Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/37

Rh 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,