Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/86

58 their minutest details, but mamma's face and location have absolutely escaped from my imagination, — perhaps, because at that time I could not gather courage to take one good look at her. It then seemed to me that if I were to do so, my grief and hers would reach impossible limits.

I rushed before the others to the carriage and seated myself in the back seat. As the top was raised, I could not see anything, but a certain instinct told me that mamma was still there.

"Shall I take one more glance at her, or not? Well, for the last time!" said I to myself, and put my head out of the carriage toward the veranda. Just at that time, mamma, with the same thought, had come up from the opposite side to the carriage, and was calling me by name. When I heard her voice behind me, I turned toward her, but did it so rapidly that we knocked our heads together: she smiled sadly, and for the last time gave me a tight embrace and a kiss.

When we had moved away a few fathoms, I decided to look at her. The wind had raised the blue kerchief with which her head was tied; dropping her head and covering her face with her hands, she slowly walked up the veranda. Fóka was sustaining her.

Papa was seated by my side, but he did not say anything. I choked with tears, and something so compressed my throat that I was afraid I would strangle. When we drove out on the highway, we saw a white handkerchief which some one on the balcony was waving. I began to wave mine, and this motion calmed me a little. I continued to sob, and the thought that my tears were a proof of my sensitiveness gave me pleasure and joy.

When we had travelled about a verst, I sat down more calmly, and I began to look with stubborn attention at the nearest object before my eyes, — the hind part of the side horse that ran on my side. I watched that dappled