It was such a night as I have never seen since. A full moon stood over the house behind us, so that it was not visible, and half the shadow of the roof, Russian language

Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve been there, I said to myself. From the age of nineteen. I once lived in Russia, felt it to be my own, had complete freedom to travel anywhere, and it was not difficult to travel just three hundred miles. But I didn’t go, I kept putting it off. And years and decades went by and by. But now we can’t put it off any longer: it’s either now or never. I must take advantage of the only and last opportunity, since the hour is late and no one will meet me. And I walked across the bridge over the river, far away seeing everything around in the month-long light of the July night. The bridge was so familiar, the same as before, as if I had seen it yesterday: crudely ancient, humpbacked and as if not even stone, but somehow petrified from time to eternal indestructibility - as a high school student I thought that it was still under Batu. However, only some traces of the city walls on the cliff under the cathedral and this bridge speak of the antiquity of the city. Everything else is old, provincial, nothing more. One thing was strange, one thing indicated that something had changed in the world since I was a boy, a young man: before the river was not navigable, but now it has probably been deepened and cleared; The moon was to my left, quite far above the river, and in its unsteady light and in the flickering, trembling shine of the water there was a white paddle steamer, which seemed empty - it was so silent - although all its portholes were illuminated, like motionless golden eyes and all were reflected in the water as flowing golden pillars: the steamer was exactly standing on them. This happened in Yaroslavl, and in the Suez Canal, and on the Nile. In Paris, the nights are damp, dark, a hazy glow turns pink in the impenetrable sky, the Seine flows under the bridges with black tar, but below them also flowing columns of reflections from the lanterns on the bridges hang, only they are three-colored: white, blue and red - Russian national flags. There are no lights on the bridge here, and it is dry and dusty. And ahead, on the hill, the city is darkened by gardens; a fire tower sticks out above the gardens. My God, what an unspeakable happiness it was! It was during the night fire that I first kissed your hand and you squeezed mine in response - I will never forget this secret consent. The whole street turned black with people in an ominous, unusual illumination. I was visiting you when the alarm suddenly sounded and everyone rushed to the windows, and then behind the gate. It was burning far away, across the river, but terribly hot, greedily, urgently. There, clouds of smoke poured out thickly in a black-purple fleece, crimson sheets of flame burst out of them high, and near us they, trembling, glowed coppery in the dome of Michael the Archangel. And in the cramped space, in the crowd, amid the anxious, sometimes pitiful, sometimes joyful talk of the common people who had come running from everywhere, I heard the smell of your girlish hair, neck, canvas dress - and then suddenly I decided, took your hand, completely frozen... Beyond the bridge I climbed a hill and walked into the city along a paved road. There was not a single fire anywhere in the city, not a single living soul. Everything was silent and spacious, calm and sad - the sadness of the Russian steppe night, of a sleeping steppe city. Some gardens faintly and cautiously fluttered their leaves from the steady current of the weak July wind, which pulled from somewhere from the fields and blew gently on me. I walked - the big moon also walked, rolling and passing through the blackness of the branches in a mirror circle; the wide streets lay in shadow - only in the houses on the right, which the shadow did not reach, the white walls were illuminated and the black glass shimmered with a mournful gloss; and I walked in the shadows, stepped along the spotted sidewalk - it was see-throughly covered with black silk lace. She had this evening dress, very elegant, long and slender. It suited her slim figure and black young eyes incredibly well. She was mysterious in him and insultingly did not pay attention to me. Where was it? Visiting who? My goal was to visit Old Street. And I could have gone there by another, closer route. But I turned into these spacious streets in the gardens