Class Book. Copyright N°. COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. POCKET EDITION OF TOLS TOI'S W ORKS 14 volumes, printed on Bible paper. Flexi- ble cloth, $1 .00 per volume. Limp leather, $1 .50 per volume. Volumes sold separately. WAR AND PEACE. 3 vols. ANNA KARENINA. 2 vols. RESURRECTION CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH I THE COSSACKS < SEVASTOPOL I THE INVADERS, and Other Stories ( A RUSSIAN PROPRIETOR, and Other Stories < FAMILY HAPPINESS. A Romance I DEATH OF IVAN ILYITCH, and Other Stories i THE LONG EXILE < STORIES FOR CHILDREN I WALK IN THE LIGHT ( MASTER AND MAN < KREUTZER SONATA I DRAMAS I MY CONFESSION 1 MY RELIGION I THE GOSPEL IN BRIEF S WHAT IS TO BE DONE? {LIFE ( THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU •^WHAT IS ART? (WHAT IS RELIGION? THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY TO t^flft&urfe^x THE LIFE OF COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTOI BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE AUTHOR OF "FAMOUS COMPOSERS"; TRANSLATOR OF "ANNA KARENINA," "WAR AND PEACE," ETC. NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS 3 %% A Copyright, 191 i By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY. Published November, ign. ©CIA303015 PREFACE There is a vast amount of authentic material for recon- structing the life of Tolstoi'. It exists in autobiographical fragments, in multitudes of letters, in the three volumes compiled by Biryukof under Tolstoi's own directions. There are many leaves from his own experiences in nearly all of his writings — though, as in the case of Goethe's "Dichtung und Wahrheit, " it requires caution to differ- entiate between what actually happened and what were the figments of his poetic imagination. Even these picture the evolution of his soul, and Tolstoi was far more interested in his soul than he was concerned with his body. It is the biographer's only duty to gather all the light he can from all possible sources and concentrate it in his lens, taking care that it be not colored by his own preju- dices or personality. My chief authorities, aside from Tolstoi's own writings (including a collection of five hundred and sixty- two letters under the title "Tolstovsky Almanakh") are Biryukof (as far as accessible), Aylmer Maude's two- volume Life, Behrs's " Recollections," and Edward A. Steiner's " Tolstoy, the Man." It would make a list quite too long to mention all the other books and articles which have proved helpful. Lack of space precluded an appendix to contain repre- sentative extracts from the recollections or opinions of Julius Froebel (from his "Lebenslauf," published in Stuttgart in 189 1), Eugene Schuyler's Essays, George Kennan's article which Tolstoi' himself verified, Presi- dent White's Autobiography, D. E. Ovsyannikof- Kulikovsky's Sketch of Tolstoi's activities, and many vi PREFACE others. Such an appendix would have grown into a volume itself. It had to be greatly curtailed. But all these materials have gone to making the book, which is rather a plain narration than an attempt to rectify or criticise Tolstoi's opinions and theories. One cannot read Tolstoi or about Tolstoi and refrain from forming an opinion. His biographer, even if he completely dissent from his conclusions and regret the course taken by his life, which like a river winds through superb and pictur- esque mountains, skirts fertile prairies and is shaded by glorious forests, and may also wander into arid deserts, must recognize that it is the same river, however, and must follow it reverently and sympathetically. If rever- ence and sympathy are lacking, it cannot be a fair biography. One word must be added as to the spelling of Tolstoi's name. It is absolutely a triviality of transliteration whether it be spelled with a final i or y. Unquestionably the author himself in signing his letters in French or English spelled it Leo Tolstoy. Is it necessary to con- form to his spelling of it when it goes against the ratified recommendation of the Society of Librarians? The dieresis corresponds fairly well to the i s kratkoi of the Russian letter. It is the way it was first spelled both in French and in English. It is such a small matter that it seems hardly worth while to mention it. But the ques- tion has been raised, and it is well to let the world know that the spelling with i is perfectly correct and has the weight of scientific authority behind it. In the book all Russian words and proper names, unless otherwise indicated, are pronounced with the accent on the penult. Dates are invariably given in new style, the old style be- ing twelve days in the nineteenth century and thirteen days in this century behind the calendar of civilization. Nathan Haskell Dole. Boston, October i, 191 1. CONTENTS PART I ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION CHAPTER PAGE I. The Tolstoi Family i II. Early Recollections 9 III. Childhood at Yasnaya 17 IV. School-days in Kazan 24 V. The Benevolent Young Proprietor .... 30 VI. A Flight to the Caucasus 39 VII. A Cossack Volunteer 48 VIII. Stirrings of a New Spirit 56 EX. First Appearance in Print 64 X. Spiritual Growth 70 XL The Crimean War 76 XII. The Sevastopol Sketches 81 XIII. Military Life 87 PART II TOLSTOI THE WRITER I. In Literary Circles at Petersburg .... 93 II. An Experimental Love Affair 10 1 III. First Journey Abroad no IV. Events of the Year 1858 126 V. Phases of Inner Development 136 VI. Second Journey Abroad 141 VII. Educational Studies Abroad 149 VIII. The Quarrel with Turgenief 160 IX. An Umpire of Peace .169 X. Educational Activities 174 XL Collisions with Officials 182 vii viii CONTENTS PART III FAMILY LIFE CHAPTER PAGE I. Marriage 191 II. "War and Peace' ' 198 III. Characteristics 205 IV. Historical Fiction 215 V. Life in the Steppe 228 VI. Educational Methods 236 VII. "Anna Karenina" 241 VIII. Tolstoi and Music 249 IX. Changing Views 264 PART IV THE THEOLOGIAN I. Theological Studies 270 II. A Pilgrimage 278 III. Arguments Resulting from Diverging Views. 281 IV. Slumming in Moscow 285 V. New Acquaintances 290 VI. Manual Labor 295 VII. The Crime of Property 300 VIII. Literature for the Masses 304 IX. Change of Personality 318 X. Activities of 1887-88 322 XI. "The Kreutzer Sonata" 329 XII. Rules for Perfection 335 XIII. Famine Relief . . 340 XIV. Public Utterances 347 XV. The Dukhobors 352 XVI. Tolstoi and Art 360 PART V THE EXCOMMUNICATED TEACHER I. Tolstoi and the Holy Synod 367 II. Popular Ovations 374 III. A Winter in the Crimea 379 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER PAGE IV. Later Writings 384 V. Visits to an Insane Asylum 392 VI. " Titan entangled in Foul Circumstance' ' . 397 VII. The Wounded Lion seeks a Lair 402 VIII. The Funeral 407 IX. Estimates of Tolstoi 414 APPENDICES I. Chronology of the Life and Writings of Count L. N. Tolstoi 425 II. Tolstoian Colonies 443 III. Tolstoi in the Eyes of his Contemporaries. ,447 Index 455 ILLUSTRATIONS Count Lyof Nikolayevitch Tolstoi Frontispiece^ OPP. PAGE Pyotr Andreyevitch Tolstoi, the First Count Tolstoi . . 4^ The Tolstoi Home at Yasnaya Polyana 12^ Avenue of Birch Trees at Yasnaya Polyana 18 Entrance to the Park at Yasnaya Polyana 26^ Count Tolstoi in 1851 40^ Count Tolstoi in 1855 82 ^ Count Tolstoi in 1857 n6 v Count Tolstoi in i860 138 ** Count Tolstoi in 1862 170 \s The House at Yasnaya Polyana used as a School. . . . 180 v^ Countess Tolstaya in i860, before her Marriage .... 192 ^ Count Tolstoi in 1868 222 ^ Count Tolstoi in 1876 234^ Ivan Turgenief 268^ Count Tolstoi's Favorite Exercise 282 ^ Gay's Portrait of Count Tolstoi 288 < House of Count Tolstoi in Moscow 296 ** One of the Most Striking Portraits of Count Tolstoi . . 302 i< Recreation at Yasnaya Polyana 308 ^ Count Tolstoi Plowing 314 v " Count Tolstoi in 1887 320 -■' Count Tolstoi in His Work-room 332*^ The Tolstoi Family dining in the Open Air. ..... 338 ^ Count Tolstoi in 1892 344* Count and Countess Tolstoi in 1895 35^ Facsimile of a Corrected Proof 372^ Tchekof and Count Tolstoi during the Crimean Visit . 380^ Count Tolstoi and William J. Bryan 390 y* A Late Portrait of Count Tolstoi 400 ^ The Beginning of One of the "Evening Stories". . . . 418^ xi THE LIFE OF COUNT LYOF NIKOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOI PART I ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION I THE TOLSTOI FAMILY Beyond the reign of Peter the Great nothing is defi- nitely known of the origin of the Tolstoi family. The name itself signifies "stout." In all countries epithets based on personal characteristics, at first used as nick- names, become accepted and are then handed down as surnames, often dignified with titles of nobility. Whether the epithet "stout" came from a German ancestor called Dick or Dickmann, or was jocosely applied by the Grand- Duke Vasily of Moscow to a descendant of a mythical German named Idris who emigrated to Tchernigof in the middle of the fourteenth century, is a matter of choice between legends. Pyotr Andreyevitch Tolstoi, from whom the subject of this biography derived in the sixth generation, was born in 1645, the year when Alexei' Mikhai'lovitch, the second Tsar of the house of Romanof, came to the throne. In the struggle between Sofya Alekseyevna and her half- brother, the Tsar Peter, this Tolstoi at first supported the regent; but when her guards, the Streltsui, deserted to Peter's side, Tolstoi did likewise and had his reward. It is said that the gigantic Tsar more than once, when drink- ing with him, snatched off his wig jestingly, saying: 2 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " Golovka, golovka — Little head, little head, hadst thou not been so clever thou wouldst long ago have come off those shoulders!" Pyotr Tolstoi was made an officer in the Streltsui, fought in the war against Turkey, and was governor of Azof. He spent two years in Italy and was one of Peter's companions in the famous tour of European shipyards. In the first year of the eighteenth century he was sent as Peter's ambassador to the Sultan Mustapha III. During the strained relations that kept Russia and Turkey on the verge of war, he was frequently ill- treated. Twice he was ignominiously thrust into the dungeon of the Seven Towers — an experience commem- orated in one of the quarterings of the family coat of arms. During the palmy days of Peter's favorite, Prince Alek- sandr Menschikof, Tolstoi served as minister of state and played a shameful part in enticing the young Tsesarevitch Aleksei back to Russia from the Italian castle of Sant' Elmo, where he was in hiding with his Finnish mistress Afrosinia. He was present at the secret trial, torture, and execution of the unhappy prince, and was again rewarded with large estates and promotion to the head of the secret chancellery. Yekaterina granted him the title of graf or count in the new order of nobility. It was but a brief honor, for within two years he incurred the ill-will of the all- powerful Menschikof and was stripped of office, title, and estates and banished for life to the Solovetsky Monastery, situated on a lonely island in the White Sea, where he died at the age of eighty-four. He left a diary of his sojourn in Italy, a detailed account of the Black Sea, and a trans- lation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses." His son Ivan Petro- vitch was president of the court, but shared in his down- fall and banishment. The title was restored to his grandson, Tolstoi's great- grandfather. Since it was inherited impartially by all descendants, as is the custom in European countries ex- THE TOLSTOI FAMILY 3 cept England, it has had many representatives. One was Count Feodor Petrovitch Tolstoi', a well-known artist and vice-president of the Imperial Academy of Arts, while his nephew Count Aleksei* Konstantinovitch Tolstoi (1818-1875) was a famous poet and novelist, whose dra- matic trilogy depicting the epoch of Ivan the Terrible and his successor Boris Godunof has been produced on the Russian stage with barbaric splendor. Another was Count Pyotr Aleksandrovitch (1761-1844), who served with distinction under Suvorof and became the governor of a Department; still another was Count Dmitry Andre- yevitch (1823-1889), who was Procurator of the Holy Synod, Minister of Education ; and Minister of the Interior, and a strong reactionary in all his views and measures. He wrote a book entitled " Romanism in Russia." Tolstoi's paternal grandfather, Count Ilya Andreye- vitch, married Princess Pelageya Nikolayevna Gortcha- kova. She was an heiress, but their united fortunes were not sufficient to keep up the extravagant style in which they lived — fetes, theatricals, musicales, balls, banquets, and excursions; and the count's easy-going generosities, his speculations and habit of gambling for high stakes were his ruin. He got himself appointed Governor of Kazan, that half-barbaric city near the Volga, four hun- dred and sixty miles east of Moscow. He won the repu- tation of not accepting bribes, though his w r ife was not above slyly taking gifts. Certain of his characteristics seem to have made him the prototype of Count Ilya Andreyevitch Rostof in "War and Peace." His only son, Nikolai (1 797-1829), when seventeen, at the time of the French invasion, entered the army and was appointed adjutant to his mother's cousin, Prince Andrei Gortchakof. In 18 14 he was sent with dispatches to Petersburg, and on his way back to rejoin the army in Germany was taken prisoner by the French and carried to Paris, where, until the Russian army appeared in 181 5, he lived in comparative comfort thanks to a supply of gold 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI which his orderly had managed to keep secreted in his boots. He attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel and at the end of the war went back to Kazan. His father, still governor, died in 1820; and in order to recoup the fallen fortunes of his family and provide for his aged mother, who was accustomed to a life of luxury, he married the plain but rich Princess Mariya Volkonskaya. This arrange- ment seems to be paralleled in " War and Peace," where young Nikolai* Ilyitch renounces his beloved cousin Sofiya and marries the elderly but enormously wealthy Princess Mariya Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya. She was the only daughter of Prince Nikolai Volkonsky, of a family that harked back to Rurik the Varyag, founder of the Russian Empire. Prince Nikolai had been com- mander-in-chief of the army, but when he scornfully refused to marry the all-powerful Potyomkin's niece and mistress, Varvara Engelhardt, he lost favor and position. That lady married Prince Sergyei' Galitsuin, and Tolstoi relates how the whirligig of time brought it about that one of her ten sons was betrothed from childhood to the Princess Mariya but died prematurely. Prince Nikolai's wife was the Princess Yekaterina Trubetskaya. He lived in proud isolation on his estate of Yasnaya Polyana, that is to say Plainfield. Tolstoi says of this grandfather, whom he never knew: "He was con- sidered a very strict master, but I never heard it asserted that he was cruel or that he inflicted the severe punish- ments usual at his time. Such instances may have been known on his estates, but the muzhiks and servants whom I often questioned concerning him cherished the highest re- spect for his dignity and ability; and while I have heard my father blamed, I never heard anything but praise for my grandfather's cleverness, business capacity, and care for the welfare of the muzhiks and of his immense house- hold." An extant portrait of him shows a smooth-shaven face, Pyotr Andreyevitch Tolstoi, the First Count Tolstoi. THE TOLSTOI FAMILY 5 with long, aquiline nose, firm, prominent chin, large, sensi- tive mouth, and curling hair falling below the ears. Tol- stoi's brother-in-law in his " Recollections " discovers in the portrait decided resemblances to his famous grandson : "the same high, open forehead, the same prominent organs of the creative faculty and of musical talent, and the same deep-set gray eyes that seem to be gazing into the far distance and from under their thick, overhanging eyebrows literally pierce the soul of the man on whom they are turned. " Prince Nikolai' died in 1820, the same year as Count Uya Tolstoi, and two years later his orphaned daughter was married to Count Nikolai Tolstoi, bringing to him as her dower the Yasnaya Polyana estate. Tolstoi, in his " Recollections/ ' pays tribute to his mother, who died when he was only eighteen months old. He says that all that he had learned about her was beautiful. " My mother," he says, " was not a handsome woman, but she was well-educated for her day. Besides Russian, which she wrote correctly, though that was then unusual, she knew four languages, French, German, English, and Italian. She must have had a considerable talent for the arts. She played the piano very well, and friends of hers have told me that she had a remarkable gift for improvis- ing delightful stories. " This gift of story-telling was accompanied by such shy- ness that when at a dance she was importuned by her friends to amuse them in that way, she would only do so in a dark room where she could not be seen. Tolstoi also remarks his mother's self-control in spite of a naturally hot temper. He says that her maid told him that when she was offended she would flush but never speak a hasty word. She was entirely indif- ferent to the opinions of other people, and this Tclstoi explains by the fact that she herself never uttered any severe criticisms on others. This characteristic was made evident to her son in letters which he had read and in the 6 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI recollections of her family and friends. He valued it highly and illustrated it by an anecdote which he found in Dmitry Rostovsky's " Lives of the Saints," in which an old monk who had many faults was seen by one of his breth- ren in a vision holding a place of honor among the saints on the ground that he never spoke ill of any one. "If there were such rewards/' said Tolstoi, "I believe that my mother and my brother would have received them. " Her married life lasted only about nine years and was calm and devoted to domestic affairs. Her home in the country was remote from neighbors, and only occasionally did acquaintances or relatives come to visit her. She taught one of her husband's sisters Italian and she liked to "do music." She spent her evenings reading aloud to her mother-in-law dull, old-fashioned romances or such serious books as Rousseau's " Emile. " Her husband had a large library of French classics, historical works, and books on natural history. He was away more or less, and when he was at home she did not see a great deal of him, as she intimates in one of her letters to him. It was a typical manage de convenance, where the two parties loved and respected each other. Her husband knew that she still cherished her youthful romantic attachment for her youthful lover. She was also passionately fond of a young French woman, Mile. Enissienne, who afterwards married her cousin, Prince Mikhail Volkonsky. Count Nikolai Tolstoi, on the other hand, had loved an orphaned relative, Tatyana Aleks£ndrovna Yargolskaya, who, like Sonya in "War and Peace," had been brought up by his parents. She was a beautiful and vivacious young woman, but renounced her love in order that her lover might restore his fortune by a wealthier marriage. After the death of his wife Count Nikolai desired to marry her. "Not wishing to spoil her pure poetic relations with his family," she refused his offer but consented to look after his motherless children. Tolstoi remembered her among all those who surrounded his infancy as "the most impor- THE TOLSTOI FAMILY 7 tant, a rather short, stout, dark-haired, kind, gentle, and sympathetic woman," who first taught him that "life was not a game but a serious matter. " After his marriage Tolstoi's father, relieved of pecuni- ary anxieties, and having paid off all his father's debt, found his chief occupation in managing his great estate and in litigation connected with his father's affairs. Tolstoi says he was not very expert in this business. He was diligent but lacked firmness. After his death his son for the first time learned that he sometimes had his serfs flogged or otherwise severely punished. He held aloof from service during the reactionary regime that preceded the death of Alexander I. and was intensified in the reign of his successor, Nicholas I. He had no relations with gov- ernment officials but held his head high, "never humbling himself before any one or varying from his lively, gay, and often bantering tone." Five children were born at Yasnaya Polyana. The oldest, Nikolai, whom Tolstoi' calls "a remarkable boy and later a remarkable man," seems to have inherited his admirable qualities in large measure from his mother. Tolstoi' says: "He lacked the chief fault required for authorship, he was not ambitious; he was entirely in- different to what men thought of him. The literary quali- ties that he possessed were first of all a delicate artistic sense, a highly developed sense of proportion, a merry and good-natured humor, an exuberant and inexhaustible imagination, a just and highly moral conception of life; and all this without a shadow of conceit. "His imagination was so vivid that he could for hours at a time relate ghost- stories a la Mrs. Radcliffeor amusing tales, and so convincingly that those who listened to him forgot that it was wholly invention. " The next youngest was Sergyei. He was handsome and proud, truthful and perfectly free from self-conscious- ness. He was always singing and drawing pictures; he 8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI was full of gayety, and had the power of inspiring love and admiration. Then came Dmitry, a strange and eccentric character, who lived a tragic life and died a tragic death, depicted with terrible realism in one of the most striking passages of " Anna Karenina. " II EARLY RECOLLECTIONS Ly6f (or Leo) Nikolayevitch, the youngest son, was born September 9 (August 28, O.S.), 1828. Fifteen months later a sister, Marya, was born, and then the mother died. She had longed for a daughter, and once when a nun from the Tula Convent, Marya Gerasimovna, who had made pilgrimages to various "Holy Places" dressed as a man, came there in one of her wanderings, the countess promised her that if by her prayers she would aid her to obtain her desire the child should be her god-daughter. The nun in her capacity of godmother became a frequent inmate of the Tolstoi home. The daughter herself afterwards became a nun, and Count Tolstoi in the last days of his life, a voluntarily homeless wanderer, came ill and foot- weary to the convent where she dwelt and asked for shelter. There was also in the household, adopted as a member of the family, a girl named Dunetchka Temeshova, the natural daughter of a wealthy bachelor friend and distant relative of Count Nikolai Ilyitch's, "not brilliant but good and simple-hearted and pure." Tolstoi's father, also, had a natural son who became a groom and in later life used to borrow or beg small sums from his half- brothers. Tolstoi says in his "Reminiscences": "The impres- sions of early childhood are preserved in the memory in some mysterious way, incomprehensible to the human mind; not only are they preserved, but they grow in the unfathomed depths of the soul like seed cast on good ground, and after many years suddenly they thrust their vernal shoots into God's world. " io THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Many of the characters, relatives, visitors, household domestics, and serfs, whom Tolstoi* brings before us in the picture-gallery of his descriptions are interesting as cast- ing a light on the Russian society of his day. Many of them are plainly the originals from whom he elaborated the personages of his stories. Still others have an impor- tance as influencing the development of his own mental and spiritual existence. This last class has the most importance in a biography. His mother died too early for him to remember her. In his semi-autobiographical story of " Childhood," the mother, Natalya Nikolayevna, is only vaguely reminiscent of his own mother. In reality he imagined her as "a creature so elevated, pure, and spiritual that often in the middle period of his life, during his struggle with overwhelming temptations, he used to pray to her soul, begging her to aid him, and he declares that such a prayer always helped him. His father died when he was only nine years old; the father in " Childhood" was represented by a neighboring landholder, A. M. Islenyef. Tolstoi in his " Recollections " says: "I remember him in his study where we used to come to say good-night to him and sometimes merely to play with his children. There he used to sit on a leather divan, with a pipe in his mouth. Sometimes he would caress us; sometimes, to our immense delight, he would let us climb up on the divan behind his back while he kept on reading or talking with the steward standing by the door, or with S. I. Yazuikof, my godfather, who often stayed with us. "I remember how he would sometimes come down- stairs where we were and make drawings which seemed to us the height of perfection, and again how he once made me declaim to him some lines of Pushkin's which had taken my fancy and which I had learned by heart: 'To the Sea' — Proshchai, svobodnaya stikhiya — Tare- well, free element;' and 'To Napoleon': Chudesnui zhreby sovershilsa: Ugds veliki tchelovyek — 'Marvelous EARLY RECOLLECTIONS n destiny has been accomplished: the mighty man has sunk from sight. ' He was evidently impressed by the pathos with which I recited these poems, and when he had heard them to the end he exchanged significant glances with Ydzuikof, who was there. I realized that he found some merit in my recitation and I felt very happy. "I remember his merry jokes and stories at dinner and supper and how my grandmother and aunt and we chil- dren laughed as we listened to him. " I remember also his journeys to town and the wonder- fully fine appearance he had when he put on his frock- coat and tight-fitting trousers. "But I remember him chiefly in connection with hunt- ing — how he used to leave the house for the hunt. After- wards it always seemed to me that Pushkin took his description of the departure for the hunt in ' Count Nulin ' * from my father. "I remember how we used to go for walks with him, how the young greyhounds who followed gamboled through the unmown fields where the high grass tickled their bellies, how they flew round with their tails hanging over, and how we admired them." After describing how they hunted foxes and how they baited a big gray wolf, he continues his recollections of his father: — "My pleasantest remembrance of him is of his sitting with grandmother on the divan, helping her to play patience. My father was polite and gentle with every one, but to my grandmother in particular he was always *"Graf Nulin," a narrative poem of 375 lines, written by Aleksandr Sergey evitch Pushkin. Pushkin, in an autobiographical fragment, tells how he happened towards the end of 1825 to be in the country 7 and amused himself by reading " Lucrece, a rather vapid poem of Shake- speare's." It occurred to him that if Lucrece had given Tarquin a slap instead of stabbing herself, " Tarquin would have been ashamed and would have gone away, Lucrece would not have killed herself, Publicola would not have been driven mad and the world and the his- tory of the world would have been different." This suggested a plot for a poem, and he wrote it in two mornings. 12 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI tenderly submissive. ... I remember once in the midst of the game and while one of my aunts was reading aloud, my father interrupting my aunt, pointing to the looking- glass and whispering something. We all look in the same direction. It is Tikhon the footman, who, knowing that my father is in the drawing-room, is stealing into the cabinet to take some tobacco from a big leather folding tobacco-pouch. My father sees him in the mirror and notices his figure as he steps carefully on tip-toe. My aunts laugh. Grandmother for a long time fails to understand, but when she does, she too smiles with amusement. I am enchanted with my father's generosity, and as I take leave of him I kiss with special tenderness his white, sinewy hand." Neither father nor mother, that is the ideal of that unknown mother, had so great an influence on his life as that faithful friend who took his mother's place. He says in his " Recollections" : "This influence consisted first in the fact that from earliest childhood she taught me the spiritual delight of love. She taught me this, but not in words : by her whole life she filled me with love. I saw, I felt how she enjoyed loving, and I learned to understand the joy of love. This was the first thing. Secondly, she taught me the delights of a calm, lonely life. " He devotes considerable space to the description of her characteristics — her kindness to the servants whom nevertheless she always treated as their superior, her habit of keeping dried figs, gingerbread and dates and other sweets in little dishes in her room, her skill in music and her unaffected piety. Tolstoi frequently reverts to the powerful influence exerted on him by his brother Nikolai. This brother had heard about the Freemasons and their secret rites and ceremonies and he had read about the Moravian brethren; confusing the word Moravian with the Russian word muravei which means ant, he invented a secret recipe for happiness: " There would be no diseases, no < < o Oh < GO o X o H GO O EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 13 troubles; no one would be angry with any person; all would love one another, all would become 'ant-breth- ren/ " He goes on: — "We even organized a game of ant-brethren. This consisted in our sitting down under chairs, sheltering ourselves with boxes, screening ourselves with handker- chiefs, and thus, crouching in the dark, cuddling together. I remember experiencing a special feeling of love and pathos and liking this game very much. The ant- brotherhood was revealed to us, but the chief secret — the way by which all men might cease suffering misfortune, might leave off quarreling and losing their temper and become endlessly happy — that secret he told us he had written on a green stick and buried it by the roadside on the edge of a ravine. . . . Near this stick there was the Fanfaronof Hill — the hill of the Boasters — up which he said he could take us, if only we would fulfill all the condi- tions appointed. These were: — first, to stand in a corner and not think of the white bear. I remember how I used to stand in a corner and try — but could not possibly manage — not to think of the white bear. "The second condition was to walk undeviatingly along a crack between the boards of the floor. The third was that for a whole year we should not see a hare, alive or dead or cooked, and it was obligatory on us to swear not to reveal these secrets to any one. He who should fulfill these conditions and others still more difficult which he, Niko- lenka, would communicate later, would have one wish fulfilled, whatever it might be. We had to tell our desires. Seryozha wanted to be able to model horses and poultry out of wax. Mitenka wanted to be able to draw all kinds of things on a large scale like an artist. I could not think of anything except to be able to draw small pictures. All this, as happens with children, was speedily forgotten, and none of us climbed the Fanfaronof Hill, but I remember the air of importance with which Nikolenka initiated us into these mysteries and the respect and awe which we i 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI felt at the wonderful revelations. I have kept an especi- ally strong impression of the Ant-brotherhood and the mysterious green stick destined to make all men happy. . . . "The ideal of ant-brothers lovingly cuddling together, though not under two arm-chairs curtained by handker- chiefs, but of all mankind under the wide dome of heaven, has remained the same for me. As I then believed that there existed a small green stick whereon was written the message that might destroy all the evil in men and give them universal welfare, so do I now believe that such truth exists and will be revealed to men and give them all it promises. " When Count Tolstoi was fifty years old he published some of his recollections, and one which he declared was the first and strongest impression of his life may perhaps be regarded as symbolical rather than an actual memory. He says that he remembered being tightly swaddled in bands so that he could not stretch out his arms. " Strug- gling in my father's hands, striving against my swaddling bands," — like the infant in Blake's poem. That was the custom of treating Russian infants at that time. "I only know there are two persons there. My cries affect them; they are agitated by my screams but will not unloose me as I want them to do, and I scream still louder. To them it seems necessary that I should be bound, but I know it is needless and wish to prove it to them and again I break forth in cries which are disagree- able to myself but still beyond my control. I feel the injustice and cruelty — not of people, for they pity me, but of fate and I pity myself. . . . What remains in my memory is not my cries or my suffering but the complexity and contradictoriness of the impressions. I desired free- dom; it would interfere with no one else, but I, needing strength, was weak, while they were strong. " He remarks how strange it was that he had no recollec- tion of Nature before the age of five. " All that I remem- EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 15 ber happened in bed or in our rooms. Neither grass nor leaves nor sky nor sun existed for me. It cannot be that no one ever gave me flowers and leaves to play with, that I never saw any grass, that I was never shaded from the sun; but up to the time when I was five or six years old, I have no recollection of what is called Nature. Probably to see it one has to be separate from it, and I was Nature. " He tells also about the Russian bugaboo called Yere- meyevna with which his nurse or his aunt used to pretend to threaten the boys if they did not stop whispering after they had gone to bed; he recalls the German tutor Feodor Ivanuitch Rossel, who is introduced as Karl Ivanuitch Mauer in "Childhood," and who by his "honest, straight- forward and loving nature" had a beneficent influence on him; and he describes the various games and masquerades which took place during the holiday seasons when the family and the guests and the servants disguised them- selves and contributed to the fun. He found some good even in the pilgrims and half- crazy "saints" that wandered over Russia and sought shelter at the great estates. Such was Grisha in "Child- hood," an invented character yet representative of a class. "We had many of these half-crazy saints at our house," he says, "and I was taught to treat them with deep respect; and for this I am truly grateful to those who brought me up. If there were some among them who were insincere or who experienced periods of weakness and insincerity, yet the aim of their lives, however absurd they were in practice, was so lofty that I am glad that I learned when I was a child unconsciously to comprehend the loftiness of their achievements. They accomplished what Marcus Aurelius speaks of when he says, ( There is nothing higher than to endure contempt for a good life. ' So harmful and spontaneous is the desire for human glory, which always contaminates good deeds, that one cannot help sympathizing with the efforts not merely to avoid praise but even to evoke contempt." 16 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI "Much water has flowed away since then," he con- tinues, "many recollections of the past have lost for me their meaning and become blurred fancies; the pilgrim Grisha himself long ago finished his last pilgrimage; but the impression he produced and the feeling aroused in me will never fade from my memory. " Far from the great busy world, the village of Yasnaya Polyana was a little community in itself, and childhood days spent there were the soil from which sprang the strangely contradictory characteristics of Tolstoi's whole life. Ill CHILDHOOD AT YASNAYA His early home, where indeed he spent the larger part of his life, lies about seventeen kilometers south of the provincial city of Tula and about three kilometers from the nearest railway station on the line between Moscow and Kursk. The extensive domain w r as surrounded by a brick wall and defended at the main entrance by two small round brick towers crumbling into ruin, but in the days of Tolstoi's grandfather, Prince Volkonsky, guarded by two armed sentries, as befitted his military rank. The "Prospekt, " a birch avenue, leads up to the house. The original manor-house with columns and balconies and many rooms was built of wood and was finished by Tol- stoi's father. It was flanked by two wings, which are still standing and used by the family. The mansion was regretfully sold by Tolstoi for the small sum of five thousand paper rubles at a time when he was pressed for money. It was removed to the neighboring estate of Dolgoye, where it stands neglected, its window-shutters nailed up. The place occupied by the house was planted with trees and includes a croquet-ground and the small terrace so famous as the open-air dining-place so fre- quently described by visitors to Yasnaya Polyana. Near the residence are flower beds and a large garden with fruit trees set out by Tolstoi himself, with four ponds and a number of lime-tree avenues. A small river flows through the estate. In the vicinity lies the large crown forest known as "Zasyeka, " so called because at the time of the Tartar invasion it was used as an "abattis" against the enemy. i7 1 8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Here Tolstoi' spent his childhood, that " splendid, innocent, joyous, poetic period" which he always recalled with delight. He was a peculiar boy — erratic, abnor- mally sensitive, always introspective, impulsive and stren- uous. The fifteenth chapter of "Childhood" begins with these words: — "Happy, happy, irrevocable period of childhood! How can one help loving and cherishing its memories?. They refresh and elevate the soul and serve as a source of the highest enjoyment." And after describing his sym- pathy for his tutor, Karl Ivanuitch, the only unhappy man he had then known, he continues: — "Will that freshness, that joyous freedom from care, that necessity for love and the strength of faith ever come back ? Can any time be better than that when the two greatest virtues, innocent gayety and unlimited need of love, are the only requirements of life ?" While his father was still alive, Tolstoi took his first lessons in riding. In his little story, "How I learned to Ride Horseback," he relates how, although the riding- master was certain that he was too small to begin and although he tumbled off almost immediately, yet with characteristic persistency he begged to be put back on the saddle and soon became an expert rider. Con- nected with this time was his first lesson in kindness to animals, as he relates in his little story of the de- crepit old horse Voronok, which he had tried to whip into a gallop. When his attention was drawn to its heaving sides, "I felt so sorry for Raven," he says, "that I began to kiss his sweaty neck and beg his par- don for having beaten him. " It must have been about this time that he conceived the notion that he could fly by sitting down on his heels, clasping his knees with his arms and then letting go. The tighter he held himself the higher he thought he should fly. There is no record of any untoward experiment in this aviation, but a few years later, < < < - u > < CHILDHOOD AT YASNAYA 19 wishing to do something extraordinary so as to surprise the family, instead of coming down to dinner the usual way he jumped out of the second-story window and was picked up unconscious, though with no bones broken and with no serious consequences. In the autumn of 1836 the Tolstois went to Moscow for the education of the older children. Lyof was put under the tuition of a French tutor, Prosper St. Thomas, who once locked him up in a room and threatened to flog him for some trifling misdemeanor quite undeserving of so severe a punishment. Long afterwards he declared that the dreadful feeling of anger, indignation and disgust that seized upon him not only toward St. Thomas himself but toward the punishment which was threatened him was the probable cause of the horror and repulsion toward every kind of violence which he felt all his life. This French tutor saw in the boy germs of future greatness. He used to say, " That youngster has brains, he is a little Moliere. " In the summer of 1836 Tolstoi's father went to Tula to conduct some business and to visit a friend. He dropped dead of apoplexy in the street; there were even sus- picions that he had been poisoned; he was found with his pockets rifled, but somewhat later a pilgrim brought back to Moscow certain unnegotiable bonds that he had with him and delivered them to the family. His body was taken to Yasnaya Polyana for burial. He dropped so suddenly out of Tolstoi's life that the boy could not believe that he was dead and for a long time used to scan the faces of strangers in the Moscow streets, convinced that he might see him. Probably this fancy was strengthened by the grief of his grandmother, who, as he relates, " or- dered the door into the next room to be opened, declaring that she saw her son there and talked with him." In nine months she also died — "of a broken heart and grief. " The excitement of the funeral preparations and the mourning jackets "of black material bound with white braid" seem to have reconciled the children to their grand- 2o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI mother's death, and Tolstoi recalls how interesting it was at the funeral to hear some gossiping female guests remark that they were completely orphaned. Their property was left for them in trust and for a time they were in straitened circumstances. During this time they were invited to a Christmas tree at the house of their kinsmen, the Shipofs, and were made keenly con- scious of their comparative insignificance when they re- ceived cheap wooden toys, whereas their cousins, the young Princes Gortchakof, nephews of the Minister of War, were presented with expensive ones. This outraged his sense of justice; by such small things are the founda- tions of character laid. The three younger children returned to Yasnaya Pol- yana under the care of their father's devoted friend, whom they called Aunt Tatyana. Their legal guardian, the Countess Aleksandra Osten-Saken, remained in Moscow with the two older boys. This aunt " Aline" seems to have been spiritually some- what akin to the thoughtful boy. She had made a bril- liant marriage, but her husband went insane and in jealous rage shot and almost killed her. As a consequence her child was still-born and in order not to avoid this fresh shock the child of a court cook was substituted and brought up as hers. Tolstoi well remembered Pashenka, who in time was informed that she was not his aunt's daughter. Aunt Tatyana was a devotee, and Tolstoi ab- sorbed many of her ideas and incorporated them in his system of theology. Her favorite occupation was reading the lives of saints and conversing with the pilgrims, monks and nuns that came to visit her, many of them staying at the house. Tolstoi says she lived a truly Christian life, avoiding all luxury and acceptance of service but rather serving others, " discharging all the functions which ac- cording to the prevailing custom should have been done by servants," and giving away all the money that she had. He says: "The religious feeling which filled her soul CHILDHOOD AT YASNAYA 21 was evidently so important to her, so much higher than anything else, that she could not be angry or annoyed at anything, and could not attribute to worldly matters the importance others attached to them." For a few years the family spent their summers at the estate and their winters in Moscow. In 1840 the crops were so poor that in order to buy grain and feed their serfs, they sold a property that had come to them by inheritance. The horses were put on short rations and deprived of oats. The children, not intending to do wrong, raided the oat- fields of the neighboring peasants so as to bring a few quarts of grain to their favorite horses. The following autumn the Countess Osten-Saken died and still greater changes ensued. Tolstoi in his novel "Childhood" depicts a shy, rather morbid and self-conscious boy in an environment which must have been somewhat like his own. He tells how this boy early began to indulge in philosophic specula- tions, arguing that the incongruity between a person's position and his moral activity was the surest sign of the truth. He came to the conclusion that happiness did not depend on external circumstances but on our relations toward others, consequently that a person accustomed to bear suffering could not be unhappy. In order to culti- vate endurance he tells how this boy — and it was prob- ably himself — would hold out at arm's length a heavy dictionary for five minutes at a time, or would go into the lumber-room and practise flagellation on his bare back until the pain would make the tears come. Another characteristic anecdote shows him as a young Epicurean, deciding that one cannot be happy otherwise than by enjoying the present and letting the future take care of itself. " Under the influence of this thought," says the hero of " Childhood," "I abandoned my lessons for two or three days and did nothing but lie on my bed and enjoy myself reading a novel and eating honey cakes which I bought with my last money. " 22 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI At another time he became a skeptic to such a degree that he was almost insane. This was probably due to a discovery made by a grammar school boy of about his own age that there was no God and that all that had been taught about Him was a mere invention. In " My Con- fession," Tolstoi says: "This was in 1838. I remem- ber how interested my elder brothers were in this news. They called me into their council and we all became ex- cited and accepted this as something very interesting and quite possible. " These philosophical and religious speculations, not un- common to thoughtful young boys, were accompanied by an almost morbid self-consciousness. He says : — "The philosophical discoveries I made greatly flattered my vanity: I often imagined myself a great man, expound- ing new truths for the benefit of mankind, and I looked on other mortals with a proud consciousness of my own dignity; yet strange to say when I came in contact with any of these mortals I grew timid before them. The higher I stood in my own opinion, the less was I able to show any consciousness of my own dignity before others, or to avoid being ashamed of every word or movement of my own, even the simplest. " If one is to regard certain passages in "Childhood" as autobiographical, he also became extremely sensitive about his personal appearance. This story tells how Nikdlenka Irtenyef realized that he was extremely plain, so that moments of despair came over him when he imagined that there could be no happiness on earth for a man with such a broad nose, such thick lips and such small gray eyes as he had; and he often prayed God to change him into a handsome boy. He felt so deeply about this that he would have gladly exchanged all his other advantages, present and to come, for a handsome face. Tolstoi* himself made vain efforts to improve his looks : — on one occasion he tried to trim his thick eyebrows and was inconsolable at his lack of success. CHILDHOOD AT YASNAYA 23 Quite in line with this habit of mind was his desire to attract attention to himself. Once, when the family were driving from Moscow to Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoi ran ahead of the troika; when the horses put on full speed, he exerted himself to the utmost and was not overtaken until they had gone two miles. He was lifted into the carriage, gasping for breath and quite exhausted. He would some- times enter a room and placing his heels together, bow backwards, thus saluting each of the company in turn. It can be easily seen that in this as in other of his youth- ful acts and in his youthful speculations, the boy was the father of the man. He himself tells what books had a predominating influence over him. That of the story of Joseph, from the Bible, and certain Russian popular leg- ends, he records as " Powerful"; that of certain stories from the "Arabian Nights" and some of Pushkin's poems, notably "Napoleon," were "Great"; while that of Pogaref- sky's "Black Fowl" was "Very great." As a scholar he was not very diligent. One of his tutors declared that his brother Sergyei' both wished and was able to learn; Dmitry wished but was unable to learn, but Lyof neither wished nor was able; and Tolstoi commented on this as being "Perfectly true." In those days he was captivated by the nine-year-old daughter of his father's friend Islenyef. His brother-in- law relates an amusing story of this attachment: "My mother related to me that in describing his first love in his book 'Childhood' he omitted to say that, being jealous, he pushed the object of his love off the terrace. This was my mother, nine years old, and in consequence she had to limp for a long time afterwards. He did this because she was not talking to him but to some one else. Later on, she used to laugh and say to him: 'Evidently you pushed me off the terrace in my childhood that you might later marry my daughter!' " IV SCHOOL-DAYS IN KAZAN Tolstoi had another aunt, Pelageya Uyinishna Yiish- kova, the wife of a landed proprietor who lived in the city of Kazan, near the Volga River, at the gateway of the East, four hundred and sixty miles from Moscow. Her hus- band, V, I. Yushkof, had once offered himself to Aunt Tatyana but had been refused. Consequently the two ladies were not on friendly terms. After the Countess Osten-Saken's death her sister came from Kazan to Mos- cow and there relieved the disconsolate Tatyana of all care of the Tolstoi orphans. According to the story she par- tially dismantled Yasnaya Polyana, carrying off furniture and everything else that was portable, together with all the servants, carpenters, tailors, locksmiths, chefs, up- holsterers and the other serfs trained to various trades. To each of the four brothers was assigned a serf as a body-servant — "a silly idea" of his aunt's. Tolstoi's afterwards accompanied him — the Vanyushka of "The Cossacks" — to the Caucasus and lived with him until old age. The journey must have been a continual picnic to the lively lads — Lyof was only twelve at the time. They camped in the fields or in the woods; when they came to water they bathed, and they feasted on the mush- rooms that are so dear to the Russian palate. Kazan is one of the most interesting cities of Russia. From its quays ships descend the mighty Volga to the Caspian. It was the mart for caravans bound to or from Bokhara and the other cities of Persia or India. It had river communication with Nizhni Novgorod or Lower Newtown, where the great annual fairs are held, and even with Moscow, the city of the "sorok sorokof " of churches. 24 SCHOOL-DAYS IN KAZAN 25 Its University was founded in 1803. Tolstoi's oldest brother Nikolai" was transferred from the University of Moscow to that of Kazan, and the two other brothers in turn entered the same faculty — that of Philosophy. Lyof studied in the city gymnasium, and as the Arabic and Turko-Turanian languages were taught in that prepara- tory school, he determined to enter the Faculty of Orien- tal languages — a particularly difficult course. When, in his sixteenth year, he presented himself for examination for the University he got the highest possible marks in French, excellent marks in German, Arabic and the Tartar languages, fairly satisfactory marks in Eng- lish, Mathematics, Russian Literature and Logic, but failed completely in Latin and Geography. Tolstoi says that when he was asked by the curator Pushkin, a man favorably disposed, to name the seaports of France, he " could not name a single one. " Consequently he was not admitted to the University; but the following autumn he was granted a second supplementary examination and one can read now in the archives of the University that Tolstoi was admitted "as an extern student in the depart- ment of Turko- Arabic Literature. " During these years, the summers were still spent at Yasnaya Polyana, amid the healthful surroundings of country life. The rest of the year they lived at their aunt's home at Kazan. She was, to use Tolstoi's own words, "a very kind and pious person, pious after the fashion of her time, performing assiduously all the rites of the Church, without being conscious of any special duty toward her fellow-men or any necessity of a change of char- acter on her part." She was superficial and gay, and Tolstoi has left it on record that she thought it a good plan for a young man to form a liaison with a married woman, " as that gave a man a necessary experience. " He appar- ently had abundant opportunity, for he found himself, as a student of the University and a young man of rank, in the midst of all sorts of gayeties, — balls, masquerades, con- 26 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI certs, tableaux-vivants and private theatricals. At the time of the Carnival in the winter of 1845 he and his brother Sergyei' acted in two plays given in behalf of some charity, and his performance was a success. After he had become famous, persons who remembered him as a stu- dent told how he was present at all the balls given by the Governor of Kazan and by the Marshal of the Nobility and other aristocratic parties, how he was everywhere a welcome guest but distinguished by "a strange awkward- ness and timidity. " This was due to self-consciousness, and the self-consciousness arose from his lack of good looks. Frequent mention is made of such remarks in both " Childhood" and "Boyhood." The first chapter of "Youth" is probably quite autobiographical. It re- fers to the time when he entered the University: — "Not only was I convinced that my appearance was plain, but I was unable to solace myself with the usual reflections: I could not say that my face was expressive, intellectual and noble. There was nothing expressive about it; the features were of the coarsest, homeliest and most ordinary description. My small gray eyes were stupid, particularly when I looked into the mirror, rather than intelligent. There was still less of manliness about me. Though I was not so very diminutive in stature and was strong for my age, all my features were soft, flabby and unformed. There was nothing aristocratic about them; on the contrary my face was exactly like a common muzhik's, and I had just such big hands and feet; and all this seemed to me at that time particularly disgraceful. " In the same book he tells how Nikolai Irtenyef feels a sense of gratified vanity at wearing his new University uniform — the coat of glossy black cloth and the brilliant gilt buttons, the sword in his belt and the cockade in his hat, and he tells how he fits himself out with pipe and tobacco and takes his first lesson in smoking, which ends as unhappily as his examination in geography, and how he begins to drink champagne and almost has a duel; how he ? < o SCHOOL-DAYS IN KAZAN 27 is affected by the various young ladies whom he meets and under their influence takes up the study of music more zealously than ever, and he tells how he fails in his examinations and is humiliated in the eyes of those whom he had affected to despise. There are hints at excursions into darker phases of life. Indeed, in "My Confession'' he unsparingly con- demns himself, but probably with that natural exaggera- tion which almost always accompanies public confession and is really a form of conceit — as where the saints call themselves the vilest of sinners. They would resent it if other people called them so. Commenting on these experiences which a fellow- student remarked must have been demoralizing and repel- lent to him, Tolstoi in a manuscript note wrote that he felt no repulsion but was very glad to enjoy himself in Kazan society, which was at that time very good, and he quite resented the statement that Zagoskin was amazed at his moral power displayed in overcoming the temptations that abounded in "the detestable surroundings" of his life. On the contrary he says, "he was thankful to Fate that he had passed his early youth in a place where a young man could be young without involving himself in problems beyond his grasp, and that he lived a life which though idle and luxurious was still not evil. " In spite of all his gayeties he declared that he had not missed a single lecture and knew the history of Russia quite well, and also knew the German language incompar- ably better than any other student in his division. Instead of repeating the first year's course in Oriental languages, he got permission to enter the faculty of Law; but here again the gayeties of life in Kazan interfered with his studies. Only toward the end of the year did he take up serious work and find some pleasure in it. He al- ways recalled being interested in Comparative Jurispru- dence and Criminal Law and in some of the discussion arranged by the German Professor Vogel, particularly on 28 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI capital punishment; and he was greatly absorbed in a comparison between Montesquieu's " Esprit des Lois" and the Veliki Nakdz or Code of the Empress Kath- arine. This study convinced him that Katharine got more fame than Russia good from that compilation. His study on this subject was the indirect cause of his leaving the Uni- versity, for he says it opened out to him a new sphere of independent mental work, whereas the University with its demands, far from aiding such work, only hindered it. He was evidently not very well satisfied with student life. During his second year's course he was put under lock and key for the small offense of being tardy at a recitation, and his fellow-culprit, Nazaryef, recalls how during their imprisonment he attacked history as the dullest and least useful of all subjects. He declared that it was nothing but a collection of fables and useless details, sprinkled with a quantity of unnecessary dates and proper names. Here, again, we seem to hear the very voice of the Tolstoi of later days. At the final examinations of 1846 he had received the highest mark in History, but how ? A fellow-student had challenged him in a test as to which had the better mem- ory and Tolstoi learned by heart the life of Mazeppa. It chanced that he drew that question at the examination and so received a five. Such experiences tend to make men despise examinations and their results. Degrees built on a gamble deceive their recipients least of all. Nazaryef cites Tolstoi as saying: — " We both have the right to expect to leave this ' temple of knowledge' as useful men equipped with information. What shall we carry from the University ? Think a little and let your conscience answer. What shall we take from this temple when we return home to the country ? What shall we be able to do ? To whom shall we be useful ?" The teaching at the Kazan University was undoubtedly dry and pedantic; the lectures by incompetent professors SCHOOL-DAYS IX KAZAN 29 exasperatingly stupid; the examinations notoriously un- fair. The plan was maturing in his mind to quit so barren a field. Years afterwards, when asked why he did not take his degree, he replied: — "I was little interested in the lectures given by our pro- fessors at Kazan. I first worked for a year at Oriental languages but with small success, though I threw myself enthusiastically into what I did. I read innumerable books, but all of one and the same tendency. When any subject interested me, I deviated from it in no respect and I tried to become acquainted with everything that might throw light on it. " Another reason which he gave was the fact that his brother Sergyei had finished his course and was about to go from Kazan. The three brothers w r ere at this time out of their aunt's house and living together in a suite of five rooms which they rented. Judging from Tolstoi's ac- count of his brothers, especially of Dmitry, it must have been an odd menage. Dmitry had a room to himself; it had no ornaments except a case of minerals; he cared nothing for society; he was hot-tempered and careless of dress. The other two consorted only with aristocratic companions and dressed in the height of fashion. They drank and gambled and, according to the early diaries that Tolstoi' kept, he was guilty before his own conscience of other misdemeanors. At this time, associating as he did with those of his own rank in life, he was inclined to look down on others who did not speak French with a correct accent or w T ho failed to have carefully manicured finger- nails. As for the common people, he says they did not exist — he disregarded them entirely. Afterwards he felt that it was a terrible waste of time to have absorbed these false and disastrous ideas. That he succeeded is proved by the statement of Xazaryef, who thought him full of self-importance and conceit. THE BENEVOLENT YOUNG PROPRIETOR In March, 1847, he had an attack of illness, and while at the hospital he had time to think of the significance of reason and came to the conclusion a that it must be in harmony with the world, with the universe, so that by studying its laws one may become independent of the past and of the world. " Soon after this he petitioned the rec- tor of the University to have his name taken off the books. His plea was based on ill-health and family affairs, but this was only an excuse: he wished to be free from a false position. He says : — " I honestly desired to make myself a good and virtuous man; but I was young, I had passions and I stood alone in my search after virtue. Every time I tried to express the longings of my heart for a truly virtuous life, I was met with contempt and derisive laughter, but as soon as I gave way to the lowest of my passions I was praised and encouraged. I found ambition, love of power, love of gain, lechery, pride, anger, vengeance, held in high esteem." In March, 1847, he entered in his diary six rules which he meant to follow. They were designed to stimulate him to carry out self-imposed tasks in spite of all obstacles and to do this well, to compel his mind to work with its utmost power and to rid himself of interruptions by thoughtless friends. The following month, as the time for his departure drew near, he wrote: " A change must take place in my way of life, but this change must be conditioned by the soul and not by external circumstances;" and, recognizing that 3° THE YOUNG PROPRIETOR 31 "life is the conscious aspiration toward the many-sided development of everything in existence, he laid down a broad program for the next two years, which he proposed to spend at Yasnaya Polyana, that estate having in the division of his father's property fallen to his share: — " (1) To study the whole course of law necessary for the final University examination. (2) To study practical medicine and a part of its theory. (3) To study the French, Russian, German, English, Italian, and Latin languages. (4) To study agriculture, both theoretically and practically. (5) To study history, geography, and statistics. (6) To study mathematics, gymnasium course. (7) To write my university essay. (8) To attain the highest possible perfection in music and painting. (9) To write down the rules of conduct. (10) To acquire some knowledge of the natural sciences. And (n) to compose essays on all the subjects I shall study. " Having made up his mind, his characteristic impatience forbade him to wait. His friend Zagoskin describes the scene in the rooms of the Counts Tolstoi as he prepared to take his departure: "All present, in accordance with the custom, drank the traveler's health and wished him every good fortune. They accompanied him to the ferry across the Kazanka River, which was then in freshet, and for the last time the friends exchanged the farewell kisses." . . . Read the beginning of "The Cossacks" and you see the scene reproduced. Another story which naturally grew out of his experi- ences in quitting the University and devoting himself to the care of his estate and the management of his serfs is entitled "A Proprietor's Morning." This is the story of a failure, and it is autobiographical in spirit if not in fact. The young Prince Nekhlyudof writes to his aunt, who of course corresponds to Pelageya Yushkova, just such a letter as Tolstoi might have written : — "I leave the University in order to devote myself to a country life, because I feel that I was born for it. For 32 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI God's sake, dear aunt, do not ridicule me. You say that I am young. Perhaps I am still scarcely more than a boy; but this does not prevent me from feeling certain of my vocation, from wishing to accomplish it successfully and from loving it. ... I found our affairs in indescribable confusion. Wishing to bring order out of chaos, I made an investigation and discovered that the principal trouble was due to the wretched, miserable condition of the peas- ants and that this trouble could be remedied only by work and by patience. ... Is it not my sacred and evi- dent obligation to labor for the welfare of these seven hundred human beings for whom I must be responsible to God?" Tolstoi's aunt, as he himself says, wished him to be- come an adjutant to the Emperor; and if in addition to that he should marry a wealthy woman with an enormous number of serfs, her cup of happiness would be full. Prince Nekhlyudof writes his aunt: "I feel that I am capable of being a good landlord, and in order to be one as I understand the word to mean, I do not need my diploma as £ candidate' or the rank which you expect of me. Dear aunt, do not form ambitious plans about me; accustom yourself to the idea that I am going on an absolutely peculiar path, but one that is good, and which will I think bring me to happiness. " According to the story Nekhlyudof 's aunt, the countess, writes him, predicting his failure and declaring that his " originality is nothing but morbidly developed egotism." Tolstoi soon found that his attempts to ameliorate the condition of the serfs were received with suspicion and mistrust. They preferred the filthy " nests" where they had lived so long and to which they were accustomed. Neatness and improved sanitary arrangements were a nuisance to them. The primitive wooden sokhd, which only scratched the surface of the soil, was preferable to afcfe^ modern iron plow. It was a strange spectacle for tft&i to see the bar in working with them, and they lost THE YOUNG PROPRIETOR 33 respect for him. Neither did he succeed in interesting them in his schools, where he himself, knowing little, tried experiments in teaching. Such is human nature. Civili- zation cannot be inoculated; it does not become second nature in a day. It was a hopeless experiment from the first, and the worldly-minded aunt was able to say, " I told you so." But however great the failure may have been in its practical effects on conditions at Yasnaya Polyana, it enriched his life with many precious memories — of racy conversations, of personal characteristics, of simple rustic comedies and tragedies, which he afterwards embodied in his masterpieces of fiction. Under the influence of Rousseau, all of whose w r orks he read and whose picture he thought of wearing, as if it were a saint's, he began to look upon his serfs as his kins- men. He had a passionate desire to better their condi- tion; but they, accustomed for generations to servility and to squalid lives, naturally looked with suspicion on his condescension and his sanitary improvements. He quickly came up against that passive resistance w T hich is one of the most difficult modes of opposition. He also found his new theories at odds with the temptations of life. At Yasnaya Polyana he found time for much reading, and he grades in his diary the influence which the books he devoured had on his life. Some of Gogol's short stories and Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" were marked "Great." Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," Pushkin's narrative poem "Yevgeny Onyegin," Schiller's "Rob- bers," Rousseau's "Nouvelle Heloise," Turgenief's "Memoirs of a Sportsman" and novels by Druzhinin and Grigorovitch and Lermontof were "Very great"; while Rousseau's "Confession" and "Emile," Dickens's "David Copperfield," and the Gospel of Matthew, es- pecially the Sermon on the Mount, were "Powerful." In his diary he noted his aspirations and his failures in attaining his ideal. 