Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/320

306 lapti, the thin cloak, the old man, the peasant woman, without much of any connection among them; Fedka wanted to express the feeling of pity with which he himself was filled.

He went on to speak of how the old man would be given his supper; how he would fall sick in the night; how afterward in the field he would teach the boy his letters, so that I was obliged to tell him not to hurry and not to forget what he had said. His eyes gleamed with unshed tears; his dirty, thin hands contracted nervously; he was impatient, and kept spurring me on: "Have you written it? have you written it?" he kept asking me.

He was despotically irritated with all the others; he wanted to be the only one to speak,—not to speak as men talk but to speak as they write,—in other words to express artistically in words the images of feeling; for example, he would not permit the words to be changed about, but was very particular about their order.

His soul at this time was softened and stirred by the sentiment of pity,—that is, love,—and it pictured every object in an artistic form, and took exception to everything that did not correspond to his idea of eternal beauty and harmony.

As soon as Semka was drawn into describing incongruous details about the lambs huddled in the corner near the door, or anything of the sort, Fedka would become vexed and say:—

"Ho, you; you are talking twaddle."

I needed only to suggest anything,—for example, what was the peasant doing while his wife went off to her neighbor's, —and Fedka's imagination would immediately construct a picture of lambs bleating near the door, and the old man sighing, and the lad Serozha delirious; I had only to suggest some artificial and false detail in the picture, and he would become angry instantly, and declare with irritation that it was not necessary.

For instance, I proposed that he describe the