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| collection site
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| Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
| Family happiness
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We mourned for our mother, who died in the fall, and lived all winter in the village, alone with Katya and Sonya.
Katya was an old friend of the house, a governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved as long as I could remember. Sonya was my little sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsk house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts were higher than the windows; the windows were almost always frozen and dim, and for almost the entire winter we did not go or drive anywhere. Rarely did anyone come to us; and whoever came did not add to the fun and joy in our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, they did not laugh, sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. There was still a sense of death in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mom’s room was locked, and I felt creepy, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I passed her to sleep.
I was seventeen years old then, and in the very year of her death, my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a strong grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief I also felt that I was young and good, as everyone told me, but I was killing the second winter in solitude in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of melancholy, loneliness and just boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya tried to persuade me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my best time is wasted so much? For what? And why there was no other answer than tears.
They told me that I had lost weight and looked ugly during this time, but that didn’t even bother me. For what? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass in this lonely wilderness and helpless melancholy, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength or even the desire to get out. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this required money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we waited for the guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs.
The guardian arrived in March.
- Well, thank God! - Katya said to me once, when I was like a shadow, idle, without thoughts, without desires, walking from corner to corner, - Sergei Mikhailych arrived, sent to ask about us and wanted to be there for dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha,” she added, “what will he think of you?” He loved you all so much.
Sergei Mikhailych was our close neighbor and friend of our late father, although much younger than him.