because I wanted to look at the gymnasium. And, having reached it, he marveled again: and here everything remained the same as half a century ago; a stone fence, a stone courtyard, a large stone building in the courtyard - everything is just as official, boring as it once was, when I was there. I hesitated at the gate, I wanted to evoke in myself sadness, the pity of memories - but I could not: yes, first a first-grader with a comb-haired haircut in a brand new blue cap with silver palms above the visor and in a new overcoat with silver buttons entered these gates, then a thin young man in a gray jacket and smart trousers with straps; but is it me? The old street seemed to me only a little narrower than it had seemed before. Everything else was unchanged. A bumpy pavement, not a single tree, on both sides there are dusty merchant houses, the sidewalks are also bumpy, such that it is better to walk in the middle of the street, in full monthly light... And the night was almost the same as that one. Only that one was at the end of August, when the whole city smells of apples that lie in mountains in the markets, and it was so warm that it was a pleasure to walk in one blouse, belted with a Caucasian strap... Is it possible to remember this night somewhere there, as if in sky? I still didn’t dare go to your house. And he, it’s true, hasn’t changed, but it’s all the more terrifying to see him. Some strangers, new people live in it now. Your father, your mother, your brother - they all outlived you, the young one, but they also died in due time. Yes, and everyone died for me; and not only relatives, but also many, many with whom I, in friendship or friendship, began life, how long ago did they begin, confident that there would be no end to it, but it all began, flowed and ended before my eyes - so quickly and before my eyes! And I sat down on a pedestal near some merchant’s house, impregnable behind its locks and gates, and began to think about what she was like in those distant times, our times: simply pulled back dark hair, clear eyes, a light tan of a young face, a light summer look. a dress under which there is purity, strength and freedom of a young body... This was the beginning of our love, a time of unclouded happiness, intimacy, trust, enthusiastic tenderness, joy... There is something very special about the warm and bright nights of Russian provincial towns at the end of summer. What peace, what prosperity! An old man with a mallet wanders through the cheerful city at night, but only for his own pleasure: there is nothing to guard, sleep peacefully, good people, God's favor will guard you, this high shining sky, which the old man carelessly looks at, wandering along the pavement that has warmed up during the day and only occasionally, for fun, starting a dance trill with a mallet. And on such a night, at that late hour, when he was the only one awake in the city, you were waiting for me in your garden, already dry by autumn, and I secretly slipped into it: quietly opened the gate that you had previously unlocked, quietly and quickly ran through the yard and behind the shed in the depths of the yard, he entered the motley twilight of the garden, where your dress faintly whitened in the distance, on a bench under the apple trees, and, quickly approaching, with joyful fear he met the sparkle of your waiting eyes. And we sat, sat in some kind of bewilderment of happiness. With one hand I hugged you, hearing your heartbeat, in the other I held your hand, feeling all of you through it. And it was already so late that you couldn’t even hear the beater—the old man lay down somewhere on a bench and dozed off with a pipe in his teeth, basking in the monthly light. When I looked to the right, I saw how high and sinlessly the moon shines over the yard and how the roof of the house glistens like a fish. When I looked to the left, I saw a path overgrown with dry grasses, disappearing under other apple trees, and behind them a lone green star peeking low from behind some other garden, glowing impassively and at the same time expectantly, silently saying something. But I saw both the courtyard and the star only briefly - there was only one thing in the world: a light dusk and the radiant twinkle of your eyes in the dusk. And then you walked me to the gate, and I said: “If there is a future life and we meet in it, I will kneel there and kiss your feet for everything you gave me on earth.” I walked out into the middle of the bright street and went to my yard. Turning