# The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Childhood/Chapter 20

XX.
Guests Are Coming
To judge from the unusual activity which was noticeable in the buffet, from the bright illumination which gave a new, festive appearance to the old, familiar objects in the drawing-room and parlour, and, more especially, to judge from the fact that Prince Iván Ivánovich had sent his music, there was to be a large gathering of people in the evening.
At the noise of each carriage that passed by, I ran to the window, put my hands to my temples and to the pane, and with impatient curiosity looked into the street. From the darkness, which at first hid all the objects outside the window, slowly emerged: right opposite, the familiar bench with the lamp-post; diagonally across, a large house, with two windows below lighted up; in the middle of the street, some Jehu, with two occupants in his vehicle, or an empty coach, returning home leisurely. Suddenly a carriage drove up to the entrance, and I, quite sure that it must be the Ivins, who had promised to arrive early, ran down to meet them in the antechamber. Instead of the Ivins, appeared, after the liveried arm which had opened the door, two ladies, one, tall, in a blue cloak with a sable collar, the other, small, all wrapped in a green shawl, underneath which could be seen only tiny feet in fur boots. Without paying any attention to my presence in the antechamber, though I had regarded it as my duty to bow to ​them at their arrival, the smaller lady walked up to the taller, and stopped in front of her. The tall lady unwound the kerchief that completely hid the head of the small lady and unbuttoned her cloak. When the liveried lackey received these things in his keeping, and had taken off her fur boots, there issued from that bundled-up being a beautiful girl twelve years of age, in a short, open muslin dress, white pantalets, and tiny black shoes. Over her white neck was a black velvet ribbon, her head was all in dark blond curls which so beautifully encased her pretty face in front, and her bare neck behind, that I should not have believed anybody, not even Karl Ivánovich, that they curled in this way because, ever since morning, they had been tied in bits of the Moscow Gazette, and because they had been curled with hot curling-irons. It seemed to me she was born that way, with her curly head.
The striking feature of her face was the unusual size of her bulging, half-closed eyes, which formed a strange, but pleasant contrast with the tiny mouth. Her little lips were closed, and her eyes looked so serious that the general expression of her face was such that one did not expect a smile from it, and, consequently, her smile was the more enchanting.
Trying not to be noticed, I slunk through the door of the parlour, and thought it necessary to walk up and down, pretending that I was deep in thought, and that I did not know that guests had come. When the guests reached the middle of the parlour, I, as it were, came to, scuffed, and announced to them that grandmother was in the sitting-room. Madame Valákhin, whose face I liked very much, especially since I discovered in it a resemblance to the face of her daughter Sónichka, graciously nodded her head to me.
Grandmother was apparently very glad to see Sónichka, called her to her, fixed a lock upon her head, which had fallen on her forehead, and, looking fixedly at her, said:
​"Quelle charmante enfant!" Sónichka smiled, blushed, and looked so sweet, that I, too, blushed, looking at her.
"I hope you will not be lonely at my house, dear girl," said grandmother, raising her face by the chin. "I ask you to have a good time and dance as much as possible. Here are already one lady and two gentlemen" she added, speaking to Madame Valákhin, and touching my hand.
This way of connecting me with herself was so pleasing that it made me blush once more.
As I felt that my bashfulness was increasing, and hearing the rumble of an approaching carriage, I thought it necessary to withdraw. In the antechamber I found Princess Kornákov with a son and an incredible number of daughters. Her daughters had all the same looks, they all resembled the princess, and they were all homely, so that not one of them arrested the attention. After doffing their cloaks and boas, they suddenly began to speak in thin voices, fluttered about, and laughed at something, no doubt because there were so many of them. Etienne was a boy of about fifteen years of age, tall, flabby, with a washed-out face, sunken, blue-ringed eyes, and enormous arms and legs for his age. He was awkward, and his voice was uneven and harsh, but he seemed to be satisfied with himself, and was just the kind of boy I had expected of one who was whipped with switches.
We stood quite a while facing and examining each other, without saying a word. Then we moved up to each other and, it seems, were about to kiss, but having taken another look at one another, somehow changed our minds. When the dresses of all his sisters had rustled by us, I asked him, in order to start a conversation, whether they had not been crowded in the carriage.
"I do not know," he answered, carelessly. "You know, I never travel in the carriage, because, the moment I seat myself in it, I get a sick headache, and mamma knows that. When we go out for the evening, I always take my ​place on the coachman's box, — it's jollier, — I can see everything, and Filípp lets me guide the horses, and sometimes I take the whip, too. And those that drive by sometimes get it," he added, with an expressive gesture. "It's nice!"
"Your Grace," said a lackey, who had just entered the antechamber, "Filípp wants to know what you have deigned to do with the whip?"
"How? What? I gave it back to him."
"He says you didn't."
"Well, then I hung it on the lamp-post."
"Filípp says that it is not on the lamp-post either, and you had better admit that you have lost it, and so Filípp will with his own money answer for your jokes," continued the angry lackey, becoming more and more animated.
The lackey, whose appearance was that of a respectable and stern man, evidently took Filípp's side with zeal, and was determined by all means to clear up the matter. By a natural feeling of delicacy, I stepped aside, as if I had not noticed anything; but the lackeys present acted differently, they came nearer, and approvingly looked at the old servant.
"Well, if I lost it, I lost it," said Etienne, avoiding any further explanations. "I'll pay him whatever the whip is worth. How funny!" he added, walking up to me, and drawing me after him into the drawing-room.
"No, excuse me, master, what are you going to pay with? I know how you pay. You have not paid Márya Vlásevna her two dimes these eight months; it is now two years you have not payed me, and Petrúsha — "
"Will you shut up?" cried out the young prince, turning pale from anger. "I will tell it all — "
"I will tell it all, I will tell it all!" said the lackey. "It is not good, your Grace!" he added with great emphasis, just as we entered the parlour, and as he was going with the cloaks to the clothes-press.
​"That's it! That's it!" was heard somebody's approving voice in the antechamber behind us.
Grandmother had the special gift, by applying, with a certain tone, and at certain occasions, the plural and singular number of the pronoun of the second person, to express her opinion of people. Although she used "thou" and "you" in a reversed sense from the commonly accepted form, these shades received an entirely different meaning in her mouth. When the young prince walked up to her, she said a few words to him, calling him "you," and glanced at him with an expression of such contempt that if I had been in his place, I should have gone to pieces. But Etienne was, apparently, a boy of a different composition: he not only did not pay any attention to grandmother's reception, but not even to her person, and bowed to the whole company, with the greatest ease, if not very gracefully.
Sónichka occupied all my attention. I remember how I spoke with the greatest pleasure, whenever Volódya, Etienne, and I were conversing in a place in the parlour where Sónichka could be seen, and she could see and hear us — Whenever I had occasion to say something that, in my opinion, was either funny or clever, I spoke louder, and looked at the door that led into the drawing-room; but when we went over to another place, where we could not be seen or heard, I was silent, and no longer found any pleasure in the conversation.
The drawing-room and the parlour were slowly filling up with guests. Among them, as is always the case at evening parties for children, were some older ones, who would not let slip an opportunity of making merry and dancing, as if only to please the lady of the house.
When the Ivins arrived, the pleasure which I generally experienced at meeting Serézha gave way to a strange annoyance, because he would see Sónichka, and would be seen by her.