34 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI In 1848, although he had found it very pleasant living in the country with his Aunt Yargolskaya, he was im- pelled by what he called afterwards "a vain thirst for knowledge" to repair to Petersburg. It must have been a sudden resolution, for he says he went to pass his examinations as a candidate at the University there " knowing literally nothing" and having taken only one week for preparation. After sleepless nights he passed his examination in civil and criminal law. But even then he did not know what to do. He realized that two roads were open to him: one was to enter the army and take part in helping crush the Hungarian revolution of that fateful year; the other was to finish his university studies and get a post as a Government official. The curious vacillation of his ideas is plainly shown in his letters to his brother Sergyei'. In the first one he tells him that he has determined to stay at Petersburg forever: if he should not pass his examinations he would begin service even as low as in the fourteenth class. Petersburg life, he said, had a great and good influence on him, ac- customing him to activity: every one about him was busy; it was impossible to find a man idle enough to share in a disorderly life. He had come to the conclusion that one could not live by abstract speculation and philosophy, that it was necessary to be practical. "That," he said, " was a great step forward and a great change, and there was no other place in Russia where it was so good to live and be young." But it did not take him long to be again disillusioned. Instead of Petersburg's being an inexpensive place to live in, without any opportunity to be frivolous, he discovered that it was a very maelstrom of dissipations. He wrote his brother: "God knows what I have been up to! I went to Petersburg without any reason; there I have done nothing useful, only spent a pile of money and got into debt. Stupid! Insufferably stupid! You can't believe how it torments me. Above all, the debts, which THE YOUNG PROPRIETOR 35 I must pay and as quickly as possible, because if I do not soon pay them, I shall, besides the money, lose my reputa- tion too." Then, after asking his brother not to tell on him but to sell the estate of Vorotuinko, his last resource ! he says: "Before I get my next year's income I absolutely require 3,500 rubles: 1,200 for the Guardians' Council, 1,600 to pay my debts, 700 for my current expenses. I know you will groan — but what is to be done? Men commit such stupidity once in a lifetime. I had to pay for my freedom (there was no one to thrash me, that was my chief misfortune) and for philosophy, and so I had to pay for it. Be so kind as to arrange to get me out of the false and odious position in which I now am, without a grosh of money at my disposal and in debt all round. . . . " God grant I may mend my ways and sometime be- come a respectable man; more than all I rely upon the service as a volunteer, it will teach me practical life." These were only the plans of a man conscious of his weaknesses and in despair at the growing debts. A few days later he wrote his brother that his last letter con- tained a lot of nonsense : his notion of entering the Horse Guards was now held up as possible only in case he failed to pass his examinations and the war proved to be suffi- ciently serious. The war certainly did not prove serious to him at least, and he made no further attempt to get a degree from the University. When he returned to his estate that spring he brought with him a German musician by the name of Rudolf and with him learned to like the classic music of Bach, Gluck, and Beethoven. His Aunt Tatyana, who had been an excellent pianist in her youth, again took up the art and played duets with him, often surprising him by the excel- lence of her technique. His pleasure-loving brother Sergyei came, bringing a band of gypsy musicians — dancers, singers, and performers. There was much drinking and gayety — a dangerous element not only for 36 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Tolstoi but also for poor Rudolf, who was inclined to be a drunkard. Tolstoi depicts his character in the masterly short story " Albert, 5 ' written some years later. Meantime what had become of all his good resolutions ? His nature was so impulsive that he was constantly break- ing them and as constantly repenting. Now in his diary he would lay out a definite plan of action. Then he would write, "I am living a completely brutish life, though not an utterly disorderly one. I have abandoned almost all my occupations and have greatly fallen in spirit. " In another entry in his diary he sums up the causes of his failures: — 6 (i) Irresolution, i.e. want of energy. " (2) Self-deception. "(3) Haste. " (4) Fausse-honte. " (5) A bad frame of mind. "(6) Instability. " (7) The habit of imitation. "(8) Fickleness. "(9) Thoughtlessness." He spent some time in Moscow and from there he wrote more cheerful letters to his aunt, who was evidently troubled lest he might fall under evil influences, especially that of Islenyef, the uncle of his future wife. In one he describes his environment : — " My quarters consist of four rooms — a dining-room, where I already have a grand piano which I have hired; a drawing-room furnished with a red-cloth divan, arm- chairs, and walnut tables and decorated with three large mirrors; a library where I have my writing-table, desk, and divan — which always reminds me of our disputes about this last piece of furniture; and still another room big enough to be both bedroom and dressing-room, and besides all this a small anteroom. "I dine at home on shchi and kasha, with which I am THE YOUNG PROPRIETOR 37 quite content. I am only waiting for the preserves and home-made wines (yarenye and nalivka) in order to have everything in accordance with my country habits. "For forty rubles I have bought a sleigh of a style which is now very fashionable — Sergyei must know the kind. I have bought that whole outfit; everything just now is very stylish." He wrote her that she must not worry about Islenyef, who was not in Moscow, and he so far agreed with her on the subject of gambling that he thought he should not play any more. He ended by saying that he felt he deserved her praise for the way he had behaved. "I am satisfied with myself, " he added. He was in Moscow until 1851. One of his objects being, as he confided to his diary, to play cards, to get married, and to secure an official position. Card-playing evidently involved him only the deeper in pecuniary difficulties, and they at that time must have been very troublesome, for he had even thought of trying to earn money by taking the contract to conduct the post- station at Tula. Marriage was an impossibility because the three ele- ments that he felt were necessary — love, reason and fate — were lacking. And he could not secure an official position, because th? red tape which has always been the bane of a bureaucracy required of him various papers which he could not furnish. Still, on the whole, he felt that he was morally less cul- pable than during the three years before — those years which he considered the wildest and most unprofitable of his life. He wrote his aunt: "In comparison with past winters, the last is without doubt the pleasantest and most rational I have passed. I have amused myself, have gone out into society, have laid up pleasant im- pressions, and, at the same time, have not deranged my finances, though, it is true, neither have I settled them. " About this time his brother Nikolai, who had been serv- 38 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI ing as an artillery officer with the army in the Caucasus, came back to Russia. This was an agreeable surprise to him. He wrote his aunt that he was so glad to see him — he had neglected his duties or rather his habits. He told her that he planned to make a visit at Yasnaya Polyana and if possible keep Nikolai with him there for a few months, and then go with him for a tour in the Caucasus. VI A FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS Tolstoi was now twenty-three. He was quite inde- pendent. He had seen the seamy side of high society. Gambling, deep drinking, and loose relations with women were scarcely regarded as disgraceful at that day. The wealthy, supported by serf labor, lived in comparative idleness. There was no career in politics. Officialdom was rife with graft. When Tolstoi's brother Dmitry gave himself up to an ascetic life, he was ridiculed; and when he entered the civil service and asked for a place where he could be useful, it caused nothing but astonishment. Service of the State was regarded by every one as a means of satisfying ambition and procuring means to pay gam- bling debts. That Tolstoi made his way through such moral tangles was due to that spur of conscience which never allowed him to rest. The books that he best liked, the friends and relatives whose characters seemed to him best worthy of emulation, contributed to hold high the ideal, so that it was ever before his eyes, even when he stumbled in pressing forward to attainment. Tolstoi's vain efforts to start a school for his peasants, to induce them to live in sanitary conditions, his struggles with his own vacillations, his winter-periods of wild or- gies followed by spring-repentances, his uncertainty as to what should be his career, made him most restless and unhappy. He was ready for any kind of a change. On one occasion his sister's husband was about starting for Siberia on private business. As he left the house Tolstoi', dressed in his blouse and without any hat, jumped into 39 4 o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the tarantds and was for accompanying him without fur- ther preparation. He was also drawn to literature. He planned a novel of gypsy life, and under the influence of Sterne's " Sentimental Journey" he actually began writ- ing a book which should describe the chance people that fell under his observation: the passing constable — "Who is he and what is his life?" — the man in the carriage — "Where is he going and what is he thinking about?" — the family in yonder house — "What is their inner life?" From all this uncertainty he was rescued for a time at least by the Caucasus. The mountainous regions of the Caucasus, divided into various principalities — Circassia, Mingrelia, Gruzia, — each inhabited by warlike tribes of Mohammedans and formerly governed by rival princes, had come either by conquest or by treaty into the nominal possession of Russia. But the wild Tartar tribes were still hostile under the masterly leadership of the Sufi Mollah Shamyl; and the Russian forces, stationed in pali- saded forts along the left bank of the Terek River, con- tented themselves for many years with making raids against the native auls, destroying their pastures, driving away their cattle, capturing their inhabitants and in turn defending themselves from surprises and reprisals. This guerilla warfare was still in vogue in the early fifties. Tolstoi put his estate into the hands of his brother-in- law, who agreed to pay his debts, including one of four thousand rubles to a neighbor with whom he had stayed too long at the card table. He was to have an allowance of five hundred rubles a year, and he contracted not to gamble any more. On the second of May he left Yasnaya Polyana. In the " Stories of My Dogs" he says that he had a black bulldog of truculent appearance but of really gentle dis- position. He had reared him from a puppy. " When I went to the Caucasus, I did not care to take him with me and I went away quietly, giving orders to keep him chained up. At the first post-station, when I was about to Count L. N. Tolstoi. From a daguerreotype, 1851. A FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS 41 start with a fresh team, suddenly I saw something black and bright dashing along the road. • It was Bulka in his brass collar. He was flying with all his might toward the station. He leaped on me, licked my hand, and then stretched himself out in the shadow of the telyega. . . . I learned afterward that when he discovered that I had gone, he broke his chain, jumped out of the window and dashed over the road on my trail and had thus run twenty versts in the heat of the day." Tolstoi, moved by such devotion, took him to the Caucasus, where after many exciting adventures with pheasants, wolves, bears, and wild boars, he at last went mad from the bite of a wolf and went off by himself to die. Tolstoi spent two days in Moscow. In one of his many letters to his Aunt Tatyana he tells of taking part in a festivity at the gay suburb of Sokolniki, and therefore he did not meet one of the ladies whom he wanted to see; nor was he tempted by the gypsy women: "I came out victorious," he wrote, " having given nothing but my bene- diction to the lively descendants of the famous Pharaohs. " In the same letter, speaking of his brother, he says : — " Nicolas finds me a very agreeable traveling-compan- ion except for my cleanliness. He is vexed because, as he says, I change my linen a dozen times a day. I on my part should consider him a very agreeable companion if it were not for his lack of cleanliness. I know not which of us is right. " A few weeks later, at Kazan, where they made their relatives a week's visit, Tolstoi again manifested the same over-regard for externals. He and his brother were walk- ing about town when a man drove by, leaning his ungloved hands on a stick. Tolstoi made some derogatory remark which by its snobbishness caused Nikolai to look at him "with his hardly noticeable, kind, clever, and mocking smile," and ask why a man should be despised for not wearing gloves. The mountains of the Caucasus asked him similar questions. 42 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI At the Institute of Kazan, Tolstoi met a former pupil and promptly fell in love with her, but he was not sure of himself and it soon became only a pleasant memory. At the country estate of the Yushkof family he and a young lawyer, the procurator Ogolfn, made a wager as to which should climb the highest in a grove of young birch trees. Tolstoi was much amused at Yushkof s surprise to see an official engaged in such a frivolous amusement. It was to him a new type. Nikolai, who liked to show his independence, proceeded to the Caucasus by an unusual route. They went by tarantds to Saratof on the Volga; then they hired a boat large enough to take their equipage on board and with a crew of three men they rowed, floated and sailed down the river to Astrakhan — "a poetical and charming trip" of more than a fortnight. Count Nikolai Tolstoi's battery was stationed at the Cossack stanitsa of Starogladovsk, and they were obliged to travel about four hundred versts by post-carriage from Astrakhan. Tolstoi was at first disappointed in the beauty of the Caucasus and in the society into which he was thrown. This is seen in the letter which he wrote to his aunt soon after his arrival at Stary Yurt. It is full of characteristic touches: — "I have arrived alive and well but now (at Starogla- dovsk) am feeling rather sad. I have here seen at close quarters the kind of life Nikolai leads, and I have made the acquaintance of the officers who form the society. The kind of life led here (as it has at first presented itself to me) is not very attractive, for the country, which I had expected to find very fine, is not at all so. As the stanitsa is situated on low land there is no fine view, and besides the lodgings are bad, as well as everything that constitutes the comfort of life. The officers are, as you can imagine, men without education, but at the same time are very good fellows and very much attached to Nikolai. " Alekseyef, the commander, is a little chap, with light A FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS 43 hair approaching red, with mustaches and whiskers, and a piercing voice, but an excellent Christian, somewhat reminding one of Volkof, but not canting like him. Then D , a young officer, childish and good-natured, re- minding one of Petrusha. Then an old captain, Bilkov- sky, of the Ural Cossacks, an old soldier, simple but noble, brave and good. I will confess to you that at first many things in this society shocked me, but I have become accustomed to it, without, however, becoming intimate with the gentlemen. I have found a happy medium in which there is neither pride nor familiarity. In this, however, I had merely to follow Nikolai's example." Within a week after their arrival Nikolai was ordered to the hot springs, Goryatchev6dsk, where there were fine views, and Tolstoi followed him. What effect the first sight of the mountains had upon him is reflected in a beautiful passage from his novel "The Cossacks": — "About evening," says the story, "the Nagyets driver pointed with his w T hip toward what he said were the mountains. Olyenin eagerly tried to strain his sight, but it was hazy and the clouds half concealed the mountains. It seemed to Olyenin that there was something gray, white and curly, but in spite of all his efforts he could find nothing beautiful in the view of the mountains of which he had read and heard so much. He thought that the mountains and the clouds looked exactly alike and that the peculiar beauty of the snow-capped mountains, whereof he had been told, was a fiction like the music of Bach and love for women in which he did not believe, and he ceased to have any expectations about the moun- tains. " B ut the next day early in the morning he was awakened by the coolness in his post-carriage and glanced out indif- ferently. The morning was extraordinarily clear. Sud- denly he saw twenty steps distant from him, as it seemed to him at first, the pure white mountain masses with then- tender outlines and the fantastic, clear-cut aerial line of 44 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI their peaks against the distant sky. And when he realized the great distance between him and the moun- tains and the sky, all the majesty of the mountains, and when he began to realize all the endlessness of that beauty, he was terrified lest it were an illusion, a dream. He shook himself so as to awake. But the mountains were still the same. "'What is that? Tell me what that is,' he said to his driver. " ' Oh, it's the mountains, ' replied the Nagyets indiffer- ently. " ' And I too have been looking at them this long time, ' said Vanyushka the groom — 'aren't they splendid ? They won't believe me at home!' "As the troika flew swiftly along over the level road, the mountains seemed to run along the horizon, their rosy summits shining in the rising sun. The mountains aroused in Olyenin's mind first a sentiment of wonder, then of delight; but afterward, as he gazed at this chain of snow-capped mountains, not piled upon other dark mountains but growing and rising straight out of the steppe, little by little he began to fathom all their beauty and he felt the mountains. From that moment all that he had seen, all that he had thought, all that he had felt, assumed for him the new, sternly majestic character of the mountains. All his recollections of Moscow, his shame and his repentance, all his trivial dreams about the Caucasus, disappeared and never returned again. "'This is the beginning,' seemed to be whispered into his ear by some solemn voice. And the road and the out- line of the distant Terek now beginning to appear and the forts and the people — all seemed to him no longer insig- nificant. He looks at the sky and remembers the moun- tains. He looks at himself, at Vanyushka, and again — the mountains. Here come two Cossacks on horseback, their sheathed muskets balanced behind their backs and their horses galloping along with their brown and gray A FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS 45 legs; but the mountains! . . . Beyond the Terek he sees smoke rising from a native village; but the moun- tains! . . . The sun rises and gleams along the Terek lined with reeds; but the mountains! . . . From the fort comes a native cart; handsome women, young women ride in it, but the mountains! . . . Abreks gallop across the steppe and I am coming, I fear them not, I have arms and strength and youth; but the mountains !'" . . . The purification of spirit did not come to Tolstoi im- mediately any more than it did to Olyenin. He was still to fall into the old temptations, but the leaven of righteous- ness was working, as can be seen by passages from his diary. Thus he wrote on the twenty-third of June: — " Last night I hardly slept at all. After writing in my diary, I began to pray to God. It is impossible to convey the sweetness of the feeling which I experienced during prayer. I repeated the prayers I generally say: 'Our Father', 'to the Virgin/ 'to the Trinity/ 'the gates of mercy/ 'the appeal to the guardian angel/ and then I still remained in prayer. If one defines prayer as a petition or as thanks- giving, then I did not pray. I longed for something sub- lime and good, but what I cannot express, although I was clearly conscious that I desired it. I wished to be- come one with the Universal Being. I asked Him to pardon my sins; yet no, I did not ask that, for I felt that by giving me this blissful moment. He had pardoned me/' And so it goes like the monologue of a St. Jerome. His diary reflects the changing moods of his nature. A few days later, his mood was one of depression : — "I am at present meditating, recalling all the unpleas- ant episodes of my life, for in moments of depression they come into one's mind to the exclusion of everything else. . . . No, there is too little of joy to let us love life; man is so capable of picturing happiness and then, too often, Fate in one way or another strikes him, cruelly, most cruelly, clutching at his heart-strings. So there is some- thing fine and noble in manifesting indifference to life; 46 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI I delight in this feeling. How strong I feel myself in facing all that may happen ! How firm is my conviction that nothing but death is to be expected here. Yet the next moment I was thinking with pleasure about a saddle which I have ordered and on which I shall ride dressed in a Tcherkess cloak and about the way I shall carry on with the Cossack girls; and then I fall into despair because my left mustache is higher than my right and I waste two hours trying to arrange them. " About the same time he wrote his aunt still another long letter, in French as usual, for she was a woman of the old school who knew the polite language better than her native tongue. In this he describes his surroundings at the springs, where the " water was so hot that Nikolai's dog which fell in was scalded to death. " He says: — "We have been here for nearly three weeks and are living in a tent. But as the weather is fine and I take to this kind of life, I find myself very comfortable. There are magnificent views here, beginning from the place where the springs are situated. It is an enormous moun- tain of stones piled one on another. Some of them have fallen off and make something like grottoes; others remain hanging at a great height. They are all cut by torrents of hot water, falling noisily in some places and, especially in the morning, covering all the upper part of the moun- tain with a white mist which continually rises from this boiling water. It is so hot that eggs boil hard in it in three minutes. "In the midst of this ravine, over the principal stream, are three mills, one above the other, built in a quite peculiar and very picturesque manner. All day long the Tartar women come without cessation to wash their clothes both above and below the mills. I must tell you that they wash with their feet. It is like an ever busy ant-hill. The women are generally handsome and well-formed. The costumes of the Oriental women in spite of their pov- erty are beautiful. The picturesque groups made by A FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS 47 these women framed into the wild beauty of the place make a truly admirable landscape. I often spend hours admiring this scenery. Then the view from the top of the mountain is still more lovely, though in a quite different way. But I fear I am boring you with my descriptions. "I am very well satisfied to be at the springs, because I am benefiting from them. I am taking chalybeate baths and no longer suffer pain in my legs. I have always been subject to rheumatism, but during our journey down the river I suspect I took more cold. I have rarely been so well as I am now, and in spite of the high temperature I move about a good deal. " These sulphur springs were situated in the Cossack district of Stary Yurt, in which, according to Tolstoi's account, there were about fifteen hundred inhabitants. The visitors, attracted by the superior qualities of the waters, had to be protected against attack by the Tchetchens who lurked in the fastnesses of the mountains. VII A COSSACK VOLUNTEER The new energy which he felt he expended in making expeditions with the troops. One time in company with a Cossack friend Yepishka — the Yeroshka of the " Cos- sacks' ' — he made the perilous journey to the Yurt of Hossaf far up in the mountains. In August, as a volun- teer, he risked his life in various expeditions against the Tchetchens. On his return to Starogladovsk he was pre- sented to General Prince Baryatinsky, the Commander- in-Chief of the Russian forces, who, having noticed his gallantry, advised him to enter the army. His great uncle Count Ilya Tolstoi invited him to join his com- pany. In consequence of this advice Tolstoi made his decision and sent in his petition to be allowed to pass the examinations. About the middle of October, after an arduous seven days' journey through beautiful scenery, he arrived with his brother at Tifiis, and remained there to prepare for the ordeal. From there he wrote his aunt telling her about that half-Europeanized city which aped Petersburg and had a Russian theater and an Italian opera. He lived at Sakashan village in the German quarter, in "a very pretty place surrounded by gardens and vineyards." He paid five rubles a month for two " tolerably clean rooms" and in addition got practice in German. After telling her that he had books, occupation and leisure and that though no one came to disturb him, he was not dull, he added at the end of his letter a para- graph which in the light of his later development is most significant. He said: — " Do you recall, dear aunt, a piece of advice whicn you 48 A COSSACK VOLUNTEER 49 once gave me — that I should write novels? Well, I am following your advice and the occupation which I just mentioned consists in producing literature. I know not whether what I am writing will ever appear, but the work amuses me and I have already persevered in it too long to abandon it." He did not tell her what it was, but we shall soon see that it was " Childhood," the first part of an autobio- graphical romance. Early in January, 1852, he wrote his brother Sergyei, giving amusing details of his life in Tifiis. He told him of his. approaching nomination as a volunteer private in the Fourth Battery and promised him that on that very day he would gladly exchange his fashionable overcoat and opera hat for the gray uniform and proceed immediately to the front and "according to his powers, contribute with the aid of cannon, to the slaughter of the wild rebellious Asiatics." He told him of his hunting expeditions: "Sport here," he said, "is splendid; open fields, marshy ground, full of hares, and clusters, not of trees, but of rushes, in which foxes find cover. I have been out hunt- ing nine times in all, about ten or fifteen versts from the stanitsa, with two dogs, of which one is excellent and the other a good-for-nothing. I got two foxes and sixty hares." In these hunting expeditions his bulldog Bulka and his setter Milton took active part, both of them, as he tells us, having narrow^ escapes from frenzied animals at bay. His letter goes on to tell of his acquaintances, for he recognized that that was Sergyei' s weakness, though it did not in the least interest himself. He kept on good terms with the few officers residing in Tifiis and the chance acquaintances he had made with the officers of other regiments by having vodka, wine and zakuska to regale them with w T hen they came to see him. He described Lieutenant- Colonel Alekseyef, Commander of the Fourth Battery, as a very kind but a very vain man, and he con- 50 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI fessed and repented that he took advantage of that weak- ness on the ground that he needed him. Among his chief acquaintances at Tiflis was Prince Baryatinsky, who as he said naturally did not afford him much recreation, the relations of a generalissimo with a volunteer-private precluding deep intimacy. Another was an apothecary's assistant, a Pole reduced to the ranks. "I am sure," he wrote, " Prince Baryatinsky never im- agined that he could be placed in any kind of a list next to an apothecary's assistant, but so it has happened." As a bit of interesting news from the frontier he informs his brother that the most important person among the Tchetchens, next to the Shamyl, the leader and organizer of the tribal rebellion against the Russians, Hadji-Murat, the first jigit and hero of the region, had given himself up and that " the brave and skillful general Slyeptsdf had been killed. If you want to know whether it hurt him," he added, "I cannot tell you." On the eighteenth of January he wrote his Aunt Taty- ana a long letter in French. It is remarkable as showing the tenderness of his heart and the confession of his weakness. It also contains his own version of one of the most remarkable episodes of his life. He told her how her last letter had made him weep, not because of the weakness which had resulted from a long illness, but the tears that he shed when thinking of her and of her unself- ish love were so sweet that he could let them flow without any false shame. He reproached her for desiring " to join those that were no more. " " When you say that you are asking God to put an end to your life which seems to you so lonely and unendur- able — pardon me, dear aunt, but it seems to me that you offend God and me and all of us who love you so dearly. You ask God for death, in other words, for the greatest misfortune that could happen to me. (This is not a mere phrase, but God is my witness that the two greatest misfortunes that could happen to me w r ould A COSSACK VOLUNTEER 51 be your death or' Nikolai's — the two persons whom I love more than myself.) What would be left for me if God should grant your prayer? For whose pleasure should I then wish to become better, to have good quali- ties, to have a high reputation in the world? When I make plans of happiness for myself, the idea that you would share and enjoy my happiness is always present in my mind. When I do any good deed, I am satisfied with myself because I know that you will be satisfied with me. When I behave badly, what I most fear is grieving you. Your love is everything to me and yet you ask God to separate us! I cannot tell you how I feel toward you; words are incapable of expressing it and I am afraid you will think that I am exaggerating; and yet I am weeping hot tears as I write to you. I am indebted to this painful separation for making me realize what a friend I have in you and how much I love you. " Tolstoi, who in his " Confession" tells us that from the age of fifteen he had consciously rejected the beliefs taught him in childhood, had ceased to go to church and almost gone so far in his skepticism as to deny that there was a God, registers in this same letter to his aunt " an event which would have made him believe in God, even if he had not for some time past firmly believed in Him." This is the story that he tells : — "Last summer at Stary Yurt all the officers who were there did nothing but gamble, and the stakes were high. As it is impossible when living in camp not to meet fre- quently I was very often present when the games were played, but in spite of all they said to persuade me, I stood firm for a month. But one fine day, just for fun I put down a small stake. I lost, staked again, again I lost I had a net of bad luck. The passion for play reawoke in me and in two days I lost all the money I had and what Nikolai had given me — about two hundred and fifty rubles — and besides that five hundred rubles, for which I gave a note-of-hand, payable in January, 1853. 52 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " You must know that there is near the camp an aul inhabited by Tchetchens. Sado, a young fellow (a Tche- tchen),used to come to the camp and play, but as he could not reckon or set his figures down, there were blackguards who cheated him. On this account I never cared to play against Sado and I even told him that he ought not to take part because he was being tricked, and I offered to play for him as his agent. He was very grateful to me for this and made me a present of a purse. As it is the national custom to exchange gifts, I gave him a wretched gun which I had bought for eight rubles. You must know that in order to become a kunak, which means friend, it is customary to exchange gifts and then to eat in the kunak* s house. After that, according to the ancient custom of these peoples (which scarcely exists except by tradition), you become friends for life and death: that is to say, if I should ask him for all his money or his wife or his weapons or the most precious things he possesses, he would be obliged to give them to me and I on my part could not refuse him anything. "Sado made me promise to come to his house and be- come his 'kunak. 9 I went. After having regaled me in their fashion, he proposed that I should choose anything in his house that I might wish — his arms, his horse, any- thing. ... I wanted to choose what was of the least value, and I took a horse's bridle with silver mountings, but he said that I was offending him and obliged me to take a sword worth at least a hundred rubles. His father is rather rich, but keeps his money buried and does not give his son a sou. The son, in order to have money, goes and steals horses and cows from the enemy; sometimes he risks his life twenty times over in order to steal something not worth ten rubles, but it is not done through greed, but because it is the thing. The greatest robber is highly esteemed and called jigit-, 'a brave. ' Sometimes Sado has a thousand rubles, sometimes not a sou. After one visit to him I made him a present of Nikolai's silver watch, A COSSACK VOLUNTEER 53 and we became the best friends in the world. Several times he has proved his devotion by exposing himself to danger for me; but that is nothing to him — it has become a habit and a pleasure. "When I left Stary Yurt and Nikolai remained there, Sado used to go to him every day, saying he did not know what to do without me and that he felt terribly dull. I wrote to Nikolai that as my horse was sick, I begged him to find one for me at Stary Yurt. When Sado learned this he made haste to come to me and to give me his horse, in spite of all I did to refuse it. "After my folly in gambling at Stary Yurt I did not touch cards again, and I was always lecturing Sado, who had a passion for gambling and, although he does not know how to play, always has wonderfully good luck. Last evening I was engaged in considering my money affairs and my debts. I was thinking how I could pay them. After long deliberation over these things, I saw that, if I do not spend too much, all my debts will not embarrass me but may be paid off little by little in the course of two or three years; but the 500 rubles I had to pay this month filled me with despair. It was impossible for me to pay them, and at that moment they embarrassed me much more than did previously the four thousand to Ogoryof. The stupidity, after having contracted those debts in Russia and of coming here only to contract new ones, threw me into despair. "In the evening while saying my prayers, I begged God and very fervently to extricate me from this disagree- able situation. 'But how can I get out of this scrape?' I asked myself as I went to bed. 'Nothing can happen to make it possible for me to settle that debt ! ' I was already picturing to myself all the annoyances I should have to undergo on account of it; how the creditor would present the note for collection, how the authorities would demand an explanation as to why I did not pay, and all the rest of it. 'Lord help me ! ' I exclaimed and fell asleep. 54 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " The next day I received a letter from Nikolai, together with one from you and several others. He wrote me : — ■ "'The other day Sado came to see me. He won your notes from Knorring and brought them to me. He was so glad that he won them and kept asking me so often, "What do you think? Will your brother be glad that I have done this?" that I have become very fond of him. This man is really attached to you. ■ "Is it not astonishing to see one's petitions granted like this on the very next day? i.e. there is nothing so astonishing as the divine goodness to one who deserves it so little as I do. And is not Sado's trait of devotion admirable? He knows that I have a brother Sergyei who is fond of horses and as I have promised to take him to Russia when I go back, he tells me that if it should cost him his life a hundred times he will steal the best horse there is in the mountains and take it to him. "Please procure at Tula a six-barreled revolver and a music-box, if that does not cost too much. These are things that will give him much pleasure. " It is perhaps difficult for any one brought up in Puritan traditions, where religion is such an intimate, timid mani- festation of the soul that expression of it before others is given only with a sense of self-consciousness and almost shame, to understand its universal openness in Catholic countries. Religion with the Greek and Roman Catholic is a very vital and everyday matter. It certainly was with Tolstoi. Thus a few days later, while delayed at the post-station of Mozdok on his way back to Starogladovsk, he wrote to his aunt still another letter, which gives an extraordinarily interesting idea of his religious convictions and of the life-ideal that he was formulating at the time: — "I find myself greatly changed morally, and this has been the case so very often. However, I believe such is every one's fate. The longer one lives the more one changes: you who have had experience tell me, is not A COSSACK VOLUNTEER 55 this true ? I think that the defects and the good quali- ties — the background of one's character — will always remain the same, but the way of regarding life and happiness must change with age. A year ago I thought I should find happiness in pleasure, in movement; now, on the contrary, rest, both physical and moral, is the state I desire. I imagine that the state of rest without worry, and with the quiet enjoyment of love and friendship, is the acme of happiness for me! But one feels the charm of rest only after fatigue, and of the enjoyment of love only after being without it. Here I have been deprived for some time of both; this is why I long for them so keenly. " Then, after telling her his dream of an ideal life, he ends by saying : — "If I were to be made Emperor of Russia, if Peru were given me, in a word, if a fairy should come with her wand and ask me what I want — my hand on my heart, I should reply that my only desire is that this dream may become a reality, [' VIII STIRRINGS OF A NEW SPIRIT In February, after his return to Starogladovsk, he took part in an expedition against the Tchetchens. He was now a non-commissioned officer in the Artillery and his gallantry was noticed. With his usual carelessness in providing himself with his birth-certificate and other papers, he missed the decoration which he coveted. He wrote his aunt : — " During this expedition I twice had the chance of being recommended for the cross of St. George, and I was pre- vented from receiving it because that cursed paper was a few days late. I was c presented' for the eighteenth of February (my Saint's day), but they had to withdraw it because that document was lacking. The list of recom- mendations was sent off on the nineteenth; the document arrived on the twentieth. I frankly confess to you that of all military honors that little cross is the only one that I have had the vanity of desiring for myself. " In this respect his ambition was not gratified, though three times the opportunity came to him. In the one case, he renounced the honor in favor of a deserving veteran who, as his colonel assured him, would by reason of it receive a life-pension. The third time he lost it through his own fault. The award had been made in his favor, but when the Commander of his Division noticed one night that he was absent from duty he placed him under arrest. His dereliction from duty was due to his zeal in playing chess. So absorbed was he in his game late at night that he omitted to go to his post. That game of chess cost him his cross. The name of the 56 STIRRINGS OF A NEW SPIRIT 57 brigade commander who reported his absence was Levin. If any one desires to know the kind of military duty in which Tolstoi' was engaged at this time, it will be found depicted in several of his tales: "The Invaders," "The Wood-cutting Expedition," "An Old Acquaintance," and "The Cossacks." While not absent on some dangerous skirmish with the natives, he w r as living for the most part at Starogladovsk. The inhabitants of this village were descendants of the Russian sect of the Starovyer or Old Believers who had settled in the Caucasus in order to escape persecution. Many of them had intermarried with the Mohammedan Tchetchens and, while they had adopted some of the customs of the natives, held themselves superior to them. If "The Cossacks" may be taken as founded on Tol- stoi's own vital experiences, we may suppose that he fell in love with one of the Cossack maidens. They were re- nowned for their beauty, for their fine figures, and for the freedom permitted them in their relations with men. He represents his hero, Olyenin, as deeply impressed by the Cossack maiden Maryanka. He admired her as he "admired the beauty of the mountains and of the sky, for she was as beautiful as they." He struggled against the influence that she exerted over him. He asked him- self: "Is it possible for me to love a woman who will never comprehend the spiritual interests of my life? Can I love a woman for her beauty alone, can I love a statue of a woman ? " He imagined her pure, inaccessible and majestic. He could see that she saw under his pretended indifference the storm of passions and desires in his heart. Yet she treated him with calm, proud indifference. He could not bring himself to make her his wife; his soul revolted at the thought of taking her as his mistress. Yet he was actually tempted to enroll himself as a Cossack, steal herds of horses, get drunk — for drunkenness as he ex- 58 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI plains was with the Cossacks almost a religious rite — and having shown his recklessness by killing some of the Tchetchens in desperate conflict come back and climb through the window to spend the night with her, after the native fashion. But everlastingly arose the question, "Who am I and why am I?" If he could rid himself of the perpetual self analysis, then, he says, "We might understand each other and I might be happy. " A prey to these contrary moods, he is restless and wretched. One day he is out hunting in the woods. He lies down to rest in the bed of an old stag and myriads of gnats settle down upon him. He endures their stings, with perhaps the same feeling of penance with which in his story "Boyhood" he held Tatishchef's lexicon for five minutes in his outstretched hand or went into his garret and whipped himself on the bare back with a rope till the tears came. The pain of the gnats becomes almost agreeable: "It even seemed to him that if that atmosphere of gnats, surrounding him on all sides, that paste of gnats that rolled up under his hand when he wiped his sweaty face, and that itching' over his whole body, were not there, the forest would have lost for him its wild character and its charm." He communes with himself: "Around me flying among the leaves which seem to them immense islands, the gnats are dancing in the air and buzzing — one, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million gnats; and all these for some reason or other are buzzing around me and each one of them is just as much a separate entity, apart from all the others, as I am!" And having reached the conclusion that instead of being a rich Moscow nobleman, a man of family and connec- tions, he is in reality of no more consequence than a gnat or a pheasant, or a stag, he throws himself down on his knees and begs God to let him live to do some great deed : for "happiness," he declares, " consists in living for others. STIRRINGS OF A NEW SPIRIT 59 That is clear. The demand for happiness is inborn in man; consequently it is legitimate. If we seek to gratify it selfishly by seeking wealth, fame, comfort, love, circum- stances may render the gratification of these desires im- possible. Therefore, then, they are illegitimate, but the demand for happiness itself is not illegitimate. Now what desire can always be satisfied in spite of outward conditions? Love, self-sacrifice!" Olyenin was so glad and so excited at discovering this new truth, as it seemed to him, that he jumped up and began impatiently seeking for some one for whom he might immediately sacrifice himself — to whom he might do good and whom he could love. "Yes, for myself I need nothing," he kept repeating in his mind. "Then why not live for others?" But he sought in vain for the opportunity to sacrifice himself. "He was restrained from becoming a Cossack by the dim consciousness that he could not live the wild, reckless life of Lukashka and Uncle Yeroshka because of his newly found ideal of happiness." The self-consciousness stimulated by Tolstoi's reading of Rousseau and constantly urging him to confession either to his diary or to his aunt made him dissatisfied, and the ideal of happiness forever lured him on. His whole life was a search for it. The need of expression was also growing ever more pressing. He had not the tactful and gracious ways of his brother Nikolai. He was undoubtedly opinionated and testy. At all events his brother officers left him severely alone, just as was the case of Olyenin: "The officers regarded him as an aris- tocrat and therefore in their intercourse with him treated him with distant respect. Gambling and carousals with singers, in which he had found amusement, when he was serving with the detachment, no longer attracted him and he avoided the officers' society." What he thus depicted in his hero in the novel he elab- 6o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI orates in a letter written to his aunt, in which he says re- garding himself : — " Since my journey and stay at Tiflis my way of life has not changed; I endeavor to make as few acquaintances as possible, and to avoid intimacy with those whose acquaint- ance I have made. People have become accustomed to my manner; they no longer bother me, and I am sure they say he is a 'strange' or a ' proud ' man. "Not from pride do I behave thus; it has come of itself. There is too great a difference between the education, the sentiments, and the point of view of those whom I meet here and my own for me to find any pleasure in their society. Nikolai has the talent (notwithstanding the enormous difference there is between him and them) to amuse himself with all these gentlemen, and be liked by all. I envy him his talent, but feel I cannot do the same. "It is true that this kind of life is not adapted for amuse- ment, and for a very long time I have not thought about pleasures. I long to be quiet and contented. Some time ago I began to appreciate historical reading (this used to be a point of contention between us, but I am at present entirely of your opinion); my literary occupations also advance in their small way, although I do not as yet con- template publishing anything. Three times I have writ- ten over a work I began a very long time ago, and I intend to rewrite it once more in order to be satisfied with it. Perhaps the task will be like Penelope's but that does not deter me; I write not from ambition, but because I enjoy it; I find pleasure and profit in working, and I work. "Although I am far from amusing myself, as I have told you, I am also very far from being dull, as I have found something to do; besides this, I enjoy a pleasure sweeter and more elevated than any that society could have given me— that of feeling at rest in my conscience; of knowing myself, of understanding myself better than I did formerly and of feeling good and generous sentiments stirring within me. STIRRINGS OF A NEW SPIRIT 61 " There was a time when I was vain of my intelligence, of my position in this world, and of my name, but now I know and feel that if there is anything good in me, and if I have to thank Providence for it, it is a kind heart, sensi- tive and capable of love, which it has pleased God to give me and to keep for me. "To this alone I owe the brightest moments I have, and the fact that, notwithstanding the absence of pleasures and society, I am not only at my ease but often happy. " In his diary of this period he thus characterizes the three principal passions which were likely to be his beset- ting temptations : — "i. The passion of gambling is one of covetousness which gradually develops into a craving for strong excite- ment. One can struggle against this passion. " 2. Sensuality is a physical need, a demand of the body, and is excited by the imagination. It increases with ab- stinence and consequently the struggle against it is very difficult. The best way to overcome it is by work and occupation. "3. Vanity is the passion that is least harmful to others and most harmful to oneself." The work and occupation which he had laid out for himself beyond the exigencies of his military service he hints at in the letter above cited. In May he was again troubled with his old enemy, rheumatism, and he ob- tained leave of absence and went to the sulphur springs of Besh-tau or Five Mountains. Pyatigorsk is the Russian translation of the Tartar name. The chalybeate waters, " steaming as from a samovar," flow down into the river Podkiimok. The views are of surpassing grandeur. From every view-point can be seen in fair weather the great giant Elbruz, 18,450 feet in height and covered with perpetual snow. A score of other peaks, each higher than Mont Blanc, "white as sugar," stretch away toward that region known as Pa- Mir, the Top of the World. 62 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI In a letter to Count Sergye'i he depicts with unusual gayety the kaleidoscopic life of this watering-place: — " Society," he says, " consists of pomyeshchiki — the technical term for all visitors to the place — who scorn the local civilization, and of officers, who regard the local pleasures as the height of bliss. " Along with me arrived from headquarters an officer of our battery. You should have seen his delight and excitement as we entered the town. He had already told me a great deal about the distractions of watering-places — ■ how all the people walk up and down the boulevards while the band plays and then, so he declared, all go to the restaurant and there make acquaintances among the great families. Theaters, clubs, weddings every year, duels and the like — in a word it is quite like Paris. "The moment we dismounted from our tarantds my worthy officer put on blue trousers with terribly tight straps, boots with enormous spurs, and his epaulets, and having thus adorned himself he went for a promenade along the boulevard while the band played, then to the restaurant, the theater and the club. But as far as I can make out, now after a whole month, instead of scraping acquaintance with any of the great families or winning a bride with a dowry of a thousand souls, he has only learned, to know three shabby officers who at cards filched the last kopeck out of his pockets, and only one private house, in which, moreover, two families live in one room and tea is served with lumps of sugar to put into your mouth. "This officer also spent during this month about twenty rubles on porter and sweets, and he bought a bronze mirror to adorn his toilet-table. "Now he is walking about in an old jacket without epaulets, is drinking sulphur water as hard as he can, and seems to be taking a serious cure; but he is amazed be- cause although he promenaded every day along the boule- vard, was assiduous in his attendance at the restaurant STIRRINGS OF A NEW SPIRIT 63 and did not grudge his money for the theater or for gloves and cabs, he could not become acquainted with the aristoc- racy — here at every little Post there is an aristocracy — while the aristocracy, as if to spite him, arranges excur- sions and picnics and he is not admitted anywhere. " Almost all the officers who came here suffer a like fate; but they make believe that they come merely for treatment : so they limp about on crutches, wear slings and bandages, get drunk and tell wild yarns about the Tcherkess. But when they are back at headquarters again they will boast how they were acquainted at the great houses and amused themselves immensely; and so every season they go to the watering-places in throngs to have a good time ! " During the months spent at Besh-tau his sister Marya and her husband came to take the cure for rheumatism. He did not confide to them that he was engaged in writing a novel, but they knew that he was interested in spiritual- ism. Such was his zeal in experimenting with its sup- posed manifestations that he borrowed a table from a res- taurant and held a seance on the boulevard. Half a century later he wrote an English friend: "I cannot help saying that I am sorry for the importance that you attach to spiritualism. Your true and pure Christian faith and life are much more reliable than all that the spirits can say to you. " IX FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT Having hammered his first story into shape by .multi- plied copyings and emendations, Tolstoi signed the manu- script with only his initials L. N. T. and despatched it early in July to the leading Russian monthly, Sovremennik, the editor of which was Nikolai Alekseyevitch Nekrasof, the poet. A month later he returned to his military duties at Starogladovsk, where, as he wrote his aunt, he spent the time rather disagreeably, owing to the drilling which the general considered necessary for an approaching re- view of the troops. He said : — " Marching and discharging various kinds of guns are not very pleasant, especially as the exercise interferes with the routine of my life. " Fortunately it did not last long and I have again resumed my usual manner of living, which consists in hunting, writing, reading, and talking with Nikolai. I have taken to sport, and as I have turned out to be a fairly good shot this occupation takes up two or three hours a day. In Russia no one has an idea how much and what excel- lent game is to be found here. A hundred paces from where I live I find pheasants, and in half an hour I bag two, three,, or four. Besides the pleasure, the exercise is good for my health, which, in spite of the waters, is not in first-rate condition. I am not ill, but I very often suffer from colds, at one time from a bad throat, at another from toothache, which I still have; at times from rheumatism, so that at least for two days a week I keep my room. "Do not think I am concealing anything from you; I am, as I have always been, of a strong constitution, but of 64 FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT 65 weak health. I intend passing next summer again at the waters. Even if I am not cured by them, I am sure they have done me good — ' there is no evil without good.' When I am indisposed, I can work, with less fear of being distracted, at another novel which I have begun. " In "The Cossacks" and in his stories for children he gives fascinating details of hunting the steppe grouse. Nekrasof, writing to the author of " Childhood," mentioned as "the incontestable merits" of the story its simplicity and lifelike character. That must have pleased Tolstoi, for on his arrival at Starogladovsk, about the middle of August, he had written in his diary that "simplicity was the virtue he above all others yearned to acquire." Ne- krasof expressed himself as much pleased with the author's novel and predicted that if the continuation should dis- play "more vivacity and movement, " as he had no doubt it would, a very good novel would result. He ended by urging the unknown writer to "appear with his full name, unless he were only a casual visitor in the domain of literature." Still a month later, about the middle of September, Nekrasof, having read the story in proof, came to the con- clusion that it was much better than it appeared to him at first. Tolstoi, who had confided to his diary that the arrival of the editor's first letter signifying his acceptance of the story made him "mad with joy," now notes that he received praise but no money. Nekrasof, however, in still a third letter, explained that it was the custom of all best periodicals not to pay any- thing for an author's first work. This initiation had affected Gontcharof, Druzhinin, and other well-known writers, including Nekrasof himself. But since the story had been so well received by the public, he covenanted to pay the very highest rates for his subsequent w T ork. That was fifty rubles for a sheet, equivalent to about two dol- lars a printed page. He added that since his novel had been so successful they would be very glad to get his 66 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI second instalment. Again he insisted that the author should give him exact information regarding its author- ship; that was one of the requirements of the censorship. Tolstoi, then as afterwards, had good reason to com- plain of that foul harpy of literature. He wrote his brother that " Childhood" was spoiled by what was stricken out or changed. If we could have Tolstoi's works as they were originally written, we should undoubtedly have to make a considerable change in our estimate of their artistic value. If Russian literature could have devel- oped unhampered by the apprehension of repression and mutilation, its flowering would undoubtedly have been quite different. As there are compensations for all misfor- tunes, the Russian poets and novelists have been largely cut off from didacticism: the lessons they have taught have been by means of concrete examples without comment, and as the spirit of a nation cannot be wholly crushed even by the dead weight of a bigoted and purblind board of critics bound to see dangerous heresies in every new idea, Russian authors learned to throw dust in the eyes of stupidity. Just as there are violet rays invisible to the ordinary vision, so there are ways of expression which pass the eyes of the censor, carrying with them the lesson which if plainly exposed would be regarded as dangerous. The Countess Marya Tolstaya, after her return to her estate, read "The History of My Childhood" — as the first instalment of! the novel was called — in a copy of the September Sovremennik brought by Turgenief, whose estate of Spasskoye was near by. She recognized a good many of the events related in it and at first thought that it must be from the pen of her brother Nikolai. But the initials were those of the younger brother. Panayef, one of the founders of the Sovremennik, was so captivated by the story that he used to read it aloud to every person he could find to listen to him. Turgenief declared that his friends, seeing him coming along the Nevsky Prospekt, FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT 67 would hide for fear he should begin citing passages from the new novel which he had learned by heart. The critic Zyelinsky called " Childhood" an immense chain of poetical and naive conceptions. The author's ability to put himself into the child's mind and to depict the various characters in such a lifelike manner, although never departing from the standpoint of the boy whose recollections are thus transcribed. . . . The great novel- ist, Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky, read a copy of the magazine in his Dead House of exile, in far-away Siberia, and was deeply impressed with the story told by L. N. T. and wrote a friend begging him to discover the writer's identity. In October, 1852, while still at Starogladovsk, Tolstoi laid out the plan for a novel the hero of which should be a Russian landed-proprietor, seeking for the realization of his ideal of happiness and of justice in the country, but failing to find it even in family life is convinced that happi- ness consists in constant work with the happiness of others as its object. The short sketch, " A Pomyeshchik's Morn- ing," for which he drew on his recollections of his altruis- tic farming at Yasnaya Polyana, was the outcome of this. Early in January, 1853, he finished his story "Nabyeg" — The Raid (or, as translated, "The Invaders") — and sent it to the Sovremennik. The same month he was engaged in active service against the Tcherkess leader, the great Shamyl, the clever Sufi mollah who for a generation had been waging a holy war against the giaours. Yanzhiil's " History of the Twentieth Artillery Brigade " tells how during three days five guns of Battery No. 4 discharged six hundred volleys and at one of them served Count L. N. Tolstoi, afterward known as the author of various immortal works, and how on the last day of Jan- uary he was despatched with a howitzer to the fort and village of Gerzel. In an engagement early in February, as he was sighting a cannon a grenade fired by the Tcher- 68 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI kes smashed the carriage and burst at his feet, but without even wounding him. In spite of his reckless bravery and his excellent record in the ranks he failed of promotion. This was not due to the unfriendliness of his superior officer, as has been sug- gested, but rather to his habitual carelessness regarding his papers. The truth of the matter was he detested all such formalities. After a year's service he was informed that he must serve three years longer. This was too much for his impatient nature. He complained to his Aunt Yushkova, and through the influence that she brought to bear on officials of high rank that difficulty was smoothed away. But he had got his fill of army life, and in May, 1853, he wrote his brother Sergyei' a hurried letter in which after bitterly complaining that the censor- ship had deleted or mutilated all that was good in his stories, he informed him that he had handed in his resignation and expected in about six weeks to go "as a free man" to Besh-tau and from there to Russia. But here again the papers which were a perpetual tabu in his career were missing and he was to have still further experiences in dangerous warfare. Toward the latter part of June he had another narrow escape from being captured or killed by the enemy. Ow- ing to the danger of travel, all stores or baggage as well as non-combatants in transit from one stanitsa to another were escorted by strong convoys of cavalry. On one such occasion Tolstoi with his kunak Sado and four Russian officers disobeyed orders and rode ahead of the slowly marching infantry train. Tolstoi' and Sado took to the ridge that skirted the steppe. Tolstoi was mounted on a fiery young horse belonging to his friend. Sado rode Tolstoi's staid and heavy pacer. From the crest the two suddenly caught sight of a party of Tchetchens dashing along from the Khan-Kalsky forest intent on cutting off the other three officers on the lower road. Tolstoi shouted a warning which was not at first heeded. The result was FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT 69 that Baron Rosen, turning his horse, managed to escape to the column and give the alarm. Shcherbatchof was not so fortunate. The Tartars overtook him, wounded him, and captured his horse, but he reached the rescuing party on foot. The third officer, Pavel Poltoratsky, trying to force his way through the enemy's ranks, had his raven black horse killed under him and was slashed by several of the Tchetchens and left to bleed to death under the weight of his horse. He was rescued just in time to save his life. Meantime Tolstoi and his friend were pursued by a party of seven Tartars, who tried to capture them alive. Sado, who had his gun, though it was unloaded, kept the enemy off by aiming it at them. They were fortunately seen by a sentinel at the fort several miles away and a detachment was hastily sent out to their rescue. This frightened off the Tchetchens. In Tolstoi's " Prisoner of the Caucasus" two officers are not so fortunate. They are captured and after trying experiences in the Tartar aul one of them manages to escape through the aid of the little Tartar maiden, Dina. In this fascinating tale, Tolstoi' relates many interesting details of life among the Tartars, X SPIRITUAL GROWTH During all this time Tolstoi kept up constant com- munion with his own soul, often expressing his thoughts in his diary: — " Conscience is our best and surest guide, but where are the marks distinguishing this voice from other voices ? . . . The voice of vanity speaks no less powerfully. For instance, an unrevenged offense. " Be straightforward; not harsh, but frank with all men; yet not childishly, needlessly frank. "He whose object is his own happiness is bad; he who aims to get the good opinion of others is bad too, he is weak; he whose object is the happiness of others is virtuous; he whose object is God is great. "Refrain from wine and women. The pleasure is so small and uncertain — the remorse so great. " Justice is the least measure of virtue to which every one is bound. Anything higher than justice shows an aspiration to perfection, anything lower is [no better than] vice. "Devote yourself wholly to what you do. On experi- encing any strong sensation — wait; but, having once considered the matter, act decisively even though you be wrong. "The future occupies us more than the present. This is a good thing if we think of a future in another world. To live in the present, i.e. to act in the best way in the present — that is wisdom. " Life in the Caucasus was beginning to pall on the young count. The hunting expeditions with his Cossack friend, the monotony of the service, only occasionally varied by 70 SPIRITUAL GROWTH 71 forays, the lack of congenial society, his uncertain health, his aspirations toward he hardly knew what, combined to make him restless and discontented. Toward the end of July, 1853, he made another three months' visit to Besh- tau, where he wrote his brother that the prospective war with Turkey, rumors of which were running through the army, very much disturbed him. He had grown so ac- customed to the happy thought of settling down once more at Yasnaya Polyana that it seemed to him intoler- able to return to Starogladovsk and wait there an eternity for his resignation to be accepted. Return he did to his post, and there again he complains bitterly because for more than a year he had been vainly trying to sheathe his sword. As army life seemed to be his destiny, he had applied to his kinsman Prince S. D. Gortchakof to be transferred to Turkey. In a letter written to his brother Sergyei' in December he says: — " Before the New Year I expect a change in my w r ay of life, which I confess has become inexpressibly wearisome to me. Stupid officers, stupid conversations, nothing else. If there were only one man with whom one might have a talk from one's soul ! Turgenief is right in speaking of the c irony of solitude': when by oneself one becomes per- ceptibly stupid. Nikolenka took the greyhounds away with him — God knows why — and Epishka and I often call him a pig for this; still, during whole days, from morning till night, I go out shooting alone with a dog. And this is my only pleasure; indeed, not a pleasure, but a means of stupefaction. You get tired and hungry, and fall dead asleep, and the day is passed." He asked his brother to send him Dickens's " David Copperfield" and Saddler's English Dictionary. About the same time he notes in his diary that he has changed his method of prayer. He has replaced all the prayers of his own invention by the one which Christ recom- mended — "The Lord's Prayer." "All the supplications which I address to God are expressed in a manner far 72 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI more dignified and more worthy of Him in the words, 1 Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' " His prayer may have accomplished the miracle of pay- ing his gambling-debts; they did not seem to hasten his promotion. But all things come to those that wait, and the long-delayed order having arrived, he went through the rather absurd formality of passing the examination, on the twenty-fifth of January, 1854, and a week later was on his way to Russia. During the journey he encountered a terrific snowstorm, the experience of which he after- wards utilized in two of his stories, — in "Metyel" ("The Blizzard") andin"KhozhainiRabotnik" ("Master and Man"). The poetic and romantic aspects of the Caucasus seem not to have affected Tolstoi. To see the effect of that influence one must go to the Russian poets, to Pushkin and to L6rmontof, many of whose best passages were inspired by the sublime scenery which offers such a strik- ing contrast to the ocean-level of the steppes. The re- peated exclamation, " But the mountains ! " — " A gorui! " in "The Cossacks, " the comparison of Elbruz to a sugar- loaf, and the steaming waters of the sulphur-fountains to a samovar come as near to poetical figures as the realist permits. But there is an epic quality in some of the de- scriptions — as for example in the scene where the Cos- sack Lukashka kills the Abrek who tries to swim the Terek and where the Tchetchens come to redeem the dead body, and Maryanka is a gracious poetic appari- tion, far-off sister of Nausikaa, while the little Tartar maiden Dina reminds one of a wild-flower. For many years Tolstoi was pleasantly remembered among the villagers of Starogladovsk. M. A. Yanzhul, an officer in the Artillery Brigade in which Tolstoi had served, wrote in 1890 in a Russian magazine his reminis- cences of service in the Caucasus : — "The village of Starogladovsk, with its handsome women of the striking local type, its valiant Grebyensky SPIRITUAL GROWTH 73 Cossacks, and 'the commander's house surrounded by high old poplars,' described by Tolstoi in his well-known story 'The Cossacks,' had been familiar to me for more than twenty years. In my time the memory of Lyof Nikolayevich, as they called him there, was still fresh in the village. They used to point out to me the old Mary- ana, the heroine of the story, and several old Cossack sportsmen, who knew Tolstoi personally and had shot pheasants and hunted wild boars with him. One of these Cossacks, as all know, went on horseback in the eighties from the village to YasnayaPolyana to pay Tolstoi a visit. At the battery I met Captain Trolof (now deceased), who had known Tolstoi as a quarter-gunner and related incidentally that even then the count pos- sessed a marvelous capacity as a story-teller, carrying away the listeners by his interesting conversation." Tolstoi spent three weeks at his home with his aunt and brother. This time was a brief oasis between the guerilla warfare of the Caucasus and participation in the grimmer, graver conflict that brought about so vast a change in Russian life and led directly to the liberation of twenty- three million serfs. Nicholas I. declared war on Turkey on November 16, 1853. His motives were undoubtedly mixed. In order to arouse the enthusiasm of the people the idea was pro- mulgated that it was their duty to free their co-religionists in the Danubian provinces from the rule of the Turks. It appealed to patriotism to summon all the Slavic nationalities to unite under Russia. Panslavism raised an oriflamme of war which might well lead a nation into a mad fervor of heroism. Always beckoned the hope of possessing Constantinople, which the counterfeit will of Peter the Great declared the rightful appanage of the Tsarian crown. Moreover, the Holy Places of Jerusa- lem, which was the Mecca of Russian pilgrims, were under the custody of Islam and the same motives as impelled Peter the Hermit and all the Crusaders of the Middle 74 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Ages to march against the Turks still acted on religious fanaticism. A war with such objects was well calculated to make a nation forget its internal grievances and to stifle all aspira- tions for greater freedom of thought. A glorious victory- over the wily Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid would perhaps make the people forget their demands for reforms. Conse- quently the forces of "the great white Tsar" seized the Danubian provinces as "a material guarantee" that Turkey should give the Greek Patriarch and not the Roman Patriarch the keys to the Church of Bethlehem. But Nicholas did not reckon with the other European powers, which have always upheld Turkish despotism. Austria and Prussia and England andFrance brought pres- sure to bear on Russia to retreat. Napoleon the Little, with ulterior ends in view, inveigled Lord Palmerston to wage war with Russia in behalf of the Sultan. This absurd and needless conflict, which was the cause of countless deaths and misery, which piled up colossal debts, impos- sible for posterity to pay, which led indirectly to the loss of Napoleon's throne and broke Nicholas's heart by hum- bling his pride, was as needless a war as was ever waged. Hostilities should have ceased when Russia withdrew its forces from across the Turkish border. But England and France were committed to a policy of madness and together they invaded the Crimea. In March, 1854, Tolstoi was ordered to join the army of the Danube. From Bukharest he wrote to his aunt telling her of the long journey of two thousand versts, partly in a sleigh and partly in a springless cart over abominable roads, through a country the language of which he did not understand, so that he had to pay for eight horses instead of two. "Although my journey lasted only nine days," he says "I spent more than two hundred rubles and arrived almost ill from fatigue. " His kinsman, Prince Gortchakof, friend of his father, SPIRITUAL GROWTH 75 received him more cordially than he expected and offered to keep him on his staff. He found the city "big and beautiful." He enjoyed the Italian opera, the French theater, and association with his two kinsmen, the young Princes Gortchakof, whom he described as "very fine fellows, especially the younger, who, though not particu- larly clever, had much nobility of character and a very kind heart. " He made many new acquaintances and was kept so busy that he was away from his quarters most of the time and "had not thought of his duties." At first his experience of actual service was limited to a fortnight at Oltenitsa, where he was attached to a battery, and a week spent in traveling about in Moldavia, Valla- chia and Bessarabia; but he wrote his aunt in May that instead of smelling Turkish powder and being exposed to all the dangers of war he was still staying very quietly at Bukharest, "walking about, enjoying music and taking ices. " A fever which he had contracted had laid him up for three weeks, but he was expecting within a few days to join his general who was in camp on the Turkish side of the Danube near Silistria, which the Russians were be- sieging. Life was again beginning to pall upon him. He said: "To confess frankly, the rather dissipated, perfectly idle and very expensive kind of life that I am leading here infinitely displeases me." But he liked his general, Serzhputovsky, and the staff was composed for the most part of gentlemen — gens comme ilfauL It was not very long before he was pouring out all the vials of his scorn on the gens comme ilfaut. XI THE CRIMEAN WAR Tolstoi took part in the unsuccessful siege of Silistria. Afterward, when he had reached Sevastopol, he wrote a joint letter to his Aunt Tatyana and his brother Nikolai, in which he gives a vivid description of that abortive cam- paign and the mysterious recall of the troops. Tolstoi did not know the real reason for the retreat of the Russian army, but history tells. Austria, jealously watching its powerful neighbor's operations, had concen- trated a large army on the frontier. In June the Emperor Francis Joseph made a treaty of alliance with the Sultan and in accordance with its terms demanded that the Danubian provinces should be immediately evacuated. Russia heeded the threat. Tolstoi returned with the army to Bukharest and once more took up the unsatisfactory idle life of that gay capi- tal. His unrest is reflected as usual in his journal. He sums himself up, as it were, in the following characteristic passage written on the nineteenth of July: — "I have no modesty. That is my great deficiency. What am I ? "One of the four sons of a retired lieutenant-colonel, left from the age of seven without parents, and who, under the guardianship of women and strangers, received neither a social nor a scientific education, and then was my own master at seventeen; a man without any great wealth, without any social position, and, above all, without prin- ciple, who has let his affairs get out of order to the last degree, who has passed the best years of his life without aim or pleasure; who finally banished himself to the 7 6 THE CRIMEAN WAR 77 Caucasus in order to run away from his debts, and, above all, from his habits, and who, having taken advantage of some connection or other which had existed between his father and a commander-in-chief, got himself transferred, at the age of twenty-six, to the Army of the Danube as lieutenant, with hardly any means but his pay (having to use such means as he possesses for the payment of his remaining debts), without patrons, without knowledge of worldly manners, without knowledge of service, without practical capacities, but with enormous vanity. Yes, such is my social position. "Let us see what is my personality. "I am ugly, aw T kward, uncleanly, and, in the worldly sense, uneducated; I am irritable, a bore to others, rude, intolerant, and as bashful as a child. I am almost com- pletely ignorant. What I do know I have learned any- how, independently, by snatches, incoherently, in a dis- orderly way, and all comes to — so little. I am self- indulgent, irresolute, inconstant, stupidly vain and hot- headed, as are all people with a weak character. I am not brave, I am not methodical in my life, and am so lazy that for me idleness has become almost a necessary habit. "I am intelligent, but my intelligence has not as yet been thoroughly tried on anything. I have neither a practical nor a worldly nor a business intelligence. "I am honest, i.e. I love what is right, have got myself into the habit of loving it; and when I deviate from it I am dissatisfied with myself, and return to it with pleasure; but there are things I like more than what is right — fame. I am so vain, and so little has this feeling been gratified, that often I am afraid lest, between fame and virtue, I might, if the choice were given me, choose the former. "Yes, I am arrogant, because I am inwardly proud, though I am shy in society. " On another occasion, in a passage which reads like a study for his story "Family Happiness," he gives a glimpse of himself under external conditions : — 78 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " After dinner I leaned over the balcony and gazed at the lamp-light gleaming brightly through the foliage. To-day there had been storm-clouds which had passed over and drenched the ground; one big cloud still lingered, covering all the sky in the South; there was a particularly pleasant light and humid quality in the atmosphere. My landlady's pretty daughter like myself was leaning on her elbows looking out of the window. A barrel-organ came down the street and when the strains of a good old waltz, growing more and more distant, completely died away, the girl gave a sigh from the bottom of her heart, rose quickly and left the window. "I felt so happy that I could not help smiling and re- mained a long time gazing at the lamp-light, which was now and again obscured as the breeze swayed the branches of the trees — gazing at the trees, at the fence, at the sky; and everything assumed a beauty such as I had never seen it wear before. " Tolstoi met Prince Gortchakof at a ball at Bukharest and begged to be transferred to any position where he might take part in active service. This service would soon be required. Austria and Prussia were satisfied by the Russian evacu- ation of Moldavia, but France and England were spoiling for a fight. Having determined to diminish Russia's preponderance on the Black Sea, they planned to attack and destroy the vast military fortress and naval arsenal of Sevastopol, which had been established by Katharine the Great in 1786 and at this time in strength and complete- ness was a second Gibraltar. It commanded the Black Sea and was regarded as a perpetual menace to Turkey. Hither came the allied fleets in the early days of Sep- tember and the troops were disembarked on the sixteenth and, marching southward, reached the banks of the Alma, where Prince Menshikof's army occupied what he regarded as an impregnable position. He was defeated and the French and English forces continued their march THE CRIMEAN WAR 79 against Sevastopol. Had they known that the fortress was quite incompletely guarded on the land side they might have finished the war with short shrift, but neglect- ing the great opportunity they proceeded to the south and established themselves on two small bays which gave them facilities for landing troops and munitions. They then proceeded to invest the fortress and city, w T hich in the meantime were protected in a masterly manner by the great Russian engineer, General Todleben. Then began the greatest military duel of the nineteenth century. The disastrous battles of Balaklava and Inkerman had already been fought when Tolstoi arrived at the front eager to participate in the gallant defense. He w r as at- tached to the third Battery of the Fourteenth Artillery Brigade. Early in December he wrote his brother Sergyei explaining his neglect of him, which he said was due to his distracted life, full of outside interferences. He gave an interesting description of the conditions at Sevastopol and told of his scheme for publishing a military newspaper written in a popular style, to contain descriptions of battles, deeds of bravery, biographies and obituaries, military stories and soldiers' songs. For that business he required fifteen hundred rubles. He added: — "One thing troubles me: this is the fourth year that I have been living without female society; I may become quite coarse and unfit for family life, which I so enjoy." The outcome of his projected military newspaper was a bitter disappointment to him, as he explains in a letter written to his aunt on the eighteenth of January. He was then at Simferopol, where his battery was moved out of the fighting zone. He says: — " There is no more fighting in the open field, because of the winter which is extraordinarily severe, especially at the present time; but the siege still continues. "What will be the issue of the war ? God only knows! In any case, however, the Crimean campaign must come to an end in three or four months in one way or another. 