Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/45

Rh and went away into Nikoláy's room, slamming the door after him.

In the class-room we could hear the conversation in the valet's room.

"Have you heard, Nikoláy, that the children are going to Moscow?" said Karl Ivánovich, as he entered the room.

"Indeed, I have."

Nikoláy, it seems, was on the point of rising, because Karl Ivánovich said: "Keep your seat, Nikoláy!" and immediately after closed the door. I left my corner and went to the door to listen.

"No matter how much good you may do to people, no matter how attached you may be, you evidently cannot expect any gratitude, Nikoláy?" said Karl Ivánovich, with feeling.

Nikoláy, who was sitting at the window, cobbling away at a boot, nodded his head in affirmation.

"I have been living in this house these fifteen years, and I can say before God, Nikoláy," continued Karl Ivánovich, raising his eyes and his snuff-box toward the ceiling, "that I have loved them and have worked with them more than if they were my own children. You remember, Nikoláy, when Volódenka had the fever, how I sat for nine days by his bed, without closing my eyes. Yes! when I was good, dear Karl Ivánovich, I was needed, but now," added he, smiling ironically, "now the children have grown, and they must study in earnest. As if they were not studying here, Nikoláy!"

"I should say they were, it seems!" said Nikolay, putting down the awl, and pulling through the waxed thread with both his hands.

"Yes, I am superfluous now, so I am sent away; but where are the promises? where is the gratitude? I respect and love Natálya Nikoláevna, Nikoláy," said he, putting his hand on his breast, "but what is she? Her