Besides the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, since childhood I had become accustomed to loving and respecting him, and Katya, advising me to shake myself up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would hurt me the most to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailych . Besides the fact that I, like everyone in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had a special meaning for me because of one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. At the time it seemed surprising and even unpleasant to me; my hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailych was no longer a young man, tall, stocky and, as it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite this, these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and six years ago, when I was eleven years old and he told me you, played with me and nicknamed me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear, What will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?
Before dinner, to which Katya added cream cake and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailych arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sleigh, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I had not expected him at all. But, hearing the pounding of feet in the hallway, his loud voice and Katya’s steps, I could not resist and went to meet him halfway. He held Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blushing.
- Ah! is it really you? - he said in his decisive and simple manner, spreading his arms and approaching me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! That's a violet! You have become a whole rose.
He took my hand with his big hand and shook it so tightly, honestly, it just didn’t hurt. I thought that he would kiss my hand, and I leaned towards him, but he shook my hand again and looked straight into my eyes with his firm and cheerful gaze.
I haven't seen him for six years. He has changed a lot; he had aged, turned black and had acquired sideburns, which did not suit him at all; but there were the same simple techniques, an open, honest face with large features, intelligent sparkling eyes and a gentle, childlike smile.
Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was clear from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.
He behaved completely differently from the neighbors who came after mother’s death and considered it necessary to remain silent and cry while sitting with us; he, on the contrary, was talkative, cheerful and did not say a word about mother, so at first this indifference seemed strange and even indecent to me on the part of such a close person. But then I realized that it was not indifference, but sincerity, and I was grateful for it.
In the evening, Katya sat down to pour tea in her old place in the living room, as happened with her mother; Sonya and I sat down next to her; old Gregory brought him his father's old pipe, which he had found, and he, as in the old days, began to walk up and down the room.
– How many terrible changes are there in this house, just think! - he said, stopping.
“Yes,” Katya said with a sigh and, covering the samovar with the lid, looked at him, ready to cry.
– I think you remember your father? – he turned to me.
“Not enough,” I answered.
- And how good it would be for you to be with him now! - he said, quietly and thoughtfully looking at my head above my eyes. – I loved your father very much! – he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shiny.
- And then God took her! - Katya said and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.
“Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall. I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he came out.
- This is such a nice friend! - she said. And indeed, somehow I felt warm and good from the sympathy of this stranger and good person.
From the living room you could hear Sonya's squeak and his fussing with her. I sent him tea; and you could hear him sit down at the piano and begin to hit the keys with Sonya’s little hands.
- Marya Alexandrovna! – his voice was heard. - Come here, play something.
I was pleased that he addressed me so simply and in a friendly, commanding manner; I stood up and approached him.
“Play this,” he said, opening Beethoven’s notebook on the adagio of the sonata quasi una fantasia. “Let’s see how you play,” he added and walked away with the glass to the corner of the hall.
For some reason I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse with him and make prefaces that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as best I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The Adagio was in the tone of the feeling of memory that was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I seemed to play decently. But he didn’t let me play the scherzo. “No, you’re not playing well,” he said, coming up to me, “leave that, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music." This moderate praise made me so happy that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father’s friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer like a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.
He told me about my father, how he got along with him, how happily they once lived, when I was still sitting with books and toys; and for the first time my father, in his stories, seemed to me to be a simple and sweet man, such as I had not known him until now. He also asked me about what I loved, what I read, what I intended to do, and gave advice. For me now he was not a joker and a merry fellow who teased me and made toys, but a serious, simple and loving man, for whom I felt involuntary respect and sympathy. It was easy and pleasant for me, and at the same time I felt involuntary tension when talking with him. I was afraid for every word I said; I so wanted to earn his love myself, which was already acquired by me only because I was my father’s daughter.
Having put Sonya to bed, Katya joined us and complained to him about my apathy, about which I said nothing.
“She didn’t tell me the most important thing,” he said, smiling and shaking his head reproachfully at me.
- What can I tell you! – I said, “this is very boring, and it will pass.” (It really seemed to me now that not only would my melancholy pass, but that it had already passed and that it had never existed.)
“It’s not good not to be able to endure loneliness,” he said, “are you really a young lady?”
“Of course, young lady,” I answered, laughing.
- No, a bad young lady who is only alive while people admire her, and as soon as she was left alone, she sank, and nothing is sweet to her; everything is just for show, but nothing for yourself.
“You have a good opinion of me,” I said, trying to say something.
- No! “- he said, after a short silence, “it’s not for nothing that you look like your father, you have it in you,” and his kind, attentive gaze again flattered me and joyfully confused me.
Only now did I notice, because of his seemingly cheerful face, this look that belonged to him alone - at first clear, and then more and more attentive and somewhat sad.
“You should not and cannot be bored,” he said, “you have music that you understand, books, studies, you have a whole life ahead of you, for which now you can only prepare, so as not to regret it later.” In a year it will be too late.
He spoke to me like a father or uncle, and I felt that he was constantly trying to be on an equal footing with me. I was both offended that he considered me inferior to him, and pleased that for me alone he considered it necessary to try to be different.
The rest of the evening he talked about business with Katya.
“Well, goodbye, dear friends,” he said, getting up and coming to me and taking me by the hand.
- When will we see you again? – Katya asked.
“In the spring,” he answered, continuing to hold my hand, “now I’ll go to Danilovka (our other village); I’ll find out there, arrange what I can, go to Moscow - on my own business, and we’ll see each other in the summer.
- Well, why are you taking so long? - I said terribly sadly; and indeed, I was already hoping to see him every day, and I suddenly felt so sorry and scared that my melancholy would return again. It must have shown in my look and tone.
- Yes; study more, don’t mope,” he said, in what seemed to me a too coldly simple tone. “And in the spring I will examine you,” he added, releasing my hand and not looking at me.
In the hallway, where we stood seeing him off, he hurried, putting on his fur coat, and again looked around me. “He tries in vain! – I thought. “Does he really think that I really like it so much that he looks at me?” He is a good person, very good... but that’s all.”
However, that evening Katya and I did not fall asleep for a long time and kept talking, not about him, but about how we would spend this summer, where and how we would live during the winter. The scary question: why? – no longer introduced himself to me. It seemed to me very simple and clear that one must live in order to be happy, and in the future there seemed to be a lot of happiness. It was as if suddenly our old, gloomy Pokrovsky house was filled with life and light.

