Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ to do, and went upstairs, but a quarter of an hour later some one opened the schoolroom door, and Nechludoff entered.

      “Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

      “No,” I replied, although I had at first intended to say that I had a great deal to do.

      “Then why did you run away just now? It is a long while since we had a talk together, and I have grown so accustomed to these discussions that I feel as though something were wanting.”

      My anger had quite gone now, and Dimitri stood before me the same good and lovable being as before.

      “You know, perhaps, why I ran away?” I said.

      “Perhaps I do,” he answered, taking a seat near me. “However, though it is possible I know why, I cannot say it straight out, whereas YOU can.”

      “Then I will do so. I ran away because I was angry with you — well, not angry, but grieved. I always have an idea that you despise me for being so young.”

      “Well, do you know why I always feel so attracted towards you?” he replied, meeting my confession with a look of kind understanding, “and why I like you better than any of my other acquaintances or than any of the people among whom I mostly have to live? It is because I found out at once that you have the rare and astonishing gift of sincerity.”

      “Yes, I always confess the things of which I am most ashamed — but only to people in whom I trust,” I said.

      “Ah, but to trust a man you must be his friend completely, and we are not friends yet, Nicolas. Remember how, when we were speaking of friendship, we agreed that, to be real friends, we ought to trust one another implicitly.”

      “I trust you in so far as that I feel convinced that you would never repeat a word of what I might tell you,” I said.

      “Yet perhaps the most interesting and important thoughts of all are just those which we never tell one another, while the mean thoughts (the thoughts which, if we only knew that we had to confess them to one another, would probably never have the hardihood to enter our minds)— Well, do you know what I am thinking of, Nicolas?” he broke off, rising and taking my hand with a smile. “I propose (and I feel sure that it would benefit us mutually) that we should pledge our word to one another to tell each other EVERYTHING. We should then really know each other, and never have anything on our consciences. And, to guard against outsiders, let us also agree never to speak of one another to a third person. Suppose we do that?”

      “I agree,” I replied. And we did it. What the result was shall be told hereafter.

      Kerr has said that every attachment has two sides: one loves, and the other allows himself to be loved; one kisses, and the other surrenders his cheek. That is perfectly true. In the case of our own attachment it was I who kissed, and Dimitri who surrendered his cheek — though he, in his turn, was ready to pay me a similar salute. We loved equally because we knew and appreciated each other thoroughly, but this did not prevent him from exercising an influence over me, nor myself from rendering him adoration.

      It will readily be understood that Nechludoff’s influence caused me to adopt his bent of mind, the essence of which lay in an enthusiastic reverence for ideal virtue and a firm belief in man’s vocation to perpetual perfection. To raise mankind, to abolish vice and misery, seemed at that time a task offering no difficulties. To educate oneself to every virtue, and so to achieve happiness, seemed a simple and easy matter.

      Only God Himself knows whether those blessed dreams of youth were ridiculous, or whose the fault was that they never became realised.

      Youth

      First published : 1856

      Translation : C. J. Hogarth (1869-1942)

       Chapter 1 — What I Consider to have Been the Beginning of My Youth

       Chapter 2 — Springtime

       Chapter 3 — Dreams

       Chapter 4 —Our Family Circle

       Chapter 5 — My Rules

       Chapter 6 — Confession

       Chapter 7 — The Expedition to the Monastery

       Chapter 8 — The Second Confession

       Chapter 9 — How I Prepared Myself for the Examinations

       Chapter 10 — The Examination in History

       Chapter 11 — My Examination in Mathematics

       Chapter 12 — My Examination in Latin

       Chapter 13 — I Become Grown-Up

       Chapter 14 — How Woloda and Dubkoff Amused Themselves

       Chapter 15 — I Am Feted at Dinner

       Chapter 16 — The Quarrel

       Chapter 17 — I Get Ready to Pay Some Calls

       Chapter 18 — The Valakhin Family

       Chapter 19 — The Kornakoffs

       Chapter 20 — The Iwins

       Chapter 21 — Prince Ivan Ivanovitch

       Chapter СКАЧАТЬ