around, I saw that everything was still white at the gate. Now, having risen from the pedestal, I went back the same way I had come. No, besides Old Street, I had another goal, which I was afraid to admit to myself, but the fulfillment of which, I knew, was inevitable. And I went to take a look and leave forever. The road was familiar again. Everything goes straight, then to the left, along the bazaar, and from the bazaar - along Monastyrskaya - to the exit from the city. The bazaar is like another city within the city. Very smelly rows. In Obzhorny Row, under the awnings over the long tables and benches, it is gloomy. In Skobyany, an icon of the big-eyed Savior in a rusty frame hangs on a chain above the middle of the passage. In Muchnoye, a whole flock of pigeons were always running and pecking along the pavement in the morning. You go to the gymnasium - there are so many of them! And all the fat ones, with rainbow-colored crops, peck and run, femininely, delicately wagging, swaying, twitching their heads monotonously, as if not noticing you: they take off, whistling with their wings, only when you almost step on one of them. And at night, large dark rats, nasty and scary, rushed around quickly and anxiously. Monastyrskaya Street - a span into the fields and a road: some from the city to home, to the village, others to the city of the dead. In Paris, for two days, house number such-and-such on such-and-such a street stands out from all the other houses by the plague props of the entrance, its mournful frame with silver, for two days a sheet of paper with a mourning border lies in the entrance on the funeral cover of the table - they sign it as a sign of sympathy polite visitors; then, at some final time, a huge chariot with a mourning canopy stops at the entrance, the wood of which is black and resinous, like a plague coffin, the rounded carved floors of the canopy indicate the heavens with large white stars, and the corners of the roof are crowned with curly black plumes - ostrich feathers from the underworld; the chariot is harnessed to tall monsters in coal-horned blankets with white eye socket rings; an old drunkard sits on an infinitely high trestle and waits to be taken out, also symbolically dressed up in a fake coffin uniform and the same triangular hat, inwardly probably always grinning at these solemn words: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. - Everything is different here. A breeze blows from the fields along Monastyrskaya, and an open coffin is carried towards him on towels, a rice-colored face with a motley corolla on its forehead sways, above closed convex eyelids. So they carried her too. At the exit, to the left of the highway, there is a monastery from the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, fortress, always closed gates and fortress walls, from behind which the gilded turnips of the cathedral shine. Further, completely in the field, there is a very spacious square of other walls, but low: they contain a whole grove, broken up by intersecting long avenues, on the sides of which, under old elms, lindens and birches, everything is dotted with various crosses and monuments. Here the gates were wide open, and I saw the main avenue, smooth and endless. I timidly took off my hat and entered. How late and how dumb! The moon was already low behind the trees, but everything around, as far as the eye could see, was still clearly visible. The entire space of this grove of the dead, its crosses and monuments was patterned in a transparent shadow. The wind died down towards the pre-dawn hour - the light and dark spots that were all colorful under the trees were sleeping. In the distance of the grove, from behind the cemetery church, something suddenly flashed and with furious speed, a dark ball rushed towards me - I, beside myself, shied away to the side, my whole head immediately froze and tightened, my heart rushed and froze... What was that? It flashed and disappeared. But the heart remained standing in my chest. And so, with my heart stopping, carrying it within me like a heavy cup, I moved on. I knew where to go, I kept walking straight along the avenue - and at the very end, already a few steps from the back wall, I stopped: in front of me, on level ground, among the dry grasses, lay a lonely elongated and rather narrow stone, with its head to the wall. From behind the wall, a low green star looked out like a wondrous gem, radiant like the old one, but silent and motionless. October 19, 1933

