Description
Tolstoy’s semi-autobiographical trilogy is an intimate, “microscopic” study of the internal life and moral development of the young nobleman Nikolenka Irtenev. The narrative traces the protagonist’s painful and joyous path from innocent childhood to aspiring young adulthood.
Act One: Childhood
The idyllic life of ten-year-old Nikolenka Irtenev on the family estate. He experiences his first shame, his first crush, and begins to painfully self-analyze. This period of innocence is abruptly shattered by the family’s move to Moscow and the death of his mother, which ends his “happy, irrecoverable time of childhood.”
Act Two: Boyhood
Nikolenka’s life in Moscow under the care of his strict grandmother. This is a time of adolescent turmoil, “pangs of conscience,” and awkward attempts at self-improvement. The hero struggles with feelings of being misunderstood and experiences the first awareness of social hypocrisy. The period culminates as Nikolenka, full of vague but grand aspirations, prepares for university.
Act Three: Youth
Nikolenka’s student years in Moscow, marked by his attempts to live up to the “ideal of virtue.” He crafts “Rules of Life” and seeks genuine friendship. However, the temptations of university life and new social circles lead to failures in studies, gambling losses, and intense moral self-reproach. The book concludes with Nikolenka, after yet another spiritual failure, resolving to start anew by rewriting his rules and dedicating himself to truth.
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Childhood
Chapter I. Karl Ivanych, the Teacher
Chapter II. Maman
Chapter III. Papa
Chapter IV. Classes
Chapter V. The Holy Fool
Chapter VI. Preparations for the Hunt
Chapter VII. The Hunt
Chapter VIII. Games
Chapter IX. Something Like First Love
Chapter X. What Kind of Man Was My Father?
Chapter XI. Activities in the Study and Drawing-Room
Chapter XII. Grisha
Chapter XIII. Natalya Savishna
Chapter XIV. Separation
Chapter XV. Childhood
Chapter XVI. Verses
Chapter XVII. Princess Kornakova
Chapter XVIII. Prince Ivan Ivanych
Chapter XIX. The Ivins
Chapter XX. Guests Assemble
Chapter XXI. Before the Mazurka
Chapter XXII. The Mazurka
Chapter XXIII. After the Mazurka
Chapter XXIV. In Bed
Chapter XXV. The Letter
Chapter XXVI. What Awaited Us in the Country
Chapter XXVII. Grief
Chapter XXVIII. The Last Sad Recollections
Boyhood (Adolescence)
Chapter I. The Drive on the Long-Harness
Chapter II. The Thunderstorm
Chapter III. A New View
Chapter IV. In Moscow
Chapter V. The Elder Brother
Chapter VI. Masha
Chapter VII. The Fractions
Chapter VIII. Karl Ivanych’s Story
Chapter IX. Continuation of the Preceding
Chapter X. Continuation
Chapter XI. The One (Unit)
Chapter XII. The Key
Chapter XIII. The Traitor
Chapter XIV. The Eclipse
Chapter XV. Dreams
Chapter XVI. It Will Be Milled and Turn to Flour
Chapter XVII. Hatred
Chapter XVIII. The Maid’s Room
Chapter XIX. Boyhood (Adolescence)
Chapter XX. Volodya
Chapter XXI. Katenka and Lyubochka
Chapter XXII. Papa
Chapter XXIII. Grandmother
Chapter XXIV. I
Chapter XXV. Volodya’s Friends
Chapter XXVI. Reflections
Chapter XXVII. The Beginning of a Friendship
Youth
Chapter I. What I Consider the Beginning of Youth
Chapter II. Spring
Chapter III. Dreams
Chapter IV. Our Family Circle
Chapter V. Rules
Chapter VI. Confession
Chapter VII. A Trip to the Monastery
Chapter VIII. Second Confession
Chapter IX. How I Prepare for the Examination
Chapter X. History Examination
Chapter XI. Mathematics Examination
Chapter XII. Latin Examination
Chapter XIII. I Am Grown Up
Chapter XIV. What Volodya and Dubkov Were Doing
Chapter XV. They Congratulate Me
Chapter XVI. A Quarrel
Chapter XVII. I Prepare to Make Calls
Chapter XVIII. The Valakhins
Chapter XIX. The Kornakovs
Chapter XX. The Ivins
Chapter XXI. Prince Ivan Ivanych
Chapter XXII. A Heart-to-Heart Talk with My Friend
Chapter XXIII. The Nekhlyudovs
Chapter XXIV. Love
Chapter XXV. I Become Acquainted
Chapter XXVI. I Show Myself to the Best Advantage
Chapter XXVII. Dmitri
Chapter XXVIII. In the Country
Chapter XXIX. The Relations Between Us and the Girls
Chapter XXX. My Studies
Chapter XXXI. Comme Il Faut
Chapter XXXII. Youth
Chapter XXXIII. Neighbours
Chapter XXXIV. Father’s Marriage
Chapter XXXV. How We Received the News
Chapter XXXVI. The University
Chapter XXXVII. Affairs of the Heart
Chapter XXXVIII. Society
Chapter XXXIX. The Spree
Chapter XL. Friendship with the Nekhlyudovs
Chapter XLI. Friendship with Nekhlyudov
Chapter XLII. The Stepmother
Chapter XLIII. New Comrades
Chapter XLIV. Zukhin and Semenov
Chapter XLV. I Fail
Chapter I. Karl Ivanych, the Teacher
On the 12th of August, 18…, exactly on the third day after my birthday, when I had turned ten and received such wonderful presents, at seven o’clock in the morning Karl Ivanych woke me up by hitting a fly right over my head with a fly swatter—a sugar-paper on a stick. He did it so clumsily that he hit the icon of my guardian angel, which was hanging on the oak bedpost, and the killed fly dropped right onto my head. I stuck my nose out from under the blanket, stopped the icon, which continued to swing, flicked the dead fly onto the floor, and cast a sleepy but angry glance at Karl Ivanych. He, in a colorful padded dressing gown, belted with a sash of the same material, wearing a red knitted skullcap with a tassel and soft goat-skin boots, continued to walk around the walls, aiming and swatting.
