Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/23

Biography such moments I can well understand a youth lighting a fire beneath the very house where his parents, his brothers and sisters, whom he tenderly loves are sleeping, aye, and doing it without the least fear or hesitation and even with a smile upon his face." He was firmly convinced at this time that everyone, from his grandmother to his coachman, hated him and delighted in his sufferings, and he took a melancholy pleasure in reflecting that this was to be his destined fate. Yet at this very time he was being petted and fêted by all his acquaintances, and allowed to have his own way in everything. The house of his Aunt Yushkovaya was the most aristocratic in Kazan, and young Tolstoi took care to frequent none but the best company, absolutely ignoring the existence of his poorer brethren in grey homespun. His habitual pose was truculent and defiant, his face contemptuous, and he made it a rule never to salute any of his fellow students who regarded him as a superior being simply because he wore a magnificent mantle trimmed with beaver and had a horse and a coachman at his disposal. Tolstoi himself divided the whole world into two classes: those who were comme il faut and those who were comme il ne faut pas. The characteristics of the comme il faut people were a correct pronunciation of French, well-kept nails, an aptitude for dancing and bowing elegantly, and above all an habitual expression of well-bred contemptuous ennui. The comme il ne faut pas people, who possessed none of these saving virtues, he heartily despised, while any person unfortunate enough to speak bad French instantly kindled within xv.