Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕
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While perhaps best known for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, the Russian author and religious thinker Leo Tolstoy was also a prolific author of short fiction. This Standard Ebooks production compiles all of Tolstoy’s short stories and novellas written from 1852 up to his death, arranged in order of their original publication.
The stories in this collection vary enormously in size and scope, from short, page-length fables composed for the education of schoolchildren, to full novellas like “Family Happiness.” Readers who are familiar with Tolstoy’s life and religious experiences—as detailed, for example, in his spiritual memoir A Confession—may be able to trace the events of Tolstoy’s life through the changing subjects of these stories. Some early stories, like “The Raid” and the “Sevastopol” sketches, draw from Tolstoy’s experiences in the Caucasian War and the Crimean War when he served in the Imperial Russian Army, while other early stories like “Recollections of a Scorer” and “Two Hussars” reflect Tolstoy’s personal struggle with gambling addiction.
Later stories in the collection, written during and after Tolstoy’s 1870s conversion to Christian anarcho-pacifism (a spiritual and religious philosophy described in detail in his treatise The Kingdom of God is Within You), frequently reflect either Tolstoy’s own experiences in spiritual struggle (e.g. “The Death of Ivan Ilyitch”) or his interpretation of the New Testament (e.g. “The Forged Coupon”), or both. Many later stories, like “Three Questions” and “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” are explicitly didactic in nature and are addressed to a popular audience to promote his religious ideals and views on social and economic justice.
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- Author: Leo Tolstoy
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Referring to the custom of charging the Government more than the actual price of supplies, and thereby making an income which was supposed to go for the benefit of the regiment, but part of which frequently remained unaccounted for. ↩
The Cantonists, in the old days of serfdom, were the sons of soldiers, condemned by law and heredity to be soldiers also. ↩
It is a Russian custom to offer bread and salt to new arrivals. ↩
Gorodki is a game in which short, thick, sticks are arranged in certain figures within squares. Each side has its own square, and each player in turn throws a stick to try to clear out the enemy’s square. The side wins which accomplishes this first with the six figures in which the little sticks are successively arranged. ↩
Run of ill-luck. ↩
The luck has turned. ↩
Yes, my dear, the days follow, but do not resemble one another. ↩
Kabarda is a district in the Terek Territory of the Caucasus, and Kabarda horses are famous for their powers of endurance. ↩
A position in the world. ↩
My father allowed me 10,000 rubles a year. ↩
I was received in the best society of Petersburg; I could aspire … ↩
But in particular I spoke the society jargon. ↩
Was that liaison with Mme. D⸺. ↩
My father; you will have heard him spoken of. ↩
He disinherited me. ↩
He has been consistent. ↩
Camp life. ↩
I should be seen under fire. ↩
You know, with the prestige that misfortune gives. ↩
(But) what a disenchantment! ↩
I hope that is saying a good deal. ↩
You can have no idea of what I had to suffer. ↩
With the small means I had, I lacked everything. ↩
With my pride, I wrote to my father. ↩
Have you a cigarette? ↩
Who is the son of my father’s steward. ↩
I have been seen under fire. ↩
War, camp-life. ↩
It is dreadful, it is killing. ↩
Quite frankly. ↩
You are above that [i.e. above despising me for my misfortunes], my dear, I have not a halfpenny. ↩
Can you lend me ten rubles? ↩
Do not trouble yourself. ↩
Reversing. ↩
From lightheartedness. ↩
Genteel women. ↩
And I have not a strong head. ↩
Morskaya—one of the best streets in Petersburg. ↩
On the ground floor. ↩
In the morning I went out. ↩
It must be admitted that she was a ravishing woman. ↩
Always gay, always loving. ↩
And I have much to reproach myself with. ↩
I have made her suffer, often. ↩
I am broken. ↩
Dignity in misfortune. ↩
Has stained me. ↩
I cannot. ↩
I have shown it. ↩
Khozyáïn. ↩
Izbá. ↩
Khozyáïstvo. ↩
Bátiushka. ↩
Dvor. ↩
Dvor. ↩
Bratets, brother. ↩
Bátiushka. ↩
Bátiushka. ↩
Shchets for shchi. ↩
Bátiushka. ↩
The lands belonging to the Russian commune, or mir, were periodically distributed by allotment, each full-grown peasant receiving as his share a tiagló representing what the average man and his wife were capable of cultivating. When the period was long—ten years for instance—it sometimes happened that a serf, by reason of illness, laziness, or other misfortune, would find it hard to cultivate his share, pay the tax on it, and also do the work required of him on his bárin’s land. Such was Churis’s complaint. ↩
Barshchina: work on the master’s land. ↩
Zemski. ↩
Bátiushka. ↩
Bátiushka. ↩
Raspútitsa. ↩
Báruinya. ↩
Yukhvánka-Mudr’yónui. ↩
Dvor. ↩
Mátushka. ↩
Where the holy images and the lighted taper are to be found. ↩
Vaciaso for vashe siátelstvo (your excellency). ↩
Dvor. ↩
Khozyáïstvo. ↩
Little David White. ↩
Khozyáïstvo. ↩
Khozyáïka. ↩
Izbá. ↩
Dvor. ↩
Khozyáeva; literally, “master and mistress.” ↩
Six arshin. ↩
Polushubok. ↩
Khozyáïn. ↩
Tulup. ↩
Literally, “middle of the white day.” ↩
Khozyáïstvo.
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