Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/101

Rh place the box, and, probably for that reason, asked papa to see with what remarkable skill it was made.

Having satisfied his curiosity, papa handed it to the protopope who, it seemed, took a liking to the thing: he shook his head, and now looked at the box, and now at the master who had managed to produce such a beautiful object. Voldódya offered his Turk, and he also was the recipient of the most flattering praise on all sides. Then came my turn: grandmother turned to me with a smile of encouragement.

Those who have experienced bashfulness, know that the feeling increases in direct proportion with time, and that decision diminishes in the same proportion; that is, the longer that condition lasts, the harder it is to overcome the bashfulness, and the less there is left of decision.

My last courage and decision left me when Karl Ivánovich and Volódya made their offerings, and my bashfulness reached its extreme limits: I felt my heart-blood continually coursing to my head, my face alternately changing colour, and large drops of perspiration oozing on my forehead and nose. My ears were burning; I felt a chill and a perspiration over my whole body; I stood now on one foot, now on another, and I did not budge from the spot.

"Well, do show us, Nikólenka! What is it you have, a box or a drawing?" said papa to me. There was nothing to be done; with a trembling hand I gave her the crushed, fatal roll; but my voice refused to serve me, and I stopped silent before grandmother. I was beside myself, thinking that, instead of the expected drawing, they would read aloud my worthless poem and the words like my own mother which would be a clear proof that I had never loved her, and that I had forgotten her. How am I to tell the agony through which I passed, when grandmother began to read aloud my poem; when, unable to make it out, she stopped in the middle of the verse, in