Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/110

78 tion of mathematics, beyond arithmetic, nor of physics, nor of contemporaneous literature; he could in a conversation politely suppress, or even express, a few commonplaces about Goethe, Schiller, and Byron, but he never had read them.

In spite of this French classical education, of which there are but few examples left now, his conversation was simple, and this simplicity at the same time hid his ignorance of certain things, and also gave evidence of his agreeable manner and indulgence. He was a great enemy of all originality, maintaining that originality was a trick of people in bad society, Society was a matter of necessity to him, wherever he happened to be; whether in Moscow, or abroad, he always lived in the same open fashion, and upon certain days received the whole city at his house. The prince was on such a footing in the city, that an invitation from him could serve as a passport into all the parlours, that many young and beautiful women gladly offered him their rosy cheeks, which he kissed, as it were, with the feeling of a father, and that apparently distinguished and decent people expressed indescribable joy when they were admitted to his receptions.

There were but few people left to the prince, like grandmother, who were of the same circle, the same bringing up, the same point of view, and the same age with him, so he particularly valued his old friendship with her, and always showed her great respect.

I did not get tired looking at the prince; the respect which everybody showed him, the large epaulets, the particular joy which grandmother expressed upon seeing him, and the fact that he alone, evidently, was not afraid of her, conversed with her entirely at his ease, and even had the courage to call her "ma cousine," inspired in me a respect for him, equal to, if not greater than, that which I felt for my father. When they showed him my poem, he called me to him and said: