Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Novels and Novellas (Active TOC) (A to Z Classics). Leo Tolstoy

and as though a roll of drums were being beaten over our heads, the whole countryside resounded with the clatter of the deluge.

      From Vassili’s movements, I could see that he had now got his purse open, and that the poor outcast was still bowing and making the sign of the cross as he ran beside the wheels of the vehicle, at the imminent risk of being run over, and reiterated from time to time his plea, “For-for God’s sake!” At last a copeck rolled upon the ground, and the miserable creature — his mutilated arms, with their sleeves wet through and through, held out before him — stopped perplexed in the roadway and vanished from my sight.

      The heavy rain, driven before the tempestuous wind, poured down in pailfuls and, dripping from Vassili’s thick cloak, formed a series of pools on the apron. The dust became changed to a paste which clung to the wheels, and the ruts became transformed into muddy rivulets.

      At last, however, the lightning grew paler and more diffuse, and the thunderclaps lost some of their terror amid the monotonous rattling of the downpour. Then the rain also abated, and the clouds began to disperse. In the region of the sun, a lightness appeared, and between the white-grey clouds could be caught glimpses of an azure sky.

      Finally, a dazzling ray shot across the pools on the road, shot through the threads of rain — now falling thin and straight, as from a sieve — and fell upon the fresh leaves and blades of grass. The great cloud was still louring black and threatening on the far horizon, but I no longer felt afraid of it — I felt only an inexpressibly pleasant hopefulness in proportion, as trust in life replaced the late burden of fear. Indeed, my heart was smiling like that of refreshed, revivified Nature herself.

      Vassili took off his cloak and wrung the water from it. Woloda flung back the apron, and I stood up in the britchka to drink in the new, fresh, balm-laden air. In front of us was the carriage, rolling along and looking as wet and resplendent in the sunlight as though it had just been polished. On one side of the road boundless oatfields, intersected in places by small ravines which now showed bright with their moist earth and greenery, stretched to the far horizon like a checkered carpet, while on the other side of us an aspen wood, intermingled with hazel bushes, and parquetted with wild thyme in joyous profusion, no longer rustled and trembled, but slowly dropped rich, sparkling diamonds from its newly-bathed branches on to the withered leaves of last year.

      From above us, from every side, came the happy songs of little birds calling to one another among the dripping brushwood, while clear from the inmost depths of the wood sounded the voice of the cuckoo. So delicious was the wondrous scent of the wood, the scent which follows a thunderstorm in spring, the scent of birch-trees, violets, mushrooms, and thyme, that I could no longer remain in the britchka. Jumping out, I ran to some bushes, and, regardless of the showers of drops discharged upon me, tore off a few sprigs of thyme, and buried my face in them to smell their glorious scent.

      Then, despite the mud which had got into my boots, as also the fact that my stockings were soaked, I went skipping through the puddles to the window of the carriage.

      “Lubotshka! Katenka!” I shouted as I handed them some of the thyme, “Just look how delicious this is!”

      The girls smelt it and cried, “A-ah!” but Mimi shrieked to me to go away, for fear I should be run over by the wheels.

      “Oh, but smell how delicious it is!” I persisted.

Chapter 3 — A New Point of View

      Katenka was with me in the britchka; her lovely head inclined as she gazed pensively at the roadway. I looked at her in silence and wondered what had brought the unchildlike expression of sadness to her face which I now observed for the first time there.

      “We shall soon be in Moscow,” I said at last. “How large do you suppose it is?”

      “I don’t know,” she replied.

      “Well, but how large do you IMAGINE? As large as Serpukhov?”

      “What do you say?”

      “Nothing.”

      Yet the instinctive feeling which enables one person to guess the thoughts of another and serves as a guiding thread in conversation soon made Katenka feel that her indifference was disagreeable to me; wherefore she raised her head presently, and, turning round, said:

      “Did your Papa tell you that we girls too were going to live at your Grandmamma’s?”

      “Yes, he said that we should ALL live there,”

      “ALL live there?”

      “Yes, of course. We shall have one half of the upper floor, and you the other half, and Papa the wing; but we shall all of us dine together with Grandmamma downstairs.”

      “But Mamma says that your Grandmamma is so very grave and so easily made angry?”

      “No, she only SEEMS like that at first. She is grave, but not bad-tempered. On the contrary, she is both kind and cheerful. If you could only have seen the ball at her house!”

      “All the same, I am afraid of her. Besides, who knows whether we —”

      Katenka stopped short, and once again became thoughtful.

      “What?” I asked with some anxiety.

      “Nothing, I only said that —”

      “No. You said, ‘Who knows whether we —’”

      “And YOU said, didn’t you, that once there was ever such a ball at Grandmamma’s?”

      “Yes. It is a pity you were not there. There were heaps of guests — about a thousand people, and all of them princes or generals, and there was music, and I danced — But, Katenka” I broke off, “you are not listening to me?”

      “Oh yes, I am listening. You said that you danced —?”

      “Why are you so serious?”

      “Well, one cannot ALWAYS be gay.”

      “But you have changed tremendously since Woloda and I first went to Moscow. Tell me the truth, now: why are you so odd?” My tone was resolute.

      “AM I so odd?” said Katenka with an animation which showed me that my question had interested her. “I don’t see that I am so at all.”

      “Well, you are not the same as you were before,” I continued. “Once upon a time any one could see that you were our equal in everything, and that you loved us like relations, just as we did you; but now you are always serious, and keep yourself apart from us.”

      “Oh, not at all.”

      “But let me finish, please,” I interrupted, already conscious of a slight tickling in my nose — the precursor of the tears which usually came to my eyes whenever I had to vent any long pent-up feeling. “You avoid us, and talk to no one but Mimi, as though you had no wish for our further acquaintance.”

      “But one cannot always remain the same — one must change a little sometimes,” replied Katenka, who had an inveterate habit of pleading some such fatalistic necessity whenever she did not know what else to say.

      I recollect that once, when having a quarrel with Lubotshka, who had called her “a stupid girl,” she (Katenka) retorted that EVERYBODY could not be wise, seeing that a certain number of stupid people was a necessity in the world. However, on the present occasion, I was not satisfied that any such inevitable necessity for “changing sometimes” existed, and asked further:

      “WHY is it necessary?”

      “Well, you see, we MAY not always go on living together as we are doing now,” said Katenka, colouring slightly, and regarding Philip’s back with a grave expression on her face. “My Mamma was able to live with your mother because she was her friend; but will a similar arrangement always suit the Countess, who, they say, is so easily offended? Besides, in any case, we shall have to separate SOME