IN the summer, when both families were together at Yasnaya, our own
and the Kuzminsky's, when both the house and the annex were full of the
family and their guests, we used our letter-box.
It originated long before, when I was still small and had only just
learned to write, and it continued with intervals till the middle of the
eighties.
It hung on the landing at the top of the stairs beside the grandfather's
clock; and every one dropped his compositions into it, the verses,
articles, or stories that he had written on topical subjects in the
course of the week.
On Sundays we would all collect at the round table in the zala, the
box would be solemnly opened, and one of the grown-ups, often my father
himself, would read the contents aloud.
All the papers were unsigned, and it was a point of honor not to peep at
the handwriting; but, despite this, we almost always guessed the author,
either by the style, by his self-consciousness, or else by the strained
indifference of his expression.
When I was a boy, and for the first time wrote a set of French verses
for the letter-box, I was so shy when they were read that I hid under
the table, and sat there the whole evening until I was pulled out by
force.
For a long time after, I wrote no more, and was always fonder of hearing
other people's compositions read than my own.
All the events of our life at Yasnaya Polyana found their echo in one
way or another in the letter-box, and no one was spared, not even the
grown-ups.
All our secrets, all our love-affairs, all the incidents of our
complicated life were revealed in the letter-box, and both household and
visitors were good-humoredly made fun of.
Unfortunately, much of the correspondence has been lost, but bits of
it have been preserved by some of us in copies or in memory. I cannot
recall everything interesting that there was in it, but here are a few
of the more interesting things from the period of the eighties.