Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2 полностью

Another occurrence I well remember happened rather late – when I was about nine; it was an encounter in grandmother’s room, and almost in our presence, between Alexéy Grigóre-vich Orlóv²⁵ and Potëmkin. It was not long before grandmother’s journey to the Crimea and our first journey to Moscow. Nicholas Ivánovich had taken us as usual to see grandmother. The large room, the ceiling of which was ornamented with stucco-work and paintings, was full of people. Grandmother’s hair had already been done. It was combed back from the forehead and very skilfully arranged on the temples. She sat at her dressing-table in a white powder-mantle. Her maid stood behind her adjusting her hair. She looked at us with a smile, continuing her conversation with a big, tall, and stout General decorated with the ribbon of St Andrew, who had a terrible scar across his cheek from mouth to ear. This was Orlóv, ‘Le balafré’.²⁶ It was there I saw him for the first time. Grandmother’s Anderson hare-hounds were beside her, and my pet Mimi jumped up from her skirt and leaping at me put its feet on my shoulders and licked my face. We came up to grandmother and kissed her white, plump hand. She turned it round and her bent fingers caught my face and caressed me. In spite of her perfumes I was aware of her disagreeable smell. She went on looking at Balafré and speaking to him.

‘A fine fellow,’ she said, with her strong German accent, pointing to me, ‘you had not seen him before.’

‘They are both fine fellows,’ said the count, kissing my hand and Constantine’s.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ she said to her maid who was putting her cap on for her. That maid was Márya Stepánovna, painted red and white, a kind-hearted woman who always caressed me.

‘Où est ma tabatière?’²⁷

Lanskóy came up and handed her an open snuff-box. Grandmother took a pinch and looked at her jester Matrëna Danílovna, who was approaching her.…

(The story breaks off here, and was left in this unfinished state when Tolstoy died.)

¹ A trading port on the Sea of Azov.

² Presumably standing for ‘Alexander Pávlovich’ (Alexander, son of Paul).

³ Iván Grigórevich Latýshev – a peasant of the village of Krasnorechínsk, whom Fëdor Kuzmích met and became acquainted with in 1839, and who, after the latter had lived in various places, built him a cell in a wood away from the road, on a hill above a cliff. In this cell Kuzmích began his diary. L. T.

⁴ ‘A fortunate accident.’

⁵ Fóti (1792–1838). An archimandrite who enjoyed much influence in court circles.

⁶ G. F. von Parrot (1767–1852), Member of the Russian Academy of Science. His letters to Alexander I were published in 1894–5.

⁷ Baroness B. J. Krüdener (1764–1824), pietist and authoress, at one time a friend of Alexander I.

⁸ The exceedingly harsh Minister to whom Alexander entrusted the government when he himself began to cease to exercise power.

⁹ The grandmother was Catherine the Great. The father was her half-mad son, afterwards the Emperor Paul, who was assassinated.

¹⁰ Márya Antónovna Narýshkina, at one time Alexander I’s mistress.

¹¹ The Princes Gagárin are a famous Russian family.

¹² Field-Marshal Prince P. M. Volkónski, Minister of the Palace.

¹³ General Count Diebitsch, a German by birth, Chief of the Russian General Staff. He constantly accompanied Alexander I.

¹⁴ The day of his patron-saint, which is kept like an English birthday.

¹⁵ 9th November 1825 o.s. = 21st November, n.s.

¹⁶ Officially Alexander I died on 19th November, o.s. = 1st December, n.s. Whether Tolstoy had some reason for making it the 17th I do not know.

¹⁷ It was customary in Russia for people of other nationalities to adopt a Russian Christian name and patronymic, so in this case Miss Hessler assumed the names Praskóvya Ivánovna.

¹⁸ ‘After ’62 everything is possible.’ The Emperor Peter III, Catherine’s husband, had been dethroned by a conspiracy and murdered, in July 1762.

¹⁹ Field-Marshal Count G. A. Potëmkin (1739–91). For a long time the most influential of Catherine’s favourites.

²⁰ Count A. D. Lanskóy (1754–84), a General and a favourite of Catherine II.

²¹ ‘They are bowing to you.’

²² ‘On the right.’

²³ Clearings.

²⁴ A pet name for Constantine.

²⁵ Count Alexéy Grigórevich Orlóv, a General and Admiral. He had strangled Peter III with his own hands.

²⁶ ‘The gash’.

²⁷ ‘Where is my snuff-box?’

APPENDIX I

TWO EARLY STORIES

PREFACE