The little hero

I wasn't even eleven years old. In July I was invited to visit a relative of mine named T in the countryside near Moscow. There were no less than fifty visitors to his house, maybe more... I can't remember exactly how many, and I never counted them. It was very busy and happy. As if it were a show that had only a beginning and never an end. It seems that our master, who had vowed to spend his vast fortune as quickly as possible, had recently succeeded in fulfilling his promise, that is to say, to spend every penny of it. New guests arrive every minute. Moscow was so close that you could look up and see it, so one group of guests would leave only to make room for another, and the show would go on. The way to have fun, one after the other, new tricks, endless. In the suburbs riding horses, one after another gallop; Go for a walk in the pines or along the river; Or have a picnic, go to the field for lunch; Or have dinner on the patio at home. There are three rows of exotic flowers on the balcony, filling the fresh night air with rich fragrance. Our ladies, almost all of whom were already very pretty, looked even more beautiful in the brilliant light. Their faces glowed with the impression of the day, and their eyes gleamed, and they laughed and laughed and laughed like silver bells. And dancing, music, singing. If the weather was gloomy, pantomime, riddles, vivid pictures, folk sayings, or family theatres were organized, and storytellers, jokers, and witticisers appeared.

There are a few people who are particularly outstanding, and they naturally attract some gossip, because without gossip, the world could not exist, and millions of people would die of loneliness and boredom, like flies. But as I was then only eleven years old, and had no such interest at all, I found no such person, if any, far from all. Only later did I recall some of the circumstances. Green in my eyes only see scenes brilliant side, that is widely jubilant, and brilliant light and lively scene, while all this was unheard of, I see not seen, so that I was very surprised, I wholly unprepared, in the first few days I started small head spin.

However, I still have to say that I am only eleven years old, of course, still a child, really a child. Many of these beautiful women were affectionate to me without thinking to ask my age. But, strange to say! A feeling I could not understand had taken hold of me. A hitherto unfamiliar, unexperienced feeling was already stirring in my heart. So sometimes I felt my face burning, my heart thumping, as if I were frightened, and my face often flushed unexpectedly. Sometimes I feel ashamed, even ashamed, of being given all kinds of special care as a child. Once I seemed so distressed by this emotion that I wanted to run and hide where I could not be seen, as if to take a breath, and then recall the things that I still remember so well, and the things that I had suddenly forgotten. And without thinking of these things, I could not show my face, I could not live.

Finally, I felt that I was hiding something from everyone, and that in any case it must not be revealed to any one. For a little boy like me, such a thing would bring tears of shame. In the stormy life around me, I soon felt a certain loneliness. There were some other children here, but they were either much younger or much older than me. Yeah, I don't care about them. Of course, if I had not been in a special situation, nothing would have happened to me. In the eyes of all these beautiful women, I was still a little thing that they could sometimes make out with and sometimes play with as a little doll. One of them, in particular, seemed to swear she wouldn't leave me in peace. She was an attractive blonde with loose, extremely thick hair, the likes of which I had never seen before and probably never will see again. It was evident that she took great pleasure in the sudden and capricious attacks she made upon me every now and then, but it caused the people around us to laugh. The laughter embarrassed me, but amused her. At boarding school, her girlfriends would have called her "Ghost hunter." She was strangely beautiful, and there was something in her beauty that was instantly discernible. She was not, of course, one of those little, shy blondes, white as fluff, delicate as a white mouse or a clergyman's daughter. She is not tall and a little fat, but the soft, delicate lines of her face are very attractive. Something like a lightning seemed to shine in her face, and her whole being was like a fire, lively, swift, and light. Her eyes were wide open and seemed to shoot sparks out of them, shining like diamonds. I would never trade such sparkling blue eyes for black eyes, even if they were darker than those of an Andalus. A famous and distinguished poet sang of a famous brunette, and swore the whole of Castiglia in his beautiful poem; If he had been allowed to touch this beauty's shawl with his fingertips, he would have been crushed to pieces and died without complaint. Compared to this famous brunette beauty, my blonde really is nothing to beat. My beauty, I might add, is the gayest, most willful, and most fond of talking and laughing like a child, of all the beauties in the world, though she has been married four or five years. There was always a smile on her lips, bright lips like the rosy roses of the morning, which have just opened their red and fragrant buds to the rising sun, and on which the great cold dew has not disappeared.