Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/325

Rh delight, such as a man must feel who has witnessed something that no one has ever seen before.

It was long before I could explain the impression which I had received, though I was conscious that it was one of those which in mature life lift a man to a higher stage of existence, and compel him to renounce the old, and give himself unreservedly to the new.

The next day I could not believe in the reality of the experience through which I had passed that evening. It seemed to me quite too strange that a half-educated peasant lad had suddenly developed a conscious, artistic power, such as Goethe, with all his measureless height of development, was unable to attain. It seemed to me, too, strange that I, the author of "Childhood," who have now gained a certain success and reputation for artistic talent in the literary circles of Russia, that I, in the matter of art, was not only unable to guide or aid this eleven-year-old Fedka, and Semka, but that barely,—and that only in a happy moment of excitement,—could I follow them and comprehend them. It seemed to me so strange, that I could not believe in what had happened the evening before.

On the next day we occupied ourselves with the continuation of the tale. When I asked Fedka whether he had thought out the sequel and how, he made no reply, but waving his hands simply said:—

"I know, I know! Who will write it?"

We began to write the continuation, and again, as far as the children were concerned, with the same sense of artistic truth, proportion, and enthusiasm.

When the lesson was half done, I was compelled to leave them. They continued without me and wrote two pages as beautifully, as sympathetically, as genuinely, as the first. These pages were only a little poorer in details, and these details were sometimes not introduced with perfect skill; there were also two repetitions. All this evidently arose from the fact that the mechanism of composition troubled them. On the third day it was the same.

During these lessons other boys were frequently