she did desire something very much. She may have longed to live again, in the soul of her daughter, what she had experienced with him who was dead.

The old cavalryman was also somewhat excited by the arrival of the Count. He went and locked himself into his room. In a quarter of an hour he emerged thence in a Hungarian jacket and pale-blue trousers, and went into the room prepared for the visitors, with the bashfully-pleased expression of a girl who for the first time in her life puts on a ball-dress.

“I’ll have a look at the hussars of today, sister! The late Count was, indeed, a true hussar. I’ll see, I’ll see.”

The officers had already, through the back entrance, reached the room assigned to them.

“There now, you see. Is not this better than that hut with the cockroaches?” said the Count, lying down as he was, in his dusty boots, on the bed that had been made for him.

“It’s better, of course it is; but still, to be indebted to the owners⁠ ⁠…”

“Eh, what nonsense! One must be practical in all things. They’re awfully pleased, I’m sure⁠ ⁠… Eh, you there!” he cried, “ask for something to hang over this window, or it will be draughty in the night.”

At this moment the old man came in to make the officers’ acquaintance. Of course he did not omit to say, though he did it with a slight blush, that he and the old Count had been comrades, that he had enjoyed the Count’s favour, and he even added that he had more than once been under obligations to the deceased. What obligations he