All that evening he spoke little to me, but in every word he said to Katya, to Sonya, in every movement and look of his, I saw love and did not doubt it. I was only annoyed and sorry for him, why did he still find it necessary to hide and pretend to be cold, when everything was already so clear, and when it was so easy and simple to be so impossibly happy. But the fact that I jumped into his barn tormented me like a crime. It seemed to me that he would stop respecting me for this and would be angry with me.

After tea I went to the piano, and he followed me.

“Play something, I haven’t heard you for a long time,” he said, catching up with me in the living room.

– That’s what I wanted... Sergei Mikhailych! – I said, suddenly looking him straight in the eyes. -Aren't you angry with me?

- For what? he asked.

“Why didn’t I listen to you after dinner,” I said, blushing.

He understood me, shook his head and grinned. His look said that he should scold, but that he did not feel the strength to do so.

“Nothing happened, we’re friends again,” I said, sitting down at the piano.

- Of course! - he said.

In the large, high hall there were only two candles on the piano; the rest of the space was dim. The bright summer night looked out through the open windows. Everything was quiet, only Katya’s steps creaked intermittently in the dark living room, and his horse, tied under the window, snorted and kicked the burdock with its hoof. He was sitting behind me, so I couldn’t see him; but everywhere in the semi-darkness of this room, in the sounds, in myself, I felt his presence. Every glance, every movement of him, which I did not see, echoed in my heart. I played Mozart’s fantasy sonata, which he brought to me, and which I learned in front of him and for him. I didn't think about it at all? I play, but it seems that I played well, and it seemed to me that he liked it. I felt the pleasure that he felt, and, without looking at him, I felt the gaze that was directed at me from behind. Completely involuntarily, continuing to unconsciously move my fingers, I looked back at him. His head stood out against the brightening background of the night. He himself sat, leaning his head on his hands, and looked intently at me with sparkling eyes. I smiled when I saw this look and stopped playing. He smiled too and reproachfully shook his head at the notes for me to continue. When I finished, the moon brightened, rose high, and in addition to the weak light of the candles, another silvery light came into the room from the windows, falling on the floor. Katya said that it was unlike anything that I stopped at the best place, and that I played poorly; but he said that, on the contrary, I had never played as well as I did now, and he began to walk through the rooms, through the hall into the dark living room and back into the hall, each time looking back at me and smiling. And I smiled, I even wanted to laugh for no reason, I was so happy about something that had just happened just now. As soon as he disappeared through the door, I hugged Katya, with whom we were standing at the piano, and began to kiss her on my favorite place, on her plump neck under her chin; As soon as he returned, I pretended to have a serious face and forcibly restrained myself from laughing.

-What happened to her today? - Katya told him.

But he didn’t answer and just chuckled at me.

Did he know what? happened to me.

- Look what a night it is! - he said from the living room, stopping in front of the balcony door open to the garden...

She was lying on a sandy path and a lawn circle. The rest was all light and drenched in the silver of dew and monthly light. A wide flower path, along which the shadows of dahlias and supports lay slanting on one edge, all light and cold, shining with uneven gravel, went off into the fog and into the distance. The light roof of the greenhouse could be seen from behind the trees, and a growing fog rose from under the ravine. The already somewhat bare lilac bushes were all light to the branches. All the flowers moistened with dew could be distinguished from one another. In the alleys, shadow and light merged so that the alleys seemed not like trees and paths, but transparent, swaying and trembling houses. To the right, in the shadow of the house, everything was black, indifferent and scary. But on the other hand, emerging from this darkness even brighter was the bizarrely spreading top of the poplar, which for some reason strangely stopped here not far from the house, above in the bright light, and did not fly off somewhere, far away, into the receding bluish sky.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said.

Katya agreed, but told me to put on galoshes.

“No need, Katya,” I said, “Sergei Mikhailych will give me his hand.”

As if that could stop me from getting my feet wet. But then it was clear to all three of us and not at all strange. He had never given me his hand, but now I took it myself, and he did not find it strange. The three of us left the terrace. This whole world, this sky, this garden, this air was not the one I knew.

When I looked forward along the alley along which we were walking, it still seemed to me that it was impossible to go there any further, that the world of the possible ended there, that all this should forever be chained in its beauty. But we moved, and the magical wall of beauty moved apart, letting us in, and there, too, it seemed, was our familiar garden, trees, paths, dry leaves. And we seemed to be walking along paths, stepping on circles of light and shadow, and it was as if a dry leaf was rustling under our feet, and a fresh branch was brushing against my face. And it was definitely him, who, walking evenly and quietly next to me, carefully carried my hand, and it was definitely Katya, who, creaking, walked next to us. And it must have been the month in the sky that shone on us through the motionless branches...

But with every step, the magic wall closed behind us and in front again, and I stopped believing that I could go further, stopped believing in everything that had happened.

- Ah! frog! - Katya said.

“Who says this and why?” I thought. But then I remembered that it was Katya, that she was afraid of frogs, and I looked at my feet. The little frog jumped and froze in front of me, and her small shadow was visible on the light clay of the path.

- Aren’t you afraid? - he said.

I looked back at him. One linden tree in the alley was missing in the place where we passed; I could clearly see his face. It was so beautiful and happy...

He said: “Are you not afraid?” and I heard him say: “I love you, dear girl!” - I love! I love! - his gaze and his hand repeated; and light, and shadow, and air, and everything said the same thing.

We walked around the entire garden. Katya walked next to us with her small steps and breathed heavily from fatigue. She said it was time to come back, and I felt sorry, I felt sorry for her, poor thing. “Why doesn’t she feel the same as we do? – I thought. “Why aren’t everyone young, not everyone happy, like this night and like him and me?”

