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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: restraint in the expression of affection, which was often concealed
under the mask of indifference and sometimes even of unexpected
harshness. In the matter of wit and sarcasm, on the other hand, he
was strikingly original.
At one period he spent several winters in succession with his
family in Moscow. One time, after a historic concert given by
Anton Rubinstein, at which Uncle Seryózha and his daughter
had been, he came to take tea with us in Weavers' Row.¹
My father asked him how he had liked the concert.
"Do you remember Himbut, Lyovótchka? Lieutenant
Himbut, who was forester near Yásnaya? I once asked him
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