Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/410

370 his breast, and began to pray. He prayed so long that Váska had time to bring the mattress and make a bed on the floor, as I directed him in a whisper. I undressed myself and lay down on the bed on the floor, but Dmitri was still praying. As I looked at Dmítri's slightly stooping shoulders and at the soles of his shoes, which stood out before me in all humility, every time he was making low obeisances, I loved Dmítri even more than before, and I considered whether or not I had better tell him what I had been dreaming about our sisters. When Dmitri finished his prayer, he lay down on the bed and, leaning on his arm, for a long tin looked silently at me, with a kind and shamefaced expression. It was a hard thing for him to do so, but he seemingly was punishing himself. I smiled, looking at him. He smiled, too.

"Why do you not tell me," he said, "that I have acted contemptibly? That is what you have been thinking about."

"Yes," I answered (although I had been thinking of something else, it seemed to me that I had really been thinking of it), "yes, it was very bad. I had never expected such a thing from thee," I said, experiencing that moment a special pleasure in speaking "thou" to him. "Well, how are thy teeth?" I added.

"That is all over. Ah, Nikólenka, my friend!" said Dmitri, so gently that I thought there were tears in his eyes, "I know and feel how bad I am, and God sees how I wish and ask Him to make me better; but what am I to do if I have such an unfortunate, despicable character? What am I to do? I try to restrain and to reform myself, but that cannot be done at once, nor alone. It is necessary that some one should support and aid me. Now, Lyubóv Sergyéevna understands me and has helped me much. I know, by my diary, that I have greatly improved in the course of the year. Ah, Nikólenka, my darling!" he continued, after this confession, with unusual