Meanwhile, spring has arrived. My former melancholy passed and was replaced by the springtime dreamy melancholy of incomprehensible hopes and desires. Although I did not live as I did at the beginning of winter, but was busy with Sonya, and music, and reading, I often went into the garden and for a long, long time wandered alone along the alleys or sat on a bench, God knows what, thinking about, wanting and hoping . Sometimes I spent whole nights, especially during my period, until the morning at the window of my room, sometimes in one blouse, quietly from Katya, I went out into the garden and ran through the dew to the pond, and once I even went out into the field and walked around the whole garden alone at night. .
Now it is difficult for me to remember and understand the dreams that filled my imagination then. Even when I remember, I can’t believe that these were exactly my dreams. So they were strange and far from life.
At the end of May, Sergei Mikhailych, as promised, returned from his trip.
The first time he arrived in the evening, when we were not expecting him at all. We sat on the terrace and were going to drink tea. The garden was already all green; all the petrovka's nightingales had already taken up residence in the overgrown flower beds. Curly lilac bushes here and there seemed to be sprinkled with something white and purple on top. These flowers were getting ready to bloom. The foliage of the birch alley was completely transparent in the setting sun. There was fresh shade on the terrace. Heavy evening dew was expected to fall on the grass. In the courtyard beyond the garden the last sounds of the day were heard, the noise of a herded herd; the fool Nikon drove along the path with a barrel in front of the terrace, and a cold stream of water from a watering can ink circles around the dug up soil around the dahlia trunks and supports. On our terrace, on a white tablecloth, a lightly cleaned samovar was glistening and boiling, there was cream, pretzels, and cookies. Katya carefully washed the cups with her plump hands. Without waiting for tea and feeling hungry after swimming, I ate bread with thick fresh cream. I was wearing a canvas blouse with open sleeves, and my head was tied with a scarf over my wet hair. Katya was the first to see him through the window.
- A! Sergei Mikhailych! - she said, - and we were just talking about you.
I got up and wanted to leave to change clothes, but he caught me while I was already at the door.
“Well, what kind of ceremonies in the village,” he said, looking at my head in a scarf and smiling, “after all, you are not ashamed of Gregory, but I, really, am Gregory for you.” “But right now it seemed to me that he was looking at me completely differently than Grigory could look at me, and I felt embarrassed.
“I’ll be right there,” I said, leaving him.
- How bad is this! - he shouted after me, - like a young peasant girl.
“How strange he looked at me,” I thought, hastily changing clothes upstairs. “Well, thank God that he came, it will be more fun!” And, looking in the mirror, she cheerfully ran down the stairs and, without hiding the fact that she was in a hurry, entered the terrace out of breath. He sat at the table and told Katya about our affairs. Looking at me, he smiled and continued talking. Our affairs, according to him, were in excellent condition. Now we only had to spend the summer in the village, and then go either to St. Petersburg to raise Sonya, or abroad.
“Well, if you went abroad with us,” said Katya, “otherwise we’ll be alone there, as if in the forest.”
- Ah! “I wish I could go around the world with you,” he said, half jokingly, half seriously.
“So,” I said, “let’s go around the world.” He smiled and shook his head.
- And mother? What about things? - he said. - Well, that’s not the point, tell me, how did you spend this time? Are you really moping again?
When I told him that I studied without him and didn’t get bored, and Katya confirmed my words, he praised me and caressed me with words and eyes, like a child, as if he had the right to do so. It seemed to me necessary to tell him in detail and especially sincerely everything that I did that was good, and to admit, as in confession, everything that he might be dissatisfied with. The evening was so good that the tea was taken away, and we remained on the terrace, and the conversation was so entertaining for me that I did not even notice how the human sounds around you gradually died down. There was a stronger smell of flowers everywhere, heavy dew doused the grass, a nightingale clicked nearby in a lilac bush and fell silent when it heard our voices; the starry sky seemed to have descended above us.
I noticed that it was already getting dark only because a bat suddenly silently flew under the canvas of the terrace and fluttered around my white scarf. I pressed myself against the wall and was about to scream, but the mouse just as silently and quickly emerged from under the canopy and disappeared into the semi-darkness of the garden.
“How I love your Pokrovskoye,” said the man, interrupting the conversation. “I could have sat here on the terrace all my life.”
“Well, sit down,” said Katya.
“Yes, sit,” he said, “life doesn’t sit.”
- Why aren’t you getting married? - said Katya. - You would be a great husband.
“Because I like to sit,” he laughed. - No, Katerina Karlovna, you and I will never get married. For a long time now, everyone has stopped looking at me as a person who can be married. And I myself, even more so, and since then I’ve felt so good, really.
