At the animated dinner table, the carp we had seen captured made their appearance. We all seemed equally at ease and happy.... That evening was one truly 'filled with hope.' It was a sight to see with what pride and bright hope Tatiána Alexándrovna, the kindest of aunts, regarded the young people she so loved; and how, turning to me, she said frankly, 'You see, with _mon cher Léon_ of course things could not be otherwise.' As to the Countess, life to one who in her condition leapt over fences, could not but be lit up with the brightest of hopes. The Count himself, who had passed his whole life in an ardent search for novelties, evidently at this period entered a world till then unknown, in the mighty future of which he believed with all the enthusiasm of a young artist. I myself, during that evening, was carried away by the general tone of careless happiness, and did not feel the stone of Sisyphus oppressing me. Soon after this visit, on 28th June 1863, a son, Sergius, was born. During the first eleven years of marriage, the Countess bore her husband eight children, and another five during the next fifteen years: making in all, thirteen children in twenty-six years. But we must turn back a few months to mention the stories by Tolstoy which appeared during this year. In the January number of the _Russian Messenger_, Katkóf had published _The Cossacks_, which Tolstoy had kept back to revise, and had only delivered in December. In the February number of the same magazine appeared _Polikoúshka_, the story of a serf who, having lost some money belonging to his mistress, hangs himself. These stories are referred to in the following letter from Tolstoy to Fet, undated, but written in 1863: