Part Five: Chapter 27

by Leo Tolstoy

　　After the lesson with the grammar teacher came his father'slesson. While waiting for his father, Seryozha sat at the tableplaying with a penknife, and fell to dreaming. Among Seryozha'sfavorite occupations was searching for his mother during hiswalks. He did not believe in death generally, and in her deathin particular, in spite of what Lidia Ivanovna had told him andhis father had confirmed, and it was just because of that, andafter he had been told she was dead, that he had begun lookingfor her when out for a walk. Every woman of full, gracefulfigure with dark hair was his mother. At the sight of such awoman such a feeling of tenderness was stirred within him thathis breath failed him, and tears came into his eyes. And he wason the tiptoe of expectation that she would come up to him, wouldlift her veil. All her face would be visible, she would smile,she would hug him, he would sniff her fragrance, feel thesoftness of her arms, and cry with happiness, just as he had oneevening lain on her lap while she tickled him, and he laughed andbit her white, ring-covered fingers. Later, when he accidentallylearned from his old nurse that his mother was not dead, and hisfather and Lidia Ivanovna had explained to him that she was deadto him because she was wicked (which he could not possiblybelieve, because he loved her), he went on seeking her andexpecting her in the same way. That day in the public gardensthere had been a lady in a lilac veil, whom he had watched with athrobbing heart, believing it to be she as she came towards themalong the path. The lady had not come up to them, but haddisappeared somewhere. That day, more intensely than ever,Seryozha felt a rush of love for her, and now, waiting for hisfather, he forgot everything, and cut all round the edge of thetable with his penknife, staring straight before him withsparkling eyes and dreaming of her.

　　"Here is your papa!" said Vassily Lukitch, rousing him.

　　Seryozha jumped up and went up to his father, and kissing hishand, looked at him intently, trying to discover signs of his joyat receiving the Alexander Nevsky.

　　"Did you have a nice walk?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch, sittingdown in his easy chair, pulling the volume of the Old Testamentto him and opening it. Although Alexey Alexandrovitch had morethan once told Seryozha that every Christian ought to knowScripture history thoroughly, he often referred to the Biblehimself during the lesson, and Seryozha observed this.

　　"Yes, it was very nice indeed, papa," said Seryozha, sittingsideways on his chair and rocking it, which was forbidden. "Isaw Nadinka" (Nadinka was a niece of Lidia Ivanovna's who wasbeing brought up in her house). "She told me you'd been given anew star. Are you glad, papa?"

　　"First of all, don't rock your chair, please," said AlexeyAlexandrovitch. "And secondly, it's not the reward that'sprecious, but the work itself. And I could have wished youunderstood that. If you now are going to work, to study in orderto win a reward, then the work will seem hard to you; but whenyou work" (Alexey Alexandrovitch, as he spoke, thought of how hehad been sustained by a sense of duty through the wearisome laborof the morning, consisting of signing one hundred and eightypapers), "loving your work, you will find your reward in it."

　　Seryozha's eyes, that had been shining with gaiety andtenderness, grew dull and dropped before his father's gaze. Thiswas the same long-familiar tone his father always took with him,and Seryozha had learned by now to fall in with it. His fatheralways talked to him--so Seryozha felt--as though he wereaddressing some boy of his own imagination, one of those boysthat exist in books, utterly unlike himself. And Seryozha alwaystried with his father to act being the story-book boy.

　　"You understand that, I hope?" said his father.

　　"Yes, papa," answered Seryozha, acting the part of the imaginaryboy.

　　The lesson consisted of learning by heart several verses out ofthe Gospel and the repetition of the beginning of the OldTestament. The verses from the Gospel Seryozha knew fairly well,but at the moment when he was saying them he became so absorbedin watching the sharply protruding, bony knobbiness of hisfather's forehead, that he lost the thread, and he transposed theend of one verse and the beginning of another. So it was evidentto Alexey Alexandrovitch that he did not understand what he wassaying, and that irritated him.