It seemed to me that he was saying this somehow unnaturally and captivatingly.
- That's good! thirty-six years old, he’s already outlived it,” said Katya.
“And how I’ve outlived it,” he continued, “I just want to sit.” But to get married, you need something else. Just ask her,” he added, pointing his head at me. - These are the ones who need to be married. And you and I will rejoice at them.
There was a hidden sadness and tension in his tone that was not hidden from me. He was silent for a moment; Neither Katya nor I said anything.
“Well, imagine,” he continued, turning in his chair, “if I suddenly married, by some accident, a seventeen-year-old girl, even Mash... Marya Alexandrovna.” This is a great example, I'm very glad that it came out this way... and this is the best example.
I laughed and didn’t understand why he was so happy and why it was happening like this...
“Well, tell me the truth, hand on heart,” he said, turning jokingly to me, “wouldn’t it be a misfortune for you to unite your life with an old, outdated man who only wants to sit, while God knows what’s wandering around there?” , what you want.
I felt awkward, I was silent, not knowing what to answer.
“After all, I’m not proposing to you,” he said, laughing, “but tell me the truth, it’s not the kind of husband you dream of when you walk along the alley alone in the evenings; and that would be a disaster?
“It’s not a misfortune...” I began.
“Well, that’s not good,” he finished.
- Yes, but I could be wrong... But again he interrupted me.
“Well, you see, she’s absolutely right, and I’m grateful to her for her sincerity and I’m very glad that we had this conversation.” But that’s not enough, it would be the greatest misfortune for me,” he added.
“What an eccentric you are, nothing has changed,” said Katya and left the terrace to order dinner to be served.
We both became quiet after Katya left, and everything around us was quiet. Only the nightingale, no longer like the evening, abruptly and hesitantly, but like the night, slowly, calmly, poured out over the entire garden, and another one from below the ravine, for the first time this evening, responded to him from afar. The closest one fell silent, as if listening for a minute, and began to burst into a jumbled ringing trill even more sharply and intensely. And these voices sounded royally and calmly in their night world, alien to us. The gardener went to sleep in the greenhouse, his steps in thick boots, moving away, sounded along the path. Someone whistled shrilly twice under the mountain, and everything became quiet again. A leaf shook slightly, the canvas of the terrace fluttered, and, swaying in the air, something odorous came onto the terrace and spread across it. I felt embarrassed to remain silent after what was said, but I didn’t know what to say. I looked at him. Brilliant eyes in the semi-darkness looked back at me.
- It’s great to live in the world! - he said. I sighed for some reason.
- What?
- It’s great to live in the world! – I repeated. And again we fell silent, and again I felt awkward. It kept occurring to me that I had upset him by agreeing with him that he was old, and I wanted to console him, but I didn’t know how to do it.
“But goodbye,” he said, getting up, “mother is expecting me for dinner.” I hardly saw her today.
“I wanted to play you a new sonata,” I said.
“Another time,” he said coldly, it seemed to me.
- Goodbye.
It seemed to me even more now that I had upset him, and I felt sorry. Katya and I walked him to the porch and stood in the yard, looking down the road along which he disappeared. When the clatter of his horse had already died down, I walked around to the terrace and again began to look in. garden, and in the dewy fog, in which there were night sounds, for a long time I saw and heard everything that I wanted to see and hear.
He came again, for the third time, and the awkwardness that arose from the strange conversation that took place between us completely disappeared and never returned. Throughout the summer he came to see us two or three times a week; and I got used to him so much that when he didn’t come for a long time, it seemed awkward to me to live alone, and I was angry with him and found that he was doing wrong by leaving me. He treated me like a young beloved comrade, questioned me, called me to the most sincere frankness, gave advice, encouraged, sometimes scolded and stopped. But, despite all his efforts to constantly be on an equal footing with me, I felt that behind what I understood in him, there was still a whole alien world into which he did not consider it necessary to let me in, and this was what most strongly supported me. respect and attracted to him. I knew from Katya and from the neighbors that, in addition to caring for his old mother, with whom he lived, in addition to his household and our guardianship, he had some noble affairs, for which he was in great trouble; but how he looked at all this, what his beliefs, plans, hopes were, I could never learn anything from him. As soon as I brought the conversation to his affairs, he frowned in his special manner, as if saying: “Please, what do you care about this,” and turned the conversation to something else. At first this offended me, but then I got so used to the fact that we always talked only about things that concerned me that I already found it natural.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Family happiness

