His father and his teacher were both displeased with Seriozha, and he certainly did learn his lessons very badly. But still it could not be said he was a stupid boy. On the contrary, he was far cleverer than the boys his teacher held up as examples to Seriozha. In his father's opinion, he did not want to learn what he was taught. In reality he could not learn that. He could not, because the claims of his own soul were more binding on him that those claims his father and his teacher made upon him. Those claims were in opposition, and he was in direct conflict with his governors.
He was nine years old; he was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was precious to him; he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul. His teachers complained that he would not learn, while his soul was brimming over with thirst for knowledge. And he learned from Kapitonich, from his nurse, from Nadinka, from Vassilii Lukich - but not from his teachers. The spring his father and his teachers reckoned upon to turn their mill wheels had long oozed at another place, and its waters did their work there.
His father punished Seriozha by not letting him go to see Nadinka, Lidia Ivanovna's niece; but this punishment turned out happily for Seriozha.
Vassilii Lukich was in a good humor, and showed him how to make windmills.
The whole evening passed over this work and in dreaming how to make a windmill on which he could turn himself - clutching at the wings or tying himself on and whirling round. Of his mother Seriozha did not think all the evening, but, when he had gone to bed, he suddenly remembered her, and prayed in his own words that tomorrow his mother, in time for his birthday, might leave off hiding herself and come to him.
`Vassilii Lukich, do you know what I prayed for tonight - extra beside 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 Vassilii Lukich with a smile, which was rare with him. `Come, lie down, I'm putting out the candle.'
`Without the candle I can see better what I see and what I prayed for. There! I was almost telling the secret!' said Seriozha, laughing gaily.
When the candle was taken away, Seriozha heard his mother and felt her presence. She stood over him, and her loving gaze caressed him.
But then came windmills - a penknife - everything became confused, and he fell asleep.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 28[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 28 On arriving in Peterburg, Vronsky and Anna stayed at one of the best hotels;Vronsky apart in a lower story, Anna above with her child, its nurse, and her maid, in a large suite of four rooms.
On the day of his arrival Vronsky went to his brother's. There he found his mother, who had come from Moscow on business. His mother and sister-in-law greeted him as usual: they asked him about his stay abroad, and talked of their common acquaintances, but did not let drop a single word in allusion to his connection with Anna. His brother came next morning to see Vronsky, and of his own accord asked him about her, and Alexei Vronsky told him directly that he looked upon his connection with Madame Karenina as marriage; that he hoped to arrange a divorce, and then to marry her, and until then he considered her as much a wife as any other wife, and he begged him to tell their mother and his wife so.
`If the world disapproves, I don't care,' said Vronsky; `but if my relations want to be on terms of relationship with me, they will have to be on the same terms with my wife.'
The elder brother, who had always a respect for his younger brother's judgment, could not well tell whether he was right or not till the world had decided the question; for his part he had nothing against it, and with Alexei he went up to see Anna.
Before his brother, as before everyone, Vronsky addressed Anna with a certain formality, treating her as he might a very intimate friend, but it was understood that his brother knew their real relations, and they talked about Anna's going to Vronsky's estate.
In spite of all his social experience Vronsky was, in consequence of the new position in which he was placed, laboring under a strange misapprehension.
One would have thought he must have understood that society was closed for him and Anna; but now some vague ideas had sprung up in his brain that this was only the case in old-fashioned days, and that now, with the rapidity of modern progress (he had unconsciously become by now a partisan of every sort of progress), the views of society had changed, and that the question of their reception by society was far from decided. `Of course,' he thought, `she would not be received at Court, but intimate friends can, and must, look at it in the proper light.'
One may sit for several hours at a stretch with one's legs crossed in the same position, if one knows that there's nothing to prevent one's changing one's position; but if a man knows that he must remain sitting so with crossed legs, then cramps come on, the legs begin to twitch and to strain toward the spot to which one would like to draw them. This was what Vronsky was experiencing in regard to the world. Though at the bottom of his heart he knew that the world was shut on them, he put it to the test whether the world had not changed by now and would not receive them.
But he very quickly perceived that though the world was open for him personally, it was closed for Anna. Just as in the game of cat and mouse, the hands raised for him were dropped to bar the way for Anna.
One of the first ladies of Peterburg society whom Vronsky saw was his cousin Betsy.
`At last!' she greeted him joyfully. `And Anna? How glad I am!
Where are you stopping? I can fancy after your delightful travels you must find our poor Peterburg horrid. I can fancy your honeymoon in Rome. How about the divorce? Is that all over?'