Hadj Murat

What I like about today’s passage is how Tolstoi uses well selected words and phrases to paint a portrait; to breathe life into what would ordinarily be rather mundane sentences about Chernyshov, the subject of the passage. For example, Chernyshov didn’t just, walk to the door; he, “briskly ………walked over the carpet to the door.” Tolstoi also provides a vivid description of what occurred prior and after Chernyshov arrived at the door. Tolstoi is an artist who uses a palette of words; a stroke of a pen to create beautiful images on a paper canvas.

What do you think awaits Chernyshov at the top of “the shallow stairs?”

“Chernyshov was wearing an overcoat with a fluffy, silvery beaver collar and a three-cornered hat with cock’s feathers, which went with the uniform. Throwing back the bearskin rug, he carefully freed from the sleigh his chilled feet on which there were no galoshes ( he prided himself on knowing nothing of galoshes ), and briskly, with a slight jingling of spurs, walked over the carpet to the door, respectfully opened ahead of him by an old footman. Chernyshov went to the mirror and carefully removed his hat from his curled wig. Looking himself over in the mirror, he twirled his whiskers and forelock with a habitual movement of his old man’s hands, straightened his cross, aglets, and large, monogrammed epaulettes, and stepping weakly on his badly, obeying old man’s legs, began to climb the carpet of the shallow stairs.”

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