Part one

We mourned for our mother, who died in the fall, and lived all winter in the village, alone with Katya and Sonya.

Katya was an old friend of the house, a governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved as long as I could remember. Sonya was my little sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsk house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts were higher than the windows; the windows were almost always frozen and dim, and for almost the entire winter we did not go or drive anywhere. Rarely did anyone come to us; and whoever came did not add to the fun and joy in our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, they did not laugh, sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. There was still a sense of death in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mom’s room was locked, and I felt creepy, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I passed her to sleep.

I was seventeen years old then, and in the very year of her death, my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a strong grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief I also felt that I was young and good, as everyone told me, but I was killing the second winter in solitude in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of melancholy, loneliness and just boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya tried to persuade me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my best time is wasted so much? For what? And why there was no other answer than tears.

They told me that I had lost weight and looked ugly during this time, but that didn’t even bother me. For what? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass in this lonely wilderness and helpless melancholy, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength or even the desire to get out. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this required money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we waited for the guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs.

The guardian arrived in March.

- Well, thank God! - Katya said to me once, when I was like a shadow, idle, without thoughts, without desires, walking from corner to corner, - Sergei Mikhailych arrived, sent to ask about us and wanted to be there for dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha,” she added, “what will he think of you?” He loved you all so much.

Sergei Mikhailych was our close neighbor and friend of our late father, although much younger than him. Besides the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, since childhood I had become accustomed to loving and respecting him, and Katya, advising me to shake myself up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would hurt me the most to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailych . Besides the fact that I, like everyone in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had a special meaning for me because of one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. At the time it seemed surprising and even unpleasant to me; my hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailych was no longer a young man, tall, stocky and, as it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite this, these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and six years ago, when I was eleven years old and he told me you, played with me and nicknamed me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear, What will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?

Before dinner, to which Katya added cream cake and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailych arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sleigh, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I had not expected him at all. But, hearing the pounding of feet in the hallway, his loud voice and Katya’s steps, I could not resist and went to meet him halfway. He held Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blushing.

- Ah! is it really you? - he said in his decisive and simple manner, spreading his arms and approaching me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! That's a violet! You have become a whole rose.

He took my hand with his big hand and shook it so tightly, honestly, it just didn’t hurt. I thought that he would kiss my hand, and I leaned towards him, but he shook my hand again and looked straight into my eyes with his firm and cheerful gaze.

I haven't seen him for six years. He has changed a lot; he had aged, turned black and had acquired sideburns, which did not suit him at all; but there were the same simple techniques, an open, honest face with large features, intelligent sparkling eyes and a gentle, childlike smile.

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was clear from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

He behaved completely differently from the neighbors who came after mother’s death and considered it necessary to remain silent and cry while sitting with us; he, on the contrary, was talkative, cheerful and did not say a word about mother, so at first this indifference seemed strange and even indecent to me on the part of such a close person. But then I realized that it was not indifference, but sincerity, and I was grateful for it.

In the evening, Katya sat down to pour tea in her old place in the living room, as happened with her mother; Sonya and I sat down next to her; old Gregory brought him his father's old pipe, which he had found, and he, as in the old days, began to walk up and down the room.

– How many terrible changes are there in this house, just think! - he said, stopping.

“Yes,” Katya said with a sigh and, covering the samovar with the lid, looked at him, ready to cry.

– I think you remember your father? – he turned to me.

“Not enough,” I answered.

- And how good it would be for you to be with him now! - he said, quietly and thoughtfully looking at my head above my eyes. – I loved your father very much! – he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shiny.

- And then God took her! - Katya said and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.

“Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall. I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he came out.

- This is such a nice friend! - she said. And indeed, somehow I felt warm and good from the sympathy of this stranger and good person.

From the living room you could hear Sonya's squeak and his fussing with her. I sent him tea; and you could hear him sit down at the piano and begin to hit the keys with Sonya’s little hands.