8o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI But unfortunately the end of the Crimean campaign would not necessarily mean the end of the war; on the contrary it promises to last a very long while. I think I have mentioned to Sergyei' an occupation which I had in view and which attracted me; now that the matter is decided, I can speak about it. I had the idea of establish- ing a military journal. This project which I had worked up with the cooperation of many very distinguished people was approved by the prince and sent to his Majesty for his decision, but as in our country there are intrigues against everything, we found that there was fear of the competition of this paper; then, besides, probably the idea of it did not coincide with the views of the Gov- ernment. The Emperor refused. "This rebuff, I confess, has given me infinite distress and greatly changed my plans. If God will that the Crimean campaign end well and if I do not receive a satis- factory place and if there is no war in Russia, I shall leave the army and go to the Military Academy at Petersburg. This plan occurred to me, first because I should not like to abandon literature, at which it is impossible for me to accomplish anything in this camp life, and secondly be- cause it seems to me that I am becoming ambitious — no, not ambitious, but I should like to do some good and in ordef to do it one must be more than a sub-lieutenant; thirdly, because I shall see you all and all my friends. " In the same letter he first makes mention of the great novelist Turgenief . XII THE SEVASTOPOL SKETCHES The fifteen hundred rubles which Tolstoi had expected to spend in publishing the military journal proved to be a source of temptation. After six weeks of jollity at Sim- feropol, where he lived in a landed proprietor's comfort- able house, dancing and playing the piano with young ladies in town and hunting deer on the mountains that run across the Crimea, he was transferred to a battery encamped about ten versts from Sevastopol. Here he fell in with a disagreeable circle of officers and was under a commander whom he characterized as violent and coarse though good-hearted. There were no comforts, not a book to read, not a person with whom he could talk, and the quarters were cold and cheerless. While he was there the money from home reached him, and he lost it in gambling, and a thousand rubles besides. He found "cir Constances attenuantes" for such frivolity but was nevertheless very much ashamed of himself. It has been supposed that as a consequence of his losses he was about this time obliged to sell the large wooden house in which he was born. It brought him only five thousand paper rubles — equivalent to about eight hundred dollars. It was taken down, leaving only the two wings which in after years were used respectively for the family and for visitors. The main building was reerected on its new owner's estate. It took him some time to recover from this dissipation but he wrote his brother that while he was at Sevastopol, whither he was again transferred about the middle of April, and under actual fire he quite recovered himself. 81 82 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI There, he says, until the twenty-seventh of May, that is to say, for four days at a time, at intervals of a week, he was in charge of a battery in the Fourth Bastion; though he was in serious danger, still it was springtime and the weather was excellent; there was an abundance of impressions and of people, all the comforts of life were at hand and he enjoyed himself with a delightful circle of well-bred men. His body-serf, Aleksei, who had accom- panied him in all his wanderings, brought him his rations. Apparently under this stimulating society and stirred by the great emotions which so vast a drama could not fail to arouse, he again took up his literary work. He had already written the " Wood-cutting Expedition"; at Sevastopol he wrote "Youth," the third part of his autobiographical story — the second part, "Boyhood," having appeared in October, 1854. The following month the Emperor Nicholas passed away and was succeeded by his son Alexander II. Tolstoi was now engaged in chronicling his experiences at Sevastopol. His first article, known as " Sevastopol in December," but when written entitled "Night in Sevas- topol," had been sent to Petersburg and was read in proofs by the new Emperor, who ordered it to be translated into French and is said to have sent word to Prince Gortchakof to "take care of the life of that young man. " The Dowager Empress Alexandra Feodorovna shed tears over the terrible pictures of death and destruction, the eloquent descriptions of heroism and patriotic faith, which Tolstoi had the art to put into such simple and convinc- ing language. The other two parts of the Sevastopol Sketches were published in the Sovremennik in the following August and in January, 1856. The correspondence between Tolstoi and the two editors of that journal throws a flood of light on the vexations of being an author in Russia. On the twelfth of May Tolstoi wrote to Nekrasof, stating that he had done his best to avoid coming into Count L. N. Tolstoi. From a daguerreotype, 1855. THE SEVASTOPOL SKETCHES 83 conflict with the censor, and apologizing for the wild orthography of his manuscript. He also spoke of having organized a number of writers who would contribute to the Sovremennik the articles that they had promised for the military journal, so that Nekrasof might count on two, three or four papers of a military character every month. Panayef wrote him that the " Night in Sevastopol " had been passed by the censorship but that he had felt it necessary to add a few words at the end to modify a cer- tain expression. A little later he wrote him again that after three thousand copies of the number containing the article had been printed the censors suddenly de- manded it back and showed it to the President of the Committee of Censors, Pushkin, who fell into a rage and with his own hand made various alterations in it. When Panayef saw what had happened he was horror-struck and was unwilling to print the article at all, but Pushkin insisted that it must be issued in its mutilated state; so Panayef, feeling that it was unfair to Tolstoi, brought it out, only omitting the author's initials. Even as it was, however, it was universally liked and Panayef was as- sured that it would have been a sin not to publish it. He added: — "Now I will say a word or two as to the impression which your story makes on all to whom I have read it in its original form. Every one thinks it stronger than the first part, by its profound and subtle analysis of the emotions and feelings of men constantly facing death and by the fidelity with which the types of the line officers are depicted, their encounters wdth the men of the nobility, and their mutual relations. In short the whole thing is admirable; it is depicted in a masterly fashion; but is so permeated with bitterness, is so sharp and biting, so un- sparing and so gloomy, that just at present, when the scene of the story is regarded as almost holy ground, it pains 84 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI those that are far from it and the story might even in some cases produce an unpleasant impression. " In the same letter he reported that the " Wood-cutting Expedition," which had pleased Turgenief by its dedica- tion, had also been tampered with and that certain parts were struck out. At the end of " Sevastopol in May " Tolstoi says : "The hero of my story, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I have tried to reproduce in all his beauty and who always has been and always will be beautiful, is— Truth." Nekrasof refers to this in a letter which also betrays great agitation over the ruin which the censorship had wrought in the Sevastopol article. He said : — "The outrageous mutilation of your article made me to the last degree indignant. Even now I cannot think of it without bitterness and rage. Your work, of course, will not be lost. It will always remain as a proof of the power that is capable of uttering such profound and sober truth under circumstances amid which few would have been able to retain it. I need not say how highly I value that article and the direction of your talent as well as your power and freshness. It is just what the Russian public needs at the present time : the truth — truth of which so little remains in Russian literature since Gogol's death. You are quite right in valuing that side of your talent most of all. Truth in the form that you have introduced it into our literature is something quite new to us. I do not know of another writer of the present time who so com- pels love and hearty sympathy as he to whom I am now writing; and I only fear lest the lapse of time, the foulness of life and the deafness and dumbness all about us should affect you as these things have affected the majority of us and kill the energy so indispensable to an author — at least to authors such as Russia needs. " You are young; changes are taking place and we hope that they will result in some good, and then a wide field THE SEVASTOPOL SKETCHES 85 may be opened before you. You have begun in such a way as to compel the most cautious to cherish high expec- tations. "But I have wandered afield from the purpose of my letter. I offer you no consolation in telling — what is true — that the printed fragments of your article are greatly esteemed by many; yet to those who know the article in its real form they are nothing but a string of phrases without sense or inner meaning. But it was unavoidable. I must tell you that it would not have been published in this form had it not been made compulsory. Your name is not signed to it, however. "'The Wood-cutting Expedition' passed the censor fairly well, though a few precious observations were cut out. My opinion of the article is as follows: it may in form resemble Turgenief but there the resemblance ends; all the rest is yours and no one else could have written it. In that sketch are many astonishingly keen observations, and it is entirely new, interesting and pertinent. Do not neglect the doing of such sketches. Our literature has not as yet produced anything but trivialities regarding the common soldier. You are a pioneer in the subject and whatever you choose to tell us on the subject as you know it will be extremely interesting and useful. " Tolstoi won international fame by the Sevastopol Sketches. He had the gift of making the picture live. He cast no poetic glamor over the horrors of actual war. He makes you see the pathos of the young soldier struck down by the hostile bullet or shattered by the bursting bomb and dying on the jolting improvised ambulance even while the songs of his comrades drunk with battle fury ring out as they hasten gladly back to their barracks through the dim mists of the early morning. He makes the reader realize the actual spirit of the army, not the chanticleer self-importance of the officer who thinks that the men are conquering through his foresight and en- couragement but rather the self-sacrifice of the mass of 86 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI untheatrical heroes whose names never appear in the histories. He is a Rembrandt-etcher, suggesting the life, by a few masterly, massive, firm strokes of the pen, and yet again elaborating the soldier with the fullest detail, the character of this man or that picked out with all the minuteness of a Meissonier of words: their vices, their heroisms, their whims, their vanities. There is no ideal- ism of the military calling even in those pictures of the Caucasus, where if ever idealism might be expected, for the Caucasus is the very haunt of poetry, the beloved exile of the Pushkins and Lermontofs. No, it is the stern reality, the trials, the privations, the pitiless death, the ghastly wounds. War is apostrophized not as a glorious goddess, crowned with laurel, but as a demon, her stern face frowning and distorted and bearing in her hand the smoking rifle and the dissecting-knif e, while pale Death lurks in her train. This is what dominates all the Military Sketches, and especially those of " Sevastopol." There is self- analysis; motives are exposed to the clear light of reality; it is seen how the bravest in outward semblance are inwardly de- voured by that fear of death which is instinctive in every human being, nay, in every animal. And against the grandiose background of roaring cannon, bursting bombs, exploding magazines, burning ships, dismantled houses, there stand, occupying the foreground to the exclusion of the mighty and the so-called heroic, the pettiness and triviality of life: the jealousies and ambitions, the vani- ties and meannesses of the highest. While men are dying all around, the general is concerned about the fit of a collar, the grooming of his horse, the prospect of the George. XIII MILITARY LIFE TolstoI struck a new note in Russian literature, but he told Paul Boyer that he was greatly indebted to Marie- Henri Beyle, who, writing under the pseudonym of Sten- dhal, taught him to understand war. " Re-read the de- scription of the Battle of Waterloo in l La Chartreuse de Panne,'" he says. "Who ever before him so described war? — that is to say, described it as it is in reality ?" Tolstoi's brother Nikolai used to declare that the popular romantic view of war was all embellishment, whereas in real war there is no embellishment, and Tolstoi assured Boyer that he had a grand chance in the Crimea to see with his own eyes that such was the case. That is what he taught the world in his Sevastopol Sketches and that was what the censor refused to have promulgated. But while he was producing these great works of litera- ture, the promise of still greater things to come, he was living the old conventional life with his aristocratic com- rades, occasionally indulging in wild orgies, and, as we have seen, wasting his substance at cards. More than once he was exposed to death, especially while he was under the concentrated fire directed by the allies against the Fourth or, as the history calls it, "The Flagstaff Bastion. " On the sixteenth of August he was present in the battle of the Tchornaya or Black River, but as he wrote his brother three days later he was not hurt: "I did nothing, as my mountain artillery was not called upon to fire." This was the last attempt to relieve the city, and it was a failure. On the eighth of September, while stationed 87 88 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI at Star Battery on the north side of the roadstead, Tolstoi witnessed the capture of the Malakhof or Kornilof redoubt by the French. He described it with vivid touches in " Sevastopol in August" — the troops like dark spots moving down the hill from the French batteries, the dark stripes flying toward the Russian line, the white cloudlets bursting in succession as if chasing one another, the musketry like the beating of hail against a window, and then the combination of all the puffs of smoke into a violet cloud, dotted with tiny faint lights and black spots, and curling and twisting while all the peals of cannon and the rattling of small arms blended into one tremendous clamor. The loss of the Malakhof necessitated the abandon- ment of Sevastopol, and the Russians destroyed such war material as they could not take with them. Tolstoi was detailed to clear two of the bastions. The Russians crossed the roadstead by a pontoon bridge and took up their quarters on the north side. While he was thus exposed to danger he wrote a prayer of thanksgiving : — . " Lord, I thank thee for Thy constant protection. How surely thou leadest me to what is good. What an insig- nificant creature should I be, if Thou wert to abandon me. Leave me not, O Lord! Give me what I need, not that I may satisfy my poor desires, but that I may attain to the eternal, mighty object of existence, unknown to me, beyond my ken." Another time he expressed himself in verse which sounds like the wail of King Amfortas, or, perhaps, more like one of the Sufi imitations of Omar the Tent- maker : — " When shall I cease to waste my days on earth Without an aim or fervor, cease to feel The deep wound in my heart no skill may heal? Who made this wound? God only knows! From birth Have I been tortured by my lack of worth, While gloomy clouds of doubt my path conceal!" MILITARY LIFE 89 At this time Tolstoi seems to have some drawing toward expression in verse. One of his comrades when an old man remembered with pleasure how in the trying times of siege he used to enliven and encourage the men in the battery with his stories and his improvised verses : — "He was indeed the life of our battery. When he was with us we did not notice how the time went and there was no end to the general gayety. When the count was not there, when he was absent at Simferopol, we were all downcast. He would be away for two or three days. . . . Then he would come back, the very picture of the Prodigal Son, gloomy, exhausted, dissatisfied with himself. He would take me to one side and make me his father confessor. He would tell me everything; how he had caroused and gambled, where he had spent his days and nights; and all the time, if you would believe it, he would blame himself and suffer as if he had been a real criminal. It was pitiful to witness his distress. That is the kind of man he was. In a word a peculiar chap, and to tell the truth I could not understand him; but he was a rare comrade, most honorable — a man one could never for- get." Kruizhanovsky, Commandant of the Artillery, had a piano in his rooms and some of the officers on his staff used to gather there almost every day. Tolstoi, Lieuten- ant-Colonel Balyuzek or some other musical man would drum out a jolly tune and the rest would sing impromptu verses. Thus arose the famous Sevastopol Song, consist- ing of nearly fifty stanzas relating various events of the war, showing up the incapacity of some of the chief generals, satirizing the two grand dukes, referring to the Emperor's death in most irreverent terms and expressing the dis- satisfaction generally felt at the failure of the Russian army, which was in large measure due to the system maintained by Nicholas. The music of this song was afterward written out by Count Sergyei' Tolstoi and was printed in one of the Russian magazines together with 9 o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the words, which are, of course, rather wretched doggerel, intermingled with slang and many expressions hardly suitable for polite ears. It is impossible to tell how much of this improvisation was due to Tolstoi. Not less than nine of the officers had a hand in it; but Tolstoi, who was now so well known as a rising young author, was one of them, the general opinion of the army attributed it to him, and the promo- tion which his connection with the Commander-in-chief and his well-proved gallantry would naturally have brought about was withheld from him. Another factor in the case was wholly to his credit. He was accused by some of his fellow-officers of practicing and preaching a superfluity of honesty. Great opportunities were afforded the commanders and sub-commanders to feather their own nests. Money was furnished them from the treasury for shoeing horses, buying medicines, and in general keeping up the service. It was an easy matter to overestimate the cost of commodities, to buy cheaper stores and charge up the highest prices. This was a characteristic method of Russian graft. Tolstoi found his company in possession of a considerable cash-balance. His sense of justice impelled him to declare it in his accounts. He might at least have lavished it on extra luxuries for the staff. But he refused to do so and this brought him into disfavor with those who had his fate in their hands. Failure to receive promotion was a keen disappoint- ment to him but, like most of the disappointments of life, worked wholly for his advantage in the long run. Army life, even varied by the writing of military sketches, was not to be his vocation. What it was really to be is hinted at in a brief but pregnant entry in his diary : — U A conversation about religion and faith suggested to me a great, a stupendous idea, to the realization of which I feel that I am capable of devoting my life. This idea is to establish a new religion suited to the present state of MILITARY LIFE 91 mankind— the religion of Jesus but purified from dogma and mysticism, a practical religion, not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth. I realize that this can be accomplished only by generations consciously working toward it. One generation will hand on the idea to the next and, some day, enthusiasm or reason will accomplish it. Deliberately to promote the union of mankind by means of religion is the basic principle of the idea, which I hope will command my enthusiasm. " This colossal idea, still inchoate in his mind, came to him just after one of his deepest plunges into dissipation, and while still the cloud of gloom hung heaviest over his mind. In the fierce fire of human passions the weak soul perishes; the strong soul at last emerges chastened. Occasionally, as one sees the forms of pottery in the furnace, amid the dazzling flames, one may get some hint of what that strong soul will be. Practical experience made Tolstoi detest war — that "game of life and death." He had little faith in "trav- erses, breastworks, cunningly interwoven trenches, mines, and cannon piled tier on tier/' so intricate that he lost his way among them; w r hen he was ordered to clear the bastions, he felt that he was superfluous: "the non- commissioned officers could have done the work just as well without him." He was convinced of the disorderli- ness and confusion of it; if he, in midst of it all could see no solution of the riddle, then it was also still more likely that the general-in-chief, at a distance, had no control of the forces once they were set loose. It w r ould have undoubtedly been a method just as equitable and satisfactory and far more economical as well as humane to decide who should hold the city by submitting the question to Prince L. D. Urusof's scheme of arbitrament. Tolstoi was one evening sitting with Count Osten- Saken's adjutants when the Prince came into the room and asked to speak to the Commander. After he had passed out, looking very much crestfallen, Tolstoi was 92 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI informed that he had proposed that a challenge to a game of chess for the foremost trench in the front of the Fifth Bastion should be sent to the English. Urusof was a champion chess-player and half a dozen years later had his chance to play with the English in the international tournament in London. Osten-Saken, being conven- tional, preferred to sacrifice lives and powder. A hair-balance loaded with rival grains of sand decides which arm kicks the beam as accurately as the most co- lossal weighing machine, and two champions, even a David and Goliath, might just as fairly decide a war as two armies of ten million men and corresponding forces pitted against each other. Superior might never connotes justice. Tolstoi began by depicting war in all its grim realism; he knew that he was expected to paint it in the conven- tional colors. But then, as later, it was not after all so much the suffering and death as it was the effect on men's souls that appalled him. "What is needed is not the Red Cross but the simple cross of Christ to destroy falsehood and deception. " After the retreat from Sevastopol, Tolstoi's literary skill was employed in collating the reports of the action. He says of this work: — "The commander of the Artillery, Kruizhanovsky, sent me the reports of the officers from all the bastions and requested me to compose an account from more than twenty of them. I regret that I did not keep a copy of them. They were a capital example of that naive, in- evitable military falsehood which goes to make up descrip- tions. I think that many of those comrades of mine who drew up those reports will chuckle on reading these lines, as they recall how by their commander's order they wrote of what they could not know. " When this account was completed, he was sent as a courier to Petersburg with despatches. This practically ended his military career. He reached the capital on the third of December, 1855. PART II TOLSTOI THE WRITER I IN LITERARY CIRCLES AT PETERSBURG In his "Confession" Tolstoi says: — "At the age of twenty-six, at the close of the war, I went to Petersburg and made the acquaintance of the authors of the day. I met with a warm reception and abundant flattery." There was a new ferment in Russia at the time. Alexander II. was yielding to the reaction that followed the end of his father's despotic reign. It was as if a great volume of oxygen had been poured into a room where all life had been asphyxiated by the deadly fumes of car- bon dioxide. Now there was to be at least some meas- ure of freedom — freedom of expression, freedom of the press. The new editors of the Sovremennik had gathered around them nearly all the rising writers of Russia and put them under implicit agreement to write only for that periodical. On one occasion Turgenief, in the kindness of his big heart, agreed to contribute an article to Profes- sor Mikhail N. Katkof's review but failed to keep his promise. Katkof indignantly published to the w r orld his statement of Turgeniefs duplicity. Tolstoi, always ready for a controversy, took Turgeniefs part, asserting that his gentle nature and politeness had induced him to make promises to both parties. He urged Katkof to publish his letter. Katkof agreed but sent Tolstoi a 93 94 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI draft of his rejoinder: it was of such a nature that Tolstoi decided it would have been better policy not to interfere. He was of a nature too independent to make himself very popular with the ardent liberals, who were now all aglow for reform of the old evils. He made their acquaintance, but he was not the man to subordinate himself to any social scheme. He was outspoken, especially in opposition to what other people upheld; he lacked tact and was bound always to take the other side; he liked to set men by the ears. An example of this trait is given by Dmitry Vasilyevitch Grigorovitch — sometimes called "The Beecher Stowe of Russia" — in his "Literary Reminiscences. " He had met Tolstoi in Moscow and was surprised to find him keep- ing permanent quarters in Petersburg, which he detested. Grigorovitch accompanied him to dine with the editorial staff of the Sovremennik, very few of whom he as yet knew. "On the way," he says, "I warned him to be careful not to touch on certain subjects and particularly not to say anything against George Sand, whom he greatly disliked, as she was then the idol of most of the mem- bers. The dinner passed off uneventfully. Tolstoi was at first silent, but at last he could not refrain from speaking. When some one praised George Sand's new novel, he abruptly broke out in a tirade against her, declaring that if the heroines of her novels existed in reality they ought to be tied to the hangman's cart and driven through the streets of the city. Grigorovitch goes on to say that Tolstoi was moved to this petulance partly by his irritation with everything connected with Petersburg, but mainly because of his habit of contradicting. "Whatever opinion may have been expressed, the greater the authority of the speaker, the more he would insist on maintaining an opposite judgment and making a sharp retort. " His very manner of listening, of fixing his eyes on a speaker and of screwing up his lips sarcastically, gave the IN LITERARY CIRCLES 95 impression that what he desired was to puzzle and sur- prise. Grigorovitch tells how he was once present when Tol- stoi' and Turgenief were having a heated discussion. "Turgenief," he says, "was pacing back and forth mani- festing great embarrassment. Tolstoi was lying on the divan and his excitement was so great that I had great difficulty in calming him and taking him home. " The two great writers were at swords' points whenever they met. But while Turgenief tried to avoid Tolstoi', Tolstoi' would follow Turgenief from place to place "like a love-sick woman." Turgenief told how the count came straight from Sevastopol, stopped at his house and then and there began to plunge into dissipation — with carousals, gypsies and card-playing all night, and then a drunken sleep until the next afternoon. The poet Afanasy Afan£syevitch Shenshin, better known as Fyet, who afterward bought an estate near Yasnaya Polyana and became one of Tolstoi's most intimate friends, tells of his first meeting with him: — "Turgenief used to get up very early and take his tea in the Petersburg fashion, and during my brief stay in the city I called every morning about ten to have a quiet chat with him. On the second morning when Zakhar opened the door I saw in the hall a dress sword adorned with the ribbon of St. Anne. "' Whose sword is that?' I asked as I went to the drawing-room. "'If you please, come this way,' said Zakh&r in a low voice, pointing to the left of the corridor. 'That is Count Tolstoi's sword; he is asleep in the drawing-room. Ivan Sergeyevitch is drinking tea in the library. ' " During the hour I spent with Turgenief we conversed in low tones, for fear of waking Tolstoi. ..." Fyet, who had not heard of Tolstoi before, noticed as soon as they were introduced his instinctive antagonism to 96 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI all accepted opinions and how Turgenief was made desperate by Tolstoi's cutting sarcasms. Finally Tur- genief cried, in his high falsetto voice, which always took a higher pitch as he got more and more excited: — "Our banner is not for you. Go to the Princess B 's." "Why should I ask you where I am to go?" growled Tolstoi. Fyet was not much interested in their controversies but gathered from what the others said that Tolstoi was right and that those who were suffering from the political situation would have found it difficult to de- scribe their ideals and formulate their wants. Tolstoi found in their magniloquence only "empty talk. " On another occasion Turgenief exasperated Tolstoi by making a great to-do about a sore throat. Turgenief's voice grew squeakier and squeakier and pressing his hands to his throat with the eyes of a dying gazelle he whispered, "I cannot talk any more; I shall have bronchitis." "Bronchitis!" sneered Tolstoi; "that's an imaginary ailment. Bronchitis is a metal. " He was lying on a leather sofa in the middle of the room and was sulking. Turgenief, with his hands in his pockets spreading out his coat-tails, was striding up and down the three rooms. Grigorovitch approached the sofa and said: — "My dear Tolstoi, don't get excited. You have no idea how highly he esteems and loves you. " Tolstoi with dilated nostrils exclaimed, "I will not allow him to act so spitefully toward me. There he keeps marching in front of me wagging his democratic rump." "Tolstoi," remarked Turgenief to his friend Garshin, " early developed a trait of character, which was the basis of his gloomy view of life and caused him much suffering. He never believes in men's sincerity. Any kind of emotion seems false to him and he fixes those whom he IN LITERARY CIRCLES 97 suspects of insincerity with his extraordinary piercing eyes. " Turgenief went on to say that he had never in his life experienced anything more depressing than the effect of that penetrating glance, which, combined with two or three venomous remarks, could rouse almost to madness any one who had no great self-control. Turgenief him- self, usually self-possessed and serene, was exasperated to the last degree by him. Outwardly they were interested in the same great movement but as soon as they came together they began to quarrel. A lady of that time and intimate in their circle said that she had never heard Tolstoi express his opinion of Turgenief or of any of the other authors, whereas Turgenief was always making remarks about every one. Of Tolstoi he declared that there was not a word, not a movement, that was natural. "He is all the time posing and I am at a loss to understand in such an intelligent man that foolish pride in his wretched title of count. " On another occasion, when Tolstoi' had been relating certain interesting episodes which had taken place during the war, Turgenief remarked after Tolstoi had taken his departure : — "You may boil a Russian officer for three days in strong soapsuds, but you won't rid him of the braggadocio of a Junker; you may cover him with the thick veneer of culture — still his brutality will show through." And he added, "And only to think that at the bottom of all that brutality lies merely the desire to get promoted. " On this occasion Turgenief expressed himself so strongly that even Panayef charged him w T ith being jeal- ous and the conversation ended with heated words. Pa- nayef flung himself out of the room and Turgenief, very much excited, demanded of Nekrasof if it could be sup- posed he was jealous of Tolstoi's title. Nekrasof had difficulty in calming him. 98 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI There were occasional rifts of sunshine in the stormy sky; but for the most part Tolstoi and Turgenief, the two greatest writers of their day, were antipathetic, and indeed the tension between them became so strained that, as we shall see, a duel was several times narrowly averted. Tolstoi's spirit of contradiction was manifested all his days, but it was especially rampant during his brief sojourn in Petersburg. G. P. Danilyevsky, author of highly esteemed historical romances, relates how Tolstoi once entered a drawing-room where some one was reading aloud a newly published work by the famous revolutionist, Aleksandr Ivanovitch Herzen. " Quietly taking his place behind the reader's chair he waited till the reading was finished and then at first softly and shyly but growing bolder and more heated he attacked Herzen and the enthusiasm with which his writings were accepted." There must have been reason as well as eloquence in his words, for Danilyevsky declares that henceforth Herzen's writings were banished from that house. Thus he blazed his way through Russian society, attacking the ideals which the men of that fermenting epoch were trying rather to formulate than to attain; he found these reformers lacking in that self-control which he blamed in himself, and it is human nature to dislike our own faults the most when they are detected in others. Theoretically he worshiped Truth, and he never hesi- tated to promulgate the truth, in whatever form it might seem to him at a given time to take. This habit often involved him in contradictions, not only with himself, but even more frequently with others. The climate of Petersburg may have had something to do with his irritability. He had conceived the notion that he was doomed to consumption. Later when Tur- genief had heard that he was ill he wrote in one of his IN LITERARY CIRCLES 99 letters, perhaps with a sly reference to Tolstoi's theory that bronchitis was a disease of the imagination: — U I have heard of your illness and was sorry; but now I beg of you drive the thought of it out of your head. For you too have your fancies and are possibly thinking of consumption — but God knows you have nothing of the sort." It was not strange that he should have felt some appre- hensions; his favorite brother Nikolai, perhaps owing to the fact that he had fallen into habits of intoxication in the Caucasus, was showing the first symptoms of lung trouble; and his brother Dmitry, whom he generally called by the diminutive form Mitenka, was desperately ill. He reluctantly went to Orel to visit him. Dmitry was to him the least sympathetic of his brothers. He remembered very little about him as a boy. When their father's property was divided among them, Dmitry received the estate of Shcherbatchova in the province of Kursk. A note which he wrote divulged his opinions regarding the possession of serfs, over whose morals he very seriously, naively, and sincerely felt that he must have an oversight, and consequently he treated them to a severe system of punishments. After graduating from the University he at first intended to enter the civil service, but became discouraged and returned to Kursk, where he took up some local work. Tolstoi in his " Reminiscences" says that Dmitry led a sternly abstemious life for a time, indulging in neither wine nor in tobacco and keeping aloof from women. But after he had reached the age of twenty-six he fell under the influence of a very seductive and immoral man, and suddenly began to drink, smoke, and waste his money, going with loose women. He had taken into his house a prostitute from a brothel and in accordance with the seri- ous religious views that he still professed, regarded her as his wife. But the period of dissipation, which lasted some ioo THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI months, had undermined his health and he contracted consumption. Tolstoi' was shocked at his emaciated appearance when he saw him at Orel: "It could be seen how his enormous hand joined on the two bones of his lower arm; his face was all eyes, and they were the same beautiful grave eyes with their piercing expression of question in them. He was constantly coughing and spitting but was loth to die and reluctant to believe that he was dying. Poor pock- marked Masha, whom he had rescued, was with him, wearing a neckerchief, and nursed him. In my presence a wonder-working ikon was brought to him. I re- member the expression of his face when he prayed to it." Readers of "Anna Karenina" will recollect how Levin visited his dying brother under similar conditions. Tolstoi continues: "I was particularly detestable at that time. I . . . was full of conceit. I felt sorry for Mitenka, but not very sorry. I made him a hurried visit but did not stay at Orel." n AN EXPERIMENTAL LOVE-AFFAIR The news of his brother's death reached Tolstoi about the middle of the following February (1856), and he says he believed that what troubled him most was that it prevented him from taking part in some private theatricals then being got up at Court! After the Crimean War was officially ended and Russia had made peace with her enemies, Tolstoi became wearied of "this damned Petersburg": he w r rote his brother Sergyei that he was proposing to go abroad for eight months. He suggested that Nikolai and Sergyei should each take a thousand rubles and they should all make the trip together. He had apparently put in his application for leave to travel, for after ex- pressing his dissatisfaction with his story of "The Bliz- zard," he wrote: — "At all events, whether I am to be allowed or not to go abroad, I intend to take leave of absence in April and go to the country." Thither he went early in June, and, as he wrote his brother, spent ten days in Moscow very pleasantly, with- out champagne or gypsies. He paused on the way at Pokrovskoye, the home of his boyhood flame, the Islenyeva who had married Dr. Behrs, a Russian of German origin. He was delighted with the children. "What dear, merry little girls ! " he exclaimed. He spent the summer at Yasnaya Polyana and here began, not indeed the first of Tolstoi's love-affairs, but the most serious. Living on an estate at Sudakovo, not far from Yasnaya, was a gentleman, one of w T hose three 101 io2 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI daughters figures in his published letters as V. V. A. Her full name has not been disclosed. They met in Moscow; even then he hinted to his brother that he was "a little bit in love." She was visiting an aunt whose position gave her entree into exclusive court circles. During the summer they had frequent oppor- tunities of renewing the acquaintance and they soon became attached. Early in September she went to Mos- cow with her aunt, her sisters, her cousins, and the French governess, to attend the festivities at the coronation of Alexander II. A lively correspondence ensued. She expressed her rapture at the brilliancy of the spectacle and the gayeties of high life. His replies showed his disap- pointment at her indifference toward the serious things that interested him. He did not hesitate to upbraid her for caring for objects unworthy of her — balls, parades, light conversations with conceited young officers. He did not hesitate to say sarcastic words about the fashion- able people with whom she found so much pleasure in associating. Probably his view of life was somewhat darkened from the fact that about this time he was seriously ill. Two doctors came and prescribed the application of innumer- able leeches. He still imagined that he was afflicted with symptoms of consumption, but he recovered sufficiently to go hunting with his brother; and when the young lady returned to Sudakovo, having pardoned him for what she evidently considered his impertinent aspersions on her pursuits, they went so far in their ardor as to justify their friends in reporting their engagement. He was by no means certain of himself and in order to test the strength of his love for her determined to return to Petersburg. At Moscow, in a most characteristic way, he wrote her a letter in which he discussed the question of sex attraction, insisted on the vast importance of marriage, and explained his reasons for putting their relationship to the test of a temporary separation. AN EXPERIMENTAL LOVE-AFFAIR 103 After he reached Petersburg some kindly friend came to him with the story of a flirtation which V. V. A. had carried on at Moscow with her French music-master, Motier, during the coronation season. This further confirmed the doubts that were arising in his mind. On an impulse he wrote her a scathing letter, but repented before it went to the post. In other letters he referred to her conduct severely but kept on instruct- ing her as to his ideas regarding their future, their duties, their acquaintances, and their use of time, still assuming that they were to be married. Then later he informed her of his literary plans, de- scribed his life at Petersburg, and still further developed his lofty ideals of family happiness. During this visit to Petersburg he definitely severed his connection with the army. He had hardly arrived there before he was informed by General Konstantinof, the Commander of his division, that the Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovitch had heard that he was the author of the Sevastopol Song and had taught it to the men, and was consequently very angry. Tolstoi made himself right with the Commander; but evidently it was felt to be necessary to punish some one, and the rising young author, whose Military Sketches had also roused criticism in high quarters, was the one to be sacrificed. He had private influence enough, however, to save the commander of his battery, Captain Korenitsky, from a court-martial trial. He had one consolation. His health was greatly restored: he wrote his brother that the only satisfactory thing was that he was well and that Dr. Shapulinsky had examined his lungs and found them perfectly sound. Tolstoi was followed to Petersburg by the young lady, who did not at all approve of his experiment in testing his affections. She knew well enough that proximity is the true secret of kindling love. He did not see her; he had 104 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI gone to Moscow early in December. The one stick of kindling wood taken from the incipient fire quickly smoul- ders and goes out. Tolstoi wrote his Aunt Tatyana, who had great hopes of seeing him settle down, and who had reproached him for his treatment of the young lady : — "When I first went away and for a week following I thought I was in love, as it is called, but with an imagina- tion like mine that was not difficult. . . . Now, however, since I have set resolutely to work, I should like — I should very much like to say that I am in love with her, or simply that I love her, but such is not the case. "The only feeling I have for her is gratitude for her love: I think that of all the girls I have known or now know, she would have made me the best wife, as I under- stand married family life. "I want your unbiased opinion about this: Am I mis- taken or not? I want your advice because, in the first place, you know me and you know her, and principally because you love me and those that love are never in the wrong. "It is true, I have tested myself very unsatisfactorily, for ever since I left home I have been leading a solitary but not a dissipated life and I have seen very few women; but, nevertheless, I have had many moments of annoyance with myself for having entered into such a relationship with her and I have repented of it. "Yet I repeat that were I once convinced of the con- stancy of her nature and that she would always love me even though not as she does now but at least more than she loved any one else, I should not hesitate to marry her. I am confident that in that case my love for her would keep increasing and that through this feeling she would be- come a fine woman. " Such cool, calculating self -analysis is the antipodes of love. No wonder that she detected it in his letters, grew weary of his didactic, dictatorial tone, and forbade him to write her any more. AN EXPERIMENTAL LOVE-AFFAIR 105 There was a further flickering of correspondence, how- ever, on both sides; she made one more effort to retain his love; he was at first moved by it, but it was only a temporary final glowing of the coals; he felt he had not treated her very fairly and properly apologized. The engagement came to its destined end. He wrote his aunt from Moscow : — "I have received my passport for abroad and I came to Moscow to spend a few days with Marie, to arrange my affairs and to take leave of you. "But I changed my mind, principally on Mashenka's advice, and I have decided to remain here, with her for a week or two and then to go straight to Paris by way of Warsaw. You probably understand, chere tante, why I do not wish and why it is not right for me to come at the present time to Yasnaya or rather to Sudakovo. It seems to me that I have behaved very badly in relation to V., but if I should see her now, I should be acting still worse. As I wrote you, I am more than indifferent to her and feel that I can no longer deceive either her or myself. But if I were to come, I might perhaps, from weakness of character, again deceive myself. " Do you remember, chere tante, how you derided me when I told you that I was going to Petersburg pour fn'eprouver — to test myself — but this very idea is respon- sible for my not having brought wretchedness on the young lady and myself, for do not imagine that this comes from inconstancy or lack of good faith; no one has taken my fancy during these two months; the fact is simply I saw that I was deceiving myself, that not only I never had but also I never could have the least feeling of true love for V. The only thing that gives me much pain is that I have done wrong to the young lady and that I shall not be able to take leave of you before my departure." His gentle aunt, disappointed at this outcome of a romance in which she felt a deep personal interest, was not satisfied with his explanations and charged him with 106 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI having acted dishonorably. So did the young lady's friends; and the French governess, Mile. Vorgani, wrote him a severe letter calling him to account. Tolstoi again wrote his Aunt Tatyana : — " I see that we do not at all understand each other in re- gard to this affair. Though I confess that I have been to blame in having been inconstant and that everything might have happened quite differently, yet I feel that I have acted honorably. I have never ceased to say that I was not sure of the feeling that I felt for the young lady, but that it was not love and that I was desirous of testing myself. The experiment proved that I was mistaken in my feeling and I wrote to V. about it as plainly as I could. "From that time my relations with her have been so sincere that I am convinced that the memory of them will never be disagreeable to her in case she should be married, and that is why I wrote to her that I should like to hear from her. I do not see why a young man should neces- sarily either be in love with a girl and marry her or have no friendly relation with her; for in this case I have all the time preserved a high degree of friendship and sympathy for her. " If only Mile. V., who wrote me such a ridiculous letter, would kindly recollect all my conduct toward V. V. A. — how I did my best to come as seldom as possible and how she kept urging me to come more frequently and to enter into closer relations. " I understand her being vexed because a thing she had greatly desired has not been accomplished (perhaps I am more vexed about it than she is) but that is no reason for telling a man who has tried to act as well as he could, who has made sacrifices lest he should bring misery on others, that he is a svinya — a pig— and making every one think so. I am sure all Tula is persuaded that I am the great- est of monsters. " Somewhat later, when he heard that the young lady's AN EXPERIMENTAL LOVE-AFFAIR 107 sister Olga was to be married, he again wrote in the same exculpatory strain : — 11 1 never loved V. V. A. with a real love, but I allowed myself to be drawn into tasting the evil pleasure of in- spiring love in another, and this afforded me a pleasure which I had never known before. "The time I have spent away from her has proved to me that I have no longing to see her again, much less to marry her. I feel only fear at the thought of the duties I should be obliged to fulfill toward her without loving her, and this was the reason that I made up my mind to go away sooner than I intended. "I have behaved very ill; I have asked pardon of God, and I ask it of all those I have grieved, but it is impossible to repair matters, and now nothing in the world could make the thing begin anew. "I wish Olga all happiness; I am enchanted with her marriage, but I confess to you, chere tante, that, of all things in this world, what would give me the greatest pleasure would be to learn that V. was going to marry a man whom she loved, and who was worthy of her; for although I do not feel in the depths of my heart the slight- est love for her, I still regard her as a good and honorable girl." Apparently Tolstoi had confided in Turgenief regarding his entanglement in this unfortunate love-affair, for about the middle of December came a letter from Paris, where Turgenief himself was entangled in a far more unfortu- nate and disreputable affair. It said : — " I dare not speak to you about the subject you mention. These are delicate things; they are killed by a word before they are mature, but when they are mature a hammer cannot break them. God grant everything may come off successfully and well. It may bring you that spiritual equilibrium you needed so much when I first knew you. " In this same letter Turgenief confessed to Tolstoi that 108 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI he could not be quite straightforward with him. Though he loved him as a man, and of course as an author for his writings, yet there were many things, he said, which jarred on him. He hoped that their next meeting would be more agreeable. " Let us try again," he said, " to go hand in hand — perhaps we shall succeed better, for strange as it may sound, my heart warms to you as to a brother when we are a distance apart and I am very fond of you. In a word, I love you — that is certain. " Tolstoi evidently answered that letter in a similar spirit, for Turgenief three weeks later tells Tolstoi of finding it at the poste restante, and after an implied re- proach for not knowing his Paris address he goes on to say: — " You can imagine how pleased I was to read it. Your sympathy gladdened me deeply and sincerely. Moreover, a mild, clear and friendly peaceableness breathed from the whole letter. It remains for me to hold out my hand from across 'the gulf/ which has long since become a hardly perceptible crack about which we will say no more — it is not worth it. " Three days earlier Turgenief had written to Druzhinin, the translator of Shakespeare: — "I am told you are very intimate with Tolstoi and he is now become quite serene and pleasant. I am very glad. When that new wine ceases fermenting, it will yield a beverage fit for the gods. " It is rather odd that this change of mood took place while Tolstoi was in the very storm-center of this experi- mental love-affair. While he was still in Petersburg he wrote in his diary under date of January 16, 1857: — "I dined at Botkin's with Panayef alone; he read from Pushkin to me. I went into Botkin's library and wrote a letter to Turgenief; then I sat down on the divan and wept causeless but blissful tears. I am positively happy all these days — intoxicated with the rapid progress of my moral development." AN EXPERIMENTAL LOVE-AFFAIR 109 As his son, Lyof Lvovitch, has said, Tolstoi all his life was pursuing happiness. It was a will-o'-the-wisp. If he did not find it in one direction, he would alter his course and see it still ahead of him, beckoning him on. Here is one of his rules for securing it. This was written in the preceding May, while he was still in Petersburg: — "A mighty means of securing true happiness in life is to spin out in all directions, without any rules, like a spider, a complete web of love and catch in it all that you can — old women and young children, policemen." Ill FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD Turg£nief in his letter from Paris warned Tolstoi' not to allow himself to be too much influenced by Druzhinin, with whom he had heard that he had become very inti- mate. " When I was of your age," he said, " only men of enthusiastic natures influenced me; but you are differently constituted, and perhaps, too, times are changed. " Tolstoi sent Druzhinin the now-completed manuscript of " Youth" for his criticism. The criticism was favor- able, but it certainly pointed out some of Tolstoi's most notable defects. He wrote : — "Twenty sheets should be written about ' Youth.' I read it with wrath, with yells and oaths; not on account of its lack of literary worth, but owing to the copy-books in which it is written and the handwritings. This mix- ing together of two different handwritings distracted my attention and hindered an intelligent perusal. It was as if two voices were shouting in my ear and purposely confusing me, and I know that the impression I received is not so complete as it should have been. Nevertheless, I will say what I can. "Your task was tremendous, but you have accom- plished it well. No other writer could have so grasped and depicted the agitated intangible period of youth. Cultured people will derive great enjoyment from your ' Youth'; if any one tells you it is inferior to 'Childhood' and 'Boyhood,' you may spit in his face. There is a world of poetry in your work; all the first chapters are excellent, but the introduction is dry, until you come to the description of spring and the removal of the double windows. . . . Many chapters breathe the poetic no FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD in charm of old Moscow, which no one has ever before re- produced properly. Some chapters are too long and prosy. The recruiting of Semyonof will not pass the censor. "You must not be afraid of indulging in reflections: they are all clever and original; but you are inclined to analyze too minutely, which might become a great defect. You must restrain this tendency, but on no account sup- press it. All your work in analysis should be done in this way. Every one of your defects has elements of force and beauty; almost every one of your qualities contains the seed of a defect. "Your style corresponds to your matter. You are unliterary to a marked degree. Sometimes your illiteracy is that of a word-coiner or of a great poet who is forever reforming a language in his own way, or again w T ith the illiteracy of an officer who sits in a casemate and writes to a friend. It may be said with assurance that all that you have written with love for it is admirable, but as soon as you grow cold, your words entangle themselves and fiendish forms of language make their appearance. Consequently the parts written coldly should be revised and corrected. I tried to improve a few passages, but I gave it up; only you can accomplish this task, and you must. Above all avoid long sentences. Chop them into two or three, . . . don't be afraid of periods. ... Be unceremonious with particles and cut out by dozens the relatives which, who, and that; they should be struck out by tens. When in difficulty, take a sentence and imagine that you want to say it to some one in a fluent, conver- sational way." He suggested that it might be well to add a few amus- ing anecdotes, so as to make it reach the understanding of the masses, and he ended his long criticism with the not particularly enthusiastic remark, "You have not made a long stride in any new direction in this work, but you have shown what is in you and what you can do. " ii2 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Turgenief, who had heard that "Youth" was completed, congratulated him and said: — " If you do not turn aside from your path — and there is no reason why you should — you will go far in it. I wish you health, activity and freedom — spiritual freedom." It is odd that Turgenief s later opinion about this three- part romance practically coincided with Tolstoi's own judgment of it, expressed a half-century afterward. Turgenief in a letter to a friend said that he advised Madame Viardot to take it up for her Russian lesson as "a classical production of its kind," but as he reread it he suddenly decided that this celebrated story was simply wretched "small potatoes" and superannuated belief. The discovery distressed him and he wondered if it was because he had grown old and stupid. Tolstoi grew to regret that he had written the stories — ■ they were so artificially and insincerely written. " It could not be otherwise," he argued; "first, because what I aimed at was not to write my own story but that of my youthful friends, and this brought about an awkward mixture of their childhood and mine; and secondly, because at the time they were w r ritten I was far from independent in my manner of expressing myself, being strongly influenced by two writers: Sterne ('The Senti- mental Journey ') and Topffer (' La Bibliotheque de mon Oncle')." "I am now," he went on to say, "especially dissatisfied with the last two parts, ' Boyhood' and * Youth, ' in which there is an awkward mixture of truth and invention as well as insincerity — the desire to put forward as good and important what I did not then consider good and impor- tant, that is to say, a democratic tendency. " Tolstoi mentions among the other books that had a "very great influence" upon him at this period Goethe's "Hermann and Dorothea," Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris," and translations of Plato's Phaedo and the Symposium, and Homer, while that of the poems of Kolt- FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 113 sof, Tiutchef and Fy6t was merely "great." Nowhere does he mention Turgenief as affecting his style or his thought. But Turgenief, in one of the letters already cited, says: — " I suppose you will not like my c Faust ' very w r ell. My writings may have pleased you and perhaps influenced you in some w r ay, but only up to the time when you became quite independent. You do not need to study me now: you would only see the difference in our styles, my mistakes and omissions. What you have to do is to study man, your own heart and the really great writers. I am a writer of a transition period and am useful only to men in a transition state." Turgenief, always generous and just, had this to say of "A Proprietor's Morning," which came out in Decem- ber, 1856: — "I was exceedingly pleased with its sincerity and well- nigh complete freedom of outlook. I say 'well-nigh/ because there is still concealed in the way he has under- taken the task a certain amount of prejudice, perhaps without his being conscious of it. "The principal moral impression produced by the story — apart from the artistic impression — is that as long as serfdom exists, the two sides cannot possibly draw together, however disinterested and honorable the desire to do so may be. This impression is w r ise and true. But side by side with it, like a horse galloping beside a trotter, is another; that any general attempt to instruct and im- prove the condition of the peasantry is futile; this im- pression is unpleasant. But his command of language, his telling of the story, and his character-painting are great." Druzhinin's influence, against which Turgenief warned him, — certainly the latter 's advice to cut his sentences short, — did not prevent Tolstoi from beginning his " Deka- brists " several years later with one of the longest sentences ever written. It is well worth reading, for it depicts with ii 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI biting irony the ferment of thought and ambition that was stirring in Russian society after the mortifying failure of the Crimean War. It also shows Tolstoi's own attitude toward the new life of liberalism which soon compelled the enfranchisement of the serfs. Before Tolstoi left Petersburg permanently he took a prominent part in helping to found the Authors' and Students' Aid Society, known as the " Literary Fund." He tells in his diary of drafting the project at Druzhinin's. Though he was always blaming himself for his moral weakness in yielding to the temptations that peculiarly assailed him, he nevertheless held high the ideals of life and grew more and more disgusted with the discrepancy between the conduct of his associates — their luxurious dinners, their indulgence in costly wines, their hunting expeditions, their card-playing — and the love which they professed for Democracy and Progress. In his " Confession" he tells how with all his soul he wished to be good but was young, passionate and unsup- ported in his search for what was right. When he tried to express his sincere desire to be good and moral he met w r ith contempt and ridicule but was encouraged to join others in immoral actions. He paints a terrible and in a certain sense an exaggerated picture of his moral delin- quencies — how he killed men in battle, challenged them to duels with murderous intent, gambled, wasted the sub- stance wrung from faithful peasants, lied, robbed, com- mitted adultery, drank to excess, committed every kind of crime, and yet his friends approved of his life because it was the fashionable life of his class. He ascribes the motives of vanity, covetousness and pride to his literary undertakings, and in order to win money and fame he declares he neglected what was good and put forward what was evil. He blamed the authors of that time, who accepted him as one of themselves and flattered him, because they took a view of life which, by him adopted as was only natural, FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 115 blocked all his endeavors to grow better. Their theory was that wTiters — the poets and novelists, the artists and thinkers — were chiefly responsible for the development of civilization, that they were the chief teachers of mankind. He, being considered an excellent artist in words, found it very natural to accept their theories and so he tried to teach without knowing what he was teaching. Never- theless he was paid high wages and lived in luxury. He was a priest of the religion of progress and found it very pleasant and profitable. But after a time that kind of life began to pall on him. He began to doubt the infallibility of this pseudo-religion: the priests of it were not in accord among themselves ; they even quarreled and called one another names. Some of them seemed not to care which were right and which were wrong but merely fed their covetousness by taking advan- tage of all this activity. Then he made up his mind that the priests themselves — these writers — were immoral, were men of worthless character, even inferior to those whom he had met before in his military life — inferior because of their self-assur- ance and conceit. By getting out of sorts with them, he got out of sorts with himself and yet he still for years accepted their valuation of him as an artist, a poet and a teacher and consequently acquired an abnormally developed pride which he declared almost reached the state of insanity. Though none of them could answer the simplest of life's questions — what is good and what is evil — they all talked at the same time, not listening to one another, now praising, now reviling, often becoming angry — just as if they were in a lunatic asylum. He describes the poor printers as laboring — thousands of them — to the limit of their endurance to set the type and printing millions of words for the post to carry all over Russia, disseminating the teachings which they insisted must be respected and were terrible angry if they were neglected. n6 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI And the theory that they devised to justify such useless work and make them feel that they were the most impor- tant of men, was that all existence is developed by Culture and that Culture is measured by the circulation of books and newspapers. As they were highly paid for writing these books and newspapers, therefore they were the best and most useful of men. He concludes that there might have been some sense in this theory had they been all unanimous, but they were always disputing with one an- other from diametrically opposite standpoints. But as long as .they received money they went on writing and teaching and felt justified. All this is a serio-comic extravagant distortion, a pic- ture seen through eyes rendered somewhat astigmatic by time and distance. But doubtless Tolstoi even then was dissatisfied. Therefore, without any fixed program or purpose, he went abroad. Probably the attraction of Turgenief, who, as we have seen, complained that Tolstoi followed him about, brought him to Paris. He reached there by train from Warsaw on the sixth of March, 1857. Turgenief wrote Polonsky that a considerable change for the better had taken place in him and predicted that he would go far and leave a deep mark behind him. But the usual differences soon sprang up. He wrote Kalbasin of frequently seeing Tolstoi, but declared that he could not become -intimate with him — they took such different views. They went together to Dijon, and while there Tolstoi wrote the story of "Albert," which was probably originally suggested by the German musician Rudolf, whom he once brought to Yasnaya Polyana. On their return to Paris Tolstoi saw a man put to death by the guillotine. It made a deep impression on him. He wrote in his diary under date of April 18: "I rose before seven and went to see an execution. A stout, healthy neck and breast. The man kissed the Gos- Count L. N. Tolstoi, 1857. FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 117 pels, and then — death. How senseless! It made a deep impression which will not be wasted. I am not a man of politics. Morals and art I know and love — they are within my powers. The guillotine kept me long from sleeping and made me reflect." In the same way Thackeray, who in 1840 witnessed the execution of Courvoisier, the murderer of Lord William Russell, wrote of his revolt against murder, whether performed by a ruffian's knife or a hangman's rope, whether accompanied by a curse from the thief as he blows his victim's brains out or by a prayer from my lord on the bench in his wig and black cap. Later Thackeray revised his opinion about judicial executions, and came to regard such " sickly sentimentality" as wrong. On Tolstoi the execution made a lasting impression, as is proved by what he long afterward said in his " Confession," that the spectacle of the head and body thumping into the box caused him to understand with his whole being that no theory of the established order of things could justify such a deed, that it was wholly evil. It shook the foundation of his superstitious belief in what they all called Progress. He spent six weeks most delightfully in Paris, living at a pension where there were a score of friendly people of different nationalities. There were gay and lively jesting, conversation on every imaginable topic, dancing on the dusty carpet, till late at night. They flirted. They had their philosopher, their fighting-cock, their poet, their jester; there were a romantic Spanish countess, an Italian ablate, who declaimed Dante, an American doctor who boasted of his intimacy at court, a long-haired actor, a pianist who claimed to have composed the finest polka ever known, and a beautiful widow with three rings on each finger, and they all learned to know one another and influence one another. At least so he says in his story of "Lucerne." n8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI He went from Paris to Geneva, and from there wrote to his aunt with enthusiasm of his visit at the French capital. He told her that he had not gone much into society or frequented the cafes and public entertainments, but he had found so much that was new and delightful that every day when he went to bed he said to himself, What a shame the time has sped so swiftly ! He expressed his commiseration for poor Turgenief, who, he said, was very ill physically and still worse morally. " His unfor- tunate liaison with Madame Viardot and his daughter keep him there in a climate which is ruinous for him, and it is pitiful to see him. I should never have believed that he could be so in love." With Druzhinin and V. P. Botkin he took a pedestrian tour through Piedmont and then settled down for a time at Clarens, in the village where Rousseau's Julie had lived (if we may trust his novel) just a century before. Tolstoi' was enraptured by the beauty of the country. He found it impossible to tear himself away from the lake and the shores where everything was full of blooming flowers. He spent a large part of his time in gazing and admiring, either while walking about or sitting at the window of his room. He could not sufficiently congratu- late himself at having come to Paris and spending the spring in such an enchanting region. In the notes that he made of this journey he tells how every morning and again in the evening after dinner he would open the shutters of his window and look out over the lake and at the distant blue mountains reflected in it, and their beauty would blind him and thrill him. It would cause him to melt with love for others, to yearn for their love, to indulge in regrets for the past and hope for the future, and to realize how good it was to be alive. Then would the thought of death come to him as some- thing poetic and fill him with awe, though it seemed far, far away. And the mere physical beauty of that delect- FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 119 able region would pour into his very soul, flooding it with wonderful impressions. Moreover, there was a charming society of cultivated Russians and he felt it in his inmost being that they for some occult reason had taken a great liking to him. At Beaucage, not far away, he found his relative, the Countess Aleksandra Tolstaya, freilina, or maid of honor, to the Grand Duchess Marya Nikolayevna. He had made the acquaintance of a Russian family living at Clarens and he invited their ten-year-old son, Sasha, to walk up the mountains w T ith him. They took the steamer from Clarens to Montreux. The weather was fine; the sun beat down perpendicularly; the lake, brilliant in colors and dotted w r ith motionless sail-boats, was like a mirror. It was a panorama of beauty. As they climbed up the mountain and heard the forest birds singing and smelled the damp freshness of the pines, Sasha w^as suddenly attracted by a meadow full of white narcissus and brought Tolstoi an enormous bunch of them; but Tolstoi could not help noticing how the lad, with the destructiveness