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

Rina glanced at herself and seeing her torn dress and bare breast, felt ashamed. The man understood and covered her.

“You’re all right, miss, you’ll not die.”

People came up and also a policeman, while Rina sat up, and gave her father’s name and address, and Emelian went for the cab. The crowd round her continued to increase. When Emelian returned with the cab, she rose, and refusing help, got into the vehicle by herself. She was so ashamed of the condition she was in.

“Where is your cousin?” asked an old woman.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” said Rina in despair.

(On reaching home she learnt that Alec had managed to leave the crowd when the crush first began and he returned home safely.)

“That man saved me,” said Rina. “If it had not been for him, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“What is you name?” she said, turning to Emelian.

“Mine? What does my name matter?”

“She’s a princess,” a woman whispered in his ear. “Ri-i-i-ch.”

“Come with me to my father, he will thank you.” Suddenly the heart of Emelian seemed to be infused with a kind of strength so that he would not have exchanged this feeling for a lottery ticket worth 200,000 roubles.

“Nonsense, go home, miss. What is there to thank me for?”

“Oh, no. I would so much rather.”

“Goodbye, miss, God be with you. But, there, don’t take away my overcoat,” and he showed his white teeth with a merry smile which lived in Rina’s memory to console her for the most terrible moments of her life.

I had known Marie Alexandrovna ever since we were children. As so often happens with young people, there was no suggestion of lovemaking about our companionship, with the possible exception of one evening when she was at our house and we played “Ladies and Gentlemen.” She was fifteen, with plump, rosy hands, beautiful dark eyes, and a thick plait of black hair. I was so impressed by her during that evening that I imagined that I was in love with her. But that was the only time; during all the rest of our forty years’ acquaintance we were on those excellent terms of friendship which exist between a man and a woman who mutually respect each other, which are so delightful when⁠—as in our case⁠—they are free from any idea of lovemaking.

I got a lot of enjoyment out of our friendship, and it taught me a great deal. I have never known a woman who more perfectly typified the good wife, the good mother. Through her I learned much, and came to understand many things.

I saw her for the last time last year, only a month before her death, which neither of us expected. She had just settled down to live alone with Barbara, her cook, in the grounds of a monastery. It was very strange to see this mother of eight children⁠—this woman who had nearly fifty grandchildren⁠—living alone in that way. But there was an evident finality about her determination to live by herself for the rest of her days in spite of the more or less sincere invitations of her family. As I knew her to be, I will not say a freethinker, for she never laid any stress on that, but one who thought for herself with courage and common sense, I was puzzled at first to see her taking up her abode in the precincts of a monastery.

I knew that her heart was too full of real feeling to have any room for superstition, and I was well aware of her hatred of hypocrisy and of everything Pharisaical. Then suddenly came this house close to the monastery, this regular attendance at church services, and this complete submission to the guidance of the priest, Father Nicodim, though all this was done unostentatiously and with moderation, as if she were somewhat ashamed of it.

When we met it was evident that she wished to avoid all discussion of her reasons for choosing a life of that sort. But I think that I understood. Although she had a sceptical mind, it was dominated by the fullness of her heart. When, after forty years of household activity, she found that all her children had outgrown the need for her care, she was at a loose end, and it became necessary to seek some fresh occupation for her heart, some fresh outlet for her feelings. Since the homes of her children could not satisfy her cravings, she decided to go into retreat, hoping that she would find the solace which others found in seclusion, the consolation of religion. Though her pride, both on her own account and for the sake of her children, prevented her from giving more than the merest hint of the truth, there could be no doubt that she was unhappy.

I knew all her children, and when I inquired after them she answered reluctantly, for she never blamed them. But I could see what a tragedy, or rather, what a series of tragedies lay buried in her heart.

“Yes, Volodia has done very well,” she said. “He is President of the Chamber, and has bought an estate.⁠ ⁠… Yes, his children are growing up⁠—three boys and two girls,” and as she stopped talking her black eyebrows were contracted into a frown, and I could see that she was making an effort to prevent herself from expressing her thoughts, trying to rid herself of them.

“Well, and Basil?”

“Basil is just the same; you know the sort of man he is.”

“Still devoted to society?”

“Yes.”

“Has he any children?”

“Three.”

That is how we talked when her sons and daughters were our subject of conversation.

She would rather talk of Peter than of the others. He was the failure of the family⁠—he had squandered all that he had, did not pay his debts, and caused his mother more distress than any of them. But he was her best-beloved in spite of his waywardness, for she saw, as she put it, his “heart of