I was pleased that he addressed me so simply and in a friendly, commanding manner; I stood up and approached him.

“Play this,” he said, opening Beethoven’s notebook on the adagio of the sonata quasi una fantasia. “Let’s see how you play,” he added and walked away with the glass to the corner of the hall.

For some reason I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse with him and make prefaces that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as best I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The Adagio was in the tone of the feeling of memory that was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I seemed to play decently. But he didn’t let me play the scherzo. “No, you’re not playing well,” he said, coming up to me, “leave that, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music." This moderate praise made me so happy that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father’s friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer like a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.

He told me about my father, how he got along with him, how happily they once lived, when I was still sitting with books and toys; and for the first time my father, in his stories, seemed to me to be a simple and sweet man, such as I had not known him until now. He also asked me about what I loved, what I read, what I intended to do, and gave advice. For me now he was not a joker and a merry fellow who teased me and made toys, but a serious, simple and loving man, for whom I felt involuntary respect and sympathy. It was easy and pleasant for me, and at the same time I felt involuntary tension when talking with him. I was afraid for every word I said; I so wanted to earn his love myself, which was already acquired by me only because I was my father’s daughter.

Having put Sonya to bed, Katya joined us and complained to him about my apathy, about which I said nothing.

“She didn’t tell me the most important thing,” he said, smiling and shaking his head reproachfully at me.

- What can I tell you! – I said, “this is very boring, and it will pass.” (It really seemed to me now that not only would my melancholy pass, but that it had already passed and that it had never existed.)

“It’s not good not to be able to endure loneliness,” he said, “are you really a young lady?”

“Of course, young lady,” I answered, laughing.

- No, a bad young lady who is only alive while people admire her, and as soon as she was left alone, she sank, and nothing is sweet to her; everything is just for show, but nothing for yourself.

“You have a good opinion of me,” I said, trying to say something.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Family happiness

We mourned for our mother, who died in the fall, and lived all winter in the village, alone with Katya and Sonya.

They told me that I had lost weight and looked ugly during this time, but that didn’t even bother me. For what? for whom? It seemed to me that my whole life should pass in this lonely wilderness and helpless melancholy, from which I myself, alone, did not have the strength or even the desire to escape. At the end of winter, Katya began to fear for me and decided to take me abroad at all costs. But this required money, and we hardly knew what we had left after our mother, and every day we waited for the guardian who was supposed to come and sort out our affairs. The guardian arrived in March.

Sergei Mikhailych was our close neighbor and friend of our late father, although much younger than him. Besides the fact that his arrival changed our plans and made it possible to leave the village, since childhood I had become accustomed to loving and respecting him, and Katya, advising me to shake myself up, guessed that of all the people I knew, it would hurt me the most to appear in an unfavorable light in front of Sergei Mikhailych . Besides the fact that I, like everyone in the house, from Katya and Sonya, his goddaughter, to the last coachman, loved him out of habit, he had a special meaning for me because of one word my mother said in front of me. She said that she would like such a husband for me. At the time it seemed surprising and even unpleasant to me; my hero was completely different. My hero was thin, lean, pale and sad. Sergei Mikhailych was no longer a young man, tall, stocky and, as it seemed to me, always cheerful; but, despite the fact, these words of my mother sunk into my imagination, and six years ago, when I was eleven years old, and he told me you, played with me and nicknamed me the violet girl, I sometimes asked myself, not without fear , what will I do if he suddenly wants to marry me?

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was clear from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

– How many terrible changes are there in this house, just think! - he said, stopping.

“Yes,” Katya said with a sigh and, covering the samovar with the lid, looked at him, ready to cry.

– I think you remember your father? – he turned to me.

“Not enough,” I answered.

- And how good it would be for you to be with him now! - he said, quietly and thoughtfully looking at my head above my eyes. – I loved your father very much! – he added even more quietly and it seemed to me that his eyes became shiny.

- And then God took her! - Katya said and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.

“Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall.

I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he came out.

- This is such a nice friend! - she said.

And indeed, somehow I felt warm and good from the sympathy of this stranger and good person.