natural to children, ran back to trample and tear their tender and beautiful young flowers. The next day they were still climbing up before the sun had as yet risen, though they could see its rays touching the peaks on the horizon. They were so far up that the sail-boats on the lake were mere dots and the lower stretches of the mountains of Savoy were blue like the lake, while the sun-lighted summits were a pallid pink. "It was a beautiful sight," he says, "beautiful beyond measure; but it is not Nature though it is good. I do not like what are called glorious and magnificent views — somehow they are cold. ... I like Nature when I seem to be a part of it, even though it surrounds me on all sides and stretches out into infinite distances. I like it when I am surrounded on all sides by the hot atmosphere and i2o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI when it rolls away into endless spaces and those very blades of tender grass I crush down as I sit on them melt into the green of boundless prairies; when those very leaves which as they stir in the breeze, make the shadows run across my face, blend with the purple of the far-off forest; when the very air that one breathes makes the deep azure of the limitless sky; when you are not alone in your exultation and your enjoyment of Nature, but all around you myriads of insects buzz and dance, and beetles, clinging together, crawl about, and all around you birds are pouring out their hearts in song. "But this is a bare, cold, desolate, gray plateau and yonder afar there is something veiled with mist and haze. But that something is so far away that I do not feel the chief delight of Nature — I do not feel that I am a part of this endless and beautiful distance; it is alien to me." This passage brings to mind the famous prose rhapsody of Gogol in "Dead Souls" — so ludicrously mistranslated in the current version — the wonderful apostrophe to Russia as seen by its sons in exile, beginning: "Russia! Russia! from the beautiful distance," and ending: "The thought of thine immensity is reflected powerfully in my mind and an unknown force penetrates the depths of my soul. Mine eyes are kindled with a supernatural vision. What dazzling distances! What a marvelous mirage unknown to earth ! O Russia ! ' ' The pedestrian tour ended otherwise than he had planned. They went by diligence to Thun and from there Tolstoi proceeded to Lucerne. In that " delicious little town" he spent several weeks longer. It was his first intention to descend the Rhine and cross from Hol- land to England, thence back to Paris and after waiting till August to visit Rome and Naples; and if he found himself not too seriously affected by the sea-trip to return to Russia by the Mediterranean, Constantinople, the Black Sea, and Odessa. FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 121 At Lucerne he found himself too much alone; and he confided in his aunt that the solitude was too often pain- ful to him, for he found that the chance acquaintances made in hotels and trains were not a relief. His isolation prompted him to work, but as usual in summer he was not well satisfied with what he was doing. At Lucerne he seems to have been moved to indignation because "on the nineteenth of July, 1857, an itineran. minstrel for half an hour sang songs and played the guitat in front of the Schweitzerhof, where the richest peoplr lodged. About a hundred persons listened to him. The singer thrice asked them all to give him somethinge Not one person gave him anything and many made sport of him. " Prince Nekhlyudof, who stands for Tolstoi, tells in his "Recollections" how this rebuff of the beggar minstrel moved him to go after the little man and bring him back to the hotel, where he treated him to a bottle of champagne, much to the amusement of the insolent waiters and the wrath of some of the other guests. "Lucerne" w r as pub- lished in the Sovremennik in the following September. It contains some of Tolstoi's finest descriptive passages. He makes you see the lake, iridescent as melted sulphur, the vanishing trails of the flying boats, the piled-up moun- tains with their glaciers and their shifting cloud-veils, the wooded heights crowned with castles and ruins, the rolling pale lilac-colored vistas and the far horizon-line of snow-capped peaks, all bathed in the transparent azure of the afternoon sky and kindled by the effulgent rays of the setting sun, and in contrast with this calm, soft, unified, inevitable beauty of Nature the stupidity of the works of men raeant only to attract wandering tourists. The story ends with characteristic moralizing, in which Tolstoi, after trying vainly to differentiate between good and evil, civilization and barbarism, and declaring that we have only one infallible guide, the universal Spirit which penetrates us collectively and endows us with the i22 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI craving for the right, decides that after all he has no reason to commiserate the little minstrel for his poverty or blame the aristocrat for his well-being; that it was a false pride in him to blame the apparent contradictions which cannot exist for that Infinite Being who looks down from bright immeasurable heights, and that his petty- ridiculous anger against the waiters had disturbed the harmonious craving for the Eternal and the Infinite. Tolstoi dallied so long in and about Lucerne that he gave up his extended tour; he went to S chaff hausen, Baden, Stuttgart, Frankfort, and Berlin, and took ship from Stettin to Petersburg, where he arrived on the eleventh of August. After arranging for the publication of " Lucerne," he went directly to his estate, where he proceeded to carry out the program which he had planned during his travels. First of all came literary work, then family duties, then care of the estate. His idea was to spend on himself about two thousand rubles and use the rest for his serfs. His rather complacent statement in his diary that it w r as sufficient for a man to live for him- self and do one good deed a day follows curiously after remarking that his great stumbling-block was the vanity of liberalism. For reading he devoted himself to the "Iliad" and the Gospels and regretted that there was no connection between those two wonderful books. "How could Homer have failed to know that the only good is love?" The answer was obvious — "He knew no revelation — there is no better explanation. " After the summer was over he went to Moscow with Count Nikolai and their sister Marya. During a brief visit at Petersburg he discovered that in spite of the remarkable works that he had already published he was quite forgotten. He confessed to his diary that this at first mortified him: "My reputation has gone down and scarcely stirs and I have felt much hurt, but now I am at peace. I know I have something to say and the power FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 123 to say it strongly; as for the rest the public may say what it will. But I must work conscientiously, exerting all my powers; then . . . let them spit on the altar !" The three Tolstois took furnished rooms in Moscow and engaged in the pleasures which the old Russian capital offered. Music at this time was one of his pas- sions. The family seem to have been all talented in this direction. The Countess Marya was a fine pianist, and they often had charming concerts at their rooms and often they all went to Fyet's house. But Fyet notes in his " Recollections" that Tolstoi was at that time much occupied with general society and frequently sallied out of an evening in full dress, to attend some ball or other function. He says : — "I. P. Borisof had known Tolstoi in the Caucasus, and as he was himself far superior to the average man, he could not from the first resist that giant's influence. At that time Tolstoi's love of gayety was very striking, and when he saw him going out for a w^alk in his new coat, with its gray beaver collar, his dark curly hair worn long under his fashionable hat, set jauntily on one side, and his smart cane, Borisof cited this expression from a popular song, ' He leans on his stick and boasts that it is of hazel-wood.'" Tolstoi' was also consumed with the desire to make himself the strongest man in the world. In spite of his occasional attacks of rheumatism or indigestion, he was a good deal of an athlete. Even when he was at Sevas- topol he could lie on his back and with his hands lift a man weighing one hundred and eighty pounds. At tug of war, played with a stick, he was invincible. At the Moscow gymnasium in the Great Dmitrovka he was indefatigable in violent exercises;* he was the cynosure *A Russian writer who sometimes visited at Yasnaya is quoted as saying with some humorous exaggeration: — "Everything in Tolstoi's character attains titanic proportions. As a hunter he remained for an hour and a half under the claws of a she bear which was tearing his flesh. As a drinker he absorbed fantastic quanti- i2 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI of all eyes as, dressed in his tights, he would practice jumping over the horse's back without touching the wool-stuffed leather cone. In summer he was an expert swimmer; in winter a graceful skater. The episode of the skating in "Anna Karenina" will occur to the reader. At Fyet's house he met many of the best writers of the day. The satirist Mikhail Yevgrafovitch Saltuikof, better known as N. Shtchedrin, who on account of political utterances, attributed falsely, as it happened, to him, had been practically exiled in the reign of Nicholas to the distant province of Viatka but, after the accession of Alexander, was permitted to return and was as usual overflowing with witty sallies. V. N. Tchitcherin, whose writings on the ancient Russian builinas, on science and religion and on political economy, brought him fame, was also an habitue of Fyet's house. Here he met Mikhail Katkdf, the editor of the Moscow Vyedomosti and the monthly Russky Vyestnik and leader of the centralizing national move- ment, and was induced to write for him. One of his most intimate acquaintances was S. T. Aksakof, the author of stories which helped to bring about the anti- serfdom movement, and father of two still more famous sons — both poets and leaders in Panslavism. He was a great sportsman, and that in itself was at the time a sufficient key to Tolstoi's friendship. In association with the French music-teacher, his former rival, Mortier, V. P. Botkin, and other amateurs ties of liquor. As a gambler he terrified his partners by the boldness of his play. As a soldier he advanced gayly to Bastion Four, the bastion of death, at Sevastopol, and there he made dying men laugh at his witty sayings. As a country gentleman or rural cultivator he covered the neighborhood of Yasnaya Polyana with gardens. He surpassed everyone by his prodigious activity in sport, as well as in literature. Gifted with a phenomenal memory, with a lively wit and a bitter tongue, he was always ready to enter into a discussion, no matter what might be the subject. And with it all he was always a bon enfant, loving to take part in simple games, and a bit of a boaster, too, like children who are unable to resist the temptation to show off before a newcomer." FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD 125 he founded the Moscow Musical Society, out of which grew the famous Conservatory, where, under the direction of the Rubinsteins and others, so much has been done to foster the growth of national music. IV EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1858 In January, 1858, the Countess Aleksandra A. Tolstaya, whom Tolstoi' had met in Switzerland, made a visit to Moscow. Tolstoi accompanied her by train as far as Klin, where he made a visit to his mother's cousin, a Princess Volkonskaya, who received him most affectionately and told him many details of her youth. These he afterward found useful in writing " War and Peace." While staying on her estate and living quietly, he wrote "Three Deaths," which appeared a year later in the Biblioteka dlya Tchetenya, or "Readers' Library," which had been founded by seceders from the Sovremennik. He spent the whole summer at Yasnaya. From there he wrote his Aunt Aleksandra, whom he called " Grand'- mere," an enthusiastic letter expressing his exhilaration at the coming of spring. For good people it was good to be alive, he said, and even for such men as himself it was also good at times. Nature, the very atmosphere, every- thing seemed to breathe of hope, and happiness was the result. He felt he must tell her all about himself, although he realized only too well what a frozen little old potato, boiled with sauce, he was; but spring seemed to fill him with visions and made him feel that he was a plant just bursting into blossom, ready to grow peacefully, simply, and joyfully in God's world. At such times there oper- ated within him a clarification and cleansing such as only those who had experienced it could understand. All the old was cast out — all worldly conventionalities, all lazi- ness, all egotism, all vices, all the mixed indefinite attach- 126 EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1858 127 ments, all regrets, even repentances — away with them! Make room for the wonderful little flowers, the buds of which were swelling and bourgeoning with the spring! He ended this long epistle with an appeal to the dear old lady not to be angry with him but to send him in reply a word of wisdom full of human kindness. Fyet and his charming wife on their first visit to Tolstoi at Yasnaya were introduced to his Aunt Tatyana, who received them w r ith old-fashioned hospitality and chatted with them in her homely affectionate manner, calling her nephews by their pet names and telling the simple gossip of the neighborhood. The world had passed by her and the modern inventions were too much for her. Fyet says that as she was driving to Tula one day with Tolstoi she suddenly asked him how people sent their letters by telegraph. Tolstoi explained as simply as he could the manner of its working, and she professed to understand; but after a while she exclaimed: "Mon cher Leon, how can this be ? For all of half an hour I have not seen a a single letter go along the telegraph. " Tolstoi in his " Recollections" depicts the character of this kind, self-sacrificing, simple-hearted old aunt. One can see her sitting calmly in her arm-chair, occasionally indulging in some observation. A few touches fill in the picture: Between the windows under the mirror was her small writing-desk, with little china jars and a vase containing the sweets, the cakes and dates to which she treated him. By the window tw T o chairs, and to the right of the door a comfortable embroidered arm-chair, in which she liked him to sit. To this intercourse with Aunt Ta- tyana he attributed his best thoughts and impulses. He tells how when he had yielded to temptations at Tula, after playing cards or visiting the gypsy singers, or wasting too much time hunting, he would return to his aunt and kiss her dear energetic hand, while she would in turn kiss his soiled and vicious hand. Though she knew perfectly well what he had been doing and regretted it, she never 128 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI reproached him but always treated him with unfailing love and sympathy. What struck him most pleasantly in her character was her boundless kindness to every one, even to animals; he never knew her to become angry or say a harsh word or condemn any one. She included in her benevolence even the jealous Aunt Yiishkova, who had so cruelly hurt her feelings; she would not express blame for the Countess Marya's husband, who had behaved shamefully; nor would she find fault with Sergyei Tolstoi, who had formed an irregular connection with a gypsy girl. Her lesson of life was taught not so much by deeds as by her "peace- ful, humble, submissive life of affection, a perfectly un- obtrusive love." Love and tranquillity were her chief attractions. He says she never spoke of herself or of religion, and though she refrained from telling how she believed or prayed she let it be known that she rejected the dogma of eternal torment; in her mind God was too good to wish any one to suffer. Tolstoi could never for- give himself that at a time when money was particularly scarce he refused to let her buy sweetmeats or give trifles to the beggars who came to her. " Dear dead aunt, for- forgive me!" he cried. If there was any one thing that Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol, Grigorovitch, Pisemsky, and Turgenief accom- plished in literature, it was to lift the muzhiks, the peasants, into the focus of observation, so that the world might appreciate the picturesqueness, the originality, the fine character of those children of Nature. They made them so much more interesting than the sophisticated creatures of high life that are alike in all countries! This discovery constituted the Russian school of fiction. Tolstoi early interested himself in the peasantry, and no one succeeded better than he in catching their naive and fascinating peculiarities. Fyet in his " Recollections " tells how humorously Count Nikolai described his brother's efforts to get better ac- EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1858 129 quainted with the life of the peasant and his method of farming. He said he wanted to get hold of everything at once, without omitting anything, even his gymnastics, and so had rigged up a bar under his library window and tried to show that gymnastics did not interfere with agriculture. But his prikashchik had different ideas and complained that when they came to the barin for orders they would find him swinging on one knee on a perch, hanging head down, dressed in a red jacket, his hair falling disheveled and the blood rushing into his face; it was very demoralizing. He declared that his brother was delighted with the way the muzhik Ufan stuck out his arms when plowing and so Ufan had become for him the symbol of rural strength, like the fabulous Mikula Selyaninovitch, and so he too stuck out his elbows as he clung to the plow and Uf anized ! Somewhat the same kind of Gogolesque wit Tolstoi him- self displays in a letter written in May to Fyet, whom he ad- dresses as "Dyadenka golubchik" (or darling little uncle), where after various greetings he waxes enthusiastic over the spring, telling how immensely he had enjoyed it in his solitude. "My brother Nikolai must be at Nikol- skoye. Catch him," he said, "and do not let him go. . . . I mean to come and see you this month. Turgenief has gone to Winzig till August to cure his bladder. The devil take him. I am tired of loving him. He deserts us and will not cure his bladder. Now good-by, dear friend. If by the time I arrive you have no poem ready for me, I shall proceed to squeeze one out of you." He seems to have been in a very gay frame of mind, for in another letter he tries to wake him from his long silence with a hail and a halloo: "In the first place, you show no sign of life though it is spring and you know that we are all thinking of you and that I am thirsty for a sight of you, though, like Prometheus, I am chained to i 3 o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI a rock. You should either come or send a suitable invitation. " Secondly, you have kept a brother of mine and a very good brother, nicknamed 'Firdausi.' The chief culprit in this matter is, I suspect, your wife, to whom I humbly bow, begging her to return to us our own brother. " He was expecting a visit from Druzhinin and he wanted Fyet also. He called him affectionate diminutive pet- names: "Dushenka, dyadenka, Fyetinka. " It has been mentioned that Tolstoi took little interest in public affairs ; certainly the stories already written and published by him afford no intimation that one of the greatest revolutions of the nineteenth century was under way. This aloofness may be regarded as at least partially responsible for the fact that his work seems to have at- tracted little attention, that public criticism left it entirely unnoticed. Yet the new Emperor had already announced that the abolition of serfdom must begin from above unless it was to be accomplished from below. The nobility somewhat later was authorized to form committees; and secret orders from the Emperor were sent to all the gov- ernors and marshals of nobility with suggestions for practical cooperation with this end in view. A meeting of the nobility of the government of Tula took place in September, 1858, and passed a resolution approving of the emancipation of the peasants but insist- ing that a certain amount of land should be allotted to them in hereditary ownership and that the proprietors should receive for the land they were to give up a full and fair pecuniary recompense by means of such financial measures as would not entail obligatory relations between proprietors and muzhiks — such relations the nobility regarding it as necessary to end. Tolstoi was present at this meeting and his signature, together with more than a hundred others, was attached EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1858 131 to the resolution, which was put into the hands of the Marshal of the Nobility at Tula. Not a word of this appears in Tolstoi's published cor- respondence; it would have been quite characteristic of him to oppose the measure, at least in any compromising form. Years later, in 1904, he explained his attitude toward the excited state of society as being involuntarily opposed to any pressure from without, and that if he was excited and happy himself at that time it came from his personal and inner motives and those impelled him to help the peasants in his own way. The first seed of his later prejudice against story- writing in its conventional form may be seen in a letter written in November from Moscow to Fyet, in which he petulantly declares that writing stories is stupid and shameful. Thank heaven, he says, "I have not as yet permitted myself to write, and will not." Then he adds, also, whimsically: "Druzhinin is asking me as a matter of friendship to write him a story. I really want to," he says; "I shall spin such a yarn that there will be neither head nor tail to it — the Shah of Persia smoking a pipe and I — love you." Then, after asking how Fyet is getting along with his translation of the odes of Hafiz, he says seriously, " The height of wisdom and fortitude for me is to enjoy the lucubrations of other men and not to let my own go forth into the world in ugly garb, but rather to consume it myself with my daily bread. "Then at times one suddenly feels the ambition to be a great man and how annoying it is that it has not as yet been brought about. One even makes haste to rise earlier, to finish dinner, in order to begin." And he ends with an imperative order to Fyet to send him one of the best of Hafiz's poems and he in return will send him a sample of wheat. Sport has bored him to death and though the weather is excellent, he will not go hunting alone. 1 32 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI A month later Tolstoi was invited by S. S. Gromeka, the publicist, to come with Count Nikolai, Fyet, and other friends to hunt a she-bear which, with two young ones, haunted the forest at Volotchok, between Peters- burg and Moscow. He had an exciting experience which he made light of in a letter to his aunt, dated January 6, 1859. He said: — "I am afraid that the report of an adventure I had may in some way reach you in an exaggerated form, and so I hasten to tell you about it myself. "I have been bear-hunting with Nikolai'. On the second I shot a bear; on the third, when we went out again, an extraordinary thing happened to me. The bear, without seeing me, came directly for me. I shot at her from a distance of six meters, missed her the first time; the second mortally wounded her, but she made a dash for me, knocked me over and, while my companions were running up she bit me twice, in the forehead over the eye, and under the eye. Fortunately I was in her clutches only ten or fifteen seconds. The bear made her escape and I got up with a slight injury which neither disfigures me nor pains me; neither my skull nor my eye is injured, so that I escaped with only a slight scar left on my forehead. I am now in Moscow and feeling perfectly well. I am writing you the whole story without concealing anything, so that you may not be anxious. It is all over and it only remains to thank God who saved me in such an extraordinary way." He did not tell the whole story. Fyet relates the inci- dent: Ostashkof was a Nimrod among huntsmen, and on his appearance Fyet says the wild uproar and excite- ment of the scene could be compared only to the plunging of a red-hot iron into cold water. Tolstoi borrowed a double-barreled shot-gun. The huntsmen were directed to tramp down the deep snow in as wide a circle as possible, so as to afford freedom of movement. Tolstoi as usual refused to take advice, on the ground that they EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1858 133 were going to shoot the bear and not to wrestle with her. When the bear, dislodged from her lair by Ostashkof, dashed down the forest glade, Tolstoi was in her way; and as he was buried in snow up to his waist, he could not evade her onslaught. He fell with his face in the snow. The bear, dashing over him, turned around and tried to bite him. In spite of his thick fur cap the bear managed to lacerate his face pretty severely, but Ostash- kof drove her off with a switch and she was not killed until the next day. Tolstoi's first words were, as he got up streaming with blood and with the skin hanging down his face: "What will Fyet say? But I am proud of it!" The wound was washed with snow and bandaged with handkerchiefs, and when it was sewed up at the nearest town it proved not to be very serious. The scar re- mained to remind him of his narrow escape. He after- ward told the story in one of his reading-books. Long years afterward, when he was horror-stricken at the thought of the execution of Sophia Perovskaya, his feelings when in the clutches of the bear recurred to him. " I remember," he said, " how the bear attacked me and pressed me down, digging the claws of her enormous paw into my shoulder. I lay under her and looked up into her big warm mouth with the white, wet teeth. She was panting above me, and I saw her turn her head so as to bite into both my temples at once, and in her eagerness or because she was so ravenous, she snapped into the air just above my head and then opened her mouth again — that red, wet, hungry mouth, dripping with saliva. I felt that I was about to die and I looked into the depths of that mouth, as one condemned to be executed looks into the grave dug for him. I looked and I remember that I felt no dread or fear. I saw with one eye beyond the outline of that mouth a patch of blue sky gleaming be- tween violet clouds piled clumsily on one another, and I i 3 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI thought how beautiful it was up there. . . . Whenever I think of death, I picture that situation to myself because I have never been nearer death than I was then. I recall it, reflect on it, and realize that death — real, serious, and all-engulfing death — is, thank God, not dreadful." Tolstoi's principal literary work that year was the pro- phetic story, "Family Happiness/' in which he drew an imaginary picture of the changing of ideal conditions in a loving home. The heroine is said by Fyet to have been the Maryushka who accompanied the poet and his wife when they made their first visit at Yasnaya Polyana. The story is shot through with the songs of nightingales, the music of Beethoven and Mozart, and is the most idyllic of all Tolstoi's novels: the first part telling of a young girl's love for a man twice her age; the second depicting the tragic disillusionment of married life, where misunder- standings arise, where temptations assail a heart hunger- ing for delight, and where at last the fermenting passions settle down into the stable calm of a happiness based on home and children. Tolstoi' displays in this fascinating novelette a masterly understanding of a woman's mind. "Family Happiness" was published in February, while Tolstoi was still in Moscow. On the twelfth of February he joined the Moscow Society of Friends of Russian Literature and delivered his maiden speech, in which he advanced as his thesis the superiority of the purely artistic element in literature over all temporary tendencies. The address was delivered from manuscript and the Society voted to print it, but in some way it was mislaid or lost. The question raised by him was discussed and the President of the Society, the Slavophil dramatist and theologian, Aleksei Stepdnovitch Khomyakof, while welcoming him as a worker in the field of pure art and praising his views, nevertheless urged that the domain of letters also embraced temporary and accidental phases of activity. "The ever right and the ever beautiful," he said, "the EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1858 135 ever changeless, like the fundamental laws of the soul, must hold the first place in the thoughts and impulses and therefore in the words of man. That and that only is handed down from generation to generation, and from one people to another, as a precious inheritance. " But Khomyakof urged that criticism also had its place, satire had its function in disclosing human defects and in healing social evils. Art must be perfectly free but the artist, as a man of his own time and its representative, must enter into all the painful as well as the joyous emotions of the world about him; and even while he devotes himself to the true and the beautiful he cannot help reflecting his own time in its mixture of heart- delighting truth and perturbing falsehood. He took the count himself as an example of the tren- chant social critic, calling particular attention to the story of the " Three Deaths," where the consumptive postillion, dying on the stove amid a crowd of indifferent comrades, certainly seemed to reveal some moral defect. Khomyakdf prophesied that Tolstoi's talent would not soon be exhausted and that the temporary and transient off-currents, absorbed into the eternal and the artistic, would be ennobled and thus all taken together would form one harmonious current. It is unfortunate that Tolstoi's address is not extant, because it would make a curious commentary on his later theories of art. It is certainly true that more and more as time went on Tolstoi devoted his talents to trenchant social criticism, until finally he practically renounced the field of pure art. But he was not enrolled among the number who were enthusiastic supporters of emancipation. All he cared for was the emancipation of the spirit; and patriotism, especially in its intensely nar- row and concentrated form of Panslavism, did not ap- peal to him at all. V PHASES OF INNER DEVELOPMENT In April (1859) Tolstoi returned to the country, after making his Aunt Aleksandra, in Petersburg, a visit the memory of which he always treasured. Fyet also came to his estate and there, in July, received a long letter from Turgenief in verse. It is not generally known that Turgenief made his first appearance in literature as a poet. His long, rambling, sentimental poem, "Parasha, " written under the influence of Lord Byron, had appeared twenty years earlier and he often expressed himself in lyrical stanzas. In this poetic epistle he asked Fyet to kiss Nikolai Tolstoi and to make his compliments to Lyof, adding, "I know he bears me little love and little love I bear him," the elements whereof they were formed being too differently mixed; but many paths lead across the world and there was no need for them to interfere with each other. Nevertheless Tolstoi visited Turgenief during the sum- mer; they had a quiet talk and parted on friendly terms. Turgenief told Fyet that there could be no misunder- standing between them because they knew each other too well and realized that it was impossible for them to become intimate: "We are modeled of different clay." In February, while he was still at Yasnaya, he received a letter from Fyet asking his advice about buying an estate in that neighborhood. In his reply, after telling him of an estate of four hundred desyatins or a little more than a thousand acres, and "unfortunately seventy souls of bad serfs," which would yield him more than two thousand six hundred rubles a year and cost him 136 PHASES OF INNER DEVELOPMENT 137 about twenty thousand, he proceeded to talk about cur- rent literature. He had been reading Turgenief's " On the Eve," which he considered better than a "A Nest of Noblemen." He found in it some excellent negative characters, espe- cially the artist and the father, but the rest did not strike him as types either in their conception or in their position, but were, if anything, quite insignificant. He was sur- prised as usual that Turgenief with his fine powers and poetic sensibilities should not be able to refrain from banality even in his methods, which were negative after the manner of Gogol. "There is no humanity, no sympathy with his characters, but he presents monsters w T hom he scolds and does not pity. This jars painfully with the tone and liberal intention in everything else. It was all very well in the days of Tsar Gorokh or of Gogol — though if one does not pity even the most insignificant of one's characters, one should scold them so that the heavens grow hot or laugh at them till one's sides ache, but not treat them as our splenetic and dyspeptic Turge- nief does." Yet he acknowledged that no one else could have written such a novel. Then he went on to speak of Aleksandr Nikolayevitch Ostrovsky's great drama, "The Thunder Storm," which he considered a wTetched work, though he blamed neither Ostrovsky nor Turgenief but the times. He was convinced that it was the duty of all of them, not to learn, but to teach the humbler ones a little of what they knew. In this was a hint of what he was doing during that winter of 1859-60. He was spending what time he could spare from the care of his estate to the school which during the next few years was to give him so much pleasure and, owing to the interference of the authorities, so much vexation of spirit. On the thirteenth of Feb- ruary he notes in his diary that he had finished reading a work on the degeneracy of the human mind which 138 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI brought up the question whether there was a higher degree of intellectual development. And that led him to think of prayer. " To what can one pray?" he asked himself. " What kind of a God can be imagined so dis- tinctly that we can ask Him to communicate with us?" To him at least a God so easily imagined lost all majesty, a God whom one could pray to and serve seemed to be the expression of human weakness; God was God only because he could not comprehend Him completely, and moreover God was not a being, but was a law, a force. He wanted this conclusion to stand as a memorial to his conviction of the power of the mind. He also read Auerbach's tales and was greatly im- pressed by them, and by Goethe's version of the old story of Reynard the Fox. He was growing more and more dissatisfied with what he called his " strange religion" — the religion of progress. He described it as " merely the absence of faith and the striving after methods of activity, represented as faith. " "Man requires an impulse" — what is expressed by the German word Schwung. Naturally the phases of Tolstoi's inner development were regarded with amazement and amusement by his friends : they did not understand him. They looked on his individuality as foolishness and eccentricity and yet they could not help seeing that the ultimate outcome was to be something out of the common. Botkin wrote Fyet on the eighteenth of March, i860, that any part of his foolishness was of more value than the wisest acts of others, and shortly afterward Turgenief wrote him to the same effect: it was evidently decreed by Fate that he should do queer things. " When will he turn his last somersault and stand on his feet ?" Tolstoi was working in a desultory way on his novel "The Cossacks," which he had begun eight years before. But his general feeling was that "it is undesirable to write novels, especially for men who are depressed and Count L. N. Tolstoi, i860. PHASES OF INNER DEVELOPMENT 139 are in doubt as to what they want of life. " He expressed his opinion to Druzhinin, who w T rote him a long lecture on his tendencies. He told him that every writer has his moments of doubt and depression but still there was no permanent cessation in literary activity. Not only would renunciation of authorship at the age of thirty mean losing half the interest of life, but it would be an evasion of a great responsibility owed to Russian society. In Russia even the short story, " the most frivolous and insignificant form of literature," carries with it a purpose and arouses discussion and thought; it is not as in other countries a matter of idle gossip and dilettante insignificance, but it carries the voice of a leader resounding through the whole Empire. The weakest of Turgenief's tales therefore were divided as by a whole ocean from the very best of Eugenie Tours' — "with her half-talent." The Russian public, he said, had chosen Tolstoi together with four or five others as their leaders and therefore it was his bounden duty not to hide his talent in a napkin but to work even to exhaustion. Then it was no small thing to turn his back on an honest, independent and influential literary circle which for ten years had been upholding the banner of Liberal- ism and borne an immense amount of abuse without committing a single base action, until at last its members had compelled respect and w r on honor and moral influence. If there were foolish and stupid men in it, even they were adding to the total of good work done. Why then should Tolstoi renounce a place superior to Ostrovsky's, with his immense talent and a moral tendency as worthy as his own ? Fyet, who seems to have imitated Tolstoi and given out the impression that he was not going to write any more either, came in for a share of this literary curtain- lecture. Druzhinin wrote him that it was all right to refrain from writing as long as one had nothing of con- sequence to say, but as soon as the inspiration should come i4o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI it would be impossible to keep good poetry and a good book unpublished even though one swore a thousand oaths to do so. " What is not right in Tolstoi's resolution and in yours/' said he, "is this — they originate under the influence of a grudge against literature and the public. But if an author is to be offended at every sign of indifference and at every bit of harsh criticism no one will be left to write except Turgenief, who manages somehow to be every one's friend. " Druzhinin himself had been abused and insulted violently but he had no intention of giving up; if the horse on which he rode plunged and tried to run away it only made a bad matter worse to get angry; sit firm in the saddle and go ahead. If Tolstoi was depressed and unable to write connect- edly, there was good reason for it. His favorite brother, Count Nikolai, called Firdausi because of his "original Oriental wisdom/' was in precarious health. He had arrived at Yasnaya in the month of May and was cough- ing badly. • He was greatly emaciated and his brothers were trying to persuade him to go abroad for treatment. Turgenief wrote to Fyet from the spa at Soden about the middle of June, expressing his concern at the "dear, good fellow's" illness: "Why not make him come here ?" he said. "Throw yourself at his feet and implore him; then drive him by force." The air at Soden was wonder- fully soft and mild and the waters were regarded as a specific for lung-troubles. Count Nikolai took their advice. He paused at Petersburg long enough to consult a physician and was recommended to go abroad. At Soden he found Turge- nief, who was boasting of being perfectly well. They tried to play chess together but Turgenief was too much pre- occupied with a German girl about whom he was raving, and Nikolai was evidently feeling too wretched to enjoy it. Still a week's "cure" had made him feel better and he liked the unpretentiousness of the place. VI SECOND JOURNEY ABROAD Tolstoi, in the meantime, was restless and unhappy. He complained that his farming on a large scale was crushing him. The fact that he had no wife and was get- ting along in life tormented him; everything was out of tune. His sister and her children were about going abroad and he suddenly made up his mind to accompany them. He had been for some time intending to study the educa- tional methods of Western Europe. He procured his passport and they sailed together from Petersburg for Stettin on the fifteenth of July. At Berlin he suffered for four days from an excruciating toothache and from other physical ailments. As soon as his toothache w r as relieved, he spent a few days in Berlin visiting various educational establishments. At the University he attended lectures given by Johann Gustav Droysen, the professor of history, and by Emil du Bois-Reymond, professor of Physics, the great authority on animal electricity. He also visited the evening classes in manual training for artisans, at the Workmen's Union, and was pleased with a scheme that one popular pro- fessor had devised. It was a question-box into which the students slipped written questions, to be answered in due course. It seemed to him admirably designed to enliven the instruction and to bring about great freedom of intercourse between students and teachers. He visited the Moabit prison, where solitary confinement was among the punishments. This kind of torture he condemned no less strongly than the guillotine. He left 141 142 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Berlin near the end of July and spent a day in Leipzig examining the schools, which had the reputation of being the best in Europe; but neither there nor at Dresden was he pleased with the spirit of the instruction. One school that he visited he called terrible. The children were frightened and paralyzed, discipline was carried out by blows, lessons were learned in parrot fashion and hypoc- risy was inculcated. He was fascinated by the scenery of the Saxon Switzer- land, and at Dresden he had an interesting visit with Berthold Auerbach, to whom he jestingly introduced himself as Eugen Baumann, the principal character of one of his novels, but he looked so portentous that the novelist was afraid that he was in for a libel-suit. Tolstoi, however, quickly relieved his apprehensions by adding, "not in name but in character." He regarded Auerbach as his inspiration for the founding of schools for his peasantry, and he took pleasure in telling him so. In Auerbach's first long novel, "Ein neues Leben" ("A New Life"), Count Fulkenberg, who had been an army officer, is imprisoned and manages to escape. He buys a schoolmaster's passport and under the assumed name of Eugen Baumann takes up the task of educating peasant children. Auerbach's village tales contrast the simplicity of peasant life with the complexity of life in cities. Although most that he wrote is, with the excep- tion of "On the Heights," forgotten at the present time, the " Village Stories of the Black Forest " exerted a power- ful influence in awakening an interest in the German peasant. It can be seen that Tolstoi would have found in him a kindred spirit, and Auerbach long cherished the memory of his intercourse with the great Russian writer. Tolstoi left Dresden on the last day of July and went to Kissingen for the "cure." He did not go to see Nikolai but Nikolai went to see him, in spite of what he said in a lively letter to Fyet. He wrote: — SECOND JOURNEY ABROAD 143 "My sister and her children arrived at Soden, where she will stay and take her cure. Uncle Lydvotchka remains at Kissingen, five hours' distance from Soden, so that I shall not see him. I have sent your letter to Lydvotchka by my brother Sergyei, who will call at Kissingen on his way to Russia. He will call on you soon and tell you all the news. Forgive me, my dear Afanasy Afanasyevitch, for having read your letter to my brother. You tell the truth in it, when you generalize; but when you speak of yourself, you are mistaken. You always make the same mistake of being unbusinesslike; you do not know yourself and you know nothing of what is going on around you. But pots are not boiled by the gods! Now be practical; take up business without hesitation and I am sure it will work the unpractical out of you; moreover it will probably squeeze out a few lyrics which Turgenief and I and a few more chaps would read with delight. And forget the rest of the world! Why I love you, my dear Afanasy Afanasyevitch, is that you are all truth: what proceeds from you is yourself and not mere words, as is the case with dear old Ivan Sergeyevitch. " Other letters reflected the hopefulness, with its under- current of doubt, so characteristic of consumptives. The weather that summer was wretched — wind and continual rain. Count Sergyei Tolstoi', who had lost money at roulette and was fleeing homeward, brought his brother at Kissingen the disquieting news that Nikolai was not really improving, but three days later, on the eighteenth of August, Nikolai himself appeared. He remarked despairingly that grapes and a good climate had been prescribed for him but neither was to be found in Europe that year. When he went back to Soden, Tolstoi still stayed on at Kissingen to complete his cure, which he wrote his Aunt Tatyana was doing him good. His thoughts were at home, for he requested full informa- tion from the steward about the farming, the harvest, and i 4 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the horses which had been sick and from the school- master about the school. He wanted to know how many pupils attended and whether they were studying well. He told her he should certainly return in the autumn and intended to devote himself more zealously than ever to its interests, and he was anxious for its reputation to be kept up while he was away so that as many pupils as possible would be attracted from different parts. He devoted his spare time to reading. He read Lord Bacon in English. He was particularly interested in Martin Luther, whose honesty and fearless activity and courage in breaking away from old traditions appealed to him. He made excursions to various places associ- ated with the Reformer, and after visiting the room in the castle in Wartburg where Luther in his concealment made his first attempt to translate the New Testament into German, he wrote in his diary, "Luther is great." At Kissingen he made the acquaintance of Julius Froebel, author of "The System of Social Politics," and nephew of Friedrich W. A. Froebel, founder of the Kindergarten system, then a man of fifty-five, and went walking with him. . . . Froebel in his Autobiography expresses his astonishment that Tolstoi's views did not seem to harmonize with his system. Tolstoi asserted that progress in Russia could proceed only from popular education; it would give better results in his country which was young and as yet unspoiled than in Germany, because the Russian people were not vitiated by a false system, whereas the German people had already gone forward on the wrong track. But he did not believe in making popular education compulsory. He declared that if it was a good thing, then it would be recognized as such and demanded, just as food is demanded by the stimulus of hunger. He saw in the trades unions or artels, with their motto of "Each for all and all for each," the hope for social or- ganization. In this respect the Russian mir or village SECOND JOURNEY ABROAD 145 community was a basis for vast national prosperity. He was surprised that he had not found in any of the Ger- man peasant households Auerbach's " Village Stories" or the poems of Hebel. In Russia, the peasants would weep over such books, said he, not thinking probably that they could not read at all. Froebel called his attention to the novels and other works of Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, and Tolstoi took up with keen zest RiehPs " Natural History of the People as the Foundation of the National Policy." Nikolai Tolstoi was ordered to go south, and his brother joined him at Soden and went with him first to Freiburg and then to Frankfort, where their Aunt Alek- sandra Tolstaya was staying. She afterward related how one day Prince Alexander of Hesse and his wife were calling on her when the door suddenly opened and Tolstoi entered dressed in a costume which reminded her of a Spanish brigand. He w r as evidently not pleased with her visitors and quickly took his leave. After he had gone they asked in astonishment who that singular individual was, and when she told them that it was Tolstoi they expressed the greatest regret that she had not presented him to them, as they had read his admirable writings and were most anxious to meet him. From Frankfort the two brothers and the Countess Marya went to Hyeres on the Mediterranean. From there Tolstoi wTOte his aunt that there if anyw 7 here some chance for the invalid's recovery might be left; a Princess Galitsuina who had come there, he said, in a far worse condition, was entirely restored. But appar- ently he had not lived very wisely at Soden, and that, together with the unfortunate weather and the trying journey, had exhausted his powers of resistance. Tolstoi in his letters tells of the losing battle and the pathetic ending of a life from which much might have been expected. It came on the morning of September 20, i860. Nikolai was conscious to the last. That i 4 6 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI very day he even washed and dressed himself. Only a quarter of an hour before he passed away he drank some milk and said he felt well. He was in his usual jesting mood; he manifested an interest in his brother's educa- tional plans. He did not groan or grumble; he was full of gratitude for the little that he allowed his family to do for him. He scarcely mentioned his terrible spasms of choking and coughing or the sleepless nights and the dreams that tormented him when he dozed. After it was all over Tolstoi went into his room and uncovered his face; it showed little trace of suffering but was beau- tiful with his best expression of happiness and peace. He wrote Fyet that nothing in his life had ever produced such an impression on him. "What should one worry about or strive for when nothing remains of what was once Nikolai' Tolstoi'? ... A few minutes before he died he fell into a doze and suddenly awoke and mur- mured with horror, 'What is that?' It was what he saw — the absorption of himself into nothingness. And if he found nothing to cling to, what can I find ? Still less!" No wonder Tolstoi agreed with Nikolai's remark that there is nothing worse than death, or that under the clear realization that death was the end of all he felt that there is nothing worse than life. After speaking of his brother's love of Nature persisting to the last, he said: "Only one thing remains — the vague hope that there is in Nature, of which we are a part while we are on earth, something that will remain and will be found. " He tried in vain to repeat the Biblical phrase, "Let the dead bury their dead," but the impression left by his brother's death was exceedingly painful to him; he could not rid himself of it: — " One cannot persuade a stone to fall up instead of down, contrary to gravitation. One cannot laugh at a stale joke. One cannot eat without appetite. What is SECOND JOURNEY ABROAD 147 life for, when to-morrow the torment of death will begin with all the abomination of falsehood and self-decep- tion and the end will be annihilation ? A strange thing indeed! Men say to one another: 'Be useful, be vir- tuous, be happy while you live;' but you and happiness and virtue and usefulness consist of truth. And the truth I have garnered out of a life of thirty-two years is that the state in which we are placed is terrible. Take life as it is; you have put yourselves where you are! Well, I do take life as it is. As soon as man reaches the highest degree of development, he clearly sees that it is all humbug and deception and that the truth, which after all he loves better than anything else, is terrible, that when you get a clear full view of it you wake with a start of horror and exclaim as my brother did, t What is that?' "But of course as long as the desire to know and speak the truth remains, we try to know it and express it. That alone remains to me from the moral world and I cannot put myself higher than that. And this is the only thing I shall do, but not in the form of your art. Art is a lie, and I can no longer love a lie though it be beautiful. " In his diary only a few days earlier there is the same almost hopeless pessimism, with a hint at suicide. After a month he complains that the event had torn him terribly from life and the old question kept rising, "Why?" and he obscurely threatens to cut short the journey to his brother; but "Where?" he asks, and can only answer "Nowhere." To conjure up forgetfulness he tries to write, compelling himself, but unsuccessfully, for the sole reason that he could not attribute to his work suffi- cient importance to give him the power and the pa- tience to work. One could almost wish that he had infused even into this tragedy what Robert Louis Stevenson did w^hen at the death of his friend Ferrier he expressed his grief in whimsical slang — "Poor Ferrier, it bust me horrid ! " i 4 8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Nikolai' Tolstoi according to Turgenief actually prac- ticed the simple life which his brother theorized about. He preferred to live in humble lodgings in the suburbs of Moscow, and shared his quarters and whatever he had with any poor creature that begged of him. His family "loved and respected him more than any one on earth. " Fyet says that he was simply worshiped by all who knew him. In the Caucasus he sometimes indulged too freely in strong drink, but after his return to Russia, even under the temptation of hunting parties, he had so far overcome his habit that it was never noticed. He had, as his brother said, extraordinary strength of character and powers of concentration. He was witty and satirical, a clever spinner of yarns. It seems strange that with this equipment he did not leave his mark on Russian litera- ture. Turgenief says that writing was physically almost impossible for him. The labor of holding a pen was too much for him; he was like a plowman with hands stiffened by work. Two days before he died he read to his brother the one article that he ever seems to have completed — "Memoirs of a Sportsman" — which was published in the Sovremennik. VII EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ABROAD TolstoI decided to spend the winter at Hyeres; in his depression it made no difference where he lived. At the pension was a Russian lady named Plaksina, with a boy of nine whose lungs were thought to be diseased. Sergyei Plaksin became a poet and wrote a book entitled " Count L. Tolstoi among the Children. " Tolstoi, though he tried to work and made some prog- ress with his " Cossacks" and wrote an article on National Education, was always ready for a frolic with his sister's children and the little Plaksin boy; he would take them on long excursions to the salt-boiling establish- ments on the peninsula of Porquerolle or to the ruins of the castle called Trou des Fees or to the sacred mountain where was a small chapel with a wonder-working image of the Virgin, and he would tell them exciting stories about the golden horse and the gigantic tree from which all the world could be seen. When Sergyei showed signs of lagging the stalwart count would take him on his shoulder and still keep on with his tales. At dinner he would relate all sorts of amusing nonsense about Russia for the delectation of the landlady, who would not know whether to believe him or not. After dinner they all assembled on the wide terrace or, if it rained, in the drawing-room and improvised operas and ballets with ear-torturing music; or else Tolstoi would give them " stunts" in gymnastics, for which purpose he rigged up in the doorway an apparatus on which he would turn somersaults. Occasionally they all became too turbulent and the 149 i 5 o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI mothers appealed to him to keep them quiet; he would collect them around the table and make them write little essays on some theme, as for instance, What is the dif- erence between Russia and other countries ? and he sternly forbade one to copy from another nor would he let them use lines. While they were writing the count would walk up and down and drive the nervous ladies frantic. "You are going back and forth like a pendulum," his sister would say; "I wish you would sit down." As a reward he would bring the children water-colors from Marseilles and teach them to paint. Thus he in- structed them and joined in their games and acted as umpire in their disputes. Occasionally he went out into society. At one even- ing party at the house of the Princess Dundukova-Kor- sakova, he was expected as the great lion; but he arrived very late, dressed in street costume with wooden sabots. He had been on a long walk and came just as he was. He caused great amusement by assuring the company that wooden shoes were the best and most comfortable covering for the feet. The soiree had up to that moment been distressingly dull, but as he was in excellent spirits the party grew very lively. Tolstoi sat down at the piano and there was an hour of jolly singing. Tolstoi' visited the schools at Marseilles, where the pro- portion of pupils to the population was very large and where they had three, four or even six years of instruc- tion. But he entirely disapproved of the school- program, which consisted of learning by heart the cate- chism, Biblical and secular history, arithmetic, spelling and book-keeping. He thought that the students who had finished the course had no practical knowledge of the simplest operations of mathematics, and their book- keeping learned by rote might just as well have been taught in four or five hours. If asked any question in history out of routine, they were likely to reply, for example, that Henry IV. was killed by Julius Caesar. EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ABROAD 151 At one institution children of four years old were drilled to make evolutions like soldiers at the sound of a whistle and at the word of command sang praises to God and their benefactors. On the whole he was convinced that the schools of Marseilles were exceedingly bad. Yet the common people w T ith whom he talked seemed intelligent and clever, free from prejudices and quite civilized. The average city workman could write letters without serious errors, had a fair idea of politics and modern history and geography and some knowledge of natural science, and was able to make practical applica- tions of mathematics to his trade. The explanation of this phenomenon was found when he looked into the dram-shops and cafes chantants, the museums, workshops, quays and bookstalls: they read the works of Alexandre Dumas — "The Three Musket- eers" and "Monte Cristo," which were universally sold in cheap editions — and they frequented public libraries, theaters, especially cafes w T here forty or fifty thousand of people daily listened to little comedies and recitations and were thus instructed orally just as the Greeks and Romans were. He made no criticism of the quality of this instruction but approved of the principle of this unconscious school- ing which had undermined the compulsory schools and left of them only a shell, so that after five or six years of instruction the pupils carried away only the mechanical ability of putting letters together and writing down words. While Tolstoi was at Hyeres a boy of thirteen died of consumption. Again arose that painful question, Why is it? The only explanation, he WTOte in his diary, is to be found in the faith that there will be compensation in the world to come. If that does not exist then there is no justice and the demand for justice is a superstition. If justice is one of the most essential relations of man to man, he naturally looks for it also in his relation to the 152 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI universe. But without a future life it cannot exist. If as the naturalists say expediency is the only unchange- able law of Nature but is absent in the highest manifesta- tions of men's soul, that is in love and poetry, then Nature has gone far beyond her aim when she gave man his aspirations for poetry and love. Thus in Tolstoi's soul was fought the old, old battle between skepticism and faith. It was noteworthy that at the very time of his brother's funeral the thought occurred to him to write a Materialist Gospel — a life of Christ as a materialist! That would surely have been an interesting development of his idea, formed at Sevasto- pol, of founding a new religion. Its John the Baptist would have been Count Nikolai Tolstoi, the Apostle of "the Ant Brotherhood." About the middle of December Tolstoi went to Geneva, where he left his sister, and thence proceeded to Italy, visiting Nice, Leghorn, Florence, Rome and Naples. Could anything in literature offer a greater contrast in the way of first impressions than those chronicled by Goethe and those by Tolstoi'? Positively all that can be said about his journey is that he there gained his first lively impressions of antiquity. Nothing in his novels or his critical articles shows the influence of Italy. It was a hasty tour; in January he was in Paris again, where as he told Eugene Schuyler he spent half of his time in omni- buses by way of amusing himself in observing the people; in every one he claimed to recognize one of Paul de Kock's characters. Schuyler was scandalized at Tol- stoi's praise of that brilliant but vulgar novelist, but Tol- stoi had the courage of his convictions : — "Don't tell me any of that nonsense that Paul de Kock is immoral," he said. " He is sometimes, according to English notions, improper. He is more or less what the French call leste and gaulois, free and rough, but he is never immoral. Whatever he may say in his books and in despite of his little loose jokes his stories are per- EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ABROAD 153 fectly moral in tendency. He is the French Dickens. His characters are all drawn from life, and very perfectly too." He declared that every novelist should know Dumas by heart; his plots are marvelous and his technique per- fect. He said he could read him over and over though he aims chiefly at plots and intrigue. How he would have felt forty years later is a question, but probably if any one had depreciated Paul de Kock and Dumas in his presence he would have taken up arms in their defense. From Paris, where he was on pleasanter terms with Turg£nief than usual, Tolstoi proceeded to London, and had another encounter with his old enemy, the tooth- ache, nor did he get rid of it in four days, as before; it lasted him nearly all the six weeks of his stay. He is said not to have believed in dentists, as they practiced an artificial and unnatural profession. The natural man never required their aid and if civilized men suffer from dental disorders it is their own fault, for which they deserve to be punished. Patience and time wear aw r ay the hardest pain. In London he saw Aleksandr Ivanovitch Herzen, the famous exile, editor of Kolokol ("The Bell"), that wonderful revolutionary sheet which, though prohibited, was often found on the Emperor's table. Tolstoi had often spoken disparagingly of him, but while at Kissingen had modified his opinion, for though he called him a scattered intellect, sick with conceit, he acknowledged that he was broad, alert, and kindly — a genuine Russian. Herzen on his side admired Tolstoi's stories and his skill in treating of the most intimate feelings which no one had ever before expressed, but he thought his philos- ophy weak, hazy, and unconvincing. Their discussions must have been entertaining, but there was no Plato to serve as a reporter. Tolstoi, who exposed his own moral delinquencies so frankly, was struck by the moral delinquencies of the i 5 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI London reformer-exiles, particularly of Herzen's colla- borator on the Kolokol, Nikolai Platonovitch Ogaryof, whose estate was not far from Yasnaya and to whom he had lost money at the card-table before he went to the Caucasus. Ogaryof, though fluently advocating self- perfection, holy friendship, the service of science and hu- manity, boasted of his drunkenness and of his infidelity to his wife. Tolstoi says there was remarkable absence of consistency in the lives of all those men. They showed a sincere and ardent desire for the public good and be- lieved that they could do great deeds and yet live unregu- lated lives. He says they put unkneaded bread into a cold oven and trusted that it would bake; then as time went on they began to notice that the bread was still dough, in other words, that no good came of their lives, and it seemed to them tragic. His personal life may have been as irregular as theirs, — according to his "Confession," externally there was not much choice between them, — but he at least had the grace to be ashamed; he did not boast of his escapades, and he strove bravely to conquer himself. The difference in their ideals separated them from him. It is notable that he did not contribute to Herzen's Kdlokol, though that weekly then was still exerting an enormous influence in Russia. Herzen's young daughter Natalya had read "Child- hood, Boyhood, and Youth" and looked forward with the keenest interest to seeing him. She took up her position in her father's library and waited till the author appeared. Her first disappointment came when she saw him enter dressed in the latest fashion; her second when his conversation turned entirely on the coc king- mains and prize-fights which he had been witnessing in London. At this time Tolstoi wore a thick, dark-brown beard and mustache; the scar made by the bear's teeth was still visible on his forehead and his eyes burned vividly in very EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ABROAD 155 deep sockets. He was still interested in educational questions and visited as many schools as possible. He saw Lord Palmerston sitting with his hat on, at a time when as a member of the opposition he was attack- ing the ministry, and suddenly rising replied in a three hours' speech in the House of Commons; he noticed a certain hypocrisy in his act but got little idea of what he was saying, his ears not being trained to English speech. England seemed to him u a country of the noblest ideals and yet of the coarsest materialism." Edward A. Steiner, who says he was specially attracted by John Ruskin, though they did not meet, makes an interesting comparison between the two men: "Both" he says, "were aristocrats to their very finger-tips, and both were making the way straight for the coming of a democracy. Both were artistic natures, yet laid great stress upon the value of common labor. Both formu- lated theories of arts in which they were not masters, and which have caused much shaking of heads among the artists. Ruskin was as intense as Tolstoi, but not so concentrated; he was as religious but without being so rationalistic. In both of them the religious element is an important part and both have interpreted it i in terms of human relations.' " On the third of March the Emperor Alexander II. issued his ukase emancipating the serfs of Russia; Tolstoi had already received notification that he was appointed an arbiter of peace {mirovo'i posrednik), an officer or judge whose duty it was to settle such differences as might arise between the proprietors and their former serfs. He started immediately for Russia. At Brussels he met Pierre Joseph Proudhon, to whom Herzen had given him a letter. That courageous extremist had recently been amnestied after his second experience in the French courts. The larger part of his voluminous writings was already before the world. Tolstoi recognized him as a strong, independent thinker who had le courage de son 156 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI opinion. Proudhon's slogan that possessing private property is theft ( u La propriete c'est le vol") goes some- what beyond Tolstoi's dictum, but they were at one regarding peaceful anarchy, where every man should be restrained only by reason and conscience, and all courts, police, soldiery, and punishments should be abolished and only those should eat who earned their daily bread. At least this became Tolstoi's conviction, as it already was Proudhon's. He spent some weeks in Brussels and there wrote his story of "Polikushka," which in its somber coloring, in its tragic delineation of the unfairness of military con- scription, in its unsparing culmination of horrors, in letting the serf, struggling against his besetting sin, be driven to suicide, while the baby drowns unnoticed, belongs to the same class as Tolstoi's drama of "The Power of Darkness." In speaking of this story later, he called it "mere stuff which any one who wielded a pen might write!" At Weimar Tolstoi was the guest of the Russian ambassador, Von Maltitz, through whom he became acquainted with the Grand Duke Karl Alexander. Here also he visited the schools and was shown kindergartens under the guidance of their manager Minna Schelholm, a former pupil of Froebel's. He had an interesting experi- ence in a school kept by Julius Stoetrer. It was Good Friday. Herr Stoetrer was just about beginning a lesson when a pupil put his head into the door and said a gentleman wanted to see him. The stranger followed but did not mention his name; in per- fectly good German, so that the teacher supposed he was a German, he asked what lessons were to be given that afternoon. Then, after asking some more questions which Herr Stoetrer rather resented, he produced a memorandum-book and remarked that it looked as if national history had been left out. "No," was the answer, "the next grade is devoted to EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ABROAD 157 the history of Germany. " When the regular lesson was finished the stranger seemed desirous of getting ideas about composition. He said: "I have pondered a good deal on a method of making thoughts flow fluently." So the teacher required the children to write a brief com- position on some topic which he named to them. That interested the stranger and he walked up and down between the desks, taking up the copy-books by turns and trying to make out what they said. Finally he asked permission to take them with him. But the teacher told him that the children had to pay for their copy- books and their parents, who were mostly in moderate circumstances, would be angry if they had to buy new ones. "That can be overcome/' he said, and he stepped out. While he was gone Herr Stoetrer sent for the head- master and complained of the actions of this strange visitor. "You have played a nice trick on me," he said. "This queer chap you sent to me wants to take away the children's copy-books." "I never did such a thing," said the head-master. "But you are the director of the seminary," replied the teacher, "and he was brought to me by one of your students." Then the head-master remembered that a high official had come to his office while he was out and had requested that every courtesy should be shown to the stranger. While they were talking the stranger returned bringing a large package of paper which he had bought. It was then discovered that he was Count Tolstoi' of Russia. So the children were bidden to copy their compositions, and when they had finished Tolstoi collected them and handed them to his servant, Aleksei. Stoetrer w r hen a boy had been privileged to visit Goethe in his garden, the same garden which a third of a century later Tolstoi visited, though that and Goethe's 158 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI house were then closed to the public. Stoetrer died at an advanced age and never tired of relating his experiences with two such men as Goethe and Tolstoi. At Jena, Tolstoi found at the University a young Ger- man mathematician named Keller and engaged him to go to Russia as a teacher and clerk; he described him as a very agreeable and well-educated young man, though inexperienced. At Dresden, Tolstoi* renewed his acquaintance with Auerbach, whom he characterizes in his diary as "a most delightful man — straightforward, youthful, reverent, and free from the spirit of doubt." In German which it would be difficult to parse he wrote that a light had been kindled in him, and it may be that Auerbach's characterization of music as pjiichtloser Genuss, as unethi- cal pleasure, leading directly to depravity, may have been the seed from which grew his tragedy of "The Kreutzer Sonata." He remembered with approval Auerbach's definition of Christianity as "the spirit of humanity, than which nothing could be higher." Tolstoi was now beginning to yearn for home, though he felt that as long as he was in Europe and might not be there again he ought to make the most of his opportunities; and indeed he was bringing back so many impressions and so much information that it was as yet wholly uncoordinated in his mind. From Dresden he proceeded to Berlin and there met the head of the Teachers* Institute, the son of the famous educator Friedrich Diesterweg. He had expected to find an enlightened and open-minded scholar, but was dis- appointed in a man who seemed the very personification of ultra German pedantry, cold and soulless, imagining the minds of children could be developed and guided by means of rules and regulations. They spent an hour in discussing schools and educational matters, but the chief subject of their conversation was the meaning of the words education, instruction, and culture. EDUCATIONAL STUDIES ABROAD 159 "Diesterweg," he said, " spoke with biting sarcasm of people who made such subdivisions, as, according to him, all these ran together. And yet we spoke of education, culture, and instruction, and we clearly understood each other. " One may be inspired by new principles and one may also gain new principles by seeing the ill effect of bad methods. Tolstoi learned by his educational tour of Europe what he had to avoid in conducting his beloved school. He realized that he must needs begin at the very beginning and establish an intercourse which would bring the scholar and the common people together and not set apart a privileged class to enjoy all the delights of learning while the masses of the people are starving for the very bread of life. VIII THE QUARREL WITH TURGENIEF Returning to Russia early in May, Tolstoi* delayed