We returned home, but he did not leave for a long time, despite the fact that the roosters crowed, that everyone in the house was asleep, and his horse more and more often hit the burdock with its hoof and snorted under the window. Katya did not remind us that it was late, and we, talking about the most empty things, sat, without knowing it, until three o’clock in the morning. The roosters were already crowing, and the dawn had begun to break when he left. He said goodbye as usual, did not say anything special; but I knew that from today he was mine, and I would never lose him. As soon as I admitted to myself that I loved him, I told Katya everything too. She was glad and touched by what I told her, but the poor thing could fall asleep that night, and for a long, long time I walked along the terrace, went into the garden and, remembering every word, every movement, walked along those alleys along which we went with him. I didn’t sleep all that night and for the first time in my life I saw the sunrise and early morning. And I have never seen such a night or such a morning since. “But why doesn’t he just tell me that he loves me? – I thought. – Why does he invent some difficulties, call himself an old man, when everything is so simple and wonderful? Why is he wasting golden time, which may never return? Let him say: I love, let him say in words: I love, let him take my hand with his hand, bend his head to it and say: I love. Let him blush and lower his eyes in front of me, and then I will tell him everything. And I won’t say anything, but I will hug him, cling to him and cry. But what if I’m wrong, and what if he doesn’t love me?” suddenly it occurred to me.

I was afraid of my feeling, God knows where it could lead me, and his and my embarrassment in the barn, when I jumped down to him, came back to me, and my heart felt heavy, heavy. Tears flowed from my eyes, I began to pray. And a strange thought and hope came to me, calming me. I decided to fast from this day forward, take communion on my birthday, and on that very day become his bride.

For what? Why? how should this happen? I didn’t know anything, but from that moment I believed and knew that it would be like this. It was already quite dawn, and people began to rise when I returned to my room.

IV.

It was the Assumption Fast, and therefore no one in the house was surprised by my intention to fast at that time.

During this whole week he never came to see us, and not only was I not surprised, not worried or angry at him, but, on the contrary, I was glad that he did not come, and was only waiting for him on my birthday. During this week, I got up early every day and, while they were pawning my horse, alone, walking in the garden, I went over the sins of the previous day in my mind and thought about what I needed to do today in order to be satisfied with my day and not sin even once. Then it seemed so easy to me to be completely sinless. It seemed like it only took a little effort. The horses arrived, Katya or the girl and I sat in the line, and we rode three miles to the church. Every time I entered the church, I remembered that they were praying for everyone “who enters with the fear of God,” and I tried to climb up the two grassy steps of the porch with precisely this feeling. There were no more than about ten fasting peasant women and servants in the church at that time; and I, with diligent humility, tried to respond to their bows and myself, which seemed to me a feat, went to the candle box to take candles from the old soldier elder and lit them. Through the royal doors one could see the cover of the altar, embroidered by the mother; above the iconostasis stood two wooden angels with stars, which seemed so big to me when I was little, and a dove with a yellow glow, which then occupied me. From behind the choir one could see the crumpled font in which I had so many times baptized the children of our servants, and in which I was also baptized. The old priest came out in a robe made from the covering of my father’s coffin, and served with the same voice that, since the time I can remember, church services were celebrated in our house: Sonya’s christening, and my father’s funeral service, and my mother’s funeral. And the same rattling voice of the sexton was heard in the choir, and the same old woman whom I always remember in church, at every service, bent over, stood against the wall and with tearful eyes looked at the icon in the choir and pressed her folded fingers to a faded handkerchief, and with a toothless mouth whispered something. And all this was no longer curious, it was close to me more than just from memories - all this was now great and sacred in my eyes and seemed to me full of deep meaning. I listened to every word of the prayer being read, tried to answer it with feeling, and if I didn’t understand, then I mentally asked God to enlighten me or came up with my own prayer to replace the unheard one. When the prayers of repentance were read, I remembered my past, and this innocent childhood past seemed so black to me in comparison with the bright state of my soul that I cried and was horrified at myself; but at the same time I felt that all this would be forgiven, and that if I had even more sins, then repentance would be even sweeter for me. When the priest at the end of the service said: “The blessing of the Lord be upon you,” it seemed to me that I experienced an instantaneous physical feeling of well-being. It was as if some kind of light and warmth suddenly entered my heart. The service ended, the priest came out to me and asked if and when it was necessary to come to us to serve the all-night vigil; but I touchingly thanked him for what I thought he wanted to do for me, and said that I myself would come or come.