From the living room you could hear Sonya's squeak and his fussing with her. I sent him tea; and you could hear him sit down at the piano and begin to hit the keys with Sonya’s little hands.

I was pleased that he addressed me so simply and in a friendly, commanding manner; I stood up and approached him.

“Play this,” he said, opening Beethoven’s notebook to the adagio of the sonata quasi una fantasia. “Let’s see how you play,” he added and walked away with the glass to the corner of the hall.

For some reason I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse with him and make prefaces that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as best I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The Adagio was in the tone of that feeling of memory that was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I played, it seems, decently. But he didn’t let me play the scherzo. “No, you’re not playing well,” he said, coming up to me, “leave that, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music." This moderate praise made me so happy that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father’s friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer like a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.

Family happiness

Lev Tolstoy

FAMILY HAPPINESS

PART ONE

We mourned for our mother, who died in the fall, and lived all winter in the village, alone with Katya and Sonya.

Katya was an old friend of the house, a governess who nursed us all, and whom I remembered and loved as long as I could remember. Sonya was my little sister. We spent a gloomy and sad winter in our old Pokrovsk house. The weather was cold and windy, so that the snowdrifts were higher than the windows; the windows were almost always frozen and dim, and for almost the entire winter we did not go or drive anywhere. Rarely did anyone come to us; and whoever came did not add to the fun and joy in our house. Everyone had sad faces, everyone spoke quietly, as if afraid to wake someone up, they didn’t laugh, they sighed and often cried, looking at me and especially at little Sonya in a black dress. There was still a sense of death in the house; sadness and horror of death were in the air. Mom’s room was locked, and I felt creepy, and something pulled me to look into this cold and empty room when I passed her to sleep.

I was seventeen years old then, and in the very year of her death, my mother wanted to move to the city to take me out. The loss of my mother was a great grief for me, but I must admit that because of this grief I also felt that I was young and good, as everyone told me, but I was spending the second winter in vain, in solitude, killing in the village. Before the end of winter, this feeling of melancholy, loneliness and just boredom increased to such an extent that I did not leave the room, did not open the piano and did not pick up books. When Katya tried to persuade me to do this or that, I answered: I don’t want to, I can’t, but in my heart I said: why? Why do anything when my best time is wasted so much? For what? And to “why” there was no other answer than tears.

The guardian arrived in March.

Before dinner, to which Katya added cake, cream and spinach sauce, Sergei Mikhailych arrived. I saw through the window how he drove up to the house in a small sleigh, but as soon as he drove around the corner, I hurried into the living room and wanted to pretend that I had not expected him at all. But, hearing the pounding of feet in the hallway, his loud voice and Katya’s steps, I could not resist and went to meet him halfway. He held Katya by the hand, spoke loudly and smiled. Seeing me, he stopped and looked at me for some time without bowing. I felt embarrassed and felt myself blushing.

- Ah! is it really you? - he said in his decisive and simple manner, spreading his hands and leading me to me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! That's a violet! You have become a whole rose.

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was clear from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

- So many terrible changes in this house, just think! - he said, stopping.

“Yes,” Katya said with a sigh and, covering the samovar with the lid, looked at him, ready to cry.

- I think you remember your father? - he turned to me.

“Not enough,” I answered,

- And how good it would be for you to be with him now! - he said, quietly and thoughtfully looking at my head above my eyes. - I loved your father very much! he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shiny.

- And then God took her! - Katya said and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.

- This is such a nice friend! - she said.

And indeed, somehow I felt warm and good from the sympathy of this stranger and good person.

From the living room you could hear Sonya's squeak and his fussing with her. I sent him tea; and you could hear him sit down at the piano and begin to hit the keys with Sonya’s little hands.

I was pleased that he addressed me so simply and in a friendly, commanding manner; I stood up and approached him.

For some reason I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse and make prefaces with him, that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as best I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The Adagio was in the tone of that feeling of memory that was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I played, it seems, decently. But he didn’t let me play the scherzo. “No, you don’t play well,” he said, approaching me, “leave that, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music.” This moderate praise made me so happy that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father’s friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer like a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.

