The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy Volume 4

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...no difference which. At midnight I knocked and asked to be let in. FeMka in a new white fur coat, with black trimming, was sitting deep in the armchair, with one leg over the other, leaning his shaggy little head on his hand, and fumbling the scissors in the other hand. His large black eyes, gleaming with an unnatural, but serious sparkle, like that of a grown person, were looking somewhere into the distance; his irregular lips, compressed as though for a whistle, apparently held back the word which he, having coined it in his imagination, was about to express. Smka, standing at the large writing-table, with a large white patch of sheepskin over his back (the tailors had but lately been in the village), with ungirt belt, and dishevelled hair, was writing crooked lines, constantly sticking his pen into the inkstand. I tossed Smka's hair, and his fat face with protruding cheekbones and matted hair, as he, with surprised and sleepy eyes, looked in fright at me, was so funny, that I burst out into a laugh, but the children did not laugh with me. Without changing the expression of his face, FeMka touched Smka's sleeve and told him to go on. "Thou must wait," he said, "we shall be through soon." '(Fdka says "thou" to me whenever he is carried away by something and agitated.) He continued to dictate. I took away their copy-book, and five minutes later, when they, seating themselves near a small safe, were getting away with potatoes and kvas, and, looking at the silver spoons, which they thought so funny, laughing their sonorous, childish laugh, without any cause whatever,--the old woman, hearing them up-stairs, also burst out laughing, without knowing why. "Don't tip so!" said Smka. "Sit straight, or...