Part Five: Chapter 26

by Leo Tolstoy

　　"Well, Kapitonitch?" said Seryozha, coming back rosy and good-humored from his walk the day before his birthday, and giving hisovercoat to the tall old hall porter, who smiled down at thelittle person from the height of his long figure. "Well, has thebandaged clerk been here today? Did papa see him?"

　　"He saw him. The minute the chief secretary came out, Iannounced him," said the hall porter with a good-humored wink."Here, I'll take it off."

　　"Seryozha!" said the tutor, stopping in the doorway leading tothe inner rooms. "Take it off yourself." But Seryozha, thoughhe heard his tutor's feeble voice, did not pay attention to it.He stood keeping hold of the hall porter's belt, and gazing intohis face.

　　"Well, and did papa do what he wanted for him?"

　　The hall porter nodded his head affirmatively. The clerk withhis face tied up, who had already been seven times to ask somefavor of Alexey Alexandrovitch, interested both Seryozha and thehall porter. Seryozha had come upon him in the hall, and hadheard him plaintively beg the hall porter to announce him, sayingthat he and his children had death staring them in the face.

　　Since then Seryozha, having met him a second time in the hall,took great interest in him.

　　"Well, was he very glad?" he asked.

　　"Glad? I should think so! Almost dancing as he walked away."

　　"And has anything been left?" asked Seryozha, after a pause.

　　"Come, sir," said the hall-porter; then with a shake of his headhe whispered, "Something from the countess."

　　Seryozha understood at once that what the hall porter wasspeaking of was a present from Countess Lidia Ivanovna for hisbirthday.

　　"What do you say? Where?"

　　"Korney took it to your papa. A fine plaything it must be too!"

　　"How big? Like this?"

　　"Rather small, but a fine thing."

　　"A book."

　　"No, a thing. Run along, run along, Vassily Lukitch is callingyou," said the porter, hearing the tutor's steps approaching, andcarefully taking away from his belt the little hand in the glovehalf pulled off, he signed with his head towards the tutor.

　　"Vassily Lukitch, in a tiny minute!" answered Seryozha with thatgay and loving smile which always won over the conscientiousVassily Lukitch.

　　Seryozha was too happy, everything was too delightful for him tobe able to help sharing with his friend the porter the familygood fortune of which he had heard during his walk in the publicgardens from Lidia Ivanovna's niece. This piece of good newsseemed to him particularly important from its coming at the sametime with the gladness of the bandaged clerk and his own gladnessat toys having come for him. It seemed to Seryozha that this wasa day on which everyone ought to be glad and happy.

　　"You know papa's received the Alexander Nevsky today?"

　　"To be sure I do! People have been already to congratulate him."

　　"And is he glad?"

　　"Glad at the Tsar's gracious favor! I should think so! It's aproof he's deserved it," said the porter severely and seriously.

　　Seryozha fell to dreaming, gazing up at the face of the porter,which he had thoroughly studied in every detail, especially thechin that hung down between the gray whiskers, never seen byanyone but Seryozha, who saw him only from below.

　　"Well, and has your daughter been to see you lately?"

　　The porter's daughter was a ballet dancer.

　　"When is she to come on week-days? They've their lessons tolearn too. And you've your lesson, sir; run along."

　　On coming into the room, Seryozha, instead of sitting down to hislessons, told his tutor of his supposition that what had beenbrought him must be a machine. "What do you think?" he inquired.

　　But Vassily Lukitch was thinking of nothing but the necessity oflearning the grammar lesson for the teacher, who was coming attwo.

　　"No, do just tell me, Vassily Lukitch," he asked suddenly, whenhe was seated at their work table with the book in his hands,"what is greater than the Alexander Nevsky? You know papa'sreceived the Alexander Nevsky?"

　　Vassily Lukitch replied that the Vladimir was greater than theAlexander Nevsky.

　　"And higher still?"

　　"Well, highest of all is the Andrey Pervozvanny."

　　"And higher than the Andrey?"

　　"I don't know."

　　"What, you don't know?" and Seryozha, leaning on his elbows, sankinto deep meditation.

　　His meditations were of the most complex and diverse character.He imagined his father's having suddenly been presented with boththe Vladimir and the Andrey today, and in consequence being muchbetter tempered at his lesson, and dreamed how, when he was grownup, he would himself receive all the orders, and what they mightinvent higher than the Andrey. Directly any higher order wereinvented, he would win it. They would make a higher one still,and he would immediately win that too.

　　The time passed in such meditations, and when the teacher came,the lesson about the adverbs of place and time and manner ofaction was not ready, and the teacher was not only displeased,but hurt. This touched Seryozha. He felt he was not to blamefor not having learned the lesson; however much he tried, he wasutterly unable to do that. As long as the teacher was explainingto him, he believed him and seemed to comprehend, but as soon ashe was left alone, he was positively unable to recollect and tounderstand that the short and familiar word "suddenly" is anadverb of manner of action. Still he was sorry that he haddisappointed the teacher.

　　He chose a moment when the teacher was looking in silence at thebook.

　　"Mihail Ivanitch, when is your birthday?" he asked all, of asudden.

　　"You'd much better be thinking about your work. Birthdays are ofno importance to a rational being. It's a day like any other onwhich one has to do one's work."

　　Seryozha looked intently at the teacher, at his scanty beard, athis spectacles, which had slipped down below the ridge on hisnose, and fell into so deep a reverie that he heard nothing ofwhat the teacher was explaining to him. He knew that the teacherdid not think what he said; he felt it from the tone in which itwas said. "But why have they all agreed to speak just in thesame manner always the dreariest and most useless stuff? Whydoes he keep me off; why doesn't he love me?" he asked himselfmournfully, and could not think of an answer.