Katia - Leo Tolstoy

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a mere visitor, but on that of an intimate guest with us all, and even the servants manifested their joy at his arrival, by the eager zeal with which they served him.

      He did not act at all like a neighbor who, coming to a house for the first time after the mother's death, thinks it necessary to bring with him a solemn countenance; on the contrary, he was gay, talkative, and did not say a single word about Mamma, so that I began to think this indifference on the part of a man standing in such near relation to us very strange, and rather unseemly. But I soon saw that it was far from being indifference, and read in his intention a considerateness for which I could not help being grateful.

      In the evening Macha gave us tea in the drawing-room where it had been usually served during Mamma's lifetime. Sonia and I sat near her; Gregory found one of Papa's old pipes, and brought it to our guardian, who began to pace up and down the room according to his old fashion.

      " What terrible changes in this house, when one thinks of it!" said he, stopping suddenly.

      "Yes," replied Macha with a sigh; and replacing the top of the samovar, she looked up at Sergius Mikai'lovitch, almost ready to burst into tears.

      " No doubt you remember your father?" he asked me.

      " A little."

      " How fortunate it would be for you, now, to have him still!" he observed slowly, with a thoughtful air, casting a vague glance into vacancy over my head. And he added more slowly still:

      "I loved your father very much..."

      I thought I detected a new brightness in his eyes at this moment.

      "And now God has taken away our mother also!" exclaimed Macha. Dropping her napkin on the tea-tray, she pulled out her handkerchief and began to cry.

      "Yes, there have been terrible changes in this house!"

      He turned away as he spoke.

      Then, a moment after: "Katia Alexandrovna," he said, in a louder voice, "play me something!"

      I liked the tone of frank, friendly authority with which he made this request; I rose and went to him.

      "Here, play me this," said he, opening my Beethoven at the adagio of the sonata, Quasi una fantasia. "Let us see how you play," he continued, taking his cup of tea to drink in a corner of the room.

      I know not why, but I felt it would be impossible either to refuse or to put forward a plea of playing badly; on the contrary, I submissively sat down at the piano and began to play as well as I could, although I was afraid of his criticism, knowing his excellent taste in music.

      In the tone of this adagio there was a prevalent sentiment which by association carried me away to the conversation before tea, and, guided by this impression, I played tolerably well, it seemed. But he would not let me play the scherzo.

      "No, you will not play it well," said he, coming to me, " stop with that first movement, which has not been bad! I see that you comprehend music."

      This praise, certainly moderate enough, delighted me so that I felt my color rise. It was something so new and agreeable to me to have the friend, the equal of my father, speak to me alone, seriously, and no longer as though he were talking to a child as he used to do.

      He talked to me about my father, telling me how they suited each other, and what a pleasant life they had led together while I was occupied solely with my playthings and school-books; and what he said revealed my father to me in a light quite new to me, for the first time I seemed to know fully his simple goodness. My guardian questioned me as to what I liked, what I read, what I intended doing, and gave me advice. I had no longer beside me the gay talker, delighting in badinage, but a man serious, frank, friendly, for whom I felt involuntary respect, while at the same time I was conscious of being in perfect sympathy with him. This consciousness was pleasing to me, nevertheless there was a certain tension in conversing with him. Every word I uttered left me timid; I wished so much to deserve in my own person the affection which at present I only received because I was my father's daughter!

      After putting Sonia to bed, Macha rejoined us, and began to pour out to Sergius Mikailovitch her lamentations on the score of my apathy, which resulted she complained in my rarely having a single word to say.

      "Then she has not told me the most important thing of all," he answered, smiling, and shaking his head at me with an air of reproach.

      "What had I to tell?" I replied: "that I was bored? but that will pass away." (And indeed it now seemed to me, not only that my ennui would pass away, but that it was something already gone by, which could not return.)

      "It is not well not to know how to bear solitude: is it possible that you are truly a 'grown young lady '?"

      "I believe so!" I answered smiling.

      "No, no, or at least a naughty young lady, who only lives to be admired, and who, when she finds herself isolated, gives way, and no longer enjoys anything; all for show, nothing for herself."

      "You have a lovely idea of me, it seems!" I answered, to say something.

      "No," he returned, after a moment's silence; "it is not in vain that you have that resemblance to your father; there is something in you!"

      Again those kind, steadfast eyes exerted their charm over me, filling me with strange emotion.

      I noticed for the first time at this moment that the face which to a casual glance seemed so gay, the expression, so peculiarly his own, where at first one seemed to read only serenity, afterwards revealed more and more clearly, a reserve of deep thought and a shade of sadness.

      " You should not feel ennui," he said, " you have music, which you are able to understand books, study; you have before you a whole life, for which the present is the only moment to prepare yourself, so that hereafter you may not have to repine. In a year it will be too late."

      He spoke to me like a father or an uncle, and I understood that he was making an effort to come to my level. I was a little offended that he should think me so much below him, and on the other hand, it was gratifying to feel that he cared to make the effort for my sake.

      The rest of the evening was devoted to a business conversation between him and Macha.

      "And now, good-night, my dear Katia," said he, rising, approaching me, and taking my hand.

      "When shall we see each other again?" asked Macha.

      "In the spring," he replied, still holding my hand; " I am now going to Danilovka " (our other estate); " I must look into matters there and make some necessary arrangements, then I have to go to Moscow upon business of my own, and later or in the summer we shall see each other again."

      "Why do you go for so long a time?" I asked, dejectedly; for I was already hoping to see him every day, and it was with a sudden sinking of my heart that I thought of again battling with my ennui. Probably my eyes and voice let this be guessed.

      "Come, occupy yourself more; drive away the blues!" he said in a voice that seemed to me too placid and cold. " In the spring I will hold an examination," he added, dropping my hand without looking at me.

      We accompanied him to the ante-chamber, where he hurriedly put on his pelisse, and again his eyes seemed to avoid mine.

      "He is taking very useless trouble!" I said to myself, " can it be possible that he thinks he is giving me too great a pleasure by looking at me! An excellent man Perfectly good...But that is all."

      We remained awake a long time that night talking, not of him, but of the employment of the ensuing summer, of where and how we should spend the winter. Mighty question, yet why? To me it appeared perfectly simple and evident that life was to consist in being happy, and in the future I could imagine nothing but happiness, so suddenly had our sombre old dwelling at Pokrovski filled itself with life and light.

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