– Do you want to work hard yourself? - he used to say.

And I didn’t know what? answer so as not to sin against pride.

From mass I always let the horses go, if I was without Katya, I returned alone on foot, low, humbly bowing to everyone I met and trying to find an opportunity to help, advise, sacrifice myself for someone, help lift a cart, rock a child, give way and get dirty . One evening I heard that the clerk, reporting to Katya, said that Semyon, a man, came to ask for timber for his daughter’s coffin and money for a ruble for the funeral, and that he gave it to him. -Are they that poor? – I asked. “They are very poor, madam, they are sitting without salt,” answered the clerk. Something pricked my heart, and at the same time I seemed to rejoice when I heard it. Having deceived Katya that I would go for a walk, I ran upstairs, took out all my money (there was very little of it, but it was all I had) and, having crossed myself, went alone through the terrace and garden to the village to Semyon’s hut. She was from the edge of the village, and I, invisible to no one, went to the window, put money on the window and knocked on it. Someone came out of the hut, opened the door and called out to me; I, trembling and cold with fear, like a criminal, ran home. Katya asked me where I was? what's wrong with me? but I didn’t even understand what she was telling me, and I didn’t answer her. Everything suddenly seemed so insignificant and small to me. I locked myself in my room and walked back and forth alone for a long time, unable to do anything, think, unable to give myself an account of my feelings. I thought about the joy of the whole family, about the words they would call the one who put in the money, and I felt sorry that I didn’t give it away myself. I also thought about what Sergei Mikhailych would say if he knew this act, and I was glad that no one would ever recognize him. And such joy was in me, and everyone and I myself seemed so bad, and I looked at myself and everyone so meekly that the thought of death, like a dream of happiness, came to me. I smiled and prayed and cried, and I loved everyone in the world and myself so passionately, ardently at that moment. Between services I read the Gospel, and this book became clearer and clearer to me, and the history of this divine life became more touching and simpler, and the depths of feeling and thought that I found in his teaching became more terrible and impenetrable. But how clear and simple everything seemed to me when, getting up from this book, I again peered and pondered the life that surrounded me. It seemed so difficult to live poorly and so easy to love everyone and be loved. Everyone was so kind and gentle with me, even Sonya, to whom I continued to give lessons, was completely different, she tried to understand, please and not upset me. As I was, so was everyone with me. Then, going through my enemies, from whom I had to ask forgiveness before confession, I remembered only one young lady outside our house, a neighbor, at whom I laughed a year ago in front of guests, and who because of this stopped coming to us. I wrote a letter to her, admitting my guilt and asking for her forgiveness. She answered me with a letter in which she asked for forgiveness and forgave me. I cried with joy reading these simple lines, in which I then saw such a deep and touching feeling. The nanny burst into tears when I asked her forgiveness. “Why are they all so kind to me? What did I do to deserve such love? I asked myself. And I involuntarily remembered Sergei Mikhailych and thought about him for a long time. I couldn’t do otherwise and didn’t even consider it a sin. But now I thought about him completely differently than on that night when I first found out that I loved him, I thought about him as about myself, involuntarily adding him to every thought about my future. The overwhelming influence I felt in his presence completely disappeared from my imagination. I now felt equal to him and from the height of the spiritual mood in which I was, I completely understood him. It was now clear to me what had seemed strange to me before. Only now I understood why he said that happiness lies only in living for another, and now I completely agreed with him. It seemed to me that the two of us would be so endlessly and calmly happy. And I imagined not trips abroad, not light, not splendor, but a completely different quiet family life in the village, with eternal self-sacrifice, with eternal love for each other and with an eternal consciousness of a gentle and helping Providence in everything.

