The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Childhood/Chapter 2
II.
MAMMA
Mother was sitting in the drawing-room and pouring out tea. With one hand she held the teapot, with the other the faucet of the samovár, from which the water ran over the teapot to the tray. Though she was looking fixedly at it, she did not notice it, nor that we had entered.
So many memories of the past rise before one, trying to resurrect in imagination the features of a beloved being, that one sees them dimly through these recollections as through tears. When I try to recall my mother as she was at that time, I can think only of her brown eyes, which always expressed the same kindness and love, of a birthmark upon her neck, a little below the place where the small hairs curled, of her white linen collar, of her tender dry hand which had so often fondled me, and which I had so often kissed; her general expression escapes me.
To the left of the sofa stood an old English grand piano. At the piano was seated my swarthy sister Lyúbochka, who with her rosy fingers that had just been washed in cold water was playing with evident expression Clementi's Etudes. She was eleven years old. She wore a short gingham dress and white, lace-bordered pantalets, and she could encompass octaves only by arpeggio. Near her, and half turned around, sat Márya Ivánovna, in a cap with rose-coloured ribbons, and wearing a blue jersey. Her angry red face assumed a sterner expression the moment Karl Ivánovich entered. She looked angrily at him and, without answering his greeting, continued to stamp her foot and to count: un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois, louder and more commandingly than before.
Karl Ivánovich paid no attention whatsoever to it, and, as was his custom, with German politeness went straight up to take my mother's hand. She awoke from her reverie, shook her head, as if wishing to dispel her gloomy thoughts with that motion, gave her hand to Karl Ivánovich, and kissed his furrowed temple, while he was kissing her hand.
"Ich danke, lieber Karl Ivánovich!" and continuing to speak German, she asked him whether the children had slept well.
Karl Ivánovich was deaf in one ear, and just then he could hear nothing because of the noise at the piano. He bent lower down to the sofa, leaned with one arm against the table, while standing on one foot, and with a smile, which then appeared to me the acme of refinement, lifted his cap on his head and said:
"Excuse me, Natálya Nikoláevna!"
Not to catch a cold, Karl Ivánovich never took off his red cap, but every time he entered the sitting-room, he asked permission to keep it on.
"Put it on, Karl Ivánovich. I am asking you whether the children have slept well," said mamma, quite aloud, as she moved up to him.
But he again had not heard anything. He covered his bald head with his red cap, and smiled even more sweetly.
"Stop a minute, Mimi," said mamma to Márya Ivánovna, smiling. "One can't hear a thing."
Whenever mother smiled, her face, which was very pretty, became even more beautiful, and everything around her seemed to grow happier. If, in the heavy moments of my life, I had been able to see that smile, even in passing, I should not have known what grief is. It seems to me that in the smile alone is contained that which is called the beauty of the face: if the smile adds charm to the face, the face is beautiful; if it does not change it, it is common; if it spoils it, it is homely.
Having greeted me, mamma took my head with both her hands, and threw it back, then looked fixedly at me, and said:
"You have been crying to-day?"
I did not answer. She kissed my eyes, and asked in German:
"What were you crying about?"
Whenever she spoke to us in a friendly manner, she spoke in that language, which she had mastered perfectly.
"I had been crying in my dream, mamma," said I, as I recalled the fictitious dream with all its details and involuntarily shuddered at the thought.
Karl Ivánovich confirmed my words, but kept silent about the dream. Having said something about the weather, in which conversation Mimi, too, took part, mamma placed six pieces of sugar on the tray for some especially honoured servants, then arose and walked up to the embroidery-frame which stood near the window.
"Well, go now to papa, children, and tell him to be sure and come to see me before he goes to the threshing-floor."
The music, the counting, and the stern glances began anew, and we went to papa. After passing the room which from grandfather's time had preserved the name of officiating-room, we entered his study.