in Petersburg long enough to obtain authorization to publish a periodical which he was proposing to establish at Yasnaya. Then after a short delay in Moscow, waiting until the roads were sufficiently settled for traveling by carriage, he set out for his country home. He and Fyet's wife made the journey together, and when the evening air became cool he borrowed a cloak belonging to the poet and wrapped himself up in it, remarking that it would be sure to result in his producing a lyric ! Soon after this Turgenief wrote him from Spasskoye suggesting that while the nightingales were still singing and spring was smiling "bright, beatific, fair/' they should go together and invade Styepanovka, Fyet's new home, the estate which at Tolstoi's recommendation he had bought not far from Yasnaya. Turgenief wrote to Fy£t, also announcing his coming and enclosing a letter from Tolstoi congratulating him on his new possession, and expressing his pride that he had contributed no little to making a farmer of him. Turgenief he said he should like to see, but Fy6t ten times as much — it had been so long since they had seen each other and so many things had happened to both of them. Then he makes an interesting comparison between a friend and Nature. "A friend," he says, "is a good thing to have, but he may die or go away or one may be unable to keep pace with him, while Nature, to which one becomes attached by a notarial deed or by 1 60 QUARREL WITH TURGENIEF 161 inheritance, may be cold, harsh, and exacting but she sticks to one until death and then one is absorbed into her. I am just now," he added, "less devoted to this friend, for I have other affairs which engage my interest; yet without the consciousness that this friend is here at hand and that if I stumble she is ready to help, life would be sad indeed." Tolstoi's reference to losing a friend was ominous. He was on the brink of an almost mortal quarrel with Turgenief. About the first of June, 1861, Turgenief and he set out together to make the promised visit to Fyet. They were in excellent spirits and there was much laughter and jolly talk w r hen they took the new proprietor by surprise. Fyet says that the few buildings on the estate at the time made Turgenief spread out his long arms in wonder and exclaim, "We gaze and we gaze, but w r here is Styepanovka? What we really see is a fat pan-cake and on it a lump and this is Styepanovka !" The first day passed pleasantly; the man cook pre- pared a dinner which suited Turgenief 's Lucullus-taste; there was plenty of good champagne; the conversation was lively and brilliant. After dinner the three men continued their discussion while strolling about the place and w T hile lying in the tall grass at the edge of the wood at a little distance from the house. The next morning at breakfast the family and guests gathered at table, Tolstoi sitting at the left, Turgenief at the right, of the hostess, who was making coffee from the boiling samovar. Fyet, who gives full details of the occurrence that followed, says his wife, knowing the importance attached by Turgenief to the education of his illegitimate daughter, asked him if he was pleased with her English governess. Turgenief w r as enthusiastic in his praises of her and to illustrate her characteristic English scrupulousness, told how she had asked him to designate a certain sum of money for his daughter to use for charitable purposes, and he added that she was now 1 62 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI requiring his daughter to mend ragged old clothes for the poor. "And you consider that good?" demanded Tolstoi. "I certainly do," replied Turgenief; "it makes the charity-worker realize everyday needs." "And I think that a well-dressed girl with filthy, malodorous rags in her hands is acting an insincere farce," commented Tolstoi. "I ask you not to say that," exclaimed Turgenief, becoming hot with indignation. " Why should I not say what I am convinced is true ?" retorted Tolstoi'. "Then you disapprove of my manner of educating my daughter!" retorted Turgenief. Tolstoi" replied that his thought corresponded to his words, though he meant nothing personal. Fyet, seeing how matters were going, was about to intervene when Turgenief, white with rage, leaped to his feet and exclaiming, "If you say that again I will box your ears!" left the table and clutching his head with both hands rushed into the next room. He returned instantly and addressing Fyet's wife, said: — "For God's sake, excuse my rudeness, which I deeply regret." Of course two such fire-brands could not be safely housed under the same roof, but it was a problem how to get them away. Tolstoi' had come in Turgenief s car- riage and Fyet's horses were not wonted to his only con- veyance. However, they managed to drive Tolstoi to the nearest post-station without an accident and thence he went to the country-house of an acquaintance, and sent a letter to Turgenief demanding satisfaction. Turgenief immediately wrote a semi-apologetic reply to this, but it was sent to the wrong place. Turgenief wrote that, "carried away by a sense of involuntary enmity, the causes for which needed not to be considered," he had insulted Tolstoi' without any definite provocation; QUARREL WITH TURGENIEF 163 but that he had already apologized. The occurrence seemed to prove clearly that there could be no further intimacy between such entirely opposite natures, but as this incident would terminate their relations he was willing to satisfy Tolstoi in any way he might demand. Proceeding to Boguslaf, halfway to his own estate of Nikdlskoye, Tolstoi after a sleepless night sent a mes- senger for pistols and a second letter to Turgenief with a blood-thirsty challenge: no mock-duel for them, with an exchange of futile bullets ending in clinking of cham- pagne-glasses; Turgenief was to come with pistols ready for a deadly encounter at the edge of the Boguslaf woods. Turgenief s letter in reply to Tolstoi's harsher letter and challenge declared that he would willingly face Tolstoi's fire in order to efface his " truly insane words"; that he should have uttered them, he went on to say, was so unlike the habits of his whole life that he could attribute his action to irritability caused by the extreme and con- stant antagonism of their views. "This is not an apology, " he said, "that is to say not a justification but an explana- tion, and therefore in parting from you forever — for such occurrences are indelible and irrevocable — I consider it my duty to repeat once again that in this affair you were right and I was wrong." He ended with expressing his willingness to fight or to give satisfaction by apology. Tolstoi answered this letter through Fyet, accepting the apology but assuring his friend that he despised Turgenief. "Here is the end of an unfortunate affair." It was not the end; for when Fyet tried to reconcile the foes he found himself in the position of a child who tries to separate two fighting dogs. Tolstoi became so in- censed with him that he forbade him to write again. "I shall return your letters unopened as well as Turgenief's," he said. Early in October Tolstoi began to relent. He was in Moscow and a sweet mood of universal good-will, humility, and love came over him. So he sat down and 164 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI wrote a note to Turgenief asking him for his forgiveness if he had offended him, and saying it made him very unhappy to know that he had an enemy. *Instead of despatching it to Paris he directed it to the care of a bookseller in Petersburg. It was not delivered for three months, and in the meantime, in November, Turgenief wrote Fyet that on his way through Petersburg he had heard from certain reliable people that Tolstoi had been circulating copies of a letter in which he had boasted of " despising him." This made Turgenief so angry that he sent him a challenge against the time he should return to Russia. But when he got word from Tolstoi that the report did not originate with him, and that he begged forgiveness and declined his challenge and yet should consider any fresh communication as an insult, he asked Fyet to tell Tolstoi that the whole matter was buried forever. Several months later, in January, Turgenief received Tolstoi's long-delayed letter and wrote Fyet again rehearsing a part of the controversy and expressing his conclusion that their constellations moved through space in definitely hostile conjunction and therefore they had better avoid meeting. "But," he added, "you may write him or tell him (if you see him) that I (without phrase or jesting) love him from afar, that I respect him and watch his career with sympathetic interest, but when we are together everything takes a different turn. What is to be done? We must behave as if we lived on different planets or in different centuries." Fyet delivered this message to Tolstoi, and that caused another outburst of wrath which Turgenief compared to a tile falling on an innocent man's head. V. P. Botkin, a common friend of the whole circle, writing about the quarrel, expressed his belief that Tolstoi had a passionately loving soul and desired to love Turgenief ardently but met with only a mild, good- natured indifference; moreover, he said, his mind was in a QUARREL WITH TURGENIEF 165 chaos, not having reached any definite outlook on life and the affairs of the world. That was why his convictions changed so often and he was so likely to run to extremes. His soul burned with unquenchable thirst, because what satisfied it one day was broken up the next by his analysis, but as his analysis had no durable and firm reagents its results evaporated into thin air. This was undoubtedly true. It has been charged that in this quarrel and in the strained relations that preceded it, Turgenief was actu- ated by jealousy of Tolstoi's rising star, but all accounts agree that Turgenief, though politic and not always sincere, was calm and generous by nature. Tolstoi, ten years younger, failing in deference and challenging everything in a disagreeable cocksureness of opposition, certainly did not show off to advantage. Yet Fyet made it evident that he sided with the younger rather than with the older of the two authors. Some years later the following event took place and led Tolstoi to make interesting comments on fighting duels. The police made a descent at Poltava on the house of M. A. Zindvief, brother of the Russian ambassador to Constantinople, it being suspected that he belonged to the Tolstoian community. Nothing incriminating was discovered, but all his private correspondence and the works of Tolstoi were carried off. Mr. Zindvief was very angry. A family council which shortly afterward was held at Petersburg and included Zon6vief's two brothers, both of them provincial govern- ors, agreed with him that this action on the part of the police was an outrage on people of aristocratic preten- sions who had always been devoted to the Emperor. On his return to Poltava Zinovief sought out the colonel who had instituted the search and after a brief parley provoked him to a duel. The colonel was much annoyed. "Very well," said he, "I will ask for authorization to 1 66 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI fight in the duel, but will you tell me why we are going to fight? I only did my duty!" Zindvief remained obdurate. Two days later the Minister Goremuikin telegraphed the governor of Poltava to use all possible means to induce Zindvief to withdraw his challenge. The colonel returned Tolstoi's works and the correspondence, and the incident closed. When Tolstoi' was informed of it he was greatly stirred. "Ah! what a regrettable thing," he exclaimed. "That good, kind Zinovief! Why did he do such a thing? How strange is this impulse which hides in the depth of men's souls, carefully preserved by the ancient traditions of a vanished feudalism. Children pinch each other, they fly at each other like little cockerels, and that is laughable, for it is natural and logical; it is as natural as for young people to grow animated at the sound of a waltz and form figures for dancing. It is a good thing. We may try to train children to curb these violent actions but the violence is inborn in them. "When village champions pull up their sleeves and indulge in fisticuffs, thumping each other in their ribs or in their cheeks, there is nothing comical about it, for it is not so natural; yet even there one finds a certain naivete and the desire to break bones; this kind of struggle might be called a gymnastic trial if there were spectators to laugh and egg on the combatants. "But when two gentlemen, after removing their waistcoats, take their positions at a given distance and with one hand behind the back point the mouth of their pistols at each other, this is no longer natural or amusing or naive, it is repugnant and nasty; the act becomes stupid, false, artificial, though it remains martial. "There is nothing to be avowed in a duel; the pretext at first is often vile and low; it comes from a carnal lust or from presumptuous vanity or from exaggerated sensi- QUARREL WITH TURGENIEF 167 tiveness. But what I see most reprehensible in these actions is the state of soul of the antagonists. "As a rule some little time follows the day of the insult; the hatred engendered at the beginning and the ardent desire for vengeance are mollified. And yet it is necessary to fight, to kill. Placed on the field, ready to fire, the duelists are conscious of the cruelty, of the infamous baseness, of the deed they are about to perform. "I can speak from experience. The man whom I sent to carry a challenge to Turgenief had scarcely started off, I could still hear the noise of his horse's hoofs, when all my anger died away and I forgave Turgenief the brutal words that had so stirred me to indignation; I could see him reading with his kindly eyes the insolent provocation, which perhaps was the signal for a violent death. And I can imagine how I should have felt if we had not become reconciled, if I had been compelled to point my weapon at him, to wait while either he or I should shoot. It w r ould have been atrocious for me! And I am sure that the majority of duelists have this feeling, since the reason for the meeting is almost always a word hastily spoken in the heat of anger. That was the case with Turgenief. "I admit the duels of antiquity, when these combats decided the fate of nations, as for instance the battle between David and Goliath. But there also the reality is not so beautiful as it is depicted in the romantic stories. We admire the victory of the little David over the enor- mous Goliath. But study the text and you will perceive that David was neither small nor feeble. Saul said to David, 'Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for thou art but a youth and he is a man of war from his youth.' David replied: 'Thy servant kept his father's sheep and when a hungry lion appeared, I went out after him, I smote him and I delivered the lamb out of his mouth. The lion arose against me and I caught him by the beard and slew him.' Young David 168 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI was strong; he had the strength to attack the Philistine. It was the battle of two Hercules substituted for war, for a murderous collision between thousands of men. If the nations nowadays would have recourse to this method, bloody wars on land and on sea would become rarer. Especially if these single combats should take place between the chiefs of the belligerent countries. And perhaps, just as in the case of duelists, these leaders of nations would then very quickly recognize how foolish and idle are the pretexts for quarrels." IX AN UMPIRE OF PEACE Tolstoi was soon involved in other controversies, not less than fifteen in number. Some of them were as annoy- ing as that with Turgenief, but rather more creditable. His duties as Peace Arbiter or Umpire for the Krapivyensky District of Tula were responsible for them. His appoint- ment was resented by those of his neighbors who dis- approved of his methods of managing his estate and treat- ing his serfs. Several years before the emancipation he had let his serfs go on what was called obrok, that is to say, left them free to work for themselves with only a yearly tribute or tax to pay. After the emancipation he followed the law, giving the peasants the land they were cultivating, — about eight acres a head, — and he did not follow the common custom of compelling them to ex- change their lands in such a way as that they would have no pasture. The common report that he emancipated his serfs some years before the Emperor's manifesto is incorrect. He could not have done such a thing legally. The Marshal of Nobility of the Government of Tula wrote to the Minister of the Interior to complain of the ac- tion of the Governor in selecting Tolstoi on the ground that unpleasant disputes might hinder the peaceful settlement of such questions as would be certain to arise. The Minister of the Interior instituted a secret inquiry and received word confidentially from Lieutenant- General Darogdn that he was acquainted with Count Tolstoi* and knew him as a well-educated man who had a sympathetic interest in the matter, and he therefore re- 169 170 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI fused to replace him. The result of this correspondence was that Tolstoi was confirmed by the senate and imme- diately took up the work. As might be expected he generally sided with the peasants against those proprietors who would have taken advantage of their ignorance. Thus when one landowner complained that her serf had left her, considering him- self a free man, Tolstoi upheld the muzhik and made his mistress pay him for three and a half weeks' of illegal work and compensate the man's wife for an assault made upon her. This decision was appealed, was set aside by the Assembly of Peace Umpires, but was reversed and up- held by the provincial court. In another case peasants were tilling a field and allowed their horses to graze in the meadow of a neigh- boring landowner, who complained to Tolstoi*. Tolstoi, knowing that the peasants had some reason to complain of this proprietor, asked him to overlook the matter, but he refused and insisted that they should pay him a fine of eighty rubles. Tolstoi took three muzhiks from a neighboring village as referees : they assessed the dam- ages at thirty rubles. Tolstoi thought this excessive and reduced it to fifteen. The landowner complained that Tolstoi was enriching the peasants at the expense of the proprietors; when the District Assembly of Umpires demanded of Tolstoi an explanation, he refused to give any, stating that he had simply obeyed the law. In another case a landowner seized his muzhiks' possessions by declaring them to be dvordvuie liudi or house servants, and the law did not provide for that class of serfs. Tolstoi followed the matter up until he suc- ceeded in getting their holdings for them. He also did his best to protect the peasantry from small landowners who tried to allot the peasants sma'ler parcels of land and of worse quality than was called for. In one case Tolstoi issued a leave-of-absence to a house serf and when complaint was lodged against him he Count L. N. Tolstoi, 1862. AN UMPIRE OF PEACE 171 acknowledged that he had made a mistake, and offered to compensate the proprietor. In still another case, where a village had been partly burned, the landowner refused to allow the peasants to rebuild on the same spot, but required them to move their homesteads and yet refused to give them any money for new buildings or free them from the bdrshchina or obligatory work or even allow them needful time. Tolstoi saw that the demands of the muzhiks were reason- able but also that the landowner was ruined and unable to satisfy their demands. Therefore he appealed to the other nobles of the district to help him extricate both parties from their difficulties. His plea was dismissed and all his efforts were in vain. So he refused to sit in the district assembly, and this again created ill feeling. His smypathy with the peasantry was exceedingly dis- tasteful to the proprietors; they charged him with pro- voking rebellion, with encouraging them to commit unlawful acts, and with bringing about a state of anarchy. He received threatening letters, a plot was formed to have him beaten; it was planned to provoke him into a duel; many complaints were lodged against him, most of them having no legal justification, and almost every decision that he gave was reversed ; and the fact that the peasants put implicit confidence in him was charged against him. So annoyed was he by these experiences that in March, 1862, he informed the Government Board of Peasant Affairs that he was handing over his office to a deputy. He made one more sporadic attempt to do the impossible work and then again withdrew on the ground of ill health. Ill health was the ostensible excuse preferred by the Senate in removing him from the only civil office that he ever held. There may have been some truth in it, for in his diary after only three months' experience he noted that his post had given him little material for his literary work, had spoiled his relations with the land- owners, and had upset his health. 1 72 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI How unfair was the charge that he always sided with the peasants against his own class is shown by one instance where, a dispute having arisen regarding a certain allotment, Tolstoi repaired to the estate in company with his "little land-surveyor," as he jestingly called a peasant- boy of twelve who carried the Gunther's chain, and there received a deputation of two village elders and a member of the village council, who wanted him to grant them more land than their former barin could afford to give. They pleaded with him and they wheedled him and they called him Bdtyushka, "little father," but Tolstoi was obdurate: he crossed himself and said, "In the name of the Holy God, I swear that I cannot do as you wish," and at the end of an hour, in which he had exhausted every argument and himself into the bargain, the count, who had been patient all through, exclaimed: "One might, like Amphion, move the hills and woods, but it is impossible to convince peasants of anything." The routine of his functions he sadly neglected. The first charter that he sent to the Government Board for registering the new relations between a pomyeshchik and his former "souls" well illustrates this carelessness. Tolstoi's servant had written at his dictation that, at the request of certain peasants unable to write, the house serf So-and-so had signed the charter for them. But the name of neither landowner nor serf was attached to the precious document. Tolstoi sent it off without even glancing at it. Prince Obolyensky's step-father received it, but being a kinsman of Tolstoi's, only shrugged his shoulders. It is a rather curious commentary on Tolstoi's shifting views that he who argued so weightily against the effi- ciency of great generals in conducting wars should have asserted at a dinner at Tula that the Emperor Alexander, the Tsar-liberator, was the only person responsible for the reform. "I drink to that toast with particular pleasure," he cried, "no other toasts are needed!" In an article on "Progress" published later, he argued AN UMPIRE OF PEACE 173 that printing had been of little use to the people; he could not see that the power of the press helped toward the solution of the problem. Most of the periodicals, he declared, would have demanded the emancipation of the peasants without endowing them with any land and would have produced reasonable, witty and sarcastic arguments in favor of that method. Eugene Schuyler in a letter printed in November, 1868, tells how he asked Tolstoi* what he thought had been the effect of the emancipation. Tolstoi replied that he had been a supporter of the measure but had come to the conclusion that it had been premature — had been reached by the reasoning of theorists and had not been brought about by the demand of the people or by the necessity of the case. It had therefore been injurious to the peasantry; their live-stock — the index of their pros- perity — was constantly diminishing and very few of the peasants had seized the opportunity of buying land; they used their new freedom for doing less work than before and spent most of their time in drinking-houses. X EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES During all these months he was also occupying himself enthusiastically with educational matters. It was a stren- uous year. He says that he was Umpire of Peace, school- teacher, journalist and author, and that he nearly ruined his health by his tasks, the friction in his court was so great and his work in the school so unsatisfactory. It was unsatisfactory for two reasons: First, because it was in the nature of an entirely radical experiment, a complete departure from anything that had ever been tried before, at least in Russia. Nearly forty years earlier the American educator, Amos Bronson Alcott, had attracted wide attention by theories and practice very similar to those which Tolstoi was developing apparently on independent lines. Alcott believed in awakening the child's mind in complete independence without imposing any ideas from external sources, and encouraged his pupils to express their ideas both in speech and in writing. Tolstoi' says that he first took up the matter of popular education without any preconceived theories or views on the subject and was immediately confronted with two questions: What was he to teach and how was he to teach? In trying to answer these questions he was puzzled with a great diversity of opinions. In Russian literature there was nothing to help, and after turning to the literature of Europe, and making a personal investigation of many of the school systems of Germany, France, and England and talking with the so-called best representatives of the science of education, he utterly 174 EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 175 failed even there to find any answer. Moreover, he became convinced that the science of education did not recognize any such questions, since every educator seemed firmly convinced that the methods that he used were the best, being founded on absolute truth. He therefore returned to make empirical essay of an inchoate idea. While he was Peace Umpire fourteen schools were opened in his district, which contained ten thousand "souls"; there were besides the ten schools supported by the clergy and by the proprietors, while in the whole Government of Tula there were fifteen large schools and thirty small ones. They were kept in accordance with the general customs obtaining at that time. Tolstoi was not content to support a school on his estate; he wanted to try out his theories himself. He says he began to experiment on new lines and, because compulsion in education was repulsive to him both by conviction and by his character, he exerted no pressure on his students to make them accept what he offered them, but as soon as he noticed that anything was not readily received he abandoned it and tried something else. These experiments convinced him and his teachers as well that nearly everything written about schools was separated by a world-wide abyss from the truth. He was on the right track, but the question why his method was better than any others hitherto devised was as far from solution as ever. He would have been pleased had his theories been contradicted by those competent to discuss them, but he found that his questions, when put, met with absolute indifference. He published at his own expense for a year his educa- tional magazine, Ydsnaya Polyana, in which he printed his now famous descriptions of the school as it was con- ducted, as well as various theoretical, controversial and argumentative articles. Each number contained also reports of the progress of the schools, a bibliography, 176 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI a description of school libraries, lists of donations and a supplement in the form of a reading-book. It naturally had a small circulation and complete files of the twelve numbers are eagerly sought by book collectors. The late Eugene Schuyler brought one home and presented it to the library of Cornell University. In the complete editions of Tolstoi's works, both in Russian and English, may be found extracts from his articles, giving an excellent notion of this famous though short-lived pub- lication and of the school in the interest of which it was published. Mr. Aylmer Maude says very pertinently that Tolstoi showed in his educational work the qualities and limi- tations which in later years marked all his propagandist activity: " There was the same characteristic selection of a task of great importance; the same readiness to sweep aside and condemn nearly all that civilized hu- manity had accomplished up to then; the same assurance that he could untie the Gordian knot; and the same power of devoted genius enabling him really to achieve more than one would have supposed possible, though not a tithe of what he set himself to do." He showed himself a prophet when he declared that it was hopeless in Russia for any educational reform to come from above, and that the peasantry would see in any national school system only a new means of increasing their taxes. He also used all the powers of his irony to show how little advantage came to the peasantry of a country by what we boast are the fruits of progress — telegraphs, railways and the like. He is of course quite right in his claim that the combined forces of the millions are of more value and importance to a country than those of the thousands of the cultured classes, but it is not difficult to detect the flaw in his argument or in its application. Judging the school from Tolstoi's own descriptions, one can easily see that his ability to arouse the interest of the EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 177 pupils was what stimulated their intellects. It was cer- tainly accomplished largely by his own personality, by what he called "a sort of pedagogic tact," by his wonder- ful power as a novelist. For instance, in his second lesson in history, which he declared remained a mem- orable event in his life, the class began as usual in a state of chaos; Tolstoi told the children about the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, and by his skill in narration he kept them awake long beyond their bedtime. A German who was present criticised his narration as being told from a w T holly Russian standpoint. Tolstoi frankly says that he fully agreed with him that his narration was not history but a fanciful tale to rouse the national sentiment. The idea of teaching history by means of fiction seems to have been suggested by the American Manuals of Samuel Griswold Goodrich, bet- ter known as "Peter Parley." Tolstoi came to the con- clusion, however, that there was no necessity of teaching history or geography to a boy before going to the Uni- versity, and he was not certain that it would not do harm even then. On the other hand he found the teaching of the Bible easily awoke the enthusiasm of the children and their parents, and he came to the conclusion that without the Bible the development of the child or the man would be as impossible as it would have been in Greek society to ignore Homer. "The publication of a translation of the Bible in the simple language used by the peasants," he said, "would form an epoch in the his- tory of the Russian people." If every teacher had that divine ability of kindling interest, one might almost be safe in saying that the educational value of the instruction given w r ouldbe entirely apart from the value of the subject taught. A child so stimulated might be left to guide himself and would ulti- mately, no matter what he might learn quite erroneously (as in the case of Count Tolstoi's history lesson) , be sure 178 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI to follow the light that had attracted his eyes until he came out into the truth. So it was at the Yasnaya Polyana School. For weeks no progress was made in the art of reading; suddenly out of a feeling of rivalry with a lad who had accidentally been earlier and better trained than the rest, the children began of their own accord to apply their minds to reading, and they succeeded. So it was with writing; the teacher introduced writing from copies; the pupils took no in- terest in it, but after they had been set to work to write out some Bible stories in which they were really interested and discovered them to be too badly copied to take home, they were moved to ask for fresh paper, and quickly a fashion for calligraphy set in and they made great progress. Tolstoi had little belief in teaching geography in schools, and was dubious about its use in universities, but it is quite possible that if the pupils' interest had been properly awakened, even though "the coachman might drive a man to his destination," this subject would have been found as fascinating as Old Testament stories. But moving pictures and the stereopticon had not at that time taken their place in the school curriculum. Still more successful from the standpoint of interest were the lessons in literary composition, where the pupil was the veteran author and the teachers were the naive and enthusiastic peasant lads Fyedka and Syomka, who showed extraordinary imagination as well as judgment, sense of proportion, restraint and power of expression. The whole long account of the three days' collaboration of Tolstoi and these embryo novelists, in writing a story to illustrate a popular proverb, the tragedy of the acci- dental destruction of the manuscript, and the clever repro- duction of it by Fyedka and Syomka, may all be found in the volume of Tolstoi's educational writings. That story and several others by his peasant pupils were published in his magazine and seemed to Tolstoi juster, saner, and EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 179 more moral than those written by adults; they greatly influenced his literary art. The children's interest in writing, in drawing and in music made him realize that art was immensely important to the millions of the com- mon people and he came to the conclusion that all that had been done in music and poetry, as it had been pro- duced for those whose minds were vitiated by a false education, lacked importance, had no future, and was insignificant in comparison with what the people them- selves had spontaneously uttered in those branches. He himself had only recently had his attention attracted to the beauties of Pushkin's works — curiously enough in a French translation by Merimee; he loved Beethoven but did not hesitate to declare that Pushkin's most admired poem and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony were not so absolutely and universally good as certain Russian folk- songs and melodies; " Pushkin and Beethoven please us," he says," not because they are absolutely beautiful but because we are perverted and they flatter our abnormal sensitiveness and weakness." He argued that to enjoy the beautiful no preparation was necessary. On the other hand he claimed that the result of his endeavors and of the endeavors of hundreds of other teachers to develop poetic feeling is to kill it. He be- lieved that the need of enjoying art and of serving art was inherent in every human being and that it should be sat- isfied, and he laid it down as an axiom that if the enjoy- ment and production of art by every one involve incon- veniences and inconsistencies the fault lies in the direction which art has taken and in its character. He even doubted if it were worth while for the people to learn the rudiments, as there exist no good books for the people either in Russia or in Europe and as the rudiments signified prolonged conditions of compulsion, dispro- portionate development, false notions of the complete- ness of science, the aversion to further education, false vanity and the habit of reading meaningless literature. i8o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI In appealing to the interest and kindling it, Count Tolstoi had unwittingly touched the primal spring of all educa- tion worthy of the name; and this phase of the Yasnaya Polyana School, whether displayed in music, in history, or in composition, is worth all his theorizing and vain search for satisfactory definitions. But neither his controver- sial articles, nor his drastic condemnation of universities (training not such men as humanity needs but such as a corrupt society wants) and of all other ready-made institu- tions, seemed to attract the slightest attention. Two articles, indeed, were published in the Sovremennik in the year 1862. The author of one, Markof, upheld the right of compulsory education which Tolstoi* denied and expressed approval of contemporary systems of instruc- tion. He praised the Yasnaya School but held that it was inconsistent with its founder's theories. Tolstoi' replied to this article, reasserting his former views. He declared that his theories, — that freedom should be granted to pupils to select what they would learn and how they would learn it — formed a sound basis for instruction and that when it was applied to practice it always produced good results — good for the pupils and good for the teachers, as was evident to the hundreds of visitors who came to see the working of the school. The teachers were alert to discover and apply new methods, the pupils learned eagerly and begged to have additional lessons in the winter, and the most friendly and natural relations existed among the teachers and pupils. The Yasnaya Polyana School was perfectly free; no one paid for instruction; there was no attempt at discipline— unless, as sometimes happened, Tolstoi for a moment forgot himself and pulled a pupil's hair or slapped him in a moment of irritability : even that was only carrying out the method of perfect naturalness! Tolstoi's articles show his own relations with the children, talking and walking with them as might an older brother; and a visitor to the school relates how he saw him come rushing through o o u < < < < J o PL, < < si < O EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 181 a gate pursued by a horde of shouting children who were snowballing him. Tolstoi was trying to escape their friendly attentions, but when he saw his visitor he surrendered at discretion. On one occasion, many years later, the schoolmaster was reading to the children Ne- krasof's poem, "Vlas." The thirty boys and girls were listening intently when in came Tolstoi's sons and their cousin Misha. Misha w r as mischievous and jumped on a boy's back and pulled his ear. "Let me go! You hurt me!" cried the child. The class was annoyed. The schoolmaster tried in vain to go on, but Misha made still more disturbance. Then the schoolmaster told Vanya, the son of the village cobbler, a big, flat-faced muzhitchok, to put him out. This Vanya did with the assistance of the others. They lugged him into the store-room and locked him in. Just then Tolstoi came along. He asked what the trouble was. "Open, Uncle Leon!" "I have not the right! Promise your comrades not to annoy them any more." He promised and was let out, his face red, his hands covered with soot from having tried to climb out through the chimney. "What a shame! You'd have made a fine negro coming out through the stove!" One of the children recalled the verse from "Vlas": — "The Ethiopians are black and their eyes shine like coals." Tolstoi' drew his lesson from the episode: the children should not have used force on Misha to punish him; but they were saved by having also punished themselves, and their practice of reason tended to develop their faculties. XI COLLISIONS WITH OFFICIALS Sixteen years later Tolstoi in his " Confession" told how on his return from abroad he occupied himself with peasant schools, a work particularly to his taste because in it he did not have to meet the falsity which had stared him in the face when he tried to teach people by literary means. But even here, he says, the same old question arose: How to teach without knowing what ? In the higher spheres of literary activity he realized that one could teach "without knowing what," because the teachers all taught differently and hid their ignorance from one another while they quarreled among them- selves; but he thought to evade the difficulty with the peasant children by letting them learn what they liked. And yet, in the depths of his soul, he knew very well that he could not teach anything needful, for he did not know what was useful. Then, he says, he went abroad again to discover how to teach others, though he himself knew nothing; and he deemed that he had succeeded in this object abroad, and so on his return he busied himself with his arbitration work, his schools and his magazine; but he became so exhausted that he fell ill mentally rather than physic- ally, threw up everything and went away to the Bashkirs in the steppes, to breathe fresh air, drink kumys, and live an animal life. He set off in May, 1862, accompanied by his servant Aleksei and two schoolboys. From Moscow they went 182 COLLISIONS WITH OFFICIALS 183 by rail to Tver on the Volga, then down the river by steamer to Samara. Already the change was beginning to do him good; he wrote in his diary on the first day of June that he seemed to be reawakening to life and to an understanding of it. And yet he was haunted by the thought of the absurdity of the belief in Progress and was impelled to discuss it with every one whom he met — the wise and the foolish, old men and children. At Kazan he had time to pay a call on his relative Vladi- mir Ivanovitch Yushkof. At Samara, just as he w r as about to set out on a ninety-mile drive to Karaluik, he wrote his aunt to tell her that he had enjoyed a beauti- ful journey through a country which gave him great delight and that his health was improving and his cough was troubling him less. A month later he wrote rather impatiently demanding news about the family and the school and reporting that he and Aleksei' had grown stout. They were living in a Tartar kibitka. He had found his friend Stoluipin (father of the late reactionary Russian prime minister) at Uralsk, where he was ataman, or Cossack commander, and had driven over to see him and brought back a secretary, but under the lazy conditions of kumys-drinking had not succeeded in writing or dictating anything of importance. He was tormented by the lack of news in that out-of-the-way place and also by the consciousness that he was sadly behind with the publication of his journal. He would have been still more tormented if he had known what was going on at Yasnaya Polyana. Revolutionary proclamations had been appearing in Petersburg, and the police were keen to discover the presses where they were printed. It was hinted to the authorities by some crafty enemy of the former Umpire of Peace that it was quite possible that certain leaflets calling for propagandist cooperation were printed at the office of a country magazine. As it happened, Yasnaya Polyana was printed by Mikhail N. Katkof at Moscow. 1 84 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI The bait was taken, however. Markof, who was an eye-witness, gives a lively account of what happened. He and a friend named Auerbach were spending the summer at a house about six kilometers distant. They were hastily summoned to the assistance of Tolstoi's old aunt and his sister, who, with her children, was there on a visit. The two men hastened to Yasnaya, and this is what they found: — " There were post-chaises drawn by troikas with their bells, conveyances of neighbors, the head of the police district, the commissary of rural police, local policemen, witnesses, and in addition to all this — gendarmes. "The colonel of the gendarmes arrived with a great jingling and bustle at the head of this fearful expedition into Tolstoi's peaceful abode, to the great consternation of the village. After some difficulty we succeeded in entering the house. The poor ladies were almost fainting. Everywhere there were watchmen, everything was opened, shifted about, and turned upside down — tables, drawers, wardrobes, chests of drawers, boxes, caskets, and the like. In the stables crowbars were used to lift the floors; the ponds in the park were dragged with nets in order to catch the criminal printing-press, instead of which only innocent carp and crabs made their appearance. " Of course, at first, the unfortunate school had been turned upside down; but the searchers, apparently finding nothing there, went in the same noisy, bustling pro- cession, with sounding bells, to pay a visit to all the seventeen schools of the district, everywhere turning over tables and ransacking cupboards, carrying off exercise-books and school manuals, putting teachers under arrest, and creating the wildest conjectures in the heads of the peasants, who were generally unfavorable to the schools." Prince Obolyensky says in his Memoirs that one reason for the perquisition was that most of the teachers were University students and therefore the authorities were COLLISIONS WITH OFFICIALS 185 opposed to the school, and suspected that there was some- thing unsound about it. He says that in one room the attention of an officer was attracted by a photographic apparatus, then a novelty. "What is that?" sternly demanded the officer. One of the student-teachers replied with serio-comic intent that it was kept thereto photograph the redoubtable Herzen. The officer saw that he was being chaffed and went out biting his lip. The most outrageous part of the visitation was perpetrated by the police commissioner of Tula, who detained the Countess Marya while, in the presence of two gendarmes, he read aloud Tolstoi's correspondence and private diary, w T hich he had been keeping with unexampled frankness for more than a quarter of a century. When the news of this was brought to Tolstoi, he was furious. He afterwards remarked that it was exceed- ingly fortunate that he was not at home, for if he had been the police would certainly have arrested him for murder. He wrote his Aunt Aleksandra Tolstaya a long letter, bitterly complaining that all the activity in which he had found solace and happiness had been spoiled. His Aunt Tatyana was so ill from fright that she would probably not recover. The peasants no longer regarded him as an upright man but looked on him as a criminal, an incendiary or a counterfeiter, who hitherto had escaped detection only by his cunning. The unfriendly pomyesh- chiks were in a state of rapture. The only way out of the difficulty was for him to receive an apology from the authorities as publicly as the outrage had been committed. He proclaimed that he was going to sell his estate and leave Russia. He felt especially sore that the visitation should have been made when he was away from home, and he made up his mind that he would complain directly to the Emperor. This he succeeded in doing. When Alexander II. i86 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI chanced to be in Moscow a little later, Tolstoi met him as he was walking in the Alexandra Gardens and person- ally handed him his protest. The Emperor took it and is said to have sent an aide to apologize. An amusing correspondence took place in consequence : the Minister of the Interior wrote the Minister of Public Instruction that after reading the Ydsnaya Polyana review he had discovered incorrect and injurious ideas and a general tendency to attack the fundamental rules of religion and morality, and he felt that the continuation of the review in the same spirit must be considered all the more dangerous because the editor was a man of remark- able, not to say fascinating, talent. The Minister of Public Instruction ordered all the printed numbers of the review to be brought to him and read them with great care. He informed the Minister of the Interior that he agreed with his subordinates in finding nothing subversive to religion in the review, and though there were expressions of extreme views they were proper subjects for criticism in scientific educational publications, but not calling for prohibition by the censor. He concluded with a rather remarkable expression of respect for Tolstoi as an educator and a determination to help and encourage him even though he did not share all his views. A few years later he had still another unpleasant encounter with Russian bureaucratic methods. A bull on his estate had gored the keeper and killed him. The investigating magistrate, who was also the coronor, dis- tinguished more for zeal than for discretion, held Tolstoi responsible for carelessness in keeping cattle and began criminal proceedings against him, compelling him to agree in writing not to leave Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoi was extremely indignant, and one morning, having spent some time exposed to the arrogant and impertinent ques- tions of this young chinovnik, he arrived late at a hunt on the estate of his friend, Prince Obolyensky. He told COLLISIONS WITH OFFICIALS 187 how one of his peasants had been kept in jail a year and a half on suspicion of having stolen a cow which was proved to have been stolen by some one else. "He will confine me for a year!" exclaimed Tolstoi. "It is ridiculous and shows how perfectly arbitrary these men are. I am going to sell all I have in Russia and go to England, where every man's rights are respected. Here every police-officer, if you don't grovel at his feet, can play you the meanest tricks. " P. F. Samarin, the Marshal of the Nobility for Tula, was present and took the other side, and actually con- vinced Tolstoi that, after all, the mutilation and death of a man could hardly be allowed to pass without a judicial investigation. "What a remarkable power at calming people Samarin has!" remarked Tolstoi, as he went to bed that night. There were several reasons which led Tolstoi to give up his magazine and also to close his school. The twelve numbers which he issued caused him an expense of three thousand rubles; the cost of his school, which required the services of four teachers and w r hich brought him in no financial returns, was considerable. He was annoyed by the well-meant but annoying interference of numerous visitors who were attracted by curiosity or by interest in such a novel experiment. Moreover, he was by no means certain that he was accomplishing any definitely valuable results. Either on his way to Samara or when returning from that visit to the Bashkirs, while at Moscow, he once more yielded to his besetting temptation to gamble. He played at Biksa Kitaisky, or Chinese billiards, and lost a thousand rubles, or about seven hundred and fifty dol- lars. As he had not the ready money to pay this "debt of honor," he secured from Mikhail Katkdf, editor of the Moscow Vyedomosti and the monthly Moscow Vyest- ■ nik, an advance on his novel, "The Cossacks," on which he had been at work in a desultory way for ten years 1 88 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI and intended to lengthen by the addition of a second part. Shortly after this he dropped into the house of Dr. Behrs and told the family joyfully that he had just sold his novel. They thought the honorarium very low, and when he explained that he was obliged to do it the three girls felt so badly that they wept. Turgenief heard from Botkin about the transaction and wrote Fyet, " God grant he return to his true work, if even in this way." It was published in the Russky Vyestnik in the fol- lowing January and was immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece. Nevertheless, the circumstances of its pre- mature appearance and what he considered its incom- pleteness, and the disagreeable associations, made it re- pugnant to him. After it was published he told Fy£t that it had some stuff in it, though poor! It seems complete in itself; it ends inevitably like every perfect work of art. It is full of atmosphere; one can almost smell the acrid odor of the burning dung used on the Terek for fuel; the descriptions are vivid and natural; the episodes are full of life and the characters are well- differentiated and sympathetic, especially the principal four — Olyenin, the Moscow aristocrat, weary of dissipa- tion and yearning for a new and wholesomer existence; Maryanka, the handsome Cossack maiden who would not have been averse to love Olyenin as his mistress — sexual morality being judged by a different standard among the Grebensk Cossacks — but not as his wife; Lukashka, the superb young jigit — and Uncle Yeroshka, the old huntsman. Comparable with one of Gogol's pictures of Cossack life is the night-scene where Lukashka, expecting a raid from the Tchetchens, stands watching the flow of the broad river. His companions are asleep; he alone watches through the night. He sees the heat-lightning occasion- ally flashing in the distance. The reeds whisper together; the gnats buzz in the warm night air; the water ripples; COLLISIONS WITH OFFICIALS 189 now and then the earth caves in with a splash; a fish leaps; an owl flies by on hurrying wings. Daybreak approaches. Lukashka, still on the watch, sees a dry branch making its way slowly across the current. He realizes that there is a Tchetchenets behind the log, guiding its motion. He lifts his musket and waits. Then he catches a glimpse of the man and drawing a long breath and murmuring, "In the name of the Father and the Son, . . . " shoots. His aim is good; the Tchetchenets, shot through the head, lets go the log, which, rocking and rolling, floats swiftly down the stream. The Cossacks gallop down to the river. Then cautiously they bring their fish ashore and fling him on the grass. What a scene for a painter! The savage w T ith his yellow skin and oddly trimmed beard, w r ith nothing on but his wet, dark blue cotton trousers, girdled tightly about the fallen belly, the muscu- lar arms lying stiffly along the sides, the livid, freshly shaven round head with the gory wound, the glassy eyes still open showing the pupils and seeming to look up beyond them all, the good-natured and shrewd smile hovering still over the thin parted lips under the short- cropped mustache, and in contrast, Lukashka all dripping, his eyes brighter than usual and his cheeks trembling, while from his fair healthy body a visible vapor rises into the cool morning air. No less vivid is the ransom of the body and the battle of the hayricks. Olyenin himself is perhaps more interesting as depict- ing Tolstoi torn between his fiercely passionate impulses and the yearning to lead an ideally moral and altruistic life. Turgenief, writing to Fyet, tells how he went into ecsta- sies over " The Cossacks," but he felt strongly that the per- sonality of Olyenin spoiled the generally magnificent im- pression. He declared that in order to contrast civilization with fresh primitive Nature there was no need of conjuring i 9 o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI up once more that dull, morbid character, always so pre- occupied with himself. " Why doesn't Tolstoi get rid of that incubus ?" he asked. But he will appear again and again — in " War and Peace," in "Anna Karenina" and in " Resurrection. " PART III FAMILY LIFE I MARRIAGE The hero of "Family Happiness" is represented as being an elderly man who makes the experiment of taking for his wife a fresh young girl. Tolstoi was pre- paring to make the same experiment in his own life, although the outcome of it, as told by the heroine, was not depicted in colors likely to give it a glamour in the eyes of a romantic maiden. Tolstoi had been long intimate at the house of Dr. Behrs, w T hose wife, it will be remembered, had inspired him with the pangs of jealousy when he w T as a child. Fyet describes her as "a beautiful and stately brunette, evidently the ruler of the household. " There were three daughters, who had been carefully educated. Fyet says that they were perfectly modest and yet had what the French call le charme du chien — the charm of liveliness. The youngest daughter, Tanya, had a beautiful contralto voice and Tolstoi used to play her accompaniments and called her Mme. Viardot. It was generally supposed that he was interested in Liza, the eldest. The Behrs family went in the summer to the estate of Pokrovskoye, which had belonged to Mrs. Behrs's father, Islenyef. It was about twelve kilometers from Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoi used to go there on foot and then take them on long walks. On one^ occasion he drove with the four ladies from there to Ivitsa, about fifty kilometers. On their way they stopped two days at Yasnaya Polyana and 191 i 9 2 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI all of them took part in a picnic and climbed up on a hay- stack, watching the hay-makers. Tolstoi was studying these young ladies. He liked their spirit; they could speak three or four languages fluently, they were musical and they were practical; they knew how to manage a household. He was very desirous of establishing himself, but he was not sure of his own mind. In his diary under the date of September 4, he wrote that he was afraid of himself: "What if this should be only a craving for love and not real love ? I try to notice her weak points — but still I love. " Three days later he speaks of walking to Pokrovskoye and of feeling calm and serene. Sonya, the second daughter, who had passed a University examination and was enti- tled to give lessons in private families, handed him a story written by herself. He was pleased with her truthfulness and simplicity but though he claimed that he had read it without agitation, without any feelings of envy or jealousy, he was rather hard hit by her description of the hero as being "exceedingly unattractive in appearance and of changeable convictions. " He was relieved to find that nothing personal was intended. Two days later, on his birthday — he was now thirty- four — he got up, feeling sad, convinced that he stood alone, having no friends, those who had pretended to be friends when he served Mammon, dropping away now that he was trying to serve the Truth. ..." Ugly phiz!" he exclaimed, "do not think of marrying! Your vocation is of another kind and you have talent for it!" A few days after the picnic, Tolstoi also appeared at Ivitsa, where the Behrs family were making Mrs. Behrs's brother a fortnight's visit; and here he came to an under- standing with Sofiya Andreyevna. He was sitting with her at a card-table and wrote the initial letters of each word of a sentence which he left to her wit to interpret. It was as if he had written in English: I. y. f. a. f. o. e. a. y. s. L. a. m. Y. a. I s. c. i. This signified: — Countess Tolstaya in i860, before her Marriage. MARRIAGE 193 In your family a false opinion exists about your sister Liza and me. You and I should correct it. Sofiya Andreyevna afterward declared she could not understand how she made out to read the words. It was a kind of thought-transference; as she said to Biryukof: "It must be true that souls attuned to each other give out the same sound, like unisonant strings. " She interpreted it correctly; then he wrote again: — Y. y. a. n. o. h. r. m. t. p. o. m. a. a. t. i. o. h. She read that also correctly: Your youth and need of happiness remind me too powerfully of my age and the impossibility of happiness. The same sentences in Russian would require fewer words. But her cleverness at reading his hieroglyphics made a deep impression on him', and on her name-day, which was the twenty-ninth of September, he made her a written marriage-proposal. It was accepted, although at first her father, who did not like the idea of his eldest daughter's being obliged to wear "the green stockings/' angrily refused his consent. He was soon w r on over. Tolstoi, with honorable intent, as soon as he was accepted, gave his betrothed all his diaries to read, and she was so shocked at his intimate confession of youthful irregularities, tempered though they were by frequent prayers and expressions of sincere self-reproach, that she almost felt it her duty to break the engagement. Her love for him, however, caused her to put it into the back- ground of her mind and try to forget that he was not that ideal of virtue which he had seemed to her, a girl of eighteen. This whole episode forms a striking series of chapters in the fourth part of "Anna Karenina," where it is chronicled with scarcely more than a change of name; also with variation in "The Kreutzer Sonata." Kitty Shcherbatskaya, uncertain of her own mind and more in love with Count Vronsky than with Konstantin Levin, had broken down in health and had been taken abroad, where in new scenes she had recovered her i 9 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI serenity. On her return Levin appeared to her in a different light and they came to an understanding by means of the significant initials. Levin writes with chalk on the table: k.v. tn.o.; e.i.m.b.z.Le.n.n.i.L, and he has no idea that Kitty will be able to interpret them; but he looks at her with an expression which tells her that his very life depends on her understanding of the words for which the initials stand. She looks at him gravely, then tries to read, occasionally glancing up as if to ask, "Is it what I think?" "I understand," she says at last with a blush. And she lets him know that nekogdd, never, for which the n stands, never meant never, but was only a temporary "never" for the time when she refused him! So she takes the chalk and writes: T.y.n.m.i.o. And he also understands! It means: "Then I could not answer otherwise." The matronly Dolly looks in upon them and sees Kitty with the chalk in her hand with a timid and happy smile, looking up at Levin and his radiant face as he bends over the table, with flashing eyes, looking now at the table, now at her. Then she writes again: ch.v.ni.z.i.p.ch.b., signifying that they would for- get and forgive the past. He writes in the same way that he has nothing to forgive or forget, that he has never ceased to love her. She whispers, "I know it." So they carry on the conversation, each understanding the other, and though some of the longer sentences foil him, yet he can read in her eyes all that she means. And when he asks the fateful question in three initials, she answers in one word: da, yes! Then begins for Levin, as undoubtedly for the impul- sive Tolstoi, a brief season of unspeakable happiness. He cannot sleep, he has to confide in every one, he finds people who before had bored him are the most delightful in the world, and although he has to hurt Kitty's feelings by telling her that he is not so pure as she thinks him MARRIAGE 195 and that he is a skeptic, still when he is asked when he wants the wedding, replies, " To-morrow !" Tolstoi was married within six days after his proposal. Like Levin, in "Anna Kar£nina," he had to go to con- fession — a formality in which he had no belief; but it was indispensable and he took it like a medicine. The wedding was celebrated on the fifth of October in the Court church of the Kremlin. Tolstoi's servant had packed up all his linen and sent it off; in consequence he was an hour late at the ceremony. "In the church was all Moscow — relatives and acquaintances, " it says in "Anna Karenina. " After giving a lively and dra- matic description of the wedding ceremonies, with snatches of gossipy and desultory conversation, the chapter ends with these words: "After the wedding, that same night the young couple went to the country. " This was what Tolstoi and the young countess did. They set forth for Yasnaya Polyana in a kind of traveling- carriage called a dormeuse. A fortnight later he wrote Fyet that he was married and happy — "a new, an entirely new man." The winter was spent partly on the estate and partly in Moscow. In January "The Cossacks" was published in the Russky Vyestnik, and a little later Tolstoi wrote to Fyet, with whom he had now resumed the old friendly relations, that he was living in a world so remote from literature and its critics that his first feeling on hearing about that story and "Polikushka" was one of astonish- ment. Who can have written those stories ? he asks, and what is the use of talking about them ? Anything can be put on paper, and editors print anything and pay for it. But he confesses that after this first impression one begins to wake up to the fact that it is pleasant to rum- mage about in that old heap of rubbish labeled Art and pleasant to smell the musty smell once more. The desire to write comes back; he is at work writing the story* of a *This was "Kholstomyer," which in some of the Tolstoi bibliographies 196 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI piebald gelding, which he expects to publish in the follow- ing autumn. "How can one write now?" he asks. He was up to his ears in farming — he liked to call it ufanizing by an extension of his brother Nikolai's happy coinage. "We have no prikashchik; we have no helpers for the field- work and the building operations, but Sonya single-handed is attending to the office and the money. I look after the bees, the sheep, the new orchard, and the distillery. We make some progress, though slow, and of course it does not come up to our ideals." The letter ended with a reference to the Polish insur- rection of 1863, which was so cruelly suppressed by Russia, and implies the possibility that he and the other old soldiers would have to take their swords down from their rusty hooks. Toward the end of May Tolstoi con- fided in Fyet that there were expectations at Yasnaya Polyana, and the letter contained an invitation, prompted by the countess, for him to visit them. This Fyet did, and he tells in his "Recollections" how he found Tolstoi' eagerly engaged in seining for carp in one of the ponds. The countess in a white dress came running down an avenue of white birches with a huge bundle of keys hanging at her waist, and in spite of "her extremely interesting condition" jumped over the fence that separated the avenue from the pond. Tolstoi bade his wife send to the barn for a sack and the countess, de- taching a key from her belt, despatched a boy to get it. "There," remarked Tolstoi, "you see an example of our method. We keep the keys ourselves and all the chores are done by the boys." He was getting along without clerks and overseers, which he declared were only a hindrance in managing an estate, and he found the experiment quite satisfactory. Fyet gives us a glimpse of the dear old Aunt Tatyana is translated "The Linen-measurer." Kholstdors means " linen," and myer "a measure," but the name would seem to indicate "the pacer;" it also contains a pun, kholoshchenoikon being "a gelding." For some reason "Kholstomyer" was not published for twenty years — not until 1888. MARRIAGE 197 looking with pride and hope on the happy pair and exclaiming, " You see, with mon cher Leon things could not be otherwise, of course." Of Tolstoi he says that having passed his whole life in an eager search for new things, he had now evidently entered upon a world of novel experiences in the splendid future of which he believed with all the enthusiasm of a young artist. II "war and peace" On the tenth of July, 1863, Tolstoi's eldest child was born. He was named after his uncle Sergyei', and has lived to devote his talents successfully to music. During this year Tolstoi wrote a farcical comedy, entitled "The Nihilist," which was privately performed in his own home with great success; and also a comedy, "The Infected Family,' ' which he hoped to bring out on the Moscow stage; but for some reason it was never even published. It will be included in the definitive edition of his works. The young countess not only occupied herself with the management of domestic affairs but also acted practically as his private secretary. She was systematic, he was most careless; his handwriting was exceedingly blind and he had a habit of interlining his afterthoughts; but the countess, who had shown so much acumen in deciphering his abbreviations, was no less clever in making out what her brother calls his marvelously illegible handwriting, his hastily scratched scrawls and fantastic hieroglyphics, his incompleted words and phrases. He tells us that the countess, during the eight years while he was writing his panoramic novel " War and Peace," copied it "no less than seven times. " As he considerably exaggerates the length of the "War and Peace" period it may be doubted if that word seven is to be taken literally, especially as he adds that during that time four children were born, that she not only nursed them herself but made all their clothes. Moreover, the oldest child was at one time ill with small- pox and dysentery, and Tolstoi' himself was more than once in bad health. 198 "WAR AND PEACE" 199 Even while Tolstoi was at the University of Kaz£n his interest had been kindled by the historical events at the beginning of the century; and he was now planning to write a romance, the characters of which should be partici- pants in the great Dekabrist or December Conspiracy of 1825, when some of the more advanced of the Russian people took advantage of the accession of Nicholas I. to demand a constitution. The conspiracy was brutally suppressed, the poet Ruilayef and others were executed and many were exiled. Among those who were con- demned to hard labor in the mines of Eastern Siberia, part of the time in irons, was a cousin of Tolstoi's mother. This was the Prince Volkonsky whose wife voluntarily shared in his exile and is represented by Nekrasof in his long and dramatic poem, "Russian Women/' as torn by her love for her son whom she must leave behind in a sister's care and for her husband whom it would be a shame to desert — the hero whom she had loved in prison as she loved Christ. The thirty years' exile was ended and the lofty-hearted survivors, broken by their sufferings and privations, had returned after the death of Nicholas. The arrival of one of these former exiles with his family, at a time when all Russia was again boiling with political enthusiasms, made a promising starting-point for a romance; but it may be easily seen that the menace of the censorship would take away all pleasure in writing it, the constraint would be too great. Still greater difficulties would be met from the same cause in treating of the actual conspir- acy; and it is not strange that after several abortive at- tempts at long intervals Tolstoi' went back still further and began his prose epic, the first book of which he thought to call "The Year 1805." In order to sow the field that he had chosen, he was working hard at the "preliminary work of plowing deep. " He wrote to Fy£t that it was terribly difficult to consider and reconsider all that might happen to all the characters that he was pro- 2oo THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI posing to introduce into the very big work that he had in mind and to weigh millions of possible combinations in order to select a millionth part from among them. In the autumn of 1864, after a second visit to Samara, whose locality attracted him more and more, he informed Fyet that he had written a good deal of his new novel but complained that he could accomplish only a thousandth part of what he wanted to do. " Nevertheless, " he added, "the consciousness of the ability is what brings happi- ness to men like us." There were still living in Russia, and among his own relatives, people whose recollections went back to the burning of Moscow; in the family archives there were memoirs and letters which cast a light on those days; some of Tolstoi's friends were of assistance to him in getting written information from those that knew. There were government archives and documents and books in the libraries and museums. He himself collected a great mass of material. His work on the novel was interrupted in the late autumn by a serious accident which befell him one wet day as he was out riding on his English thoroughbred Mashka, accompanied by his two dogs, Liubka and Krui- lat. Several miles from home they started up a hare, and in an instant there was a wild pursuit. The ground was slippery and the horse stumbled and threw her rider at the entrance of a narrow ravine. Tolstoi's arm was broken and dislocated. He fainted from the pain, but on recovering consciousness succeeded in making his way on foot to the highway, half a kilometer distant. He man- aged to attract the attention of some peasants, who carried him to the izba of an old baba named Akulina. She with the aid of her son tried to set the arm, but without success. Word was brought to the countess. She sent to Tula for a doctor, who arrived late at night and after administering chloroform was able, with the "WAR AND PEACE" 201 aid of two farm-hands, to set the broken bones and pull the arm into place. He was forbidden to use the arm for six weeks. At the end of that time, being distrustful of the Tula physician's skill, he took his gun and fired it off. It hurt him so severely that he decided to go to Moscow and consult specialists. There two competent surgeons rectified the blundering country surgery and he ultimately recovered the full use of his arm. This spring his eldest daughter, Tatyana, was born. The mother did not follow the usual Russian custom of employing a wet-nurse for her infants but nursed them all, with the exception of her second daughter. While he was in Moscow he sold Katkof, for the Russky Vyestnik, the serial rights to the first instal- ments of "War and Peace," at the rate of five hundred rubles a printed sheet. The price of fiction had increased tenfold since his Caucasus days. In February, 1865, he wrote Fyet that his novel would make its appearance very shortly and begged him to give him his honest opinion of it. He wanted Turgenief's also, though he disliked him more and more. Tolstoi's collected works had been recently published in four volumes, containing nearly a score of short stories besides a selection from his educational articles. He told Fyet that all he had printed up to that time he considered only experimental. Still he w^as not satisfied with the preliminary chapters of his new work; he said it was wxak — as any introduction has to be. "But what will follow will be immense!" He adds in a jocular tone: — "I am glad you like my w r ife; though I love her less than my novel, still, you know, she is my wife. " The published reminiscences of Fyet and Tolstoi's brother-in-law Stepan Andreyevitch Behrs, and Tolstoi's letters, are the chief authority for the period devoted to "War and Peace." After October, 1865, he ceased to keep a diary. 