“Suppose,” I thought, “I am little, but why does he bother me? Why doesn’t he swat the flies around Volodya’s bed? There are so many of them there! No, Volodya is older than me; and I am the smallest of all: that’s why he torments me. All he thinks about his whole life,” I whispered, “is how to make things unpleasant for me. He sees very well that he woke and frightened me, but pretends as if he doesn’t notice… Nasty man! And the dressing gown, and the cap, and the tassel—how nasty!”
While I was thus mentally expressing my annoyance with Karl Ivanych, he approached his bed, looked at the clock hanging above it in a bead-embroidered shoe, hung the fly swatter on a nail, and, clearly in the most pleasant mood, turned towards us.
“Auf, Kinder, auf!… s’ist Zeit. Die Mutter ist schon im Saal!” he shouted in a kind German voice, then walked up to me, sat at my feet, and pulled a snuff-box from his pocket. I pretended to be asleep. Karl Ivanych first sniffed, wiped his nose, snapped his fingers, and only then started on me. He, chuckling, began to tickle my heels. “Nu, nun, Faulenzer!” he said.
As much as I feared tickling, I did not jump out of bed or answer him, but only buried my head deeper under the pillows, kicked my legs with all my might, and tried with all my strength to keep from laughing.
“How kind he is and how much he loves us, and I could think so badly of him!”
I was annoyed both at myself and at Karl Ivanych; I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry: my nerves were frayed.
“Ach, lassen Sie, Karl Ivanych!” I cried out with tears in my eyes, sticking my head out from under the pillows.
Karl Ivanych was surprised, left my soles alone, and anxiously began to ask what was the matter with me? Had I seen something bad in a dream?… His kind German face, the concern with which he tried to guess the cause of my tears, made them flow even more abundantly: I was ashamed, and I did not understand how a minute before I could not love Karl Ivanych and find his dressing gown, cap, and tassel nasty; now, on the contrary, all of it seemed extremely sweet to me, and even the tassel seemed a clear proof of his kindness. I told him that I was crying because I had a bad dream—that Maman had died and they were carrying her away for burial. I had made all this up, because I absolutely did not remember what I had dreamed that night; but when Karl Ivanych, touched by my story, began to console and calm me, it seemed to me that I had actually had that terrible dream, and the tears flowed for another reason now.
When Karl Ivanych left me and I, sitting up in bed, began to pull my stockings onto my little feet, the tears subsided a little, but the gloomy thoughts of the invented dream did not leave me. The valet Nikolay came in—a small, clean man, always serious, neat, respectful, and a great friend of Karl Ivanych. He carried our clothes and shoes: boots for Volodya, and for me, for now, the still unbearable shoes with bows. I would have been ashamed to cry in front of him; besides, the morning sun was shining cheerfully through the windows, and Volodya, mimicking Marya Ivanovna (the sister’s governess), was laughing so cheerfully and loudly, standing over the washbasin, that even the serious Nikolay, with a towel on his shoulder, soap in one hand, and a washstand in the other, was smiling and saying:
“That’s enough, Vladimir Petrovich, please wash up.”
I cheered up completely.
“Sind Sie bald fertig?” Karl Ivanych’s voice was heard from the classroom.
His voice was strict and no longer had the expression of kindness that had moved me to tears. In the classroom, Karl Ivanych was a completely different person: he was the instructor. I quickly dressed, washed myself, and, still with a brush in my hand, smoothing my wet hair, appeared at his call.
