Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/400



these were our relations when that man made his appearance. He arrived at Moscow,—his name is Trukhachevski,—and showed up at my house. It was in the morning. I received him. We had once been on 'thou' terms. He manoeuvred between 'thou' and 'you,' trying to stick to 'thou,' but I at once set the pace at 'you,' and he immediately submitted. I did not like him from the start. But, strange to say, a certain strange and fatal power urged me not to repel and remove him, but, on the contrary, to draw him closer to me. There would have been nothing simpler than talking coldly to him and seeing him out without introducing him to my wife. No, I, as it were on purpose, mentioned his playing, and said that I had been told that he had given up the violin. He told me that, on the contrary, he now played more than ever. He recalled what it was I used to play formerly. I told him that I had given up playing, but that my wife played well. A remarkable thing happened! My relations with him on that first day, during the first hour of our meeting, were just such as they could be only after all that has taken place. There was a certain restraint in my relations with him: I noticed every word, every expression, uttered by him or by me, and I ascribed an importance to them.

"I introduced him to my wife. They immediately began to talk about music, and he offered his services to her, to play with her. My wife, as always during this last period, was extremely elegant in appearance, and enticingly and disquietingly beautiful. She apparently