202 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Natasha, who comes dancing into that story with a charm not exceeded by any heroine in all fiction, is evi- dently a sort of compound photograph of the countess and her younger sister Tatyana or Tanya, who always spent her summers with them. Tolstoi's brother Sergye'i, though twenty-two years older, was in love with her and she would have gladly married him. Her parents also were desirous of seeing them married, although they all knew that he was living with a gypsy woman and had a family of children by her. This affair caused much unhappiness, but Sergyei' felt that it was his duty to legiti- mize his children. He made their mother his legal wife two years later (1867). Tatyana Behrs soon afterward married a man named Kuzminsky. With due variations Tolstoi made use of this incident in depicting the twofold love-affairs of Natasha with Kuragin and Prince Andrei, and her ultimate happiness with Pierre. Literary work was more and more drawing Tolstoi from his interest in farming. He wrote Fyet that he was making slow progress with his writing but was content. Every afternoon he went out after woodcock. "My farming, " he says, "goes on well — that is to say, it does not trouble me much and that is all I ask of it." Later he complained that farming was in bad shape — farmers being like capitalists whose shares have depreci- ated and are unsalable in the market. Yet personally all he asked for was that it should not take too much of his attention so as to cheat him of his peace of mind. But the threat of famine in his neighborhood worried him more and more and it did not seem to him fair that his own table should be groaning with delicacies — red radishes, golden butter, sweet white bread, on a clean table-cloth, green trees in the garden, and charming company of young ladies in fluffy muslin frocks, while all around the evil famine-devil was at work covering the fields with weeds, opening cracks in the parched ground, chafing the "WAR AND PEACE' ' 203 calloused heels of the muzhiks and cracking the hoofs of the live stock. He advises Fy£t to follow his example and make literature and not the land his chief interest. This realization of the importance of authorship lasted some time. For instance in November, 1866, he wrote Fy£t asking him what he was doing: "Not in the zemstvo or in farming, for all that sort of thing constitutes the unfree acts of man and what you and I do in that line is as elemental and unfree as the digging of ants in their anthills and therefore neither good nor bad; but what are you doing in your mental processes with the Fyetly main- spring of your being which alone has been, is, and will be forever ? Is that mainspring still alive ? Is it trying to manifest itself, and how is it expressing itself or has it forgotten to express itself? That is the main thing. " It will always be "the main thing," but how different in its manifestation! He had inherited from his brother Nikolai the estate of Nikdlskoye, and having had the house there repaired he moved to it with his family for the summer, where he lived quietly, writing "War and Peace" and seeing something of his neighbors Fy6t and Dyakof. He took part in a great hunt organized by another neighboring pomyeshchik named Kireyevsky. The huntsmen wore pic- turesque costumes and the dinner was served in the forest. It was an interesting gathering of the old aristocracy. In the autumn of 1865 Tolstoi determined to visit the battle-field of Borodind, and on his way stayed at the Behrs' home. He invited his young brother-in-law, then about eleven years old, to go with him. They drove in Dr. Behrs's post-carriage, and when the time for luncheon came discovered that the food had been left behind. Tolstoi remarked to Stepan Andr^yevitch that he was sorry, not because the luncheon was left behind, but because Dr. Behrs would be angry with his servant. They made the journey in one day and lodged in the monastery that had been erected in memory of the hun- 204 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI dred thousand killed on the battle-field. For two days Tolstoi wandered over the ground where the great battle took place. He made minute investigations and drew a plan of the field, which was published as a frontispiece in one of the volumes of his novel. He pointed out to his young companion the places occupied by Napoleon and Kutiizof and related several stories of the battle. He hunted up various elderly persons who were supposed to remember something about the great event. Unfortu- nately the veteran who had been rewarded by having charge of the monument that commemorated the battle had recently died and the quest for fresh material in the way of reminiscences was not very successful. Tolstoi took advantage of his stay in Moscow to study into the documents at the Rumyantsof Museum, par- ticularly those referring to the reform movements and Masonic lodges that were so vigorously suppressed after the war. Ill CHARACTERISTICS In January, 1866, Tolstoi hired a six-room apartment in Moscow for six weeks while the second part of "War and Peace" was printing for the Russky Vyestnik. He attended the Moscow drawing school and took up modeling in clay. He went so far as to make a bust of his wife. There is nothing to indicate whether he ever practiced this branch of art; but his third son and name- sake, born three years later, became not only a literary man, but also a sculptor, with an especial talent for por- traiture. After his return to Yasnaya Polyana his second son, Ilya, was born and an English nurse was employed. During the summer that followed a dramatic event oc- curred. A regiment of infantry happened to be stationed near Yasnaya Polyana. Several of the officers visited the Tolstois. One day Ensign Stasulyevitch — brother of Mik- hail, the founder of the Vyestnik Yevropui — came to call, with a young sub-lieutenant named Grisha Kolokoltsof, whom the countess had known in Moscow. They wanted to enlist Tolstoi's interest in a private soldier named Shibunin, employed as clerk for the Polish captain of one of the companies. Shibunin was dull and when he received any money spent it in drinking. The captain disliked him and persecuted him by finding fault with his reports and making him rewrite them. Shi- bunin, on one such occasion, being angry when told to recopy a document, struck the captain. According to the military law such a misdemeanor was punishable by death. 205 206 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI The officers felt that there was some extenuation for Shibunin and they urged Tolstoi to defend the man. Tolstoi, who, ever since he had witnessed the execution in Paris, had felt that capital punishment was a crime, was glad to do so. He wrote out an eloquent speech urging that Shibunin was not responsible for his action, his mind having become weakened by intemperance and the stupefying drudgery of his occupation, but at the same time was intelligent enough to hate the captain because he was a Pole and to feel that he was treating him unfairly. Tolstoi spoke easily and with assurance on this occa- sion, urging that there was legal palliation for the offense. The judges listened, says Tolstoi, with hardly con- cealed ennui to all the stupidities which he uttered, looked at a few papers and a book, and then consulted in private. When the verdict of the court martial was announced it was learned that Ensign Stasulyevitch was in favor of acquittal; the colonel, who was a martinet, insisted that the culprit should be executed according to law ; while Kolokoltsof , on whom the decision rested, felt that it was his duty to support the colonel, Yiinosha, and therefore voted against granting mercy. Tolstoi immediately wrote his Aunt Aleksandra begging her to appeal to the Emperor to pardon the man. Unfortunately he neglected to designate the regiment to which the parties belonged, and when she went to the Minister of War, Milyutin said that it was impossible to bring the matter before the sovereign until he had all the facts. Meantime the colonel, eager to uphold military discipline, hastened the execution, which took place on the twenty-first of August. The peasantry of the neighborhood sympathized with the poor fellow and brought him food and clothing to the extent of their means, and when he was shot they thronged around the post to which he was tied — the women weep- ing, and many of them fainting. A priest was engaged CHARACTERISTICS 207 to perform masses at his grave for a whole day. Such quantities of offerings in the form of copper money, linen, and candles were brought that the priest would have been enabled to keep up the service indefinitely; but the local police interfered, forbidding any more religious services, and causing the grave to be leveled lest it should become an object of pilgrimage. Nearly all Tolstoi's experiences with governmental red-tape and the arbitrary measures of officials were cumulative factors in his development toward scientific anarchy, strengthening his belief that the administration of law was evil. But afterward he bitterly regretted that he had not at the time formulated his principle of love to all men, so that he might have conducted the defense from the right standpoint. This may serve as a sample of the way Tolstoi's time was broken in upon during the summer. He had many visitors, and sometimes in his discussions with them he would express himself in a way to offend. He was quick- tempered, but his servants knew how to get along with him. One of them, who was in his employ for more than twenty years, felt a son's affection for him. "When he was angry with me about anything, I used to leave the room at once, for I understood him, and when he sum- moned me again it was as if nothing unpleasant had happened. . . . When he wanted to go hunting he would order the trap. His man, Aleksei, would bring him his hunting-boots and the count would shout at him, 'Why didn't you dry them? You are not worth your salt!' But Aleksei, who understood him, would take the boots away and bring them back almost immediately and the count would say, 'There! They're all right,' and recover his serenity." He was enthusiastic in his love of nature, particularly of the Russian landscape. His brother-in-law quotes him as exclaiming: "What wealth God has! He gives each day something to distinguish it from every other." 208 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Nothing except illness, from which he too often suffered, prevented him from taking his daily walk. He could en- dure loss of appetite, but a day without a smart outing in the open air was a trial to him. Often when he came upon peasants plowing or mowing, he liked to stop and lend a hand, letting the man whose scythe or plow he took rest the while. "On such occasions," says Behrs, "he more than once asked me how it came to pass that in spite of well-developed muscles they could not mow for six days running, while a common muzhik, who slept on the damp ground and lived on black bread, could easily do it. Just try it and see!" he would say. He also enjoyed horseback riding and gymnastics. He could exercise all day without suffering fatigue. He kept dumb-bells in his library and often exercised with other apparatus. He was so strong that he could lift five kilograms with one hand. In the winter he would help clear the pond for skating; in summer he mowed the lawn and raked the garden beds; he liked to play leap-frog or skittles with the boys, or to race with them. He grew to dislike luxury more and more. He was not particular about his food, yet sometimes when he felt that he ought to refrain from a second portion of some favorite dish he would humorously console himself by exclaiming, " Wait till I am grown up and then I will have two helpings to that dish." Or if he wanted a second cigar, he would express himself in the same whimsical way. In later life he conscientiously gave up the use of tobacco. He preferred to sleep on a leather-covered divan rather than on a soft bed or spring mattress. All visitors to Yasnaya Poly ana remarked upon the Spartan simplicity of the dwelling, particularly his own quarters. His dress in the country at that time, and afterward at all times, was simplicity itself. He never wore starched shirts. "His costume," says his brother-in-law, "con- sisted of a gray flannel blouse, which in summer he ex- changed for one of linen of a very original cut, as we judge CHARACTERISTICS 209 from the fact that there was in the district only one old woman who could make it according to his prescription. He sat in this blouse to Kramsko'i and Ryepin, who painted his portrait. His over-dress was composed of a kaftan and a polu-shuba, or short coat of the simplest ma- terials, and like the blouse eccentric in cut, being made evidently not for show but to withstand bad weather." He was subject to varying moods; often, especially when with young people, being hilarious and comical. Behrs tells how on one occasion, when the countess was getting ready to go to Tula to make some purchases and consulted him as to what dresses she should buy for the children and for herself, he exclaimed, "Why! there is a business cut out for four hundred linen drapers. " If ever an excursion were proposed he would say with mock solem- nity, " We must first hear what our prime-minister has to say about it;" by that epithet he referred to his wife. Sometimes when he was playing duets with his sister, the Countess Marya, he would find it difficult to keep up with her. If he got into difficulties he would say or do some- thing to make her laugh, and so make up for lost time. Or again he would solemnly stop and take off his boot and then go on, exclaiming, "Now it will go all right." In running races with the boys, if he found that he was outstripped he would try to make them laugh and so take advantage of them in that way. When he wanted to create a diversion he would some- times suddenly spring up from his place and indulge in a "Numidian cavalry charge," which consisted in galloping wildly around the room with one hand high in the air as if it held a sword and the other grasping an imaginary bridle, followed by all the young people. He was very fond of children and easily won their confidence and affection. It was a great pleasure to him to talk with them and he seemed to have a peculiar ability in reading their minds. Sometimes his children would come running up to him and tell him that they had 210 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI a great secret, and he would surprise them by whispering in their ears what it was. "How did he find it out?" they would cry in astonishment. He had his own particular theories regarding the educa- tion of children, but for various reasons he was not able to apply them to the training of his own. He succeeded in keeping toys and playthings from the nursery, and they were never on any pretext subjected to severe punish- ments. If they were detected in telling a lie, no actual infliction of pain or humiliation was allowed, but they were left severely alone until they felt sorrow or regret. No mere promise not to repeat the offense or prayer for pardon was regarded. The children were never punished for neglecting their lessons or reciting badly, but the theory that no compulsion should be exercised on a pupil, which was practiced in the Yasnaya Polyana School, was found inconvenient and im- possible in his own household. This was more and more the case as the older sons had to prepare for entering on a University career, of which the count did not feel justified in depriving them. The countess taught them their Russian, Tolstoi trained them in arithmetic, and they had various govern- esses and bonnes for the other languages. They were particularly fortunate in their first English governess; she lived with them for more than six years and after she was married kept up friendly relations with the family. As the children grew older Russian and foreign tutors taught such subjects as were required. A music master came over every week from Tula and the count insisted on their taking up serious pieces as speedily as possible. They were inspired to study nature in all its aspects, to watch the actions of insects, to love animals, and to sympathize with all creatures, especially their fellow- men of humbler birth. When they needed the assistance of a servant, they were expected to ask it as a favor and not to demand it as a right. CHARACTERISTICS 2 1 1 Above all Tolstoi tried to impress on his children a consciousness of their powerlessness and their dependence, and yet he kept them from any sense of fear or dread. When he taught the children himself he was not ashamed at times to acknowledge that questions came up which he could not answer. "Well," he would say, "you see I don't quite understand that myself." His brother-in-law says that when he was in his seven- teenth or eighteenth year he and one of his school friends became sorely troubled as to the state of their souls and thought of becoming monks. But whenever he brought his spiritual troubles to Tolstoi, the latter avoided ex- pressing any doubts or opinions, but left it to the boy to work out his own salvation. One time, however, as they were riding by the village graveyard, they saw two horses grazing in it. Stepan Andreyevitch was remarking on the difficulty of a man living in peace as long as he had not solved the question of a future life. "You see those two horses grazing," Tolstoi replied. " Are they not laying up for a future life ?" "But I am speaking of our spiritual, not our earthly life," protested young Behrs. "Well, regarding that, I neither know nor can know anything," said Tolstoi*. Tolstoi set the example of incessant occupation. The burden of the countess's letters was, "We are all very busy." His most productive time was in winter. In spring and summer he frequently complained that he was doing nothing, that it was a dull, dead time with him — impossible for him to think or write; but after these periods of mental inactivity passed he would sometimes spend a whole day WTiting. His brother-in-law says that in the days when he visited Yasnaya the program consisted of a walk or ride before breakfast. The whole family assembled around the breakfast table, and there was always gay and lively conversation. Then the count would suddenly say, "It is time for me to w r ork now;" and 212 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI taking with him a glass of strong tea he would return to his library, where no one, not even his wife, ventured to interrupt him. As a relaxation from his exacting labors, he liked to read some book quite alien to the topic he was studying. He liked Anthony Trollope and was favorably impressed by the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood and Miss Braddon. He read Goethe and Kant; he was deeply impressed by "Les Miserables," and the comedies of Moliere were highly amusing to him. But he consistently maintained his disapproval of the writings of George Sand and was particularly severe on "Consuelo." He rarely read newspapers and was very scornful of journalists and critics. Though theoretically he approved of neatness, he was hardly an example of that virtue. When he undressed he let his things drop wherever he happened to be, and his man had to follow his tracks and pick them up. He disliked packing and when he had that to do for himself his portmanteau was a fearful jumble of disorder. He disliked to wake any one up, and if his attendant happened to fall asleep and neglected to serve the late supper that he ate before retiring, he would go on tip-toe to the pantry and help himself. He used to remark jestingly, "When one is asleep, at least one is not sinning." He disliked exceedingly to go away from home, and Behrs says he would grumble terribly if he had to run up to Moscow to engage a tutor or transact other business. On his return he always had amusing stories of his experiences. He especially detested traveling by rail, and when the Moscow-Kursk line was completed as far as Tula, though it essentially reduced the difficulty of travel yet Tolstoi rarely took advantage of it. He complained of the disagreeable sensations he experienced in railway carriages. He usually traveled third-class and liked to engage chance fellow-passengers in conversation, espe- cially if they were muzhiks. He had no patience with the CHARACTERISTICS 213 obsequiousness of conductors, and the suspicious aloof ness of travelers, especially of the upper classes, was intoler- able to him. Judging from the small use made of rail- ways and telegraphs by the common people, he came to the conclusion that they brought no advantage to the people at large. He was frequently troubled with ill health, probably caused in part by over-indulgence and irregularity in eating when he was a young man. This also doubtless had a bad effect on his teeth. But he had little confidence in medicine. In his books are many satirical and sar- castic references to doctors, who, he claimed, were quite ignorant of the causes and of the proper treatment of mala- dies. He held with his favorite Rousseau that the practice of medicine should not be confined to any one profession. He himself preferred the so-called popular remedies which have been found useful by generations of the com- mon people. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1867 he was induced to consult with the most famous specialist of Moscow, Professor Zakharin, and on his return, by his advice, began what he called "a rigid cure" for his indigestion. At this time he was very busy correcting the proofs of "War and Peace," which, together with sections of the manuscript, he had to send off each day under threat of delayed publication and a fine. Turgenief's novel, "Smoke" ("Duim"), had recently appeared and Tolstoi read it and entirely disapproved of it. He felt that the power of poetry lay in love and the direction of that power depended on character. "Without the power of love there is no poetry," he said, "but the power falsely directed — the result of the poet's having a disagreeable, weak character — creates dislike. In ' Smoke' there is hardly any love of anything and very little poetry. The only love is in light, playful adultery, and consequently the poetry of that novel is repulsive." 214 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI When Turgenief had finished reading the fourth volume of "War and Peace/' he wrote Fyet: — " There are unendurable things in it and there are wonderful things in it, and the wonderful things — they predominate — are so magnificently good that no one has ever written better and it is doubtful if anything as good has ever been written before." IV HISTORICAL FICTION Tolstoi took his family to Moscow in the late autumn of 1867 and was there most of the winter. Fyet appeared and was planning for an Authors' Reading for the benefit of the peasantry of Mtsensk, where there was great suffering from famine. Fyet urged him to read some- thing but he flatly refused, ironically declaring that Fyet had invented the famine: he never had read in public and never would read in public. Still, when Fyet urged that something of his would insure the success of the evening, he lent him the proofs of the chapter* of " War and Peace" which describes the retreat of the Russian army from Smolensk during a time of drought. It was read with immense effect by Prince Kugushef, a well- known poet and dramatist. Three volumes of the novel were published in 1868; the sixth and last, containing the Epilogue, was not brought out until late in the autumn of 1869. Eugene Schuyler, who was at that time the American consul at Moscow, made Tolstoi a visit and afterwards wrote an account of it, chronicling the author's remarks regarding "War and Peace," which he said w r as not a novel, still less a historical chronicle. "It is not presumption on my part/' said Tolstoi, "if I keep clear of customary forms. The history of Russian literature from Pushkin down presents many similar examples. From the ' Dead Souls' of Gogol to the 'Dead House' of Dostoyevsky, there is not a single artistic prose work of more than ♦Vol. IV., Part X., Chapter V 2IS 216 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI average merit which keeps entirely to the usual form of a novel or a poem. "Some of my readers have said that the character of the times is not sufficiently shown. I know what they mean — the horrors of serfdom, the walling up of wives, the flogging of grown-up sons, the Saltuitchikha, as she is commonly called (that Madame Saltuikova who in the time of Katharine II. in the course of eleven or twelve years had over a hundred of her serfs whipped to death, chiefly women and girls for not washing her linen prop- erly), and things like that. "The fact is that I did not find all this a true expression of the character of the times. After studying no end of letters, journals, and traditions, I did not find horrors worse than in our own times or any other. In those times people also loved, hated, sought the truth, tried to do good and were carried away by their passions. There was also then in the highest class a complicated, thought- ful moral life, perhaps even more refined than now\ Our traditions of that epoch are drawn from the excep- tions. The character of that time comes from the greater separation of the upper class from the rest, the ruling philosophy, the peculiarities of education, and especially the habit of talking French; and that character I tried as far as I could to portray." He went on to explain why he introduced characters under the names of well-known families slightly changed; Bolkonsky for Volkonsky, Drubetskoi' for Trubetskoi, Akhrosimova for Ofromosimova and Denisof for Denisof- Davuidof. Some, like Rostof , were actual inventions ; but it seems to him false art to cause a historical personage like Napoleon or Count Rostopchin to talk with a Prince Pronsky or Strelsky, while the slightly altered names had a sound natural and customary in Russian aristocratic circles. He declared that he had no desire to lead people to think that he wanted to represent particular persons : the HISTORICAL FICTION 2 1 7 sort of literature that consisted in the description of per- sons really existing or known to have existed had nothing in common with his purpose. He claimed that when he, without thinking, as he did in two instances, gave names resembling characteristic and delightful personages of the period depicted, there was nothing resembling the truth in their actions; and all the other characters were purely imaginary, having no prototypes either in tra- dition or in actual life. Schuyler says that one incident in the latter part of the story, the indecision of the Countess Helen as to her choice of a new husband, was founded on an occurrence at Petersburg while the story was in progress. "A certain Madame A., although she was not as yet divorced from her husband, was eagerly courted by two suitors, the old chancellor, Prince Gortchakof, and the Duke of Leuchtenburg, the Emperor's nephew. The Emperor forbade both the rivals to marry, one on account of the relationship, the other on account of his age and family. The issue of the story was different. The lady lived for a while with Prince Gortchakof as his niece, and in that capacity presided at his diplomatic dinners; subsequently she ran away with the duke, and years after, in 1879, married him morganatically, with the title of Countess Beauharnais." Tolstoi commented on the charge that his battle descriptions were imitated from the celebrated account of the battle of Waterloo in Stendhal's "Chartreuse de Parme." He said that the historian and the artist, in describing a historical epoch, have totally different aims and treat of different subjects: — " A historian," he said, " would not be right if he tried to present a historical personage in all his entirety, in all his complicated relations to life. Neither would an artist do his duty if he always gave him his historical signification. Kutuzof was not always riding on a white horse, wdth his field glass in his hand, pointing at the 2i 8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI enemy. Rostopchin was not always with a torch setting fire to his house at Voronovo (in fact he never did this at all) , and the Empress Maria Feddorovna did not always stand in an ermine cloak resting her hand on the 'Code of Laws.' But this is the way in which the popular imagination pictures them. The historian deals with heroes; the artist with men. The historian treats of the results of events; the artist of the facts connected with the events. " Battles are, of course, almost always described in a contradictory way by the two sides; but, besides this, there is in every description of a battle a certain amount of falsehood which is unavoidable on account of the necessity of describing in a few words the actions of thousands of people distributed over a space of several miles, all under the strongest moral excitement, under the influence of fear of disgrace or of death. 11 Descriptions of battles generally say that such troops were sent to attack such a point and were afterwards ordered to retreat, etc., as if people supposed that the same discipline that on a parade ground moves tens of thousands of men by the will of one, could have had the same effect where it is a question of life or death. Every one who has been in a war knows how untrue this is, and yet on this supposition military reports are made out, and on them descriptions of battles are written. . . . " Go about among all the troops immediately after an engagement, or even on a second or third day, before the official reports are written, and ask all the soldiers and the higher and lower officers how things went : all these people will tell you what they really felt and saw, and you will re- ceive an impression which is grand, 'complicated, im- mensely varied and solemn, but by no means clear; you will learn from no one, still less from the commander-in- chief, exactly how the whole took place. But in two or three days official reports begin to come in, talkers begin HISTORICAL FICTION 219 to describe what they never saw, finally the whole report is made up, and this creates a sort of public opinion in the army. 11 It is so much easier to settle all one's doubts and questions by this false, but always clear and flattering account. If in a month or two you question a man who took part in the battle, you will no longer feel in his story that raw living material that was there before, for he will tell it according to the official report. "The details of the battle of Borodino were told to me by many shrewd men who took part in it and are still alive. They all told that same story, all according to the untrue accounts of Mikhailovsky-Danielefsky, Glinka, etc., and even related the same details in the same way, though they must have been miles off from one another. . . . " But besides the necessary falsehood in the description of events, I find a false way of understanding events. Often when studying the two chief historical productions on this epoch, Thiers and Mikhailovsky-Danielefsky, I am astonished how such books could be printed or read. Without speaking of the exposition of the same events in the same serious, important tone, with references to authorities, and yet diametrically opposed to one another, I have found in these histories descriptions of a sort that I did not know whether to laugh or to cry over them, when I remembered that these books are the sole memo- rials of the epoch and have millions of readers. I'll give a single instance from Thiers, who, in speaking of the forged Russian bank-notes brought by Napoleon, says, 1 Using these means in an act of benevolence worthy of himself and of the French army, he distributed assistance to the sufferers by the conflagration. But provisions being too precious to be given for long to strangers, for the most part enemies, Napoleon preferred to furnish them with money, and had paper rubles distributed to them.' If Thiers had fully understood what he was say- 220 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI ing, could he have written in such a way of such an immoral act?" A long discussion followed regarding the occupation of Moscow and the great fire. Tolstoi maintained vigor- ously that the conflagration was wholly due to accident, and he spoke with great contempt of Rostopchin. " Ros- topchin always denied that he had a hand in the burning of Moscow until he found out that, to excuse themselves, the French had attributed it to him, and that in his visit to France after the restoration, this was thought a glorious deed of patriotism. He at first accepted it modestly, and then boldly boasted of it. This legend has been kept alive, partly by the chauvinism of the French historians and partly by the influence of the Segurs (one of whom manned his daughter) and their numerous relatives and literary following. " Tolstoi insisted in his conversation with Schuyler that he had taken the greatest pains to be accurate and con- scientious in historical matters. "Wherever historical characters act and speak in my novel," he said, "I have imagined nothing and have conformed myself strictly to historical materials and the accounts of witnesses. " Nevertheless, military authorities pointed out mistakes, as for instance regarding the disposition of the forces on the battle-fields of Borodino. But Tolstoi argued that for the purposes of art or fiction it is legitimate to depart from historic sources, especially when from the very nature of things it is impossible to secure historic accuracy, the details of battles being a matter of guess-work and the men who think that they are directing the forces let loose are really not playing the game or controlling the game any more than the knights or bishops on the chess-board wittingly direct the move- ments of castles or pawns. "In notable historic movements," he says, "the so- called great men are the labels that name events and HISTORICAL FICTION 221 periods; but, like the labels, they have the least to do with the events." Tolstoi's tendency to put the collective value of the common people high above that of private individuals, however gifted, is shown in his treatment of Napoleon, Murat, the Emperor of Austria, whose weaknesses are implacably held up to reprobation; everywhere the simple homely, vulgar life of the peasant is depicted as preferable to the highly artificial existence of society men and women. It is not surprising then to find that Prince Andrei, in whom we may perhaps see Tolstoi's brother Nikolai', and Count Pierre, with his vacillations and his frequent lapses into moral degradation, thus in certain ways stand- ing for his own personality, are contrasted with the char- acter of the muzhik Platon Karatayef, who is the ideal of the simplicity and the dignity of the typical krestyanin, the Christian peasant. "War and Peace" is a panoramic novel, and the succes- sion of magnificent pictures, filled with figures of almost colossal proportions — the grandiose battle-scenes, the transcriptions of great society functions, the idyllic occupa- tions of country life, farm-work and hunting — fills the mind with admiration at the grasp displayed. And it must be confessed that one may be somewhat wearied at the lectures of the exhibitor, striving by special pleading to make out a case contrary to the general opinion of man- kind as to the importance of great men. Sir Walter Scott wrote long introductions to many of his historical novels, reminding one of the gradual ap- proach to a bridge, but when he had once begun the cur- rent of his narration it went on uninterrupted. Not so with "War and Peace"; it is episodic, but this is largely due to the fact that so many personages — not less than a hundred clearly differentiated — are introduced and are important enough to divide the interest attaching to the six principal characters. This is inevitably the case 222 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI where family groups are put into contrast and their various histories are minutely detailed. This requires an immense grasp and an intensity of purpose which prevent a scattering of attention on the part of the reader. That Tolstoi succeeded in this tremendously difficult task is the highest tribute to his genius. Although its publica- tion stretched out over several years — the Epilogue not appearing until late in 1869 — it kept the enthusiasm of the Russian people at the highest pitch and has ever since been recognized as one of the masterpieces of uni- versal literature. Flaubert, when he read it in French, exclaimed: "What a painter and what a psychologist! The first two volumes are sublime, but he falls off horribly in the third. . . . Sometimes there seem to be things like Shakespeare. " In September of that year Tolstoi was drinking deep draughts of Schopenhauer, which gave him enjoyment such as he had never before experienced. He was con- fident that the German pessimist was the greatest genius among men; as was usually the case with his favorite authors of other countries, he was desirous of sharing his "ecstasies" with others. He wrote Fyet that he had begun to translate Schopenhauer and begged him to take up the work, proposing that they should publish it to- gether. "After reading him," he says, "I cannot under- stand how his name can be unknown. The only explana- tion is the one he so often repeats, that there is scarcely any one but idiots in the world. " About this time he was proposing to buy a large estate in the "out-of-the-way part" of the Government of Penza. He went there, traveling third-class from Moscow to Nizhni Novgorod, and many of those with whom he talked took him for a common man. He did not purchase the Penza estate, but the care that he took to inspect it shows that he was. at that time alive to the importance of providing his rapidly growing family with an abundance of this world's goods. He invested in cattle-breeding Count L. N. Tolstoi, 1868. HISTORICAL FICTION 223 and the purchase of fine horses the ample earnings that he received from his writings; he planted a large apple- orchard and he established a system of arboriculture which in due time became very profitable. His friend Prince D. D. Obolyensky speaks in his "Recollections" of Tolstoi's enthusiasm for tree-planting, fruit-culture, bee- keeping and the other occupations of a farmer. He also remembered him as a man of the world and chronicles a remark which he made at a ball regarding the poetry in women's ball-dresses: "How much thought, how much charm, even in the flowers pinned to the gowns!" After his return from Penza his household seems to have gone through one of those phases common to all families. About the middle of February, 1870, he wrote Fyet congratulating him on being alone. "My wife, three children and a fourth nursing, two old aunts, a nurse, and two housemaids, are all ill together; fever, high temperature, weakness, headaches, and coughs." Out of ten people only he and one of the aunts were able to turn up at the dinner table. He added that he also had been ill with his chest and side and a severe pain in his eyes, increased by pain, wind, and sleepless- ness. His illness lasted nearly a fortnight, but that had not prevented him from reading Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin — curiously enough he read Pushkin first in a French translation — Gogol, and Moliere. He had been occupied that whole winter with the drama and, as he said, with the clearness that comes with one's forty years had found in it much that was new. His illness was made endurable by characters in an imaginary comedy performing for him and performing very well. He ex- pressed a desire to read Sophocles and Euripides. This desire led him this year to take up the study of Greek. Fyet did not believe that Tolstoi would succeed, and offered to devote his own skin for parchment for a diploma of efficiency. Tolstoi replied, " Then your skin is in danger." In three months he was reading Herodotus. 224 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Professor Leontief of the Katkdf Lyceum did not believe this to be possible and proposed that they should read something at sight. A passage of doubtful meaning came up and Ledntief had to acknowledge that Tolstoi's interpretation was correct. In December, 187 1, he had read Xenophon and was delving into Homer. He had become convinced that the Russian translations made on German models only spoiled that poet, although the Russian version (not made from the original) by Gnyeditch was regarded as a remarkably successful example of the hexameter. Tolstoi compared the translations to dis- tilled water, while the original was like water fresh from the spring with sun-lighted sparkle, "even the specks making it seem still clearer and fresher." He expressed his gladness that God had sent such folly upon him: "In the first place I enjoy it; in the second place I have become convinced that of all that human language has produced truly beautiful and simply beautiful, I, like all others who know but do not under- stand, knew nothing; and in the third place, because I have ceased to write and never more will write wordy rubbish. I am guilty of having done so, but by God I will do so no more." The effect of his study of the Greek classics, com- bined with ill health, tended to make him discouraged with his own work and his wife persuaded him to go to Samara for a two months' kumys cure. He started on the twenty-second of June, 1871, taking his brother-in- law and his man with him. They traveled as usual third class from Moscow to Nizhni Novgorod and there by the steamboat down the Volga to Samara. On the steamboat, as always in traveling, he made friends with every one, and young Behrs noticed that before the second day was ended he was on the friendliest terms even with the sailors. He spent the whole night with them in the bow of the boat. The last eighty miles of the journey Tolstoi and his HISTORICAL FICTION 225 companions made on horseback, following up the bank of the river Karalufk to the Tartar village of the same name where he had lived nine years before. He was there welcomed as an old acquaintance and took up his residence in a kotchovka tent which he hired of a mullah or priest. It had formerly been used as a Metchet or place of worship. It was a conical structure, with a wooden frame covered with felt and provided with a tiny painted door and carpeted with soft feather-grass; but it was not water- proof. There were other kumys-drinkers there taking the cure, but most of them lived at the winter- village about three kilometers distant and did not mingle with the nomads. Tolstoi made friends of them all, how- ever, and Behrs saw an elderly teacher from one of the theological seminaries trying a match at skipping rope with him. A Prokurofs chief-clerk debated questions of literature and philosophy with him, and a young farmer from the vicinity of Samara became his devoted follower. Here lived also an exile from the Caucasus, Hadji Murat, who had been one of the greatest jigits among the Tchet- chens but had committed some mean action. He was still very active and nimble and fond of a joke. He be- came greatly attached to Tolstoi and played checkers with him. A posthumous story by Tolstoi bears the name of this "brave," and is said to be founded on his romantic and adventurous career. During the first days of his sojourn at Karaluik Tolstoi was ill and depressed. He complained that he could get neither physical nor mental pleasure and that he looked on everything as if he were a dead body. His friends at this time evidently thought that he was in danger of consumption, and indeed his symptoms were alarming. He suffered from side-ache and wrote that he could not help thinking — "about his side and chest." Turgenief gathered from what Fy£t WTOte him that as two of the Tolstoi brothers had died of consumption he was on the same downward path. He added he w r as 226 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI "the only hope of our orphaned literature — he cannot and must not perish from the face of the earth as pre- maturely as had his predecessors, Pushkin. Lermontoi and Gogol.' ' But the heat of the atmosphere, which made him sweat from morning to night, the drinking of fermented mare's milk, the avoidance of vegetable food and the diet of meats, the dinner consisting of mutton eaten with the fingers out of wooden bowls, soon brought about a decided improvement in his health and spirits. He wrote Fyet that if it were not for home-sickness he should be perfectly happy. He began to take excursions. On one occasion he and three companions went for a long drive by tarantas through the steppe, taking their guns and provided with numerous presents. They had excellent duck- shooting at the ponds which they passed and drank plenty of kumys at the villages where they rested. The nomads followed the primitive custom of presenting their guests with whatever they particularly admired and they re- turned with several handsome horses, for which, however, they compensated the owners with a fair equivalent. On another occasion they drove to Bozulok, a village seventy kilometers distant, where there was held a native fair which attracted a motley gathering of various tribes and races — Russians, Cossacks, Bashkirs and Kirgiz. Tolstoi who had not forgotten the native language, was everywhere warmly welcomed and always entered with eager zest into the spirit of the scene. There was much drunkenness, but he would allow no familiarities. Once when a drunken muzhik attempted to embrace him the count gave him a stern look which abashed him. Tolstoi was delighted with the beauty of the country — "in its age just emerging from virginity, in its richness, its healthfulness, and especially its simplicity and in its unperverted population." He made up his mind to buy an estate here and was all the time on the lookout HISTORICAL FICTION 227 for land that should suit him. He still kept up his Greek and wrote that he was reading Herodotus, who described these very people; but he made little use of the big dictionary that he had brought with him, and young Behrs found it very convenient for pressing the wonderful varieties of flowers that he was collecting. As he drove through the steppe he fell in with a colony of Molokans, a sect which rejected all the ritual and sym- bolism of the Greek Church and, as the name implies, drank milk on fast-days. They were distinguished for their honesty and industry and, unlike their neighbors, abstained from intoxicating liquors. An attempt was made by a worthy young Russian priest to convert these sectaries back to the "true Church," and Tolstoi enjoyed attending the discussions between him and Aggei, the venerable leader of the Molokans. He also studied the beliefs of the Bashkirs, and later read the Koran in a French translation. LIFE IN THE STEPPE Tolstoi returned from his six weeks' "cure" quite restored in health, and once more began to occupy himself with the details of popular instruction. Eugene Schuyler had procured for him a good selection of American primers and elementary reading-books. He had been greatly impressed with the method employed in one of these, of representing certain letters to the eye by means of diacritical marks. These books proved of considerable use to Tolstoi in his preparation of a series of text-books for elementary education. He spent an immense amount of time and patience in writing and compiling these little volumes. They ultimately con- sisted of a series of nine. The "Novaya Azbuka" or New A-B-C-book, and a First, Second and Third Reading- book for Russian and a similar series for the Slavonic or Church language. The Azbuka was advertised as includ- ing (a) the Russian alphabet and first exercises in reading, so graduated that the teaching of reading and writing may proceed regularly for all the requirements of oral as well as of written instruction; (b) fables, stories and tales, more than a hundred in number, graded according to the length of words and difficulty of pro- nunciation in a language comprehensible for the common people and for children; (c) the Slavonic alphabet; (d) figures; (e) prayers and commandments; and (f) a manual for instruction. The little book contains several stories derived from his own experiences of life — for instance, the episodes from the career of his dogs, Milton and Bulka, transla- 228 LIFE IN THE STEPPE 229 tions and adaptations from ^Esop and from Oriental writers, and some builini or folk-tales in verse carefully- collated. There were descriptions of experiments in the natural sciences and interesting episodes from the monkish chronicles and the lives of the saints. He himself worked out the problems in arithmetic, and performed the experi- ments, and in order to introduce some knowledge of astronomy he sat up nights examining the stars. The report that he was writing stories for his reading- books spread abroad and various periodical editors urged him to give them the first opportunity to publish them. "A Prisoner in the Caucasus," which curiously enough copies the title of one of Pushkin's best-known poems, " Kavkazsky Plyennik," appeared in a magazine in Febru- ary, and " God sees the Truth," in March. These stories which he afterwards regarded as the best of all his works brought him no pecuniary return as first pub- lished. Since then they have appeared in various forms and have been read by millions of readers. Schuyler wrote in an article printed in 1889 that the publication of the Azbuka and reading-books was for- bidden by the Minister of Public Instruction. This is of course a mistake. But he had great difficulty in satis- fying himself with the material he wanted to include, and the dilatoriness of the printers exasperated him. He wrote a friend that the printing advanced in tortoise fashion: "The devil knows when it will be finished, and I am still adding and omitting and altering." Some weeks later he wrote his friend and best critic, N. Strakhof, that after four months the printing was not only unfin- ished but was not even begun ; and finally at his request Strakhof took entire charge of the book, having it printed in Petersburg and revising the proofs himself. When it was at last published Turgenief wrote Fyet that he found nothing interesting in it except "the beautiful story, 'A Prisoner in the Caucasus,'" and he complained of the absurdly high price of two rubles for four paper-covered 230 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI books. After the first three thousand copies were sold, the price was greatly reduced. At first it went slowly, but before long it was recognized that he had, to use his own words, erected a monument. Turgenief was rejoiced to hear that Tolstoi's health was restored, but he did not approve of the rationalizing, which he felt was injuring the artist's work. "What- ever he does will be good if only he refrains from spoiling his own creations." He saw that Tolstoi, who hated philosophy, was nevertheless strangely infected by it, but he hoped that this was only a passing disease and that "the pure and powerful artist would be left." His activities after his return from Samara embraced many phases besides the preparation of the reading- books. He built a new Fligel or wing-house to accommo- date his growing family, and celebrated its completion by giving a masquerade at Christmas-tide. He created much amusement by capering round as a goat. In January, 1872, he started his school again, using the large hall of the new building to accommodate the thirty or more children that flocked to him eager to learn. He himself taught, assisted by his wife and children — by his little daughter and son. His brother Sergyei' lost a child and he went to him. Writing to Fyet, he described what he thought was the proper preparation for that Nirvana which, even though it meant nothingness, was to be faced with religious reverence and awe. He found the priests engaged in conducting the last services and, though both of the brothers felt a repulsion for the ceremonial rites, still it seemed to him that after all the proper way to remove the poor decaying body was to accompany it with a requiem and incense. The gravity and solemnity of that event, the most important in any person's life, seemed to him to demand a religious ob- servance Even the words of the Slavonic service evoked in his heart a certain metaphysical ecstasy appropriate LIFE IN THE STEPPE 231 to the thought of Nirvana: religion, which had for so many ages rendered the same service to so many millions of human beings, was wonderful and it was hardly neces- sary to inquire if it was logical. In this same letter he complained of being terribly depressed. His strength seemed to be diminishing; for every day that he felt well there were three that found him ill. He was engaged in endless preparatory study for a novel which should concern itself with the reign of Peter the Great. His wife in a letter to her brother described him as engaged in this "fearfully hard work," sitting in his room surrounded by a huge pile of por- traits and pictures, of books and memoirs written for the most part by the contemporaries of Peter. He was making notes and comparing various statements, and he got as far as to sketch the leading characters of the epoch and the daily life of the boydrs and of the common people. It is quite likely that his attention was first attracted to this subject by the fact that Pushkin, the great poet and novelist whom he admired so much, had projected a history of Peter's reign, had collected mate- rials for it and had written and published the first chapter of it, beginning with the Biblical but at the same time extraordinary statement that he "was born at Moscow in the year 7180." The countess felt certain that her husband would pro- duce another prose epic like "War and Peace," but as time went on she began to note that his discouragement increased and that he complained of a lack of inspira- tion. Finally, without apparently having actually begun writing the story, he abandoned it. His estimate of the personality and of the public acts of that erratic and self-seeking Tsar was diametrically opposed to the pre- vailing opinion and he could find nothing in Peter to excite his sympathy. His own ancestor would not have played a very reputable role in the terrible drama of Peter's life. It was left for Eugene Schuyler to write the 232 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI standard account of Peter the Great, and the task was very possibly suggested by Tolstoi's abortive attempt. As Schuyler helped put the library of Y&snaya Polyana in order he would have naturally seen the books Tolstoi collected. In May, 1872, Tolstoi's fourth son was born and christened Peter, though probably not in memory of the giant Tsar. A little later Tolstoi went for the fourth time to Samara, where he had now bought a large tract of uncultivated land. He took with him a muzhik to serve as steward and look af:er the property. While he was there he made arrangements for building a house and cultivating the rich virgin soil. As years went by he added to his holdings and in the end had an estate nine or ten times as big as his first investment. He came to the conclusion, however, that farming on the steppe was in the nature of gambling. If there were abundant rains in May and June the harvest would yield from thirty to forty fold, but if, as happened in 1873, there was a drought, every- thing was parched and ruined. The famine that season was so severe that nine-tenths of the population were destitute and starving. Tolstoi and young Behrs went to some of the neighboring villages to take an inventory of the food and stock possessed by the natives. They found most of the inhabitants in debt and looking forward in despair to the winter. Most of the men had gone off to search for work, but wages were at the very lowest ebb. They were inexpressibly shocked at the misery that they everywhere found. Tolstoi contributed an article to Katkof's paper, the Moscow Vyedomosti, giving heart-rending pictures of the conditions prevailing in that far-off country. He contributed a hundred rubles toward a famine fund, and through the aid of his aunt, the Countess Aleksandra, who brought the matter to the attention of the Empress, LIFE IN THE STEPPE 233 about two million rubles were contributed in the course of the winter. In spite of the terrible famine and the losses and in- conveniences to which he and his wife were subjected, he was so well satisfied with his visit that during several succeeding years he made it a part of his summer season to go there either alone or with his family. They en- gaged a Bashkir named Mahmud Shah, in Russian Romanovitch, to look after the horses. He came with his wife and set up their kotchovka, which Tolstoi called the drawing-room It was neat and even luxurious with its carpet and cushions; a beautifully decorated saddle was hung up on one side. When male visitors appeared, his wife retired behind gay chintz curtains and handed out a wooden platter laden with bottles of kumys and glasses. Mahmud Shah was very dignified and polite and so trust- worthy that he was engaged again and again. Tolstoi bought a herd of a hundred Bashkir mares and improved the breed by experiments with other kinds. The herds rapidly increased, though once Kirghiz nomads made a raid on them and nearly succeeded in capturing them all. A sturdy pair of Bashkir plowmen chased the robbers away. When the family were at Samara they liked to live like Mahmud Shah in a Tartar kotchovka; and they were inter- ested in the primitive methods of farming — the plowing with five or six yoke of oxen each wearing round their necks deep-toned melancholy bells, and the threshing with a ring of horses tied head to tail and kept circling round and round over the sheaves while a Bashkir armed with a long whip acted as ring-master. The steppe has always had a great charm for the Russian, just as the desert has for the Arab. Those familiar with Gogol's writings will remember his poetic description of the Ukraine nights on the Dniepr River, and no less fascinating are those prairie-lands through which flows the mighty Volga. One might easily get lost 234 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI in the wide expanses. One night Tolstoi and young Behrs had been staying late at the house of the friendly priest at Petrovka. It was raining and pitch-dark and they lost their way. Behrs was mounted on an old working-horse, which insisted on pulling to the left. Tolstoi suggested giving the horse his head. This was done and the horse, unguided, took them safely to the road, so that they knew where they were. On another occasion, possibly on more than one — Behrs says it was in 1878; Maude gives the year as 1875 — Tolstoi sent out an announcement that there would be races and other sports on his estate. The well-to-do Russian peasants who lived in the neighboring villages and were always very friendly with Tolstoi', the Bashkirs and the Ural Cossacks were all invited. The prizes were to be an ox, a horse, a gun, a clock, a dressing-gown and other articles. The nomads came bringing tents, copper boilers, sheep and gallons of kumys. A level place was selected and a large circle five kilometers in circumference was marked with a plow and the starting-posts were erected. Several thousand people came. Tents were pitched on the steppe, where the feather-grass waved in the breeze. The chief men among the Bashkirs took their positions on conical hillocks called shishki, or cones, and sat cross- legged on their carpets while a young Bashkir poured kumys from a tursuk or leathern bottle and gravely handed the cup to each of the circle in turn. The weird minor music of the herdsmen's pipes and snatches of song were heard here and there. Wrestlers displayed their special skill. For the prin- cipal races thirty trained horses were brought and their riders were ten-year-old boys, mounted bareback. Ten of the horses covered the whole fifty kilometers, and the best time made was an hour and forty minutes. Tolstoi was particularly pleased because there was no police present; good humor and order prevailed. The guests Count Tolstoi in 1876. From the portrait by Kramskoi. LIFE IN THE STEPPE 235 were treated to horse-flesh and mutton and departed satisfied, many of them politely thanking their host for his hospitality. To these unconventional surroundings Tolstoi loved to repair when he was weary of himself and of the questions which were again beginning to torture him more and more. Even his splendid new domain of rich and fertile soil and his three hundred head of horses would soon fail to satisfy him or restore his spiritual equilibrium. But at this time the life of the Bashkir peasants with all their flies, fleas and dirt — the nomadic life of millions of men scattered over an immense territory and struggling with primitive conditions — seemed to him far more important than, for instance, the political life of Europe, as repre- sented in the British Parliament. Tolstoi had been averse to having portraits of himself made either by photography or painters. But on the seventh of October, 1873, he wrote that for a week Kramskoi had been painting his picture for Tretyakof 's Gallery, while he sat and chatted with him and tried to convert him from the Petersburg faith to the faith of the baptized. Kramskoi had hired a datcha or country house a short distance from Tolstoi's home, and while waiting for an opportunity to get a likeness of him, Tolstoi discovered his desire and, urged by his wife, of his own accord invited him to visit them and gave him sittings, all the more willingly, as he says in a letter, because the artist offered to paint a replica for him very cheaply. The great question of the meaning of life was now once more to be brought home to him very keenly by a series of bereavements. VI EDUCATIONAL METHODS In November, Peter, the youngest child, died of croup after an illness of only two days. This was the first death in his family for eleven years. Tolstoi' wrote Fyet that while theoretically the loss of this child was lighter than any other would have been, still "the heart, especially the mother's heart — that marvelous and loftiest manifestation of Divinity on earth" — did not reason but grieved. A few months later, on the first of July, his dearly beloved Aunt Tatyana, who had been failing, "died peacefully, gradually falling asleep, and died, as she desired, not in the room that had been hers," but in another to which she had been removed at her own request, lest her dying there should cause unpleas- ant associations with it. Tolstoi says that toward the last she recognized hardly any one except himself. When he spoke to her she smiled and brightened up as an electric light does when one presses the button. " Sometimes she moved her lips trying to say the name Nicholas," thus, as Tolstoi noticed, completely and inseparably associating him with the man whom she loved with such complete devotion all her life. All the people in the village mourned for her. "She was a kind lady," they said, "and never did any one harm." Tolstoi said that in his aunt's life there was no evil — the only person of whom he could say that. He wrote two days after the funeral that though he had grown accustomed to the slow process of her death, it came upon him as a " quite new, isolated and unexpectedly moving event." A few months later death again came to sadden his 236 EDUCATIONAL METHODS 237 household. Their youngest son, Nikolai', after three weeks of " terrible torture" from water on the brain, died at the age of ten months. About this time his wife's health, which had been generally robust, gave him concern. Families often pass through such periods of bereavement, when one after another falls under the sickle of the reaper whose name is Death. Two others followed in quick succession — an infant daughter, Varvara, who was born and died within a month; and only a month later his father's sister, Pelegeya Ilyinishna Yushkova, who had been for some time separated from her husband and had made her home at a monastery, though she was a frequent guest at Yasnaya Polyana, passed away. During these months of trouble and sorrow he was devoting himself with more zeal than ever to popular education. On the twenty-seventh of January, 1874, he addressed a learned society in Moscow on the best w T ay of teaching children to read. It led to a lively discussion on the subject of elementary education in general. Several well-known educators took part in it, and finally Tolstoi challenged them with the charge that the edu a- tion forced upon Russian children was wholly false, that all they needed was language and arithmetic, leaving natural science and history out of the curriculum. He offered to give a practical demonstration of his own method of teaching children how to read, and it was arranged that the test should be made at a school attached to mills, just outside the city. This led to the society's attempting to compare the usual conventional method — the so-called Lautiermethode or phonetic method — with Tolstoi's in two rival schools for a period of seven weeks. At the end of that time a committee was to report on the results, but there was disagreement, and Tolstoi felt that the test was unfair because most of the pupils were too young and, moreover, their attention was distracted by the presence of too many visitors. Tolstoi appealed to a wider public in a letter addressed 238 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI to the president of the society. Under the tit e "On the Education of the People," it was published in Nekrasofs journal, the Otetchestvenuiya Zapiski, the Sovremennik having been suppressed for its too liberal tendencies. It attracted great attention and directly induced the Moscow Teachers' Seminary to give up at least one of the text-books which Tolstoi attacked. For Tolstoi his method was no longer an experiment and he had proved to the satisfaction of a dozen teachers, whom he entertained at his house in the autumn of 1872, that illiterate boys could be easily taught in that way. He had also conceived the idea of establishing a sort of normal school or "University in bast shoes," at which his Ydsnaya Polyana pupils might continue their studies and then become teachers ; for he felt that they would be satis- fied with salaries which would be scorned by those of the so-called educated classes. Tolstoi's friend Samarin took an interest in this scheme and told him that the Zemstvo, or County Council, held for educational purposes a fund of thirty thousand rubles which might be diverted to the use of the proposed training-school. This possibility stimulated him to stand for election to the Zemstvo, and on taking his seat he was appoin ed a member of the Education Committee. The question of the employment of the fund for his college was discussed and the sentiment seemed favorable to his plan; but it happened that this was the hundredth anniversary of the ukase creating the Government of Tula, and one of the older members of the Zemstvo proposed that the thirty thousand rubles should be contributed to the fund for erecting a great monument to the Empress Katharine the Great. It appealed to the thoughtless, but sentimental, majority, and the fund was therefore diverted from a far more useful object; and Tolstoi, thus hindered and hampered, soon abandoned his plan. His wife objected to his educational activities. She EDUCATIONAL METHODS 239 wrote her brother how sorry she felt that his strength should be spent on these things instead of what she felt was his legitimate work — novel writing. One day about this time he picked up a volume of Pushkin's works, which a relative had been reading, and opening it casually his eye fell on the first sentence of the second fragment of "The Egyptian Nights' ' — "The guests had assembled at the . . . datcha. The drawing-room was full of ladies and gentlemen who had arrived simultaneously from the theater, where a new Italian opera had been given." This was Pushkin's characteristic way of mak- ing a start, both in his prose and his verse. In the same way begins that weird ballad "Utoplennik" — "The Drowned Man" — "The children ran into the izba. In haste they called their father : ' Daddy, Daddy, our nets have brought a corpse ashore.' " At that moment some -one came into the room. " Here is something charming," exclaimed Tolstoi. "This is the way to write ! Pushkin goes to the heart of the thing. Any one else would have described first of all the guests, the rooms and so on, but he goes straight at the matter in hand." It was laughingly suggested that he had better begin a novel in that way. Tolstoi gave orders that he should not be disturbed, shut himself up in his room and wrote the first sentences of "Anna Karenina": "All happy fami- lies resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. All was in confusion at the Oblonskys'. " Pushkin would have undoubtedly left out the first sentence, which when analyzed is seen to be at least only a half truth. This was in March, 1873. He could not have made great progress with it, for in early October he informed Fy et that he was beginning to write, and though he took a part of the novel to Moscow in the spring of the following year, none of it appeared until 1875. During the first four months of that year instalments were printed in the 2 4 o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Russky Vyestnik. Tolstoi, who had declared "with tears of joy in his eyes" that his self-love had never been so pleasantly flattered as when his brother-in-law told him that his novels were the favorite reading of the young men at the Law School, now wrote Fyet that assuredly no writer was so indifferent to success as he was. He affected to be indifferent to the efforts made by Turg£nief and Mme. Viardot to popularize his works in France. Yet he was much pleased that Fyet praised "Anna Karenina." Turgenief on the other hand was not well pleased with the new novel. He detected in it the old Moscow influences — the narrow-minded Slavophil nobil- ity, and Orthodox old maids. "It smelled rancid with holy oil!" and "the truly splendid" passages — thedescrip tions of the steeple-chase, the mowing and the hunt — did not redeem it in his eyes from being in other parts dull and shallow. As in the case of "War and Peace," "Anna Karenina" was written spasmodically and published at intervals of considerable length. During the summer, when the house was filled with guests and the heat made him comfortably stupid, he neglected his writing. Thus in early August, 1876, he wrote to Fyet that every day he got ready to write but could not find time because he was doing — nothing! The necessity of getting leisure for new occupations soon compelled him to work again on "dull, commonplace 'Anna,'" which he said was beginning to weary him; and the first four numbers of the Russky Vyestnik for 1876 saw its continuation and what the French call a recrudescence of popular interest. It is said that ladies in Moscow were so excited over it that they would send to the printing-house to see if they could learn how the story was going to end. Domestic affairs were not going well with him, and he complained that his wife's ill health interfered with its order and brought about a lack of mental tranquillity which he particularly needed for his literary work. VII About this time a remarkable change was noticed in Tol- stoi's relation to the Church. His brother-in-law says that in 1876 his religious ideas and his mode of life underwent a revolution. He began to attend punctually the services, and every morning he retired to his room in order, as he expressed it, to commune with God. He made a pil- grimage on foot to the Optin Monastery near Kaluga. He lost much of his former gayety and evidently strove to cultivate a gentler and humbler spirit. The same phenomenon was noticed by his servant, Aleksei' Arbuzof. Formerly, whenever the priest came to see his Aunt Yushkova and went through his cere- monies with holy water and incense, he invariably stayed out until the priest had departed; but on one occasion a priest named Vasily Ivanovitch from the Tula Seminary was detained at Yasnaya Polyana by a severe snowstorm, and Tolstoi got into a conversation with him which lasted all night. "From that time," says Arbuzof, "Tolstoi became very thoughtful/' and when the next Lent came round he said he was going to perform his devotions and prepare to receive the communion; and from that day he seldom missed a Sunday, so that the whole village was surprised and wondered what the priest had told the count to make him so suddenly fond of attending church. Yet about the same time he had monuments erected to the memory of his parents and the seals and family portraits cleaned and repaired, and Behrs thought that he was still proud of his success. Speaking of the life led in court circles, he claimed that the higher places were not 241 242 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI given for good and faithful service but rather as a reward for those who knew how to please and flatter the ones in power. It amused him to say that whereas he had failed to be promoted to the rank of general in the artillery, still he had won his generalship in literature. But even that was beginning to seem to him an empty honor in com- parison with the real things of life. In his " Confession " he says: — "The impulse toward creation was in my case actually sincere. But I was also thirsty for glory. And there is no doubt that the desire for literary glory is a vain desire. Of course I wrote from vanity, or at least mingled with my writing this pitiful motive. Nor was I indifferent to the enormous amounts of money which I received merely because, by following my inclination, I wrote, almost without any effort, little stories and novels. I made bargains for them : I not only repaired my fortune but even increased it by this money. And, of course, I was not different from other people in this business and this money-getting. Pride — there was more of this than of anything else — the pride of strength, of which I was long unwitting, the baseness and folly of which I did not realize, pride was my first sin; and long, very long, I struggled with it. I am often afraid that there is pride in the fact that I openly, before all, express my repentance." There was a touch of his old whimsicalness in a letter written to Fyet in March, 1876. He said: "I keep hoping that a tooth will become loose either in your jaw or in your threshing-machine, so that you will have to go to Moscow. Then I will spin a cobweb and catch you on the way." But when the next month he learned that Fyet had been desperately ill and had even thought of sending for him to "come and see how he departed," he wrote under date of May 19, expressing his gratitude that Fyet had wanted him in such a moment. He promised to act the "ANNA KARENINA" 243 same as if he were a brother. "When death draws near," he said, " intercourse with men who look beyond the bounds of this life is precious and comforting; and you and those rare genuine men I have met always stand on the verge and see clearly, for the very reason that they look now at Nirvana — the illimitable, the unknown — • and now at Samsara,* and that sight of Nirvana strength- ens their vision. "But worldly men, however much they may talk about God, are displeasing to you and me and must be a torment when one is dying.' ' He told Fyet that much that he had been thinking about death and the preparation for it he had tried to express in the twentieth chapter of Part V. of "Anna Karenina." In this, Levin, having received a letter from his brother Nikolai's mistress informing him that he was dying, has a most natural and lifelike quarrel with Kitty and then takes her with him to the sordid, terrible death- bed of that wreck of humanity, the prototype of whom was, to a certain extent at least, his own brother. The final chapters of "Anna Karenina" were written at a time when Russia was urged and finally driven to take a hand in the troubles between the Danubian principalities and Turkey. Russian volunteers, as illus- trated by Vronsky, went to help their coreligionists in Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, in their desperate in- surrection against the cruel regime of the Sultan. The massacres committed by the Bashi-Bazuks caused the greatest excitement in Russia. In November, 1876, Tolstoi went to Moscow to learn what he could of the approaching war. He found that every one was talking about it; that there were balls, concerts, lectures and all kinds of activities engaged in in behalf of the Danubian Christians. Greatly agitated, he wrote Fyet how it fright- ened him to reflect on the complexity of the conditions *Samsara is in Buddhistic theory the endless cycle of birth, action and death or transmigration. 