Karl Ivanych, with spectacles on his nose and a book in his hand, was sitting in his usual place, between the door and the window. To the left of the door were two shelves: one was ours, the children’s, the other was Karl Ivanych’s, his own. On ours were all sorts of books—educational and non-educational: some stood, others lay. Only two large volumes of “Histoire des voyages” in red bindings leaned neatly against the wall; and then came the long, thick, large, and small books—covers without books and books without covers; all were pressed and shoved there when we were ordered to put the “library,” as Karl Ivanych loudly called this shelf, in order before recess. The collection of books on his own shelf, if not as large as ours, was even more varied. I remember three of them: a German brochure on manuring gardens for cabbage—without a cover, one volume of the history of the Seven Years’ War—in parchment, scorched in one corner, and a complete course in hydrostatics. Karl Ivanych spent most of his time reading, even damaging his eyesight with it; but besides these books and the “Severnaya Pchela”, he read nothing.
Among the items lying on Karl Ivanych’s shelf, there was one that reminds me of him the most. It is a circle of cardboard, inserted into a wooden stand, in which this circle moved by means of pegs. A picture was glued onto the circle, representing caricatures of some lady and a hairdresser. Karl Ivanych was very good at gluing and invented and made this circle himself to shield his weak eyes from the bright light.
I can see clearly before me now the tall figure in the padded dressing gown and the red cap, from under which sparse gray hair is visible. He is sitting next to a small table on which stands the circle with the hairdresser, casting a shadow on his face; in one hand he holds a book, the other rests on the arm of the chair; next to him lie a watch with a painted huntsman on the dial, a checkered handkerchief, a round black snuff-box, a green spectacle case, and tongs on a tray. All this lies so neatly and tidily in its place that one can conclude from this order alone that Karl Ivanych’s conscience is clear and his soul is peaceful.
I remember when I would run my fill downstairs in the hall, I would creep up to the classroom on tiptoe, and look—Karl Ivanych would be sitting alone in his chair and reading one of his favorite books with a calmly majestic expression. Sometimes I would find him at moments when he was not reading: his spectacles would slide down his large aquiline nose, his half-closed blue eyes would look with a certain special expression, and his lips would smile sadly. The room would be quiet; only his even breathing and the ticking of the clock with the huntsman could be heard.
He wouldn’t notice me, and I would stand by the door and think: “Poor, poor old man! There are many of us, we play, we are happy, but he is all alone, and no one ever caresses him. He speaks the truth that he is an orphan. And the story of his life is so terrible! I remember him telling Nikolay about it—it is awful to be in his position!” And I would feel so sorry that I would walk up to him, take his hand, and say: “Lieber Karl Ivanych!” He loved it when I spoke to him that way; he would always caress me, and it was clear that he was touched.
On the other wall hung maps, almost all torn but skillfully glued by Karl Ivanych’s hand. On the third wall, in the middle of which was the door downstairs, on one side hung two rulers: one—our carved-up one, the other—his new, own one, used more for encouragement than for ruling lines; on the other—a blackboard on which our big misdeeds were marked with circles and our small ones with crosses. To the left of the board was the corner where we were made to kneel.
How vividly I remember that corner! I remember the damper in the stove, the air vent in that damper, and the noise it made when it was turned. I would stand and stand in the corner until my knees and back ached, and I would think: “Karl Ivanych has forgotten about me: he must be comfortable sitting in his soft chair and reading his hydrostatics—but what about me?”—and to remind him of myself, I would quietly begin to open and close the damper or pick at the plaster on the wall; but if a large piece suddenly fell to the floor with a noise—truly, the fright alone was worse than any punishment. I would glance at Karl Ivanych—and he would be sitting there with a book in his hand, pretending not to notice anything.
In the middle of the room stood a table, covered with torn black oilcloth, from under which the edges, cut with penknives, were visible in many places. Around the table were several unpainted, but varnished from long use, stools. The last wall was occupied by three windows. This is what the view from them was like: directly under the windows was the road, where every pothole, every stone, every rut has long been familiar and dear to me; beyond the road—a clipped linden alley, from behind which a woven wattle fence is visible here and there; across the alley is a meadow, with a threshing floor on one side, and a forest opposite; the watchman’s hut is visible far in the forest. From the right window, a part of the terrace is visible, where the adults usually sat before dinner. I remember when Karl Ivanych would be correcting a dictation sheet, I would look out in that direction, see my mother’s dark head, someone’s back, and vaguely hear chatter and laughter from there; it would make me so annoyed that I couldn’t be there, and I would think: “When will I be big, stop studying, and always sit not over dialogues, but with those I love?” The annoyance would turn into sadness, and God knows why and about what, I would become so lost in thought that I wouldn’t even hear Karl Ivanych getting angry about my mistakes.
Karl Ivanych took off his dressing gown, put on a blue frock coat with raised shoulders and gathers, adjusted his tie in the mirror, and led us downstairs to greet our mother.
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