Chapter 94: What is told is of my adoptive father, Nikolai Sergeyevich, who, after squandering his family fortune through gambling i

During this time, he met a duke who was exceptionally skilled at manipulating people, and devoted himself entirely as the duke’s steward, managing his assets.

He was a “very kind, naive, and somewhat romantic man; despite gossip about them, such people are still celebrated in our Russia—they fall in love with someone (sometimes for reasons only God understands) and serve them with unwavering loyalty until death, their one-sided foolishness often bordering on the absurd.”

He was so loyal and kind that he nearly regarded the duke as his own brother.

What kind of man was this duke?

Born into a ruined noble family, he was forced to marry a merchant’s daughter, relying on her dowry to stabilize his position and revive his family’s fortunes.

This merchant’s daughter could barely read or write, knew only a few characters, was ugly in appearance, but had a good heart and obeyed the duke in every way.

The duke thus exploited this trait to the fullest; after a year, he separated from her and began systematically abusing her, until six or seven years later, the merchant’s daughter finally died.

Immediately afterward, the duke leveraged his acquired wealth and his skill at navigating social circles to rise rapidly. During this time, he sent his son to live with Nikolai for a while; then, he apparently heard rumors that his steward had embezzled his property and that his daughter was seducing his son.

The duke had originally sought only a reliable steward, with no interest in truly knowing him; he quickly believed these rumors and publicly denounced the steward—who had worked tirelessly for him and trusted him—as a thief.

The insulted old man, enraged, abandoned everything and decided to move his entire household to St. Petersburg to personally fight for justice in this wrongful case.

The duke soon realized he had wronged Ikhmenyev, but out of pride, he resolved to use every means possible to win the lawsuit: “In other words, to take away the former steward’s last crust of bread and reduce him to utter destitution.”

As he read this, the young Tolstoy felt a prickling unease, for he recognized too many familiar things in these passages; yet, as far as he knew, those people took pride in their actions and felt no shame whatsoever.

On the other hand, he involuntarily identified with the steward, his anger rising uncontrollably—he longed to shoot the hypocritical, repulsive duke dead right then.

But when he thought of his own recent behavior, he fell silent.

Nevertheless, he was utterly captivated by the story and eager to see what came next; with trembling hands, he flipped frantically through the pages—and soon saw these words: “To be continued.”

The young Tolstoy: “???”

A sudden, inexplicable rage made the young man tremble; he would swear before God that if the author had finished writing but refused to publish the full novel, he would shoot him dead.

“Achoo!”

Mikhail, walking down the street, suddenly sneezed several times in a row; though he felt no chill, he tightly pulled his coat around himself, determined to avoid catching a cold or other illness.

“Strange.”

Mikhail muttered under his breath.

(End of chapter)