244 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI amid which history is made and how often some woman with her vanity becomes an essential cog in the great machine. He expressed his doubts as to the motives of the volun- teers, and in the person of Levin's half-brother Koznuishdf , who was disappointed at the failure of his book, criti- cised the Slavonic question as simply one of those fash- ionable movements which give society something to think about and amuse themselves with and enable self-seekers, especially journalists, to double their income and attract attention to themselves. Katkof, who was a strong Slavophil, objected to some of Tolstoi's strictures and re- turned to him portions of the manuscript with emenda- tions stating that he could not print it unless the emendations were adopted. Tolstoi entertained a strong feeling of contempt for journalists and critics, refusing to rank them with even writers of the lowest order. He was so indignant with Katkof for daring to suggest such changes that he issued the last part of the story in pamphlet form, leaving Katkdf to end it in his magazine as best he could.* He wrote Fyet that the Russky Vyestnik had "the dullest and deadest editorial office in existence." Tolstoi' realized that the philosophic disquisitions introduced into " War and Peace," interrupting the flow of the narrative, were out of place in fiction and he employed this method of disseminating his doctrines much more sparingly in "Anna Karenina." The * Katkof printed a footnote at the end of the May instalment, which said: — "In our last number, at the close of the instalment of 'Anna Karenina/ we announced 'Conclusion in the next issue.' But with the heroine's death ends the real story. According to the author's plan there will be a short epilogue, in which the reader will learn that Vronsky, overwhelmed at Anna's death, departs for Serbia as a volunteer; that all the other char- acters remain alive and well; that Levin lives on his estate and rages against the Slavophil party and the volunteers." The footnote generously suggested that the author's ending would probably be developed in a special edition of the novel. "ANNA KARENINA" 245 books, as he said, were written to amuse; yet he never forgets that he is a teacher of morals. He shows up the shallowness of high life; he exposes the consequences of wrong-doing, and lays the stress of his personal pref- erence on the quiet country life. The stream, however, could not rise higher than its source, and his own mental and spiritual condition was hardly satisfactory enough to enable him to make Levin a wholly sympathetic character — one to be taken as a model. Levin — as the name (sometimes pronounced Ledvin) would in itself indicate — is in a way autobiographic. At all events one could formulate from Levin's experiences and observations a pretty fair statement of Tolstoi's own phil- osophy of life as at that time developed. As in the case of almost all realistic novels, the course of which flows like life itself, where there is no deeply complicated plot to be unraveled, those who know or claim to know are able to point out the ground-work of fact on which the superstructure is built. It is said that a lady named Anna, who had been living with one of Tolstoi's neighbors, committed suicide by throwing herself under a train of cars; she was jealous of her lover's attention to a gover- ness.* A few years ago another original of Anna was * " We have just learned of a very dramatic story. Do you remember Anna Stepanovna at Bibikof's ? Well, this Anna Stepanovna was jealous of all the governesses at Bibikof . She made her jealousy so manifest that finally Bibikof grew angry and quarreled with her. Then Anna Stepa- novna left his house and went to Tula. For three days no one knew where she was. At last, on the third day, she was seen at Yasenskoye, at five P.M., with a small parcel. At the railway station she entrusted the izvoshchik with a note for Bibikof and gave him a ruble as a tip. " Bibikof refused to take the note and when the izvoshchik returned to the station, he learned that Anna Stepanovna had thrown herself under the train and was crushed to death. She had undoubtedly done it intentionally. The coroner came and they read him the note. It said : — ' 'You are my murderer: be happy if assassins can be happy. If you wish you can see my corpse on the rails at Yasenskoye.' "Lyof Nikolayevitch and Uncle Kostya have gone to the autopsy." — From letter of Countess Tolstaya, January 22, 1872. 246 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI living in Tokyo. She, however, instead of cutting the Gordian knot by self-destruction, quietly waited till her husband died and then reputably married the man whom every one knew she loved. Divorce is certainly preferable to suicide, and it is not strange that the large and growing number of thoughtful Russians who believed that the Church view of divorce induced immorality could hardly be satisfied with Tol- stoi's implicit condemnation of divorce and his settle- ment of tangled marital relationships. This is a question which calls for discussion and solution; but its settlement one way or another by a novelist hardly affects the estimate of the novel in which it is treated, since the novelist has assuredly the right to introduce any character he may please into his story and make him as sympathetic or antipathetic as seems good to him. By the dramatic vividness of dialogue, by the brilliant coloring of scenes depicted, both rural and urban, by the inevitable development of character, by the natural- ness of the personages introduced, by the conviction that you are reading life itself, "Anna Karenina" must be considered as one of the great literary masterpieces of the world. One may pick flaws in it; the microscopic critic will find plenty, but they are the broken pieces of bark on the trunk of a lofty tree, they are the shallows in a mighty river. Why, then, did Tolstoi belittle "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina"? Because in accordance with his theory of Art they, like the great paintings of modern artists, or the great sympho- nies or the great operas of the modern composers, re- quire a special culture to understand them and are above the heads of the great mass of human beings. By the same reasoning one might just as well argue that the sun goes around the earth because the great mass of human beings have always believed that it did and to "ANNA KARENINA" 247 the great mass of human beings the testimony of their eyes proves that the "sun does move." If Count Tolstoi had applied his own reasoning to his philosophic questionings, he might have saved himself the terrible struggle that from now on began to involve him and almost drove him to suicide. The majority of people make no bugbear of life; they accept death as a part of the order of the Universe; they live and in spite of what the Sanskrit philosopher summed up into one long word — rogofokaparitapabandhanavy- asanani — "disease, pain, grief, captivity and misfortune," they are on the whole happy. When they come to die, relapsing quietly into unconsciousness, they pass on with the exhilaration of the new birth. It is always well in reading any of the great works of Russian literature to take into consideration the conditions under which it was produced. Two phases, perhaps three phases, of life were familiar to Count Tolstoi. He knew the army; he had been initiated into the fast set of Moscow and Petersburg; and he was acquainted with the simple, superstitious, friendly Russian peasantry. The great gap between the upper and the lower classes else- where in Europe, especially in England, filled with beings of quite different modes of thought and action, and fur- nishing to the Thackerays, the Dickenses, the Hugos, the Trollopes and dozens of other novelists, a wonderful field for fiction, was to him almost a void. He could not have created a Solomon as Turgenief did. As a realist he wrote from experience. Even the tooth- ache from which Vronsky is suffering, as he sits in his solitary despair waiting for the train to start, is Tol- stoi's own toothache, and his greatest model was him- self. He was more interesting to himself than any one else ever was, and the introspection which is always a dangerous study brought him to the verge of insanity. After "Anna Karenina" was published, for a time he took an interest in the practical details of his property. J 248 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI He had bought more land at Nikolskoye. He had also visited Orenburg and bought more horses. He had re- ceived from Fyet a " beautiful stallion" which came at a time when his life seemed to consist " chiefly of visions now pleasant and now unpleasant, from some absurd world not ruled by sanity." A little later he sent his horses to Samara in charge of a Tartar, who, either, if he told the truth, mired Guneba (which cost two thou- sand rubles) in a bog when ten miles away, or, if the countess's suspicions were correct, disposed of it and said he had lost it. VIII TQLSTOI AND MUSIC Tolstoi was always fond of music, and while com- pleting "Anna Karenina" and at the same time grow- ing more and more dissatisfied with his life, it chanced that he made the acquaintance of the great composer Piotr Uyitch Tchaikovsky, who had just been succeeded by Nikolai Rubinstein as director of the Moscow Con- servatory. In December, 1876, they spent two evenings together, and Tchaikovsky wrote his sister that he was at first "perfectly fascinated by his ideal personality" — but felt a certain terror of him lest "the great searcher of human hearts" should be able to read his inmost soul. On one evening Rubinstein arranged a concert for Tol- stoi's special pleasure and the Andante from the D Major Quartet was played. Tchaikovsky said that never in his life had he been so flattered or had his vanity as a composer been so tickled as when Tolstoi, on hearing it, burst into tears. Tolstoi, on returning to Yasnaya Polyana, sent Tchai- kovsky a collection of folk-songs, recommending them to him as a wonderful treasure, but urging him to use them in the Mozart-Haydn style and not in the Bee- thoven - Schumann - Berlioz,* artificial, always - seeking- something-unexpected style. Tchaikovsky thanked Tolstoi for sending them, but called his attention to the fact that they had been trans- scribed by an unskillful hand, so that they showed only slight traces of their pristine beauty. " The chief defect," *Polzuites f mozartovsTzo-haydnovshom rodye a nye f beethoveno-shu- mano-berliozo-hkusstvennom, ishchushchem neozhidannavo, rodye, 249 250 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI he wrote, "is that they have been artificially squeezed and forced into a regular measured form. Only Russian dance-music has a rhythm and a regular and evenly accentuated beat; but folk-songs have of course nothing in common with dance melodies. Moreover, most of these songs are, it seems to me, arbitrarily written in a solemn D major, which again does not suit a real Russian song." He thought the songs Tolstoi sent him could not be worked up in a regular and systematic way, because they did not represent the manner in which the peasants sang them and he knew of only one or two people of exceptionally fine musical feeling and great learning who would be able to undertake such a task. But he wel- comed the songs as useful for symphonic treatment and promised to avail himself of them in one way or another. It is perhaps interesting to know that the collections of Russian folk-songs edited by Kotsipinsky, Tchai- kovsky, Ruimsky-Korsakdf and others — generally in a rather sophisticated form — have recently been supple- mented by collections made by aid of the phonograph and of course giving accurately the natural harmoniza- tions as they are sung spontaneously in all parts of Russia. This task has been accomplished under governmental auspices. Tchaikovsky was disappointed in Tolstoi. He thought it unworthy of him to deny genius to Beethoven, and he was evidently piqued that Tolstoi wanted merely to chat with him about music and scarcely took him seriously. He avoided meeting Tolstoi again but still found delight in his novels. Tolstoi did not really deny genius to Beethoven and Schumann. Kashkin understood his attitude perfectly and explained it as the result of a struggle between his artistic and his moral nature and his attempt to be sin- cere. His very sincerity drove him to contradictory opinions, according as he approached art from the view- TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 251 point of a moral philosopher or expressed the immediate sensation that it made on his deeply sensitive nature. To illustrate this he tells how at one of the musical evenings at Tolstoi's house a piano quartet by Schumann was played, and when it was ended Tolstoi, in a voice quivering with excitement, said: "To my shame I must acknowledge that I did not until now know that admirable work." "The obscure, almost morbid excitement" evoked by Beethoven's music — he had himself experienced it — he afterwards exploited in the story called after the C Sharp Minor or Kreutzer Sonata. He treats of the same subject also very fully in his iconoclastic treatise on art. When "Anna Karenina" was off his hands, Tolstoi once more reverted to the plan for his Dekabrist novel; but again he found his heart was not in it. Afterwards Tchaikovsky wrote in his diary that there was only one great man who to him was incomprehen- sible, who stood alone and aloof in his greatness — Lyof Tolstoi. "But often," he says, "I feel angry with him; I almost hate him. Why, I ask myself, should this man, who more than all his predecessors has power to depict the human soul with such wonderful harmony, who can fathom our poor intellect and follow the most secret and tortuous windings of our moral nature — why must he needs come out as a preacher and set himself up to be our teacher and monitor ? Hitherto he has succeeded in making a deep impression by the recital of simple, every- day events. We might have read between the lines his noble love for mankind, his compassion for our helpless- ness, our mortality and our pettiness. How T often have I wept over his words without knowing why. . . . Per- haps because for a moment I was brought into contact — through him as a medium — with the ideal, with absolute happiness and with humanity. "Now he comes as commentator on texts, claiming a monopoly in the solution of all questions of faith and 252 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI ethics. . . . Once Tolstoi was a demi-god. Now he is merely a priest!" Again he wrote: "I am more than ever convinced that Tolstoi is the greatest of all writers of all time; yet in my conviction of his immortal greatness, of his almost divine importance, mere patriotism plays no part." The winter of 1876 Tolstoi went with young Behrs to Petersburg with the intention of going over the fortress of Petropavlovsk, and especially the Aleksei dungeons, where the Dekabrist conspirators had been confined. The com- mandant, an officer under whom he had served in the Crimean War, received him courteously but told him that while any one could enter the dungeons only the Emperor, the commandant and the chief of the gendarmes could ever leave them again. The Dekabrists had been the first to work out a regular alphabet of sounds so that the prisoners confined in neighboring cells could communicate with one another by tapping on the wall. Tolstoi related an anecdote of a Dekabrist who bribed a sentinel to buy an apple for him. The shopkeeper, learning that it was for a prisoner, not only sent him a fine basket of fruit but also returned to him the purchase money. Tolstoi was much moved by that fine spirit of sympathy. He related also a story characteristic of those high-hearted young reformers: Lunin, a colonel of the horse-guards, wrote a letter to his sisters and referred sarcastically to the appointment of CountJjKiselyef to a high post. The letter was read, and Lunin was condemned to hard labor in chains; but nothing could break his spirit. Behrs gives as a reason for Tolstoi's abandoning the Dekabrist novel his theory that it was not a national move- ment but merely a sporadic phenomenon brought about by French emigres, who after the French Revolution served as tutors in Russian families and converted the young aristocrats to liberal ideas and to Catholicism. This, Behrs says, was sufficient to prevent Tolstoi from sympa- TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 253 thizing with it. More likely it was because he had been refused permission to study the State archives and he knew that all freedom of treatment was hopeless. In a letter to Fyet he said that he flattered himself that what he should write would be intolerable to those who shoot men for the good of humanity. He had been staying in Moscow, where he complained that he was in a state of irresponsibility, his nerves out of tune and his feelings ruffled by the people whom he did not want to see preventing him from seeing those whom he did. The same month he wrote Fyet again, telling him how he had been incessantly thinking "about the chief problem' ' — the deity. In all ages the best men had thought about God, and he felt that if he could not think about Him as these men did, some way of thinking about Him must be found. A little later Tolstoi, with his friend and literary adviser, N. N. Strakhof, made Fyet a visit. He was greatly captivated by the piano-playing of a Fraulein Oberlander, who had the great gift of being able to read anything at sight, and with perfect expression. Tolstoi played duets with her. He and Strakhof also visited the monastery of Optin, situated west of Tula in the Government of Kaluga, and had long conversations, not to say disputes, with the starets or Father Superior, Ambrosy. He was anxious to learn from Orthodox believers, but he found little satis- faction in their doctrines: it was lip service; they hardly lived according to what they professed. They, like him- self, still feared poverty and death. At this monastery he made the acquaintance of a monk who had formerly been an officer in the Guards and who may possibly have furnished him with the subject of his posthumous novel, " Father Sergyel," the hero of which is a monk who had once been a man of the world but in spite of his reputation for sanctity yields to temptation 254 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI and becomes an outcast. It is a variation of the old legend of Thai's, set to music by Massenet. The year before Tolstoi had stayed at the Buzuluk Monastery near Samara and had there talked with a hermit who lived in the catacombs, slept in a coffin and sat under an apple-tree which he had planted forty years before. Tolstoi believed that this hermit, who was visited by numerous pilgrims, offered them an example of a pure, unworldly life and therefore supplied a genuine want. He also talked on the same subjects with a detachment of Turkish prisoners-of-war who were quartered in an abandoned sugar-factory between Yasnaya Polyana and Tula. He was interested to find that each one of them had a copy of the Koran. On his way back from Optin he visited his friend Prince Obolyensky and there renewed acquaintance with Nikolai Rubinstein, whose music enchanted him. That same summer he got material for a number of his shorter stories from an itinerant story-teller, who had the gift of narration in simple and beautiful language. From him he obtained "What Men Live By," "The Three Hermits," and some others. He retold the beauti- ful legend, "Where Love is, there God is Also," in the same way from a French original, and the story of "The Archbishop and the Thief" in the Second Reader is greatly condensed from "Les Miserables." In the way he made use of whatever attracted his attention he re- minds one of our own Benjamin Franklin. An article appeared in one of the Russian reviews on Tolstoi's plagiarisms; but he, like other great men, took his own wherever he saw it. Tolstoi, in his "Confession," tells how after he had finished "Anna Karenina" he was reduced to such a state of despair that he was constantly tempted to suicide. He hid away a cord to avoid hanging himself to the transom in his room, and gave up hunting with a gun TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 255 because it offered too easy a way of getting rid of that life which had ceased to have any meaning for him. Yet all the circumstances of his life w T ere preeminently happy; he was at the prime of his powers mental and physical; he had a good, loving and beloved wife, good children, a large estate which without too much trouble on liis part was growing and increasing in value; he had fame and fortune, and he himself declares that he had not gone mad nor was he in a morbid mental state; on the contrary, he enjoyed a mental and physical strength such as he seldom found in men of his class and of his pursuits; he could keep up with a peasant in mow T ing and could continue mental labor for eight or ten hours at a stretch without evil consequences, and yet had come to such a state that he could not live; and as he feared death he was obliged to employ devices to keep himself from ending his life! It would almost seem as if there entered into " My Con- fession" something of the fictional element: in study- ing himself he involuntarily fills out the outlines of de- spair that exist in every soul and makes the picture more complete than it was in real life. The immense curiosity to know what is in the Beyond has made many a man look at deep water or handle a pistol with a conscious- ness that it lies in his power to solve that insistent problem. Tolstoi wrote to Fyet on the eighteenth of April, 1878, that he had become so indifferent to the things of this life that life itself had become uninteresting and that he depressed others by his eternal pouring "from void into vacuum, as the Russian proverb puts it." But he added, "Do not suppose that I have gone mad; I am merely out of sorts." And while, according to " My Confession," he was going through these agonies of soul, he wrote to Fyet (June 25, 1878) that he had seldom enjoyed God's world so much as he had that summer. He was afraid to stir lest he 256 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI should lose something of its beauty. In the same letter he gives a whimsical picture of himself. He did not know what had become of his Dekabrists; but any one looking would see an old man, a staritchok, a good fellow, beloved of every one and equally loving every one, who, having translated two or three pages of Schopenhauer, played a game of billiards, killed a woodcock, inspected a colt, was sitting with his wife drinking a glass of deli- cious tea and smoking when suddenly, to interrupt the idyl, comes a newspaper damp and ill-smelling; it arouses a sense of estrangement, a feeling that he neither loves nor is loved; he begins to speak in angry tones and suffers. Then, becoming more serious, he defends himself from Fy et's charge that he denied practical life. It seemed to him that the greater part of men's lives was filled with gratifi- cation of artificial needs, those that came of a false educa- tion, and those that had been invented and had grown into a habit ; therefore nine-tenths of the labor of men required for fulfilling these artificial needs was useless. He wanted to convince himself that he was giving men more than he received from them; he wanted to take as little as possible from them and to work as little as pos- sible for the gratification of his own needs, but as he confessed himself inclined to value his own work very highly and to undervalue the work of others he had no hope of squaring things up by working more and harder, though he could easily feel that the work that he liked best was the most important and most needful. He ended by recommending Fyet to read Solomon — the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Book of Wisdom. He was to read them in Slavonic, for both the Russian and the English translations were bad. He had been so suc- cessful in inspiring Fyet with a liking for the " Thousand Nights and One" and the "Pensees " of Pascal that he was sure that this new recommendation of an ancient master- piece, which he had been reading with ecstasy and which TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 257 had much in common with Schopenhauer and was per- fectly modern, would also please him. One of the pleasant episodes of this summer was the renewal of friendly relations with Turgenief. Tolstoi himself first held out the olive-branch, and Turgenief was greatly gladdened and touched. He wrote that if ever hostile feelings had existed they had long since dis- appeared: "The recollection of you exists only as of a man to whom I am sincerely attached; of a writer whose first steps it was my good fortune to be the first to hail and whose every new w r ork has always aroused in me the liveliest interest." Tolstoi as usual spent a part of the summer in Samara. On his return he had a two days' visit from Turgenief. Tolstoi, accompanied by his brother-in-law, drove to Tula to fetch him. Turgenief played a game of chess with Tol- stoi's oldest son and from inattention nearly lost it. At dinner he talked a great deal and delighted the younger members of the family by his imitations, not only of people but of different animals. With his fingers he made the figures of a waddling fowl and of a hunting dog at loss. He told how he had acted the part of a satyr at Mme. Viardot's private theatricals, and he made the company feel uncomfortable by seeming to justify himself for playing the fool for that Circe's amusement. He gave an interesting account of his confinement in the Spassky police-station when he was arrested for his article on Gogol's death. The two great writers had long and lively discussions on philosophy and religion, and w T hen Turgenief toward midnight had to take his departure Tolstoi drove him to the station. Turgenief came back again in early Sep- tember, and Tolstoi told Fyet that he was just the same and the abyss between them was still wide. As the autumn drew on, Tolstoi's mood, as often hap- pened, changed. He wrote Turgenief complaining of some "mental illness," and must have charged Turgenief 258 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI with having ridiculed something that he had written. Turgenief defended himself warmly and asked why such ''reflexive feelings" were current only among authors and not among musicians, painters and other artists, and suggested that it was probably because writers exposed more of the soul than it was advisable to let others see. Tolstoi took offense at this and wrote Fyet in the ex- pression of a common Russian, saying that he had decided that it would be best for him to keep farther away from Turgenief and from sin. But Turgenief was very glad to have had a reconciliation with Tolstoi and told his friends of having spent three pleasant days with him, finding his whole family sympathetic and his wife charming. He returned to Paris more than ever zealous to spread abroad a knowledge of Tolstoi. "We Russians," he wrote, "have long known that he has no rival." Years before Turgenief invited Charles Edmond and a friend to his room, promising them a surprise. They supposed that he was going to show them a new story, but they had never before heard him speak in such flatter- ing terms of his own writings. Turgenief took from his writing-table a roll of paper. "Listen, " he said, "here is copy for your paper of an absolutely first-rate kind. Of course I am not its author. The master, for he is a real master, is almost unknown. But I assure you on my soul and conscience . . ." A day or two later he Temps published Tolstoi's Sevastopol Sketches. Again in October, 1878, Turgenief was preparing to translate "The Cossacks" into French; he took great pleasure in helping to acquaint the French public with the best story that had been written in Russian. At the very time when Tolstoi was expressing his terror of death, Turgenief was apparently going through some- what the same phase. While, like Tolstoi, he was satis- fied with his successes, having had every pleasure that TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 259 he could wish for, having won fame, having loved and been loved, yet having worked, he wrote to Polonsky in 1877 : " In my soul there is a darkness blacker than night. The day passes like an instant, empty, aimless, color- less. . . . We have no longer a right to live, no more desire to live. . . . We are the vibrations of a vase broken long ago." It would almost seem as if the malady affecting these two so dissimilar spirits was a reflex of the tragedy that was tearing Russia. That very year, 1877, political trials were laying bare the fact that the young men and women of the best families were carrying on the revo- lutionary propaganda by securing employment in factories and gaining the confidence of the common people so as to interest them in the Revolution. The waves from these comparatively small vortexes — like those that carry the messages of wireless telegraphy — could not help im- pinging on the lives of Turgenief, who by this time was out of sympathy with the Revolutionists, and of Tolstoi, who was to be the greatest Revolutionist of them all. In September, 1877, Tolstoi was in Moscow looking for a teacher and a tutor. He engaged Vasily Ivanovitch Alekseyef, who after graduating from the University of Petersburg had gone to Kansas w T ith the socialist col- ony, and when that Utopian plan for founding a new re- ligion failed returned to Russia. Through him Tolstoi came into contact with an interesting phase of socialism. Some years afterwards he wrote him : " You were the first man (influenced by education) whom I knew to confess not in words but in spirit the faith that has become for me a clear and steady light." But Tolstoi always stood aloof from direct affiliation with any of the reform or revolutionary parties that tried to change Russian poli- tics. He was too great to be satisfied with Panslavism, however extensive that movement was; he had no sym- pathy with bomb-throwing and assassination, though it was evident enough that most of those that belonged to 260 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the Terrorists had the courage that makes men regard their lives as of no account. Tolstoi had been deeply impressed by Schopenhauer, but Schopenhauer's philosophy was no aid to him in the spiritual conflict which he describes so microscopically in "My Confession." The answer of Philosophy was merely negative, and the question why he lived remained unanswered. Faith, as he had been taught to regard it, was irrational. Yet he was ready to accept any faith which demanded of him no direct denial of reason. That explains why he studied Buddhism and Moham- medanism and the various forms of Christianity. He says he seized on these representatives of religion and tried to find the basis of their beliefs — the Orthodox, the priests, the monks, the Church theologians, the Evan- gelicals. The so-called Evangelicals were represented by Baedeker, the international preacher, whom Tolstoi' intro- duced into "Resurrection" under the name of Kiese- wetter. Comparing the hard-working but illiterate and super- stitious masses with the well-to-do of his own class, Tolstoi found that they "live and suffer and approach death with tranquillity and in most cases gladly." According to his test, therefore, the faith professed by these people — in- cluding pilgrim monks, as well as the common peasants and the various members of various sects — was superior to what the upper classes affected to believe. Tolstoi reasoned that his past life had been that of a parasite — he had not earned his own living and therefore his life had been senseless and evil. He had agreed with the pessimists that there was no God and this pessimism had led him almost to suicide, but he again subjected the arguments of Kant and Schopenhauer to dispassionate reasoning as simple as the watch-argument of causation formulated by Paley; he created for himself a Creator and as soon as he had admitted this premise he found that joy in life once more began to flow m his soul. But he TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 261 could not desist from questioning and doubt. He tried to imagine God — in accordance with the Orthodox doc- trine — as a Trinity, but he found that nothing remained : the spring of life dried up, the tide of joy ebbed; again despair suggested suicide. He declared that not merely tens of times but hundreds of times he reached these conditions of joy and animation, followed by despair and the thought of suicide. The fact that whenever he thought of God his life seemed renewed suggested to him that to seek God was to live. Then came the process of seeking God, and this ex- plains why he so suddenly after years of neglect took up the habit of attending church services. He could at least do as the simple laboring people of Russia did. They accepted the sacraments, the fasts, the adoration of relics and ikons; he as a member of that great congre- gation could do the same. At first his reason did not revolt; he accepted every- thing, attended services, knelt, prayed, fasted, received the eucharist. But it soon seemed to him a mockery and the explanations of the theological writers, instead of making these rites reasonable, seemed full of sophistries. The limit came when, having humbled his intellect, sub- mitted to the old tradition, united himself with his Ortho- dox ancestors, confessed to a simple timid country clergyman, he was compelled to assert that he was about to swallow the flesh and blood of Christ. He did it once, with a pain in his heart, without any blasphemous feel- ings; but he could not bring himself to make the experi- ment a second time. The truth interwoven with the falsehood grew more and more unsatisfactory to him. He envied the illiterate who could accept without seeing absurdities. But he was not illiterate and it was no lasting alleviation of his dubiety to say to himself that it was his fault. He could not be satisfied with lying to himself or even shutting the eyes of his intellect. 262 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI When questions of life arose the Church answered them contrary to what his inmost soul knew was right. One question was why the various branches of the Church Universal regarded one another as heretics and instead of meeting in love manifested hatred, their faith destroying truth and love. No dignitary of the Church approved of union even on points on which all could agree; all regarded it as the highest duty to preserve in perfect purity the Orthodox faith inherited from the fathers. Love was the chief tenet of the Church; yet during the Turko-Russian war and during the revolutionary dis- turbances that followed, the Church dignitaries from the highest to the lowest prayed for the success of Russian arms, thus making murder a virtue and the killing of helpless young reformers a duty. This seemed to Tolstoi a horrible thing. He had found enough in the Church teachings to con- vince him that there was an element of truth in them. He could no longer declare it to be all false. But there was equally an evident element of falsehood in them. He must separate the true from the false, and the only way to do so was to subject to a thorough examination the writings which the Church had handed down and on which the Church was built. His " Confession " ended with the statement that he was setting to work on the task of disentangling the false from the true. As might be supposed, "My Confession" (Ispovyed) failed to satisfy the censor and was forbidden in Russia. It was circulated in lithograph copies, or copies printed abroad were smuggled into the country. Alekseyefa, a professed infidel, at first somewhat alarmed at becoming a tutor in a count's house, soon found that Tolstoi was affability itself and ventured to express his surprise that a man of his culture, intellect and sincerity should go to church, repeat prayers and observe the Church rites. His answer showed how he TOLSTOI AND MUSIC 263 was striving to convince himself. The setting sun was pouring through the frosty panes. He called Alekseyef 's attention to the tracery lighted by the sun and said that they could see only the sun's reflection but they knew that somewhere far off was the real sun, the source of light that produced the image they could see. So while the common people saw only the reflection in religion he was able to look a little farther and find beyond it the source of that light. Communion was possible, though he might be able to penetrate to a greater depth. But Alekseyef saw very evident signs that this self-deception was soon to fall completely away. He pointed out to Tolstoi the New Testament passages that seemed to uphold socialism. IX CHANGING VIEWS Early in June, 1878, Tolstoi began once more to keep his diary, which he had discontinued in October, 1865, and he was enabled to say, in the very first entry, that he could find a meaning in the whole service of Sunday Mass except the blasphemy about vanquishing enemies. His love of nature seemed to grow more and more intense. A description of his walk one June day through the rich, tall grass reminds one of Thoreau. He is intoxicated with the odors of the wood-paths. He watches a bee gathering honey from one after another of a cluster of yellow flowers and from the thirteenth it flies away, humming, with its load complete. While he was writing his " Confession " he was reading Renan's "Life of Jesus," which he considered childish, trivial and contemptible; he could find almost nothing original in it. He compared Renan to a man who, having extracted all the gold contained in a pile of sand, instead of being satisfied with the gold, sets to work with a great air of wisdom to rediscover the sand, and on failing to find it declares that it must have been there. The historical details which Renan, so to speak, re-created did not seem to help Tolstoi at all in under- standing the character of Jesus nor in fact did it seem to help him to realize that Jesus was a living man. He was after the absolute truth, and that he found in the Gospels themselves. That explains why in his next writings — "The Cri- tique of Dogmatic Theology" and "The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated" — he shocked other com- 264 CHANGING VIEWS 265 mentators by simply leaving out whatever he did not understand or whatever seemed to him incompatible with the truth as he understood it. Because it was in the books was no reason for his accepting anything: it must be tested by the Law of Reason. This certainly furnishes one more, and perhaps the most striking, among a thousand examples of the phenomenon of men finding what they want to find in the Scriptures. By the same principle one could follow the " Wicked Bible" and omit the not from the Ten Commandments. But Tolstoi was serious and sincere in his search for the truth, and having as he thought found it, made it the rule of his life, consistent to the end and in the end most consistent. It may be very easily imagined how troubled the countess was by this tremendous obsession. She wrote that he was buried in his books, convinced that what he was about to write would be very important. In June he followed the custom of many of the Russian peasants and made the pious pilgrimage to the holy city of Kief. The pilgrim road that led to the catacomb- monastery was only a short walk from his house and it had been a favorite occupation with him to go down to it and engage the pilgrims in conversation, often hearing wonderful tales in the vivid staccato " folk-language" which every Russian from Pushkin down finds so rich in new words and phrases. At Kief he went about among the monks and pilgrims but got almost nothing that helped his inquiries. He wrote his wife that his expe- dition was a failure. He also went to Samara and there engaged in an interesting talk about faith with the Starovyeerui or Old Believers, peasants and tradesmen, very simple, wise, decent* serious men who dispensed with priests. In his diary he makes an interesting comparison of himself with other men. There were strong men like Napoleon among the heavy, wingless people, whose sphere 266 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI was -down below and who left terrible traces and caused a tumult among their fellow-men. There were the monks whose wings enabled them to rise and fly. There were good idealists who easily rise from among the throng and no less easily descend. There were strong-winged men who like himself were drawn by carnal desires, who shattered their wings and after fluttering vainly fell. " If my wings are mended, I will fly high/' he said. Then there were those who, like Christ, had heavenly wings and voluntarily, out of love to mankind, folded their wings and descended to earth to teach others to fly. When they were no more needed they flew away. Alekseyef tells how Tolstoi abandoned fasting. The doctors had advised it on account of his health and he, wishing to be obedient to the Church, went to the famous Troitsa or Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius, north of Moscow, and obtained leave of the monk Leonid. The countess, says Alekseyef, observed the fasts strictly and when she perceived her husband was wavering she saw to it that every one in the house fasted strictly with the exception of the two tutors: for them she ordered meat to be cooked. One day the two men had cutlets and after they had helped themselves the butler left the dish on the window-sill. Tolstoi', seeing them there, asked his son to bring him one; he ate the meat with good appetite and gave up fasting from that day forth. The countess naturally could not understand his behavior. She had noticed the year before that his eyes were fixed and strange, that he hardly talked at all, and was positively unable to think about everyday affairs. After he had got fairly to work she wrote her sister, Tatyana Kuzminskaya, complaining that he was engaged in some sort of religious discussion, reading and thinking until his head ached and all to prove that the Church and the Gospel teachings were incompatible. She declared that not ten people in Russia would be interested CHANGING VIEWS 267 in this work and expressed a devout wish that it might soon be done with and pass like an illness. No one on earth, she declared, could control him and she did not think that he could control himself. About a month later their tenth child was born; three had already died in infancy. The house was full of company a good deal of the time. In September of that year Tolstoi wrote Fyet that they had been having private theatricals and at one time thirty guests sat down to dinner and all the devils were let loose. Many people were attracted to Yasnaya Polyana by his growing fame; but he refused to receive General Skdbelyef, the con- queror of Plevna, and later he was for similar reasons unwilling to make the acquaintance of the great painter Vereshchagin who after the manner of the Greek painter Parrhasius requested to have two Turkish criminals hanged a little sooner so that he might make a sketch of their execution. The poet Pushkin was born on the sixth of June, 1799, and when in commemoration of his eightieth birthday a monument was unveiled at Moscow, it was desired that Tolstoi should take an active part in the ceremonies. Turgenief returned from France enthusiastic in this movement, and he was besought to use his influence to persuade Tolstoi to be present. Turgenief visited Yasnaya Polyana. A woodcock shooting was arranged specially in his honor, and as Turgenief and the countess stood watching for the birds she asked him why it had been so long since he had written a book. He replied that every time he had planned anything he had been shaken by the fever of love. Now he was old and could neither love nor write. He also told Tolstoi' that he had found his last love-affair dull and Tolstoi exclaimed that he wished he were like that! When they got back to the house Turgenief read to the company, which had been increased by the arrival of Prince L. D. Urusof, vice-governor of Tula, one of his 268 . THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI poems in prose, entitled "The Dog." Tolstoi' had conceived the idea of writing poems in prose, had tried the experiment and sent one to Aksakof, editor of Rus y signing it with an assumed name. It was declined on the ground that the author was not as yet enough of an adept in writing. Tolstoi accordingly suggested the idea to Turgenief, who published a volume containing a number of them, under the title, "Senilia." Neither Tolstoi nor Urusof approved of Turgenief s attitude toward death as manifested in "The Dog," and a lively discussion soon arose regarding the need of a religious outlook. Urusof became excited and tipped his chair on its two front legs. They slipped and down he went on the floor. That was an episode which did not affect his argument, and he went on, still pointing his finger at Turgenief, till he was recalled to himself by a roar of laughter. He resumed his seat and went on, still oblivious to the absurdity of the situation. Tolstoi refused to join in the ovation to Pushkin's memory. The reason for his attitude was that Pushkin was a man of questionable morals, who had been killed in a duel, and that all his services consisted in writing verses about love, verses frequently indecent. The two novelists had such a hot dispute about the matter that they did not notice the dinner-bell. The countess found them in a hut which Tolstoi had built among the old oaks "in order to have solitude in summer for his work and to escape from flies, children and visitors." They parted amicably enough, but Turgenief advised Dos- toyevsky, who had returned from his long exile and wanted to make Tolstoi's acquaintance, not to expose him- self to the moods of the man whom they both admired. Turgenief could not understand Tolstoi's attitude. He expressed the deepest pity for him and felt it an unpar- donable sin that he should have ceased writing. He wrote his friend Polonsky that Tolstoi could be extraor- dinarily useful and yet he had plunged into mysticism. Ivan Turgenief. By courtesy of the Macmillan Company. CHANGING VIEWS 269 "I am considered an artist, " he said, "but what am I worth when compared to him? He has no equal in European literature. Whatever he seizes upon becomes alive under his pen." His creative power he thought was amazing, whether it were devoted to describing a whole historical epoch as in "War and Peace" or to depict- ing a peasant with a purely Russian soul. Every person, every animal he described was instantly made vital, and yet he had given it all up and surrounded himself with Bibles and Gospels in nearly all languages and had written a whole chestful of mystical ethics which he insisted were the real thing. Not all his friends failed to see the value of what he was doing. Strakhof was carried away by his new theories and felt that his explanation of the Gospels had striking simplicity and acuteness; he deemed the contents of his new book truly magnificent. Strakhof was one of the few who utterly refused to quarrel with him and who preserved his friendship unbroken. PART IV THE THEOLOGIAN . I THEOLOGICAL STUDIES The new book which Tolstoi mentioned as occupying him was probably the " Critique of Dogmatic Theology," which he finished that year. It was an examination of the dogmas of the Orthodox Greek Church, and he came to the conclusion that they and the whole system of theology as presented, for instance, in the treatises of the Metropoli- tan of Moscow, were false. He charged the Church with a lack of intellectual integrity and its influence with being a monstrous obstacle to man's moral progress. Science has taught there is no up or down in the Universe and the statement that a Moses or a Christ went to a hill-top and mounted into heaven is impossible to astronomy. Con- sequently to repeat the words of the Creed, "He ascended into heaven, " is to talk nonsense. In other words faith is the antithesis of credulity and superstition. To uphold such a theology required the strong and tyrannic power of the secular " armed hand." He pointed out that one will not find in the Gospels them- selves any of the dogmas supported by the Church — Adam's Fall, the triuneness of God, the Atonement and the identification of Jesus with the Divinity. But Christ taught love and pity and the duty of man to his fellow- man and to his heavenly Father. In the same way he analyzed the Scriptures themselves, 270 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 271 and he found that the theologians had slyly interpolated many words and phrases into the translations in order to make the texts bear out meanings which they desired to find. The Old Testament was an anthology of Hebrew literature and contained much that was crude, primitive, useless and immoral; and the New Testament contained the writings of Paul, who was responsible for the Church allying itself with a tyrannic State. When Paul said, "The powers that be are ordained of God," Tolstoi de- manded an answer to his question, " What powers ? Those of the rebel Pugatchof or those of the Empress Katha- rine II. ?" Advancing from destructive to constructive theology, Tolstoi discovered five commandments which seemed to him a sufficient guide for life: The first forbids a man to be angry with his brother. The second forbids a man to lust after a woman. The third is, " Swear not at all," lest you give away the control of your future action. The fourth is, " Resist not him that is evil; " that is, use no physical violence against any man. This law involves the abolition of all law courts, police, prisons, armies. The fifth is, "Love your enemies;" this puts an end to patriotism and the frontiers of alien states. Complex modern life according to Tolstoi would be reduced to absolute simplicity if only we could sum up those five commandments with all they involve into the one rule of life — the Golden Rule — "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Theoretically all Christians believe in that rule; but until all men follow it the world is likely to go on in its slow development; and even if there were another Noah's flood, the lines of heredity would cause the birth into the renewed w r orld of men and women whose conduct would make it hard to follow. Theoretically it is a perfect rule, and theoretically Tolstoi's theology is as simple and plausible as Christ's. 272 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI It was to be expected that he would subject to the same strict reasoning the Bible miracles — reject some and ex- plain others away. As for immortality, it is plain that he at one time disbelieved in a personal life after death ; but as he grew older he came to the conclusion that it was inconceivable that he should be a part of the infinite in this life and not continue to exist after bodily death. In that respect, however, he was an agnostic, He had long ceased to take any interest in table-tippings and the manifestations of spiritism. Man's life on earth is the most interesting thing to man and one can hardly sympathize with those who feel that Tolstoi in diverting his mental powers from merely artistic fiction to a study of the greatest things of life was wasting his intellect. One may not agree with his conclusions — it depends on whether his premises are satisfactory — but his attempt to formulate a theory of life and still more his sincere attempt to guide his life by it, is the most interest- ing phenomenon of modern religious history — especially because it was worked out in a country like Russia, where the expression of thought running counter to prevailing systems was less free than almost anywhere else in the world. The Franklin of theology held his knuckle to the key of his high-flying kite, and it was almost a miracle that the discharge did not annihilate him. He was completely absorbed in his studies, but the enlightenment that flooded his soul and rejoiced him at finding what seemed to him the truth or the right path to the truth made the physical disabilities which alarmed his wife of no consequence. His wife and all conventional admirers thought that he was wasting his time; but at the risk of subjecting himself to the hackneyed aphorism that an author is always mistaken in his appreciation of his own works, he persisted ever after in saying that his "Four Gospels" was a thousand times more important than all else that he had written. He knew that he was not mistaken, because it cost him the greatest and joyful- THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 273 est labor, was the turning-point of his whole life and served as the basis of all that he wrote afterward. And yet as time went on and he studied into other religions it gradually came about that, while he still believed the Gospels to contain essential truth and felt that his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus was cor- rect, he attached less and less importance to the personality of Jesus and was convinced that the probability against the actual existence of Christ was as strong as for it; the moral teaching of goodness was left as impregnable as ever, since it flowed from the whole spiritual life of humanity. He was not so oblivious of practical affairs as the countess said. The former serfs of a neighboring pro- prietor claimed that they were being cheated out of a lot of land that was rightfully theirs. Tolstoi went to their aid, and after considerable effort won their case. They were so grateful that they got in his hay and reaped his grain for him; and he was so pleased with their gratitude that he paid them wages and extra wages at that, top- ping them off with a good dinner and plenty of vodka. Later he would have omitted the liquor. Once when Prince Urusof had come from Tula to spend a winter Sunday with Tolstoi, the two men and Tolstoi's three sons went out for a walk. They found a frozen man in the snow. A sledge and fur-coat were sent for from the house and everything was done to revive the man. He was dead. Tolstoi had a coffin made and a grave dug; he and Urusof hired a priest to read the burial service, sharing all the expenses. But he certainly neglected what in Russia is called the khozyatstvo, and it is not strange that the countess, seeing that the income from his estates, left to the control of not altogether trustworthy stewards, was falling into arrears, should have assumed the care of them. Alexander II. was assassinated in Petersburg on the thirteenth of March, 1881. Shortly afterward, while 274 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI thinking about the execution of the conspirators, one of whom was Sophia Perovskaya, daughter of the Governor- general of Petersburg and niece of the Minister of Educa- tion, Tolstoi lay down on his leather divan and fell asleep. He dreamed or imagined that he dreamed that he was being executed, and not they, and yet that he was executing them — not Alexander III., the judges and the hangmen. He awoke in a sort of nightmare and wrote a letter to the Emperor. He afterward told the young Jew Feinermann that the thought of the Emperor's allowing the execution of the five accomplices "in that really terrible, shocking, and inhuman deed" prevented him from sleeping; he could not rest anywhere. He thought of going to Peters- burg and imploring the Tsar face to face, as men used to do in olden times, not to let the execution take place. But instead of doing that, weakness caused him to act in the modern way; he wrote a letter in which, though he tried to pour out his whole soul, he says he did not express anything like what he felt. The letter began with an apology that he, an insignifi- cant, weak, and worthless man, should take upon himself to advise the Russian Emperor how to act in complicated and difficult circumstances. He wrote not "with flowers of false and fulsome eloquence," but as man to man. He pointed out that the late Emperor, " a kind man who had done much good and had always wished his people well," had been brutally mutilated and slain, not by personal enemies, but by enemies of the existing order. According to Christ's teaching it was the Tsar's duty to forgive these enemies, even though they were likely for the sake of what they considered the general good to seek to kill him also. Twenty years before, he went on to say, a group of young people was formed who hated the existing order of things and the government. They tried by all sorts of godless and inhuman methods, by incendiary fires, THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 275 robberies, and assassinations, to destroy the existing order of society; the governmental struggle with this terrorist group, instead of diminishing it, made it grow larger. It was a plague, of course, since it was harmful to the life of the State, and two methods of treating it had been employed. The method of surgery had been tried and failed. Liberal measures — partial freedom, modera- tion in penalties, a constitution — intended to satisfy the discontented had been proposed, and these, according to Tolstoi, had also failed. But the third and scriptural method had not been tried. The Emperor stood at the parting of the ways — he could wreak vengeance for the evil by cruel execu- tions, he could summon a parliament, but both were paths that would lead nowhere. The new Tsar was as yet guiltless of blood, he was the innocent victim of his position. If he executed the criminals, he would uproot three or four out of hundreds; their places would be taken by dozens of others; whereas if he should return good for evil, should pardon the malefactors, give them money, and let them depart from Russia on the ground that the Bible says, "Love your enemies," thousands and millions of hearts would quiver with joy, and he, the writer, would be his dog and his slave, weeping with emotion every time he heard his name. To kill and to destroy the Revolutionists were not to struggle against them; that had to be done by opposing to their ideal one that was superior to theirs and included it — the only ideal that did that was the ideal of love, forgiveness, and returning good for evil. One word of forgiveness and of Christian love, spoken and emanating from the throne, would destroy the evil that was corroding Russia. "As wax in the fire all Revolutionary conflict would melt away in presence of the man-Tsar fulfilling the law of Christ." Tolstoi gave his letter to Strakhof to deliver to Pobye- donostsef, Ober-Prokuror of the Holy Synod, who, 276 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI having been the tutor of Alexander III., had influence with him. Tolstoi* also wrote a personal appeal to Pobyedonostsef, but that autocratic personage refused to have anything to do with it. Strakhof then put it into the hands of Professor Konstantin Bestuzhef-Riumin, through whom it ultimately reached the Emperor. Alex- ander III. sent word informally to Tolstoi' that he would have pardoned the conspirators if their attack had been made on him, but he did not feel that it was right to pardon the murderers of his father. Pobyedonostsef, after the conspirators had been hanged, answered Tolstoi's personal letter. After apologizing for the delay, which had occurred not from discourtesy or indifference, he said, but from the impossibility of getting his bearings amid the overwhelming occupations and confusion that had followed the events of March 13, he begged him not to be offended because he avoided handing the letter to the Emperor. In such an important matter, he said, one must act in accordance with one's belief: "After reading your letter I saw that your belief was one; and mine and that of the Church was another, and that our Christ is not your Christ. Mine I know as a man of strength and truth, healing the weak, but in yours I thought that I discerned the features of one weak and himself needing to be cured." Tolstoi might have inquired with righteous indignation if it were possible to think of the Christ of the Gospels signing the death-warrant of his murderers! So far had the heads of the Qhurch of Christ departed from the ideal which he gave when he said, " Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Surely it is the greatest tragi-comedy of the world that Christians almost universally, while pretending to follow Christ, when it comes to following him in practice, declare that it is impracticable. Thus urged Fyet and the countess, in a long discussion lasting several days in early June, 1881. "The Christian teaching is not THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 277 practicable/' said they. "Then it is stupid, is it ?" "No, but not practicable.'' "But have you tried to practice it ?" "No, but it is not practicable." Thus Tolstoi summed up in his diary the talk with Fyet and his wife. His wife acknowledged that he was a leader in these matters. " He goes ahead of the crowd," she would say, "pointing the way men should go. But I am the crowd. I live in its current. ... I am held by it and by my environment and habits. . . . He is quite right, but I cannot do what he demands. Five centuries hence men will tread in the path in which he is the pioneer!" His friend Samarin came and with a smile insisted that the terrorists deserved to be hanged. "Didn't Christ say that they who used the sword should perish by the sword?" — And Tolstoi records that he had great difficulty in refraining from pitching him out of the house by the scruff of the neck! II A PILGRIMAGE In June Tolstoi went to the Optin Monastery a second time, taking as a fellow-pilgrim his servant Arbuzof and a purse filled with coins to distribute to beggars. It must have been a wretched journey. Tolstoi's feet were soon blistered by the rough bast shoes which he wore, and he had to make the concession to his comfort of exchang- ing them for hemp shoes. They slept wherever any one would take them in. At one large village they stayed with the village starosta, whom they found cheating his own peasants as he paid them for making bricks. Tol- stoi interfered and the elder became violent ; but when his son appeared and discovered from the stranger's passport that it was Harun al-Rashid with his vizier, he disappeared together with all the peasants and the vodka that they had brought. The elder's wife offered the count her own bed, but he declined the courtesy and slept on the floor. In the morning they had tea and breakfast, and the old woman refused payment, which Tolstoi insisted on mak- ing, though he accompanied it by a warning to the son that his father's behavior would lead to bad results. That day they were caught in a thunder shower and were wet through. Tolstoi was seized with severe pains and lay down in his wet clothes on the wet ground, ex- claiming that he was at death's door. The owner of a hut refused them admission and they had some difficulty in finding shelter. After five days they reached the monas- tery and were so travel-stained that they were not allowed to enter the respectable refectory, but were relegated to the room where the dirtiest and raggedest tramps were accommodated. 278 A PILGRIMAGE 279 Tolstoi, who was taking a certain pride as he expressed it in being in his own eyes and in the eyes of others only what he was and not what he was plus his belongings, accepted the fellowship of his filthy neighbors, eating with relish what was set before him and drinking the cheap kvas. They were lodged for the night in the com- mon dormitory, swarming with tramps and other vermin. That was too much for Arbuzof. He bribed the monk with a ruble to give them a private room. There was a third lodger — a cobbler, a man quite after Tolstoi's own heart, only he snored. Tolstoi slept on a divan, the cobbler on another, Arbuzof lay on the floor near the count. By and by Tolstoi found he could stand the snoring no longer and told Arbuzof to wake him. Arbu- zof shook him and said: — " My good fellow, you snore very loud and disturb my old man. It alarms him to have some one snoring in the same room with him." The cobbler was quite indignant at having his rights infringed, but he made no more noise. The next day, while Arbuzof went to mass, Tolstoi occupied himself in watching the monks as they mowed, plowed, and did their other work. At the monastery book-shop he found an old woman trying to secure a copy of the Gospels for her son. The monk told her it was not a suitable book for such as she and urged her to take instead a description of the monastery and the miracles performed by the Saints. Tolstoi paid a ruble and a half for a copy of the Gospels and gave it to her, telling her to read it and let her son read it. The monk hastened to inform the archimandrite that a man dressed like a pauper was spending money like w r ater. The archimandrite sent a monk to investigate; the monk happened to be from Yasnaya Polyana and of course recognized Tolstoi. Harun al-Rashid's disguise was henceforth in vain. He bade Arbuzof give him his boots and a clean blouse and went to see the archiman- 2 8o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI drite and Father Ambrosy. Perforce he had to go and lodge in a room upholstered in velvet. Nothing was too good for him. He had a strenuous four hours' talk with Father Ambrosy, whom, according to Arbuzof, he declared to be a quite holy man who made him really feel the nearness of God. His diary on his return chronicles his endeavors to keep consistent and to press forward in his new path. He was troubled with insomnia and indigestion and found it difficult yet not impossible to keep happy. He records a conversation with his son Seryozha, in which the youth upheld the advantages of agnosticism. Tolstoi thought it showed ignorance, and not wisdom and education. Agnosticism applied to astronomy would be equally foolish. You cannot see the axes on which the earth and the planets turn or the ecliptics on which they move, and you do see the sun and stars move. Proofs of these theories are difficult, but " the advantage is that the universe is brought into unison. So it is with the moral and spiritual matters: the great thing is to bring into unison the questions, What is to be done ? What is to be known ? and, What is to be hoped for ? All humanity is striving to bring these into unison." The Church teaches theology which cannot stand the test of mature powers, and so men are left without unison, with disconnected knowledge. A formal dinner with champagne and his expensively dressed family revolted him. Outside were poor people tortured with overwork. There was a jolly picnic which Tolstoi joined but had not the strength to speak out his mind in protest. His illness continued, leaving him weak, indolent, and sad. He felt that activity was essential and its aims were : enlightenment which he might direct toward others, amendment toward himself, and unity with those who were enlightened and trying to amend. Ill ARGUMENTS RESULTING FROM DIVERGING VIEWS One of Count Tolstoi's brothers-in-law had begun the publication of a magazine for children, and in this ap- peared about this time the little tale, "What Men Live By," afterward collected with others of the same genre in a volume which some critics think superior to anything else that the great novelist ever wrote. Thus Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania, declared that they were the most perfect tales ever written, like Dante, Shake- speare, and the Bible destined to live through all time: "If Tolstoi' had written nothing else," she said, "he would rank among the greatest men of the world." Turgenief contributed his little story "The Quail" to the same magazine. He was then at Spasskoye and Tolstoi went to see him. He arrived a day sooner than he was expected, hired a conveyance from the station, the driver lost his way in the dark, and it was one o'clock at night when he reached the house. Polonsky, then a guest at the house, sat writing in his room. On hearing the tramp of horses' hoofs, he stepped out to see what it was. What he saw was a peasant in a blouse strapped with a leather belt. At first he did not recognize Tolstoi, whom he had not seen for twenty years. As Turgenief was still up, the three men at once engaged in a discussion which lasted till three in the morning. Turgenief be- came so excited that even his ears turned red, but Tolstoi was singularly gentle and winning. Polonsky said he seemed to be reborn, and though he maintained his views with firmness did not try to impose them on the others and listened quietly to Turgenief's objections. 281 282 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Tolstoi was pleased with Polonsky, a poor man, oc- cupied with art and literature, kindly sympathetic with others; while Turgenief seemed to him naively tranquil, living in luxury and idleness but fearing the name of God and acknowledging Him. From there he went again to his Samara estate, but what he had formerly enjoyed — the care and inspection of his live-stock — now seemed to him an unendurable occupation. He thought it all wrong that one man should have nearly fifty thousand desyatins, while that man's peasants should own only an average of one each; that the barin should be living in luxury while muzhiks were starving. He wrote his wife that the prospects of the harvest were excellent and that they ought to help the many poor in the neighboring villages. She replied somewhat per- emptorily: "Let the management of the estate go on as has been arranged. I want nothing altered. There may be losses — we have learned to be used to them; but even if there are large profits, the money will not reach me and the children when it is given away. You know my opin- ion about helping the poor; we cannot feed thousands of the poor inhabitants of Samara and other places." The practical assistance required in some c6ncrete case she did approve of rendering — where they knew of a given person lacking corn or a horse or a cow or a hut. "We must furnish those things at once," she wrote, "because we feel sorry for them and because it ought to be done. " He wrote his wife that he had been seeing a good deal of the Molokans, whom he found most interesting. He had been to their prayer-meetings and taken part in their services. He had read to them some of the extracts from his manuscript in reply to their question how he under- stood things. The seriousness, alertness, and healthy common sense of those people, though they were only half- educated, amazed him. u w X W w H 2 o > < o H o H H O u DIVERGING VIEWS 283 The kumys was beginning to have a good effect on his health and there was a corresponding effect on his views of life. He awoke to the fact that he had been giving his wife little or no help, that he had been neglectful of her. "I have been to blame, dushenka, unconsciously, involuntarily, thou knowest that, but still I have been to blame. " She was expecting soon to be confined again. He wrote her not to overtax her strength: "For heaven's sake and our love's sake," he wrote, "take care of your- self. Put off everything as much as you can till I return. I will gladly do everything and will take pains not to do it in the wrong way. " He told her that he still had the same thoughts and feelings but was cured of the delusion that others could and should see everything as he did. The countess thought he was tarrying too long at Samara; by doing so he missed a call from a nephew of his old hunting-friend Epishka. This Cossack had rid- den all the way from Starogladovsk to solicit some post from the Emperor, and stopped to renew acquaintance with the count. The countess had gathered from one of her husband's letters that he was feeling the inspiration to write what she called "something poetic," meaning a novel in contradistinction to controversial or philosophical books. She was delighted. She assured him that salva- tion and joy for them both lay in that. That, she said, was the real work for which he was born and the only kind of activity that would give peace to his soul. His diary notes the fact that every month a man was killed on the railway at Ryazhsk, and he shows his hatred of Progress as represented in machinery by consigning to the devil all machines if a man is to be sacrificed. Yet why ? Is death under an engine worse than by a stroke of lightning or by a lingering illness ? He had been living the simple life, a part of the time under the roof of a family where the members did most of their own work. He liked it but did not like the arti- 284 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI ficial conditions, as they seemed to him, when he reached home. Private theatricals played by " empty people" seemed to kill his very soul. Turgenief came again in early September and danced a quadrille with the children, and then to amuse them took off his coat, stuck his fingers in his waistcoat, and performed a cancan as they danced it in Paris. He was very gay, praising everything and congratulating Tolstoi on having chosen such a wife! But Tolstoi did not approve of his actions. Three words expressed it in his diary: " Turgenief, cancan, sad." The countess felt that for her children's sake they must live a part of the year in Moscow. The oldest son was ready to enter the University ; the oldest daughter was to be introduced into society. They hired a house and re- moved to the city in the early autumn. The first month was to Tolstoi the most wretched of his life. He felt they were there, not for the sake of living, but to be like other people. The city to him represented "smells, stones, luxury, poverty, and vice." Society consisted of male- factors who, protected by the law, robbed the people, mustered soldiers, and indulged in unseemly orgies. The common people could get back only what belonged to them by ministering to the passions of their masters — by waxing their floors, massaging their bodies, and driving their horses! Troubled with insomnia and lack of appetite, he be- came depressed and fell into a kind of desperate apathy. He often actually wept. The countess was so troubled that she was in tears every day and lost flesh. It seemed to her that she should go mad. But after a while he made a visit to his old friends the Bakunins, in the Govern- ment of Tver, and when he returned he was in better spirits. IV SLUMMING IN MOSCOW During his absence he made the acquaintance of a sectarian Christian — a peasant named Sutayef, who may be regarded as the personification of Platon Karatayef in "War and Peace," and of Uncle Fokanuitch, the muzhik of whom Levin learned from Feodor that he lived for his soul and remembered God. Tolstoi heard of this peas- ant through his friend Prugavin. Almost in the same way as Levin started off down the road, unmindful of the heat or of his weariness, to find the Christian peasant who had solved the problem of life, so did Tolstoi hasten to Sutayef. Sutayef and his sons had been stone-cutters bu had ceased to make gravestones because they had come to the conclusion that competition was immoral. They refused to collect the money due them; they went back to the country and Sutayef became the village herdsman but would not use a whip on a horse. His sons were im- prisoned because they would not serve in the army;- they all abjured the Church and lived a sort of communal life. They conducted their weddings with a certain solemn simplicity which was not lacking in its spice of humor. Sutayef told Tolstoi that when his daughter was to be married, they all met in the evening, the father gave them some advice as to the way people ought to live: " Then we made their bed, put them to sleep together, put out the light, and that was the whole wedding." Such a man was after Tolstoi's own heart. Of course if all men were Sutayefs, serious, conscien- tious, fearless, industrious, frugal, the world would go on better than it does when many elaborate church weddings serve only as a cachet of the worst immorality. 