I took communion, as expected, on my birthday. There was such complete happiness in my chest when I returned from church that day that I was afraid of life, afraid of any impression, of everything that could disturb this happiness. But we had just left the line on the porch when a familiar convertible thundered across the bridge, and I saw Sergei Mikhailych. He congratulated me and we entered the living room together. Never since I knew him have I been so calm and independent with him as I was that morning. I felt that there was a whole new world in me, which he did not understand, and which was higher than him. I didn't feel the slightest embarrassment with him. He must have understood why this was happening, and he was especially gentle and piously respectful with me. I went to the piano, but he locked it and hid the key in his pocket.

“Don’t spoil your mood,” he said: “you now have music in your soul that is better than anything in the world.”

I was grateful to him for this, and at the same time I was a little unpleasant that he so easily and clearly understood everything that must have been secret to everyone in my soul. At dinner, he said that he had come to congratulate me and say goodbye together, because tomorrow he was going to Moscow. As he spoke, he looked at Katya; but then he glanced at me, and I saw how afraid he was that he would notice the excitement on my face. But I wasn’t surprised, I wasn’t alarmed, I didn’t even ask how long? I knew that he would say this, and I knew that he would not leave. How did I know this? Now I can’t explain it to myself; but on this memorable day it seemed to me that I knew everything, what? what happened? will. I was like in a happy dream, when everything that happens seems to have already happened, and I have known all this for a long time, and all this will still happen, and I know that it will be.

He wanted to go now after lunch, but Katya, tired from mass, went to lie down, and he had to wait until she woke up to say goodbye to her. There was sun in the hall, we went out onto the terrace. We had just sat down when I quite calmly began to say what was to decide the fate of my love. And she began to speak neither earlier nor later, but at that very moment when we sat down, and nothing had yet been said, there was still no tone or character of the conversation that could interfere with what I wanted to say. I myself don’t understand where such calmness, determination and precision in expression came from. It was as if it wasn’t me, but something that was speaking inside me independently of my will. He sat opposite me, leaning on the railing, and, pulling a lilac branch towards him, picked off its leaves. When I started speaking, he let go of the branch and rested his head on his hand. This could be the position of a person completely calm or very excited.

- Why are you going? – I asked significantly, with emphasis and looking directly at him.

He didn't suddenly answer.

- Affairs! – he said, lowering his eyes.

I realized how difficult it was for him to lie in front of me and when asked so sincerely.

“Listen,” I said, “you know what kind of day it is for me.” In many ways this day is very important. If I ask you, it’s not to show concern (you know that I’m used to you and love you), I’m asking because I need to know. Why are you going?

“It’s very difficult for me to tell you the truth, why I’m going,” he said. “This week I thought a lot about you and about myself and decided that I had to go.” Do you understand why? and if you love me, you won’t ask anymore. “He rubbed his forehead with his hand and closed his eyes with it. – This is hard for me... But you understand.

My heart started beating fast.

“I can’t understand,” I said, “ I can't, A You tell me, for God’s sake, for the sake of this day, tell me, I can calmly hear everything,” I said.

He changed his position, looked at me and pulled the branch again.

“However,” he said, after a short silence and in a voice that in vain wanted to seem firm, “even though it’s stupid and impossible to tell in words, even though it’s hard for me, I’ll try to explain to you,” he added, wincing as if from physical pain.

- Well! - I said.

“Imagine that there was one gentleman, A, let’s say,” he said, “old and outdated, and one lady B, young, happy, who had never seen either people or life.” Due to different family relationships, he loved her like a daughter, and was not afraid to love her differently.

He fell silent, but I didn’t interrupt him.

“But he forgot that B is so young, that life is still a toy for her,” he continued suddenly quickly and decisively and without looking at me, “and that it is easy to love her differently, and that it will be fun for her.” And he was mistaken and suddenly felt that another feeling, heavy as repentance, was creeping into his soul, and he was afraid. I was afraid that their previous friendly relations would be upset, and decided to leave before these relationships were upset. - Saying this, he again, as if carelessly, began to rub his eyes with his hand and closed them.

Reading “Family Happiness”, I thought that the scene with Natasha’s tucked knees was transferred to “War and Peace” from there:

Look what a night! - he said from the living room, stopping in front of the balcony door open to the garden...

