Childhood and Youth A Tale Author:Leo Tolstoy General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1862 Original Publisher: Bell and Daldy Subjects: History / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Mil... more »lion-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. MAMA. "jl/TAMA sat in the dining-room preparing tea; in one hand she held the tea-pot, with the other she drew the water from the tea-urn, which fell on to the tray. But, although looking most attentively, she observed neither this nor our coming. However lively may be the recollection of the past, if you attempt to revive in your imagination the features of a beloved being, you see them as through tears, dim and confused. These are the tears of imagination. When I try to remember mama, such as she was at that time, I represent to myself only her brown eyes, expressing continually the utmost kindness and love; a small mole on the neck, rather below where the hair begins; the white embroidered collar; the delicate fresh hand which caressed me so often, and which I so often kissed; but the general appearance vanishes from my mind. To the left of the couch stood an English piano; at it sat my dark sister Lubotshka, playing, with hands red from a recent washing in cold water, and with evident strain, the "Etudes de dementi." She was eleven years old, was dressed in a short cotton frock and white trowsers trimmed with lace, and could reachthe octaves only ' arpeggio.' Next to her sat Maria Iwanowna, in a cap with pink ribbons, a blue Jcassa- wetka, and with a cross red face, which assumed a still more severe expression so soon as Karl Iwanitsh entered the room. She looked angrily at him, and, without answering his salutation, continued, with a due accompaniment of the foot, to count " one, two, three, one, two, three," still mo...« less