Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/70

42 resembled recollections, but recollections of what? It seemed to me that I was recalling something that had never been.

Opposite me was the door to the cabinet, and I saw Yákov and some other people in caftans and beards entering through it. The door was at once closed after them. "Well, now the occupation has begun!" thought I. It seemed to me there was nothing more important in the whole world than the affairs which were transacted in the cabinet. I was strengthened in this belief because people generally walked up to the door of the cabinet whispering and on tiptoe, while from it was heard papa's loud voice, and was borne the odour of a cigar which, for some reason, always attracted me. In my waking moments I was suddenly struck by a familiar creaking of boots in the officiating room. Karl Ivánovich walked up on tiptoe, but with a gloomy and firm face, holding some kind of notes in his hand, and lightly knocked at the door. He was admitted, and the door was again closed.

"I wonder whether some misfortune has happened," thought I. "Karl Ivánovich is angry, and he is capable of doing almost anything."

I again fell asleep.

There was, however, no misfortune. An hour later the same creaking boots awoke me. Karl Ivánovich, with his handkerchief wiping off the tears which I had noticed on his cheeks, issued from the door, and mumbling something to himself, went up-stairs. Papa came out after him, and entered the sitting-room.

"Do you know what I have just decided?" said he in a happy voice, placing his hand on mamma's shoulder.

"What, my dear?"

"I shall take Karl Ivánovich along with the children. They are used to him, and he, it seems, is really attached to them. Seven hundred roubles a year does not amount to much, et puis au fond c'est un très bon diable."