　　He frowned, and began explaining what Seryozha had heard manytimes before and never could remember, because he understood ittoo well, just as that "suddenly" is an adverb of manner ofaction. Seryozha looked with scared eyes at his father, andcould think of nothing but whether his father would make himrepeat what he had said, as he sometimes did. And this thoughtso alarmed Seryozha that he now understood nothing. But hisfather did not make him repeat it, and passed on to the lessonout of the Old Testament. Seryozha recounted the eventsthemselves well enough, but when he had to answer questions as towhat certain events prefigured, he knew nothing, though he hadalready been punished over this lesson. The passage at which hewas utterly unable to say anything, and began fidgeting andcutting the table and swinging his chair, was where he had torepeat the patriarchs before the Flood. He did not know one ofthem, except Enoch, who had been taken up alive to heaven. Lasttime he had remembered their names, but now he had forgotten themutterly, chiefly because Enoch was the personage he liked best inthe whole of the Old Testament, and Enoch's translation to heavenwas connected in his mind with a whole long train of thought, inwhich he became absorbed now while he gazed with fascinated eyesat his father's watch-chain and a half-unbuttoned button on hiswaistcoat.

　　In death, of which they talked to him so often, Seryozhadisbelieved entirely. He did not believe that those he lovedcould die, above all that he himself would die. That was to himsomething utterly inconceivable and impossible. But he had beentold that all men die; he had asked people, indeed, whom hetrusted, and they too, had confirmed it; his old nurse, too, saidthe same, though reluctantly. But Enoch had not died, and so itfollowed that everyone did not die. "And why cannot anyone elseso serve God and be taken alive to heaven?" thought Seryozha.Bad people, that is those Seryozha did not like, they might die,but the good might all be like Enoch.

　　"Well, what are the names of the patriarchs?"

　　"Enoch, Enos--"

　　"But you have said that already. This is bad, Seryozha, verybad. If you don't try to learn what is more necessary thananything for a Christian," said his father, getting up, "whatevercan interest you? I am displeased with you, and Piotr Ignatitch"(this was the most important of his teachers) "is displeased withyou.... I shall have to punish you."

　　His father and his teacher were both displeased with Seryozha,and he certainly did learn his lessons very badly. But still itcould not be said he was a stupid boy. On the contrary, he wasfar cleverer than the boys his teacher held up as examples toSeryozha. In his father's opinion, he did not want to learn whathe was taught. In reality he could not learn that. He couldnot, because the claims of his own soul were more binding on himthan those claims his father and his teacher made upon him.Those claims were in opposition, and he was in direct conflictwith his education. He was nine years old; he was a child; buthe knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it asthe eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let noone into his soul. His teachers complained that he would notlearn, while his soul was brimming over with thirst forknowledge. And he learned from Kapitonitch, from his nurse, fromNadinka, from Vassily Lukitch, but not from his teachers. Thespring his father and his teachers reckoned upon to turn theirmill-wheels had long dried up at the source, but its waters didtheir work in another channel.

　　His father punished Seryozha by not letting him go to seeNadinka, Lidia Ivanovna's niece; but this punishment turned outhappily for Seryozha. Vassily Lukitch was in a good humor, andshowed him how to make windmills. The whole evening passed overthis work and in dreaming how to make a windmill on which hecould turn himself--clutching at the sails or tying himself onand whirling round. Of his mother Seryozha did not think all theevening, but when he had gone to bed, he suddenly remembered her,and prayed in his own words that his mother tomorrow for hisbirthday might leave off hiding herself and come to him.

　　"Vassily Lukitch, do you know what I prayed for tonight extrabesides the regular things?"

　　"That you might learn your lessons better?"

　　"No."

　　"Toys?"

　　"No. You'll never guess. A splendid thing; but it's a secret!When it comes to pass I'll tell you. Can't you guess!"

　　"No, I can't guess. You tell me," said Vassily Lukitch with asmile, which was rare with him. "Come, lie down, I'm putting outthe candle."

　　"Without the candle I can see better what I see and what I prayedfor. There! I was almost telling the secret!" said Seryozha,laughing gaily.

　　When the candle was taken away, Seryozha heard and felt hismother. She stood over him, and with loving eyes caressed him.But then came windmills, a knife, everything began to be mixedup, and he fell asleep.