We approached it, and sure enough, it was such a night as I have never seen since. A full moon stood over the house behind us, so that it was not visible, and half the shadow of the roof, pillars and terrace fabric lay diagonally en raccourci on the sandy path and lawn circle. The rest was all light and drenched in the silver of dew and monthly light. A wide flower path, along which the shadows of dahlias and supports lay slantingly at one end, all light and cold, shining with uneven gravel, went off into the fog and into the distance. The light roof of the greenhouse could be seen from behind the trees, and a growing fog rose from under the ravine. The already somewhat bare lilac bushes were all light to the branches. All the flowers moistened with dew could be distinguished from one another. In the alleys, shadow and light merged so that the alleys seemed not like trees and paths, but transparent, swaying and trembling houses. To the right, in the shadow of the house, everything was black, indifferent and scary. But on the other hand, emerging from this darkness even brighter was the fancifully spreading top of the poplar, which for some reason strangely stopped here, not far from the house, above in the bright light, and did not fly off somewhere, far away, into the receding bluish sky.
http://www.rvb.ru/tolstoy/01text/vol_3/01text/0022.htm?start=2&length=1

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Prince Andrei stood up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the shutters, moonlight, as if he had been on guard at the window for a long time waiting for it, rushed into the room. He opened the window. The night was fresh and stillly bright. Just in front of the window there was a row of trimmed trees, black on one side and silver-lit on the other. Under the trees there was some kind of lush, wet, curly vegetation with silvery leaves and stems here and there. Further behind the black trees there was some kind of roof shining with dew, to the right a large curly tree, with a bright white trunk and branches, and above it was an almost full moon in a bright, almost starless spring sky. Prince Andrei leaned his elbows on the window and his eyes stopped at this sky.

... - After all, such a lovely night has never, never happened.

(was this night in Tolstoy’s life? or did he take something that already objectively existed?)
(one could say that in “SS” you can see what is happening through the eyes of Natasha Rostova - but this is not so - both here and there the partner marvels at the night. And yet, in the 2nd case, the description is more military).
(And Tolstoy writes honestly: Masha knows what kind of roof, therefore “a greenhouse roof” - but Andrei does not know, therefore “some kind of roof”)

Fill in the missing letters, indicating the spelling patterns. Place punctuation marks and explain them. Parse the second sentence. Which

Does the author use artistic means? Determine the text style, justify your choice. It was such a night as I have never (n...) seen since. A full month stood over the house behind us so that it was (not) visible, and half of the roof of the pillars and the canvas of the terrace lay diagonally on the sand path and lawn circle. The rest was all light and doused in the silver of dew and monthly light. A wide flower path along which the shadows of dahlias and supports lay askance at one edge, all light and cold, shining with (un)even rubble, went into the fog and (into) the distance. The light roof of the greenhouse could be seen from (behind) the trees and a growing fog rose from (under) the ravine.

write down complex sentences with compound conjunctions.

1. I woke up because one of my travelers pulled my hand. 2. Since these rooms were never ventilated, they contained damp, sour, uninhabited air. 3. The emptiness of the nights was so great that daylight could not overcome it and retreated. 4. When the appointment was received, the captain arranged a banquet. 6. It was surprisingly persistent, this smell lasted for several days and disappeared only in Rome, where I went for several days in Naples. II. 1. I have long heard that the shores of Koktebel are famous for their stones, but I didn’t think that there were so many of them. 2. She was beautiful with that immediate innate beauty that extends to everything - her face, eyes, hair, manner of speaking, laughing and getting angry. 3. The hot air was still and dry, despite the fact that the road ran along the shore of a huge lake. 4. Since you feel your truth, you must stand and fight for it. 5. All the carts, because there were bales of wool on them, seemed very tall and plump. 6. For me, just one yellow leaf is enough for the string of my soul to ask for the mood for autumn. 7. Don’t hide your soul from the wind of time so that it blows like a torch.

I beg you! Find participles in this text! I was sick and missed the topic.

Can written language be exactly like spoken language? No, just as spoken language can never be like written language. Participles and many necessary words are avoided in conversation. We do not say: a carriage galloping across a bridge, a servant sweeping a room; we say: which gallops, which sweeps, etc., replacing the expressive brevity of the participle with a sluggish turn.
I beg you. I really need it! I will mark the first correct answer as the best!