He told me about my father, about how he got along with him, how happily they once lived, when I was still sitting with books and toys; and for the first time my father, in his stories, seemed to me to be a simple and sweet man, such as I had not known him until now. He also asked me about what I loved, what I read, what I intended to do, and gave advice. For me now he was not a joker and a merry fellow who teased me and made toys, but a serious, simple and loving man, for whom I felt involuntary respect and sympathy. It was easy and pleasant for me, and at the same time I felt involuntary tension when talking with him. I was afraid for every word I said; I so wanted to earn his love myself, which was already acquired by me only because I was my father’s daughter.

Having put Sonya to bed, Katya joined us and complained to him about my apathy, about which I said nothing.

“She didn’t tell me the most important thing,” he said, smiling and shaking his head reproachfully at me.

- What can I tell you! - I said. - It’s very boring, and it will pass. (It really seemed to me now that not only would my melancholy pass, but that it had already passed and that it had never existed.)

“It’s not good not to be able to endure loneliness,” he said, “are you really a young lady?”

“Of course, young lady,” I answered, laughing.

- No, a bad young lady who is only alive while people admire her, and as soon as she was left alone, she sank, and nothing is sweet to her; everything is just for show, but nothing for yourself.

“You have a good opinion of me,” I said, trying to say something.

- No! - he said after a short silence. - No wonder you look like your father. You have it,” and his kind, attentive gaze again flattered me and joyfully confused me.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

Family happiness

Lev Tolstoy

FAMILY HAPPINESS

PART ONE

We mourned for our mother, who died in the fall, and lived all winter in the village, alone with Katya and Sonya.

The guardian arrived in March.

Well, thank God! - Katya said to me once, when I was like a shadow, idle, without thoughts, without desires, walking from corner to corner, - Sergei Mikhailych arrived, sent to ask about us and wanted to be there for dinner. Shake yourself up, my Masha,” she added, “otherwise what will he think of you?” He loved you all so much.

Oh! is it really you? - he said in his decisive and simple manner, spreading his arms and leading him towards me. - Is it possible to change like that! how you have grown! That's a violet! You have become a whole rose.

Five minutes later he ceased to be a guest, but became his own person for all of us, even for people who, it was clear from their helpfulness, were especially happy about his arrival.

How many terrible changes in this house, just think! - he said, stopping.

“Yes,” Katya said with a sigh and, covering the samovar with the lid, looked at him, ready to cry.

I think you remember your father? - he turned to me.

Not enough, I answered.

How good it would be for you to be with him now! - he said, quietly and thoughtfully looking at my head above my eyes. - I loved your father very much! he added even more quietly, and it seemed to me that his eyes became shiny.

And then God took her! - Katya said and immediately put the napkin on the teapot, took out a handkerchief and began to cry.

Yes, terrible changes in this house,” he repeated, turning away. “Sonya, show me the toys,” he added after a while and went out into the hall. I looked at Katya with tear-filled eyes when he came out.

This is such a nice friend! - she said.

And indeed, somehow I felt warm and good from the sympathy of this stranger and good person.

From the living room you could hear Sonya's squeak and his fussing with her. I sent him tea; and you could hear him sit down at the piano and begin to hit the keys with Sonya’s little hands.

I was pleased that he addressed me so simply and in a friendly, commanding manner; I stood up and approached him.

Play this,” he said, opening Beethoven’s notebook on the adagio of the sonata quasi una fantasia. “Let’s see how you play,” he added and walked away with the glass to the corner of the hall.

For some reason I felt that it was impossible for me to refuse with him and make prefaces that I was playing badly; I obediently sat down at the clavichord and began to play as best I could, although I was afraid of the court, knowing that he understood and loved music. The Adagio was in the tone of that feeling of memory that was evoked by the conversation over tea, and I played, it seems, decently. But he didn’t let me play the scherzo. “No, you don’t play well,” he said, coming up to me, “leave that, but the first one is not bad. You seem to understand music.” This moderate praise made me so happy that I even blushed. It was so new and pleasant for me that he, my father’s friend and equal, spoke to me one on one seriously, and no longer like a child, as before. Katya went upstairs to put Sonya to bed, and the two of us remained in the hall.

Family happiness of Leo Tolstoy summary. Leo Tolstoy - family happiness

Family happiness