285 286 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Sutayef started to drive Tolstoi back to the Bakunins, and on the way they let the horse take his own gait. He upset their cart and tumbled the two men into a ravine : they were discussing the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven. Tolstoi was already contemplating his plan of getting rid of his property. He had come to the conclusion that from money hardly anything but evil could come. A plan which had entered his mind of collecting what was owed him and founding an institution for the service of man now seemed to him worse than nonsense — evil vanity. Had it not been for his family he would even then have given away all that he had, not for the sake of doing good but to be less blameworthy. Yet he recognized that his family and the ties of life were so interwoven into his very nature that he could not wholly clear himself from the temptations that assailed him. On his return to Moscow he found the conditions of city life almost as hard as before. The mass of evil amid which people lived oppressed him and he hardly knew what outlet there was between letting his hands drop and suffering passively or making a compromise with evil, befogging his soul with cards and idle talk and bustle. The only outlet seemed to be preaching with tongue and pen; even these activities had their own special temptations in the way of vanity, pride, and self-deception. To help poor people was another way; but the immense number of unfortunates was prohibitive. He was making up his mind that the best way was to live a good life, turning a kindly side to all men; but his fiery nature caused him to get angry and indignant and lose control of himself. He found a congenial spirit in Nikolai' Fyodorovitch Fy6dorof, the librarian of the Rumyantsof Museum, who was sixty years old, a bright and gentle exponent of Christian teaching, who had made it a habit to give away everything he had. Fyddorof afterward became very SLUMMING IN MOSCOW 287 bitter against Tolstoi because the count could not accept views which he considered essential. Tolstoi' became intimate also with a teacher in a rail- way school, a very ascetic man by the name of Orldf, who had been two years in prison on account of his political activities. He and Fyodorof read with approval Tolstoi's " Gospel in Brief" — a summary of Tolstoi's work on the Gospels compiled by an enthusiastic tutor from the various chapters, without the text-translation. In the privacy of his work-room he was writing stories in which he tried to express his ideas, and for exercise he was in the habit of going across the Dyevitchye Polye and across the Moskva River to the Vorobydvui Hills, to saw and split wood with two peasants who, it seemed to him, gave him an insight into real life. Every evening he mingled with the company that filled his house; he found the people interesting but frivolous. Another son was born in December of this year, and w r as christened Aleksei. A visitor who about this time saw the countess described her as a very fine woman, with a handsome face and a pleasant voice. She had a light step and was tastefully gowned. He was amused be- cause the countess came into the room where Tolstoi was sitting in his shirt-sleeves and jokingly reproached him for such unconventionality. Tolstoi' without resum- ing his coat remarked that it was too hot in the room. His answer seemed to put the countess out of countenance. In February of the year 1882 the decennial census was taken in Moscow, and this seemed to Tolstoi to offer an excellent opportunity to make a scientific inquiry into the cause of the terrible destitution that prevailed in that as in most cities. He wrote an appeal to the two thou- sand or more students who were to be enlisted in that work to formulate some organized relief. He read it before the City Duma and brought it to the notice of many wealthy people, but his plan was everywhere regarded as wholly impracticable and afterward he himself poured out the 288 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI vials of his scorn on it. It was published in a newspaper, but it contained characteristic passages, as, for instance, the paragraph where he declares that money is an evil and therefore he who gives money does evil, — the delusion that it is good to give money arising from the fact that when a man does good he rids himself of evil, that is, of money. Striking also was his call to the people to com- bine in such helpfulness that there should not be in Moscow one person lacking clothes or food or one who could be sold for money, not one unfortunate, crushed by fate, not knowing where to find fraternal aid. It seemed to him wonderful that all these terrible condi- tions should exist along with a superfluity of wealth and that Christian men and women aware of them could live happily. Out of that article and his experiences in investigating the poverty ^f Moscow grew his book, "Tak Tcho zhe Nam Dyelat"— "What Must be Done?" or "What Is to be Done, Then?" — which contains wonderful passages de- scriptive of his experiences with beggars and cheats and all the flotsam and jetsam of a great city. It was pub- lished in 1886. At his own request he was appointed one of the census- takers and was allotted one of the worst districts in the whole city. It made him more than ever ashamed to go to his own home and in luxurious rooms eat a five-course dinner served by two butlers in evening dress, with white ties and white gloves; it seemed to him more than ever that the existence of all the wealthy people, overfeeding themselves on sturgeon and beef-steak and surrounding themselves with luxuries, was a crime. Though his wife and other friendly people urged convincingly that the existence of these unfortunates was no justification for spoiling the happiness of the people of his own circle, still the remembrance of the horrors of poverty that he had seen forever took away from him all satisfaction in his own drawing-room and in others of the same kind, and Gay's Portrait of Count Tolstoi. Moscow, 1884. SLUMMING IN MOSCOW 289 made the sight of clean, elegantly laid tables, carriages with portly coachmen and horses, and the shops, theaters, and ball-rooms of the city distasteful to him. Yet his experiences taught him that the majority of the unfortunates whom he saw could not be assisted with money; each individual case required time and care. The task was hopeless. They could not be cured by any external means, only by an internal change. Even in the lowest of them he saw only a slightly varied replica of himself. He had attempted to raise a fund to help these suffering poor. He had asked wealthy people to help him. Three thousand rubles or so were promised, but none of it was forthcoming; though any of those w r ealthy people w r ould have paid a fancy price in advance to see Sarah Bernhardt, who happened to be in Moscow at that time. Some of his student helpers contributed their wages; he gave the twenty-five rubles granted him for his ser- vices by the City Duma; but when he attempted to dis- tribute the little sum, he found it an impossibility to do it wisely. NEW ACQUAINTANCES At that time Tolstoi had not discovered why charity was vain; afterward, largely through the teaching of Sutayef , who came to stay with him, his eyes were opened to the fact (as he now knew) that all these wrecks of hu- manity were trying to imitate men like himself who lived on the work of others and did not work themselves. "What Is to be Done, Then?" ought to be read by all charity- workers. It is a most tremendous arraign- ment of modern civilization and culture; and even if its reasoning seem extreme, it is as interesting as a novel, for it is a novelist's note-book of life in dark places, the life of our fellow-men for whose condition not they themselves are responsible, but the society which puts them there and keeps them there. Nikolai Kashkin, Professor of the Theory of Music at the Moscow Conservatory, happened to call at the home of the Tolstois one evening when the demand for tickets for Bernhardt was at its height. Tolstoi indignantly related at the dinner-table how an aristocratic Moscow family made use of its acquaintance with the Governor- General of the city, Prince V. A. Dolgoruky, to secure a box on the ground floor, and then resold it at a large advance. Tolstoi' was highly excited about it and went on to give a regular lecture on the theater, utterly con- demning it and proving the falsity of dramatic art in general. When he had finished he asked Kashkin if he were going to see Bernhardt. Kashkin said " of course he was." Tolstoi' grew quite angry at his answer and even pounded 290 NEW ACQUAINTANCES 291 the table with his fist. But after a little he broke the general silence by saying with a good-humored smile: " Do you know, I am awfully sorry that I'm not going too." This year, 1882, Tolstoi's newspaper article on the Moscow census fell into the hands of Nikolai' Nikolaye- vitch Gay at a time when that celebrated painter was in a state of great mental depression. His heart was set on fire; he left his little estate in the country w r here he was vegetating, feeling that life was not worth living, and went immediately to Tolstoi with the intention to work for him. He bought canvas and paints, drove to his house, actually fell on his neck and kissed him. "Lyof Nikolaitch, I have come to do whatever you wish me to," he said. " Shall I paint your daughter?" "Paint my wife," said Tolstoi, and the artist remained in his house a month, seeing him every day and growing more and more fond of him, for they loved the same things. Their friendship lasted without a cloud till Gay's death in 1894. The countess was charmed with him — "the dear, simple-hearted man!" Another acquaintance whom Tolstoi made this year was the witty satirical critic, Nikolai Konstantmovitch Mikhailovsky, who had done so much to make Russia acquainted with Darwin, Mill, and Spencer, who had sided with Tolstoi in the educational controversy of 1875, and who, years before, had with characteristic acumen written a sort of astrological chart of Tolstoi's psychological future. He was associated with the witty nobleman, Mikhail Yevgrafov tch Saltuikof (" Shche- drin"), in editing the Otetchesvennuia Zapiski, and he called to remind Tolstoi that he had once promised to contribute to it. Mikhailovsky found the count simple and sincere but giving the impression of being a man of the world by the easy, confident manner in which he waved aside 292 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the business part of their conversation, and politely ignored the promise that he had made. Mikhailovsky said that they had heard that he was writing a story. Might he not have it for his monthly ? "Oh, no," said the count, "Strakhof found a story among my old papers and made me polish it up and finish it. It is already placed. " And with light compliments to the magazine he made it evident to Mikhailovsky that it would be better not to say anything about his offer. Mikhailovsky came to the con- clusion that the offer and his evading its fulfillment were both the result of momentary impulses. He found that Tolstoi was one of the pleasantest of men to talk with; on occasions when they disputed rather warmly Tolstoi would say: — " There, now! We are beginning to get hot; that is not well. Let us smoke a cigarette and rest awhile." The cigarettes did not end the disputes but seemed to calm them. Quite disillusioned by his experiences in the Lyapinsky and Rzhanof houses, among the drunkards and prosti- tutes of Moscow, Tolstoi left his family to enjoy their luxuries and returned to Yasnaya Poly ana to think over his three months of city life, which in spite of the tribula- tions he had undergone had given him much of value. He made one short visit to Moscow and on his return wrote the countess a letter, which elicited a reply full of kindly and sensible advice. She wrote him that his letter was most gloomy and tragic. She felt that his state of mind must be the result of illness and advised him to undergo a- cure. She felt genuinely sorry for him. In the old days when he was dejected and felt like killing himself it was because he lacked faith; but now he had found a faith. Why should he be unhappy? He knew that hungry, starving, sick, wretched, and wicked people existed. But there were also cheerful, healthy, happy, and good people. NEW ACQUAINTANCES 293 Her letter seems to have acted like a tonic. He replied that it made him glad and he acknowledged that he was run down : perhaps it was his age, perhaps an ill turn, and he already felt better. He wanted her love — it was the one thing he wanted. No one else could cheer him so. Soli- tude was necessary for him for a time and had already freshened him up, and her love gladdened him more than anything else in life. How much better he was is shown by a letter which he wrote to the countess in April: — "I went out to-day at eleven and was intoxicated by the beauty of the morning. It was warm and dry. Here and there where the foot-paths were glazed over with ice, little tiny spikes and tufts of grass are showing under the dead leaves and straw; the buds on the lilacs are swelling; the birds no longer sing desultorily but have already begun to chatter about something, and around the shel- tered corners of the house and by the manure-heaps the bees are humming. "I saddled my horse and rode out. In the afternoon I read; then I went to the apiary and to the bath-house. Everywhere grass, birds, honey-bees; no policemen, no pavement, no izvoshchiks, no bad smells, and it is very pleasant." He came to the conclusion that it was so pleasant that the countess and the younger children had better return to the country while he would go to Moscow and stay with the boy's who were studying at school or at the University. "For me, with my thoughts," he said, "it is equally good or bad everywhere, and town can have no effect on my health; but it has a great effect on the children's and yours." Tolstoi wrote his friend Alekseyef that he often felt sad at the triumphant self-satisfied insanity of the life around him. It seemed strange to him that he could see it so clearly while the others were unconscious of it: "So we 294 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI stand face to face, not comprehending one another and wondering and condemning one another; they a host, I all alone." But these tremendously serious views of life could not prevent him from enjoying the gayety of the young people — his own children and his nieces and nephews; dur- ing that summer of 1882 he took as much interest as any one in ' The Post-box, ' ' which was a sort of ' 'Uncut Leaves' 9 magazine, consisting of unsigned contributions in prose and verse, written by the various members of the family. They were read aloud each Sunday evening. Tolstoi's favorite sister-in-law, who always spent the summer at Y&snaya with her children, described the gayeties in a letter to Biryukof. She says that the notes were long or short, on various themes, sad, poetic, or humorous; secrets were told; occurrences were described. Some- times a whole sheet would be made up like a newspaper. Tolstoi himself often wrote for it, and several of his humorous poems have been preserved. He liked to read the contributions aloud and took as much interest in it as any one. VI MANUAL LABOR "My Confession" had been accepted for publication in the magazine Russkaya Muisl ("Russian Thought") and had been submitted in proofs to the clerical censor, the Archpriest Sergyevsky. He refused to license the book and had the sheets burned. It was printed at Geneva and smuggled copies were circulated in Russia, where it was also copied clandestinely by hand or by some multiplying process. Tolstoi sent it to Turgenief , who read it with the greatest interest, regarding it as remarkable for its sincerity, truthfulness, and strength of conviction. But he could not fully accept its author's position. It seemed to him founded on false premises and likely to lead to a gloomy denial of all human life — to a kind of nihilism. The limitation of the spread of his new ideas caused by the arbitrary act of the censorship was at first very hard for him, for it prevented him from seeing the fruit of his works; but before long he came to regard this disappoint- ment as not cruel, but rather as blessed and wise. " What you do lovingly," he wrote in his diary, "not seeing the reward, is surely God's work. Sow! Sow! And what- ever is of God will come up — and will be reaped, not by you as a man, but by that in you which did the sowing." In October the family returned to Moscow, where Tolstoi' had bought a house for thirty-six thousand rubles. It was situated in the Dolgo-Khamovnitchesky Pereulok, not far from the Moskva River. He had extensive changes made in it but forgot that rooms for servants had to be provided. He w r as waiting for the countess and 295 296 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the children with two carriages when they arrived, and they found a dinner ready and some progress made in getting settled. Soon after they were established Tolstoi took up the study of Hebrew with the Moscow Rabbi Minor, who was surprised how quickly the count got into the spirit of the language and often caught a meaning that had escaped his own attention. He read from Genesis to Isaiah, skip- ping whatever did not interest him. He also read the Talmud, questioning the moral views there presented and the Talmudic explanation of the Biblical legends. The countess was greatly grieved at this fad; for with it vanished the gayety with which he had returned from the country. She did not want him to waste his health and strength on "trifles." She felt that his literary activity was at an end. "It is a great, great pity," she wrote to her sister. Boboruikin, who saw him again, re- alized that he was passing through a period of passionate repudiation of all the idle, egotistic, predatory, and insen- sate things with which well-fed gentlefolk sweeten their aimless existence. Especially was he opposed to the custom of ladies going in decollete gowns, while outside their coachmen had to wait and almost freeze to death. This year he began to drop the use of his title. He desired even the peasants to address him in the simple Russian manner, with his name and patronymic and not with the formal "Your Luminousness" (vashe sydtyelstvo). He now affected the muzhik attire of sheepskin tulup, with greased high boots and sheepskin cap, taking a wicked delight in the queer mistakes which people not recognizing him often made. Many a man lost a golden opportunity of hearing or seeing the great writer because unable to penetrate the disguise. He was also beginning to live according to his theory that every man should do hard manual labor, in the sweat of his brow. On one occasion he was seen to harness himself to a hand-sledge on which a tub w r as fastened and 3 'XI O g 3 H z D u fa o o MANUAL LABOR 297 drag it down to the well, fill it with water, and drag it back again to the kitchen. When the water gave out in the well, he went down to the river and after an hour's work returned exhausted. He also insisted on building the fire in his stove, lighting the charcoal in the samovar, making his own bed, and cleaning his own boots. The following year he took lessons in shoe-making and before long appeared in high hunting-boots of his own manu- facture. It was a great pleasure for him to sit on his low bench and imitating his teacher " ardently and conscien- tiously, with extraordinary patience," thread the waxed ends. The countess did not object except when he wearied himself in overdoing; she thought it a harmless amusement, when it came as a relaxation, to drop his book and mend a tattered shoe. It w r as always an amusement to the children to see their father cook his own breakfast: he would boil four eggs on the samovar, then make the coffee. By the time the chil- dren had collected around the breakfast-table the eggs were ready; he would try to fish out the eggs, always burning his fingers; the eggs he would eat in a tumbler with bread crumbed into it. When Tolstoi returned to Yasnaya Polyana in April, 1883, he found that a fire had destroyed more than a score of the huts and outbuildings belonging to the peasants. He felt very sorry for their sufferings; he reckoned their losses at about eight thousand rubles above insurance, but was amazed at the strength and courage and independence shown by these people. He gave them the timber to replace their izbas, and he sent to his brother for eight hundred bushels of oats for them. The following month he went again to Samara to drink kumys ; while he was there Turgenief on his death- bed penciled the unsigned note — his last — begging "the great writer of our Russian land" to return to his literary activity. "Ah!" he wrote, "how happy I should be if I could think that my request would have an effect on you." 298 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Tolstoi put off answering it, and on the third of Sep- tember " the giant of the Steppes" passed away. Tolstoi was asked by the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature to read a paper on Turgenief at a memorial meeting. He accepted the invitation and spent the autumn preparing it. Meanwhile he had been sum- moned to serve as a juryman at the district town of Krapivny and refused because of his religious convictions — really as a protest against the whole system of civil and criminal justice. He was compelled to pay a fine of one hundred rubles. The lecture on Turgenief was set for the fourth of October and all Moscow was expected to pack the University hall. Suddenly the pig-headed authorities interfered, and forbade it to be given. Yet it was per- fectly innocuous and free from what the countess called "liberal squibs." She wrote her sister that every one was angry about it except the count, who was glad to be excused from appearing in public. A week or two later he returned for a brief visit to the country and on the way met with a serious misfortune. His portmanteau fell out of the sledge and was lost. It contained several important books, as well as proofs, and some manuscript chapters of his new book, "What do I Believe?" Advertisements were inserted in the papers, but it was never returned to him. He felt worse about losing a borrowed volume of Strakhof 's than about the loss of his manuscripts, which he was able easily to reproduce. On his return to Moscow he began his lessons in cobbling, and one evening he was so merry over it that he was seen to dance a waltz with as much agility and light- ness as if he had been the Count Tolstoi' of twenty years before. In February, 1884, he finished his new book, "What do I Believe?" and, realizing that it was hopeless during the reactionary reign of Alexander III. to submit it to the MANUAL LABOR 299 censor, printed an edition of fifty copies, which he thought might be licensed, as it could be seen that it was not for general circulation. The Archimandrite of Moscow, who was head of the censor committee, read it and thought it contained many lofty truths, and saw no reason to prohibit it. But Pobyedonostsef, whom the countess charged with tactlessness and pedantry, pronounced against it. Yet Pobyedonostsef admired Emerson and published a translation of one of his books. He also had a high opinion of Tolstoi, but not of his theology. The fifty cgpies comprising the whole edition were sent to Petersburg, but, though the law required that they should be burned, they were illegally distributed among influ- ential officials — a rarity for bibliophiles. It was also printed in Switzerland and, like the other book, circulated, as it were, in underground channels. The famous por- trait of Tolstoi sitting at his desk was painted during the time that he was finishing " What Is to be Done, Then?" by the famous artist Gay, who was the only person admitted to the study while the writer was at work* Occasionally they would be heard laughing heartily; then again it was said "they would appear as if the brows of both of them were seared by the wrath of God." VII THE CRIME OF PROPERTY Tolstoi's youngest daughter, Aleksandra, was born on the last day of the following June. He was at that time in the depths of one of his most terrible moods, and so convinced of the wrongfulness of living amid such luxury that on the very evening before the child was born he left his home not intending to return. The countess wept all night, and when at five in the morning she heard that he had come back she went to him and insisted on knowing what she had done to be so punished. "My fault," she said, "is only that I have not changed, while you have." Her husband sat somber and morose and said not a word, absolutely absorbed in the birth-pangs of his own soul, which were to him worse than the physical anguish of the wife whom he loved. What is more tragic in all the story of this strenuous spirit? The countess in despair retired to her room, and a few moments later a little girl was born. Christ's word that he came not to bring peace but a sword was never more perfectly exemplified. It is interesting to note that this youngest of the Tolstoi children was destined to come into contro- versy with that mother, who on account of her mental anguish was forbidden to nurse it. A natural consequence of this soul-storm was that he determined that he must rid himself of his possessions; still he realized that he had obligations to his wife and children, and it became a serious puzzle to know how to manage it. The first step that occurred to him was that he should "try freely, without violence and in 300 THE CRIME OF PROPERTY 301 a friendly way, to manage the business with the muzhiks at Yasnaya," taking everything from the steward, al- lowing nothing to be done for himself and contrary to his convictions. He begged the countess not to oppose his wishes but at least to let him try the new plan, which he said could harm no one and might result in something very good and important. The countess felt badly to have her husband, as she thought, waste his splendid mental energies in doing what younger and coarser men might do to better advan- tage — log-splitting, lighting samovars, and making boots, excellent as those occupations might be as a rest or change. His writing she considered as higher than any- thing in life. Playing at Robinson Crusoe w r as pretty poor business, though she said, "If you enjoy it, w r hy, enjoy it. Let a child enjoy itself as it likes as long as it does not cry." Certainly her spirit was most angelic. After writing that letter so full of playful earnestness, she sent him another on the same day in which she said: — "Suddenly I pictured you vividly to myself and a flood of tenderness rose in my heart. There is something in you so wise, kind, naive, and obstinate, and it is all lighted up by that tender interest in every one, so char- acteristic of you, and by that look of yours which pene- trates into the souls of men." If she had been a childless wife, there is no doubt that she would have followed him into all his extremes, but as a practical woman, knowing life, she could easily see that he had as yet formulated no definite scheme which would settle the difficulties of such a renunciation. Not long after this Tolstoi' offered to transfer to her his whole fortune, copyrights and estates, telling her that he could not bear the burden. But she refused it, saying, "So you want to place it on the shoulders of me, your wife." Things were left in statu quo, and the same strenuous conflict came again and again. Again and 3 o2 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI again Tolstoi, taking literally Christ's words, "He that hateth not father and mother and wife and child cannot be my disciple," left his home, not intending to return; but until the last tragic renunciation, each time he was driven back by his sense of duty. The countess did undertake the publication of her husband's books. She borrowed twenty-five thousand rubles and issued his works in various editions. She attended to the proof-reading herself, and she managed the business so admirably that the first year the gross returns were sixty thousand rubles. Scholars from all lands began to write for permission to make translations of his works and the count insisted that all should have the authorization. From the standpoint of the author he was quite right. If only one person is permitted to translate a masterpiece the chances are that the master- piece will not be well represented in a foreign language; but if any one is allowed to do the work, the succeeding versions will probably be a great improvement over the first.* Life after this went on pretty much as before. At Moscow, during the winter, there were all sorts of inter- esting diversions and occupations. The young people were studying; there were drawing lessons; they had literary evenings, made notable by the presence of the best-known writers. Music as usual filled a large part of * One arrogant translator of Tolstoi's works, who is most severe on his predecessors, translates the French idiom je veux dire as "I wish to say," when any school-boy knows that it signifies "I mean." The same man translates the German word pflichtloser Genuss as "a dutiless pleasure," which is of course sheer nonsense; and Tolstoi's Russian he can repre- sent with such a sentence as "It is not that, that I must write!" Even the German translator of "Anna Karenina" makes a most ridiculous mis- take in the Slavonic epigram, translating it "Vengeance is sweet, I play the ace." He mistook the word az (ya, I) for something else! All men are liable to mistakes, and translators, of all people, ought to be most humble and patient of others' faults. This is particularly true regard- ing Tolstoi's peasant-conversations, which are often incomprehensible to the natives of Petersburg, being extremely staccato and idiomatic and filled with local words. One of the Most Striking Portraits of Count Tolstoi. THE CRIME OF PROPERTY 303 the program. The house became more and more a center for all the best intellectual life of the city. Tolstoi had his enjoyment in all this when he could forget his theories. But often he fled to the country to drink in the quiet of the rural scenes. In one of his letters to the countess (December 20, 1884), he tells of his ecstasy in driving over the deep, light, new-fallen snow under the enchanting starry sky in company with the sympathetic Misha, after being confined in a railway carriage with a landed pro- prietress (pomyishchitsa) in bracelets who was smoking, a doctor who prated about the necessity of capital punish- ment, a horrible drunken old woman lying senseless on her seat, a gentleman with a bottle in his bag, a student with a pince-nez, and a conductor who because the count wore a polushubok insisted on punching him in the back. " After all that came Orion and Sirius above the Zasyeka or crown forest, the silent snow, the good horse, the good air, the good Misha, and the good God!" VIII LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES In 1885 Tolstoi went on a trip to the Crimea with Prince L. D. Urusof, who had translated "What do I Believe V s into French. They revisited Sevastopol and Tolstoi picked up a cannon-ball: from its position, as he was assured by a veteran well acquainted with the ground, it must have been from the very cannon which Tolstoi had pointed and fired at a group of horsemen approaching the southern bank of the roadstead thirty years before. He knew that the only cannon-ball fired from his battery was the one he himself had directed, and he was morally certain that he had picked up the identical ball. Though he had gone to the Crimea not for his own pleasure but because his friend was ill, he began to feel that he was wasting his time in luxurious leisure and that his work was calling him. He cut his trip short. On his return he joined with a number of sympathetic friends in founding a publishing business, which was called Posrednik, "The Mediator," with the special idea of furnishing genuine literature to the millions of Russians who since the spread of popular education were able to read and, as Tolstoi told Danilyevsky, were standing like hungry jackdaws calling upon the writers of the Russian land to throw into their open mouths literary food worthy of them. For this enterprise, which survived in spite of the perse- cutions of the censor, Tolstoi wrote many of his best short stories. Some of them were forbidden before they were published; others were licensed by applying to pro- vincial censors and when detected by the lynx-eyed 3°4 LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 305 officials of the chief bureau were called in. The story is told that when Posrednik published the " Sermon on the Mount," the censor compelled the publishers to cut out the words "Take no thought for the morrow." The hunger of the Russian peasants for good reading was shown by the fact that more than ten millions of these booklets were distributed in the course of a few months. Tolstoi' wrote to M. A. Novosyolof , expressing his idea of the style and character of these publications — particu- larly those relating to Greek and Roman history, bidding him write in good, clear, comprehensible Russian — "just as you speak." He told him to take any epoch that illustrated the conflict of evil with good and if the first time it did not succeed to try it again. The influence of such an exposition w r ould be to make children, — aye, and grown people too, — try to imitate good deeds and thus become good and serve God — that is, Truth. Later he wrote to Feinermann telling him to finish his story as soon as possible and send it on, but advised him not to try to tell everything in one tale, that being a universal stumbling-block to those unused to writing. This year (1885) Tolstoi wrote a preface under the title "Industry and Idleness"* for a booklet by an exiled peasant named Bondaryof. Tolstoi declared that Bonda- ryof 's writing would survive all the other books mentioned in a biographical dictionary of Russian authors and would have a greater effect on people than all of them put together. Man's chief duty according to Bondaryof was to earn his bread with his own hands, and he claimed that a competent worker could perform in forty days enough work to support him all the rest of the year. Bondaryof in this argument seems to follow Thoreau, who lived in a hut at Walden to prove that he could reduce his living expenses to a few cents a day. Bondaryof's book, pro- * "Trudoliubiye ili Torzhestvo Zemlyedyeltsa." Literally, " Industry, or the Triumph of the Agriculturist." 306 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI duced independently in Siberia and entirely uninfluenced by Tolstoi, proves how widespread was the leaven of thought which was working in the Russian mind. During the summer Tolstoi worked as usual in his fields, but by now he began to have so many disciples that their very numbers were troublesome. They came in swarms — all kinds. Frau Anna Seuron, the grand-niece of the composer Weber, who was then a governess in the household, gives an amusing picture of the hay-making, where counts, princes, teachers, and all sorts of pedigreed people tried to work in competition with the peasants, hacking awkwardly with unaccustomed scythes, each trying to outdo the other. As far as the eye could see there were workers — men, women, children, and govern- esses all helping to turn the hay. Among others who came was a vegetarian who passed himself off as William Frey from America, but was really a Russian who had lived through a most romantic and extraordinary experience, as army officer, scientist, emigrant, founder of a colony, common laborer, and follower of Comte. He spent five days at Yasnaya Polyana and proved to Tolstoi's satisfaction that it was wrong to slaughter even plant life by reaping the grain, that it was more natural for man to eat nuts and fruits, as is proved by the agility of man's cousin the monkey. Tolstoi' was instantly convinced of the sweet reason- ableness of this regime and vowed to abandon flesh meat thenceforth. He also gave up hunting and shooting, though Frau Seuron tells of one instance where the call of the wild was too much for him. He had been writing steadily for hours. He came out into the hall, threw the gun over his shoulder, but could not find his hat. As the sun was very hot he seized the first covering that lay at hand and fled like lightning from the house. Toward evening he was seen returning, immersed in thought, his bare head bent; he dragged behind him a slaughtered LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 307 hare and carried in his belt his daughter's gigantic turkey -red hat which he had worn on starting. Together with flesh went tobacco, which he began to regard as a luxury since it occupied fields which might be devoted to grain. It was a tremendous struggle with him and when others were smoking he would eagerly inhale the fumes: it was a sedative to his nerves. This habit also he conquered and was glad. Another of the visitors was the Jew Feinermann, who came announcing that he wished to find work. The count was pleased with him and sent him to the village, where he stayed some weeks, helping with the roughest work, even caring for those who were sick with typhus. The coun- tess distrusted him. He claimed to be a tailor, and she bought some linen and set him to work to make the count a pair of trousers; but, as in the "Hunting of the Snark," the bow got mixed with the stern, and the countess had no further use for him. He pretended he w r anted to join the Church so as to get the position of village school- master, but after teaching for a while the countess saw to it that he joined the army. He had many interesting reminiscences of his stay at Yasnaya. He tells how Tolstoi manured and plowed the widow Anisya's strip of land, bringing on his return to the house odors which had to be cured with burning pastilles. Tolstoi jestingly called this operation " smoking out the unclean spirits with incense." Feinermann also tells how they got in the hay and Tolstoi* boasted that he was ahead of the rest; he hurried so as to get the work done before sunset in accordance with the Russian proverb which says, " When the sun has set men cannot work." Arbuzof also tells how Gay and Tolstoi worked for three months in building a hut for the same widow Anisya. The two men laid the bricks and the daughters Tatyana and Marya plaited straw for the roof. They then had to con- struct the oven. But the bricks were not properly made and the hut began to sag and finally fell to pieces, and 3 o8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI then the count discovered that Anisya was trading in vodka! Still another eye-witness tells of Tolstoi's activities on his estate. This was Vaska Morozof, whom Tolstoi took into literary partnership when the school was flourishing. He had gone to Moscow as a cabman, but from time to time he heard of his old teacher, who had become working- man, plowman, mower, sower, woodsman, stove-builder, boot-maker, and carpenter. So he returned to Yasnaya to visit his relatives and see for himself what the count was doing, and he found him rebuilding the new house for Morozof s old aunt. "Dear me!" he said, "what has happened to Lydf Nikolayevitch ? Hair and beard quite gray and he has grown wrinkled — he is old. But see! how he sits astride of the top-beam, cutting out a notch to hold the rafter. His shirt-sleeves are turned up; his unbuttoned shirt shows his bare chest; his hair is disheveled, the locks in his beard shake at each blow of his ax. He has a chisel stuck in the girdle behind and a hand-saw hangs from his waist." He had not forgotten how to express himself with vivid- ness — that Moscow cabman, pupil of the count. One characteristic picture of Tolstoi at work is given by Feinermann. He was helping to rebuild the widow Anisya's barn. He himself cut down the aspens and stripped and smoothed them with adze and plane. In a week's time the uprights were up. Tolstoi had worked from morn till night and was much pleased when the boss-carpenter, the wise, practical Prokofei, complimented him on his handiwork. But when it came to fastening the cross-poles over which the thatch would be tied with ropes of straw, Tolstoi was not so much at ease. He had to climb to the rafter and bore the holes for the pegs. He climbed up and sat astride, but as soon as he took hold of the gimlet and bent back to adjust the point, he < < o < < in > o H < W u w LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 309 grew dizzy and crept down the ladder exclaiming, " No, I give it up. I shall never learn to do it." Prokofei en- couraged him and he tried it a second time, with the same result. Then Prokofei came down and taking Tolstoi aside said to him, " I know why you are unsteady on the rafter — you look down." And he instructed him to look up at his work, fix his eyes on the gimlet and the hole he was boring, and go ahead. "Try it," he said, "you will see how easy it is." This time he succeeded and his delight knew no bounds. On his way home he said that he had learned more that day than one sometimes learns in a whole year. And in order to illustrate the fearlessness achieved in other situations of life he told with graphic detail how he used to wonder that the simple-minded gunners at Sevastopol could load and aim their cannon with imperturbable calmness w r hile a hail of projectiles was thundering about them and shells were bursting and tearing men and horses to pieces. "I did not understand the secret of their courage," he said. "I do not mean that deep fundamental secret of absolute submission to Him who called us into existence : that is too distant and cannot be evoked every time one goes forward to point a gun. What I did not understand was the other secret — that of simply adapting oneself. It helps one to hold out for hours in such a hell. Now I see that the secret is Prokofei's. ' Don't look down! Look at your work!' The gunner sees before him only the charge, the sight, the muzzle, and so can do his work." The year 1886 was one of Tolstoi's most productive periods. Besides a large number of the best of his short stories, he WTote "The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, " which is the study of a tchinovnik's soul while facing the inevitable, as he moves down the long incline of a fatal illness. He also finished his treatise, "What Must be Done, Then?" The practical answer which he held up was, " Plenty of 3io THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI work." As the day naturally divides into four parts determined by our food, and as the natural activity of man divides into four kinds, he would have all men labor before breakfast at the heavy work that makes them sweat — plowing, tending cattle, building, digging wells, and the like; during the time before the midday meal they should employ the activity of the fingers and wrists — in the making of clothes, boots, utensils, and other products of craftsmanship; between the noon and the evening meal they should employ the activities of the intellect and the imagination and work at science and art; and, finally, the evening should be devoted to social intercourse. His own practice in physical labor he claimed cleared his brain and filled him with animation. "Every day," he said to the novelist G. P. Danilyevsky, who visited him this year, " Every day, according to the season, I either dig the soil or saw and chop wood, or work with the scythe, the sickle, or some other utensil. You cannot imagine what a satisfaction it is to plow ... it is pure enjoy- ment. You walk along guiding and lifting the plow and you take no note of how one, two, or three hours go by. The blood flows gayly through your veins; your head grows clear, your feet feel light; and then the appetite and the sleep!" He felt that exercise and physical labor were as essen- tial to him as air; if he did not get it, he spent sleepless nights. The summer offered him plowing, mowing, and many other things to do. He did not like the autumn; in winter, as he was bored by walking over hard pave- ments with no end in view, he sawed and split wood. "What Must be Done, Then?" contained a savage attack on women's rights and a most amazing diatribe against those women who for any reason limit the num- ber of children they bring into the world. It ended with a hymn of praise to the fruitful mother who will not even after she has borne twenty children say that she has borne enough. LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 311 The book is worth reading as a curiosity of logic, and its vigor and its mordant criticism of what are really the abuses of our civilization might well waken men to a possible improvement. Gay and Tolstoi were becoming better and better friends. They were together at Yasnaya, and after the family moved to Moscow he still continued to be their guest. He declared that "our dear precious and holy" Lyof Nikolayevitch had kindled new life in him and he proposed to interpret his teaching. He accordingly made sketches illustrating Tolstoi's short stories and also a series illustrating the life of Jesus. Tolstoi was enthusias- tic over them. One, representing Jesus returning in the strength of the spirit, impressed him so deeply that he could not tear himself away from it: "It seemed lumi- nous, and its rays penetrated my soul." He thought Gay surpassed all other artists in giving the whole power and majesty of the Christ. He was still fond of art, but unless it fitted his test he renounced it. Anton Rubinstein was to give a concert in Moscow and Tolstoi, who admired him above all other pianists, was expressing regret that he should again miss hearing him : all the tickets were sold. Rubinstein heard of Tolstoi's desire and sent him a ticket. Tolstoi had put on his overcoat to go to the concert when he was assailed by the old doubts whether it was right for him to countenance a man who, according to his new theories, was not serving true art. The conflict between his desire and his conviction was so intense that it brought on a nervous attack which required a doctor's attention. Rubinstein was not offended by Tolstoi's staying away but offered to go to his house and play to him. But the plan was abandoned owing to the loss of Tolstoi's four- year-old son Aleksei, a beautiful boy with the good qualities of both his parents, who was suddenly taken ill and through the mistaken diagnosis of the attendant physician died of the croup. 3 i2 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI About Easter time in 1886, Tolstoi', accompanied by Gay's son and two young aristocrats, set out for Yasnaya Polyana on foot, carrying a linen sack over his back. He had his notebook and a pencil tied to it in order to jot down anything of interest. The two young aristocrats were unable to keep up, but Tolstoi and young Gay on the third day entered the park of Yasnaya, well and happy, full of satisfaction at having accomplished their long journey. At one izba where they spent a night Tolstoi lay on the stove with a "dear old muzhik of more than ninety," who described with "artistic warmth" the early days under the Emperor Nicholas, whom he called Nikolai Palkin or the Stick. At that period flogging was the universal custom in the army and indeed all over Russia. Tolstoi' immediately wrote the story down and it was pub- lished in a hektograph edition by one of his admirers, who was almost immediately arrested through the activity of a spy. Tolstoi was besought, for his mother's sake, to let it be known that he had authorized the issue of the work and instantly replied, " Of course it was with my con- sent. I am always glad when my books obtain circula- tion. Tell his mother I will say so if I am questioned about it." Tolstoi was summoned to call on Prince Dolgoruky, the Governor-general of Moscow, but sent word that if that gentleman desired to see him he might see him at his house. Dolgoruky sent his adjutant to warn Tolstoi. Tolstoi received him politely and lectured him during his whole visit on the immorality of his position in serving such a government. While he was at Yasnaya that summer he received a visit from Deroulede, a tall man of military appearance, who wore a long gray coat "all buttoned down before." He desired to enlist Tolstoi, of all men, in persuading Russia to join France in a war of revenge against Ger- many. When Deroulede swore that the Rhine must LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 313 belong to the French, the count smiled and said: "The frontiers of a country should not be outlined with blood but should be settled by a reasonable agreement, allowing equal advantage to each side." He was so exasperated with his visitor that he dashed out of the room and slammed the door behind him. But Deroulede returned to the charge at his next opportunity and Tolstoi pro- posed that they should lay before an ordinary typical muzhik the proposal that the Russians and French should unite to squeeze the juice out of the Germans. The peasant scratched his head and gave as his answer that the best thing would be for the French and Russians to do some useful work first and then go together to the traktir, taking the Germans with them, and have a drink. Deroulede took his departure that evening. He realized that he had tackled the wrong man. A welcome visitor to Yasnaya was Mikhail Aleksan- drovitch Stakhovitch, who was the life of all hunting- parties, games, and the other sports of the young people. Tolstoi' loved him and he had a filial affection for the count. Feinermann describes a race through the long avenue of birches, in which the count took part. When he overtook some of the participants, " Grasshoppers!" he exclaimed, " where would you have been twenty years ago ? Then I would have shown you how to run! You have to do it, not by spurting, but by holding out. You gutta- percha figurines, try to sprint! We'll see what prizes you take in life's race — also by sprinting and spurting, I suppose. " Stakhovitch won his prize in life by taking an active part in the movement for constitutional freedom. At this time he learned how to plow a straight furrow and to mow evenly and to load the hay. All the young people, under the count's inspiration, w r ere intensely desirous of living with the people and like the people; some of them, includ- ing Tolstoi's sons and young Stakhovitch, even made their plans to take up their residence in the izbas in the village. 314 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI But when the countess heard of it she set her foot down. "It shall not be/' she exclaimed. "You were born counts and counts you shall remain. " At this Tolstoi remarked that opposition from one's family and relatives indicated the measure of a man's readiness to serve the truth. Feinermann had evenings devoted to readings with the children and older people of the village. Tolstoi loved to be present and considered them worth any number of society functions. On one such occasion he read the story of " Ivan the Fool. " After he had read it he asked a muzhik — the poorest man in the village — to repeat it. His version did not exactly correspond to the original and some of the others grew vexed with him and tried to cor- rect him. But Tolstoi insisted that he should have his way, took notes and whatever vivid word, unusual simile, or happy phrase occurred he incorporated into the original, so that when it was published it was actually in the form that the peasant gave it. Tolstoi said that he always did that. He learned how to write from the people and he tested his work by them. " God Sees the Truth" was told him by one of his pupils and thus tested. He used to thank an old woman from a neighboring village for the help that she gave him in this way : he was delighted with the stories she told him and with her way of telling them. He said she taught him to speak Russian and to think Russian. Another of this year's stories, "How the Little Devil Earned a Crust of Bread," he dramatized under the title of "The First Distiller." It was performed at one of the booth-theaters during carnival time on the Dievitchye Polye as a popular entertainment, and as a lesson in temperance. One of Tolstoi's admirers describes how he once saw him wandering among the booths and other places of amusement in this much frequented ground. He dared not address him but followed him at a respectful distance. Others did the same, and when the count O h e LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 315 reached his own door more than twenty people had gathered into an escort for him. Tolstoi's activities in plowing led to a pretty serious illness. He had a sore shin but paid no attention to it. The countess pretended to be suffering from neuralgia as an excuse forgoing to Moscow. She persuaded a doctor of her acquaintance to accompany her to Yasnaya. Tolstoi had no faith in the medical profession and charged the doctor with having come merely for the sake of getting an exorbitant fee; but when Dr. Tchirkof asked gently, "Are you not disregarding the law of love to one's neighbor? " he allowed him to examine his leg. Tolstoi was really in serious danger; his temperature had gone up to 104 , his leg was badly swollen, and the bone was already much decayed. The pain was so intense that he sometimes shrieked and for more than two months he was laid up. As in the case of his other illness, so during this, Tolstoi composed a play, part of which he dictated to his wife, part of which he wrote. It was called "Vlast Tmui" — "The Power of Darkness" — and was founded on an incident which had been brought before the Law Court of Tula. One would hardly gather from this grewsome drama that Tolstoi exalted the Russian peasant above the luxury-poisoned aristocrats of his own caste. It depicts sordid sin and misery and crime with scarcely a relief. Its language is often so coarse that Tolstoi himself when he read it before the troupe that rehearsed it eight years later was rather ashamed and remarked that on account of the ladies he should have to modify it. In speaking of play-writing Tolstoi remarked that it was sculptor's work, w T hereas in writing novels he worked with a brush and was free to add color and simplify ; but the drama, according to him, had no shadows and half- tones: "Everything must be clear-cut and in high relief. The incidents must be ready, fully ripened, and the whole 3 i 6 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI difficulty lies in representing these fully matured moments, these ripened moods of the dramatis personae. This," he said, "is extremely difficult, especially when the un- known peasant world is to be depicted." In writing this play he was actually frightened by the horror of the murder which takes place in it. The press censor passed "The Power of Darkness," but the dramatic censor prohibited its public performance and not until Nicholas II. came to the throne was it allowed on the stage. But it was given in Petersburg in a private house and members of the Imperial family were present. Wher- ever it was presented, either in Russia or abroad, it produced a powerful impression. It was noticed that the most sympathetic character in the drama was the humblest of all — the cesspool-cleaner, Akim ! There is a touch of pathos in the fact that even then he had to confess that as soon as people began to praise him, as they did for his drama, he felt the desire for personal reward and a stupid self-satisfaction. After each of his books was finished Tolstoi used to say to himself that it was the last that he should write for artificial society; it was time to write for those that really needed literature. But this he found it very hard to do. "Each time," he said, "I was caught in the familiar net. I did not speak as I should have done, I neglected the readers to whom I should have addressed myself. " His next important work was a philosophical treatise entitled " On Life," or, as he at first thought of calling it, "On Life and Death." In June, 1887, he wrote that he was deeply absorbed in it and could not tear himself away until the work was finished. When it was finished the stupid censor forbade it ; so, as usual, it had to be printed abroad and was clandestinely circulated in very inaccurate form. Tolstoi was not prevented by the authorities from reading a summary of it entitled "The Meaning of Life," before the Moscow Psychological Society. The French translation made by the Countess Tolstaya LITERATURE FOR THE MASSES 317 fell into the hands of the late Ernest H. Crosby, son of the chancellor of the University of New York, a man of means and political influence, and he made a pilgrimage to Tolstoi, somewhat as the rich young man came to Jesus. Tolstoi' told him that it would be hard for him, " handicapped as he was by all the disadvantages of youth, health, and wealth, to do what he desired, but that he must try." Crosby on his return to America abandoned his politi- cal aspirations and his large law-practice, wrote Tolstoian poems and at one time from conscientious motives refrained from voting, though later he voted for Bryan on the ground that while it was wrong he had not quite reached the stage of development that demanded absolute abandonment of politics. Another American, Bolton Hall, using the American translation of "Life," made an excellent paraphrase of it, which was published in his book, "Even as You and I." rx CHANGE OF PERSONALITY Tolstoi's favorite brother-in-law had, ever since Sep- tember, 1878, been in the Caucasus, in an official capacity. He went there though Tolstoi had warned him that he was too late for the Caucasus, which was now spoiled by tchinovniks. He had been informed by his sister of the change taking place in her husband, and when he re- turned to Yasnaya Polyana he found that Tolstoi's whole personality had completely altered. He had be- come the personification of love to his neighbor, and it sometimes seemed as if for the very sake of these views he sinned against them by his severity on people who he thought were living lives not in accordance with his standard. He had lost all interest in education because he urged that education was sought only for the sake of getting above one's fellow-men and bringing them into subjection. Consequently he ceased to concern himself with his children's education and was displeased that his wife still employed tutors and governesses and sent the children to school. When his oldest son, Sergyei', was graduated from the University of Petersburg and con- sulted him about a career, the father told him to go to work like a peasant. He confided in Behrs that he had done wrong regarding his property in trying to throw the burden of it on others; he had offered it first to his wife and then to his children, but when they refused it he had adopted the plan of ignoring it, and ceasing to make any use of it except that by sheer necessity he had continued to live with his family. The countess told her brother that they gave away two 318 CHANGE OF PERSONALITY 319 or three thousand rubles every year to the poor. He noticed also that Tolstoi had abandoned the use of tobacco and wine and that he was annoyed when any one, even the members of his family, attempted to serve him in any way, not realizing that it was a poor rule that did not work both ways. One enjoyment he permitted himself — flowers. He always had them on his table or in his belt, and Frau Seuron tells how he used to sniff their fragrance with his big nose and look around mildly, "as if thanking the Creator for giving them to men." Behrs noticed that the merry mood which had always been so enlivening to others had been replaced by a solemn gravity, which, however, did not seem to have a depressing effect on the others. He enjoyed their gayety though he rarely took part in it. When he was in the mood and for a moment forgot himself, he could romp as of yore. Behrs tells how one day shortly after his return Tolstoi' played tricks with him, to the delight of all, and unexpectedly jumped on his back as he was walking about the room. He advised the tchinovnik to quit the civil service and change his way of life, taking example from the young Prince Khilkof, who had left the army, given his lands to the peasantry, and gone to work for a muzhik without pay. Independently of Tolstoi Khilkof repudiated Greek Orthodoxy and was therefore, without trial, exiled to the Caucasus, where he settled with the Dukhobortsui, or Spirit Wrestlers. He was charged with influencing them to refuse army service, and again banished to a town in the Baltic Provinces, where he was under surveillance of the police, who constantly interfered with his corre- spondence. The countess told her brother, with tears in her eyes, that it was hard for her to have everything to do — the management of the property as well as the education of their children, and asked him if she ought to be blamed for not neglecting them or for not going about as a 320 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI beggar: "Do you think I would not have followed him, had I not had little children ?" Verily to be the consort of Parsifal, even after he has seen the Holy Grail, is to be a martyr. It is manifest from the light of experience that if a man is determined to follow Jesus, with Western literalness accepting Oriental statements, he ought to go to the last extreme also and have no wife or child. If all would do that, the problem of poverty and all other human problems would be solved in one generation. Tolstoi's silver wedding was celebrated on the fifth of October, 1887, and of course he disapproved of the festivity, and called it the jubilee of Ankovsky-pie. This was in reference to a certain delicacy which he had formerly liked. It was so called after the friend who gave him the recipe. On one occasion when Behrs had been helping the count sweep the room, his younger sister happened to come along and congratulated him on his conversion, declaring she had never seen a more zealous disciple. She declared she had seen the count make the sign of the cross over him and swear him to renounce Ankovsky-pie and all its evil works. On another occasion Tolstoi* was complaining that women had, above all others, hindered the spread and application of his teachings. He attributed this to the incapacity of women to make or accept accurate and precise definitions. Behrs called attention to the pecu- liarity that a woman when picking up anything never bends her back but always squats to do it. Behrs and the count tried the experiment with all the women of the household, including the old nurse and even his three- year-old daughter Aleksandra. It was a most successful demonstration of this acute observation, and while the women were engaged in picking up a little pocket-brush from the floor the count laughed uproariously. Behrs could not accept his brother-in-law's new theories, and when, at the end of a two months' visit at Count Tolstoi in 1887. From the painting by Ryepin. By permission of Berlin Photographic Co. CHANGE OF PERSONALITY 321 Yasnaya, he took his departure, a coldness had arisen between them. Yet Behrs continued to have the highest regard for his sister's husband, who, he declared, all his life long had said and done only what he felt was true. X ACTIVITIES OF 1887-88 This year (1887) Tolstoi's interest was awakened in the cause of temperance among the people. He ordered the st£rosta of the village to summon all the inhabitants at ten o'clock in the morning. A table and bench were placed before the communal house. The count took out of his pocket a piece of paper and put it on the table with a bottle of ink and a pen. Great curiosity was aroused. When all were present he gave them a lecture in plain, simple language on the dangers of drunkenness, on the evils that followed the use of tobacco and vodka. He spoke slowly and persuasively, urging arguments that would appeal to peasant folk and introducing striking anecdotes and similes. The women urged their husbands to follow Tolstoi's advice; so, seeing that he had them on his side, he asked those that would agree henceforth to drink no more to sign the pledge. "Do you consent?" he cried. Just at that moment a harsh voice sounded: "Let me pass." "Room for Yegor Ivanuitch," cried the peasants, and an old muzhik stepped forward. "I want to speak a word about temperance," he said. " I want to call your attention to the fact that at weddings, births, and baptisms, it is impossible to get along without vodka. One can do without smoking, but vodka — that is different. It is necessary, it is indispensable. Our fathers always drank it; we must do the same." "You can substitute sugared rose-water," replied 322 ACTIVITIES OF 1887-88 323 Tolstoi. " In the south rose-water is always served with sherbets thick as honey.' ' " Doesn't that make men drunk ?" asked many at once. "No!" "Put your hand in front of your mouth, Yegor Ivanu- itch! Do you need to keep it wide open ?" whispered the women. " Sign it!" "Do you then agree?" asked the count again. "Yes, yes!" The muzhiks crowded up to the table; the women were radiant; even the children seemed to realize that some- thing great was happening; the idea of sugared rose-water enchanted them. "So then no more vodka, no more tobacco?" "No, there's an end of smoking and drinking. You have promised. Now bring shovels and dig a ditch." They were more than ever filled with curiosity. What was going to happen? "Let the smokers throw in their tobacco!" "Also their pipes?" "Yes." Cigarettes, cigars, jars of tobacco, pipes, cigar-cases made of rosewood or cherry, all went into the ditch. A tall, handsome youth brought a silk-fringed tobacco-bag, the gift of his sweetheart; he emptied the contents into the all-devouring ditch. But that was not enough. When he started to put the gift back into his pocket the others seized it from him, tore it up, and flung it with the rest of the treasures of sin. Of course some of them still smoked on the sly and the snake of drunkenness was not wholly scotched at Yasnaya. Tolstoi was not so severe on the peasants who got drunk as on the men of culture, students, and professors who drank in the presence of waiters and set an example of evil, entirely unworthy of their superior standing in the world. He thought there was a certain charm in seeing how affectionate the muzhik was when he was tipsy; but 3 2 4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the celebration of the anniversary of the University of Moscow, which ended generally in much drunkenness and debauchery, aroused his ire and he launched his diatribe against it in his " Culture's Holiday," which aroused much protest. During the years 1887 and 1888 Tolstoi produced little. He wrote Gay that lying fallow made him happy. "From habit and from self-love and from the wish to befog oneself one craves to write and to get away from the life around one," but at that time there was no irresistible impulse driving him, and he claimed to have rid him- self of the indulgent critic within him which formerly approved of anything that he scribbled. He said, "I abstain from writing and feel a kind of moral purity such as one feels from not smoking. I do not know how to rejoice sufficiently at having conquered that habit." Among those who visited Tolstoi about this time was George Kennan, who had many lively discussions with him. Professor I. I. Yanzhul called one evening at Tolstoi's and found him making a pair of boots. He was told to go into the library, where he would find a package of American newspapers. One of them was a copy of the Sandusky 1 Times," which contained the report of a sermon preached in the cathedral and summarizing Tolstoi's rendering of the Gospels. Both the sermon and the editorial com- menting on it proclaimed Tolstoi to be the thirteenth Apostle. Yanzhul said that the contrast between the picture of the new Apostle seated at his bench with his sleeves turned up, wearing an apron and diligently and peaceably stitching at a boot, and that painted by the American preacher caused him to burst into a loud laugh. Tolstoi* wanted to know what the trouble was, and when Yanzhul told him what rank the Sandusky " Times" had assigned to him laughed gleefully and thought it was really " quite American. " ACTIVITIES OF 1887-88 325 This same year the Russian artist Polyenof finished his painting of "Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery." Tolstoi' went to see it. After gazing at it he pointed to the figure of Christ and remarked, " You do not love that one." u Which one?" "The one sitting in the middle. . . , " "Why, that is Christ." " Yes . . . but you do not love him. " And he got up and left the studio. Polyenof had never seen Tolstoi before. If he did not approve of Polyenof s conception of Christ, he did approve of Gay's, though Gay was not so great a master of painting and Polyenof had spent years in creating the picture and had gone to the Holy Land to make studies for it. Tolstoi kept urging Gay to produce and express what had been ripening in his soul for years, the series of illustrations to the Gospels. He encouraged him by saying that when a man is expressing anything new and important and something that men need, he is fulfilling his mission: "When a man feels that and works for it — as you, I hope, are now working — it is the greatest happiness on earth. " He himself was at that very time working at an essay on Art, but the fount of inspiration seemed to have dried up again. After he had walked from Moscow to Yasnaya, he could not finish it. Something else was on his mind and that he was bound to finish, for he felt that he saw this something as no one else saw it. Exactly two months later he wrote Gay another letter, in which he makes the extraordinary remark that an "unreasonable man married to an angel and another married to a devil are equally unhappy," and also that all people are dissatis- fied, so that it is the same for them all — a remark of pure pessimism — whether true or not. He incidentally in- formed Gay that he was also writing a comedy and a story, and that it was for the most part well with his soul. 326 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI "Indeed," he says, "it would be a sin if it were not so, for seldom a day passes without joyful proofs that the fire Christ brought to the earth is kindling more and more. " The comedy to which he referred was "She was Crafty," or as he called it later, "The Fruits of Enlight- enment." It deals with the folly of spiritism. Years before he had met at Moscow the professor of chemistry, Butler of, and was surprised to find that he was a believer in table-tipping and the other humbuggery of that super- stition. One of his neighbors in Moscow was a rich and highly respected gentleman by the name of Lvof, who had spiritual seances at his big mansion, where able and distinguished people of all ranks used to assemble. Tol- stoi' attended one of them, and while the darkness pre- vailed P. I. Samarin had caught hold of a hand which had more flesh on it than would be likely to clothe a spirit's. Lvof claimed that no one really died and told his friends that three days after his death he would be smoking an invisible cigar, and invisibly participating in all the activities of his household. He invited Tol- stoi' to come and see him pass into the beyond. Three days later he sent for the count, but when Tolstoi reached the house it was too late. However, he stood by the in- animate body and was greatly impressed by the inci- dent. That was in 1886. Lvof was the original of the aristocratic Leonid Feddo- rovitch Zvyedintsef. Samarin was the skeptic Sergyei Ivanovitch Sakhatof. The play was given at Yasnaya Polyana during the New Year holidays, and Tolstoi altered it and added to it up to the very day of its performance until there were one hundred and thirty-five scenes altogether. The parts were taken by the five oldest of Tolstoi's children, assisted by friends : the Countess Tat- yana Lvovna acted Tanya the chambermaid; the Count- ess Marya Lvovna was the cook. One of the actors was ACTIVITIES OF 1887-88 327 A. V. Zinger, son of the Moscow professor of mathematics. Tolstoi scolded him for smoking cigarettes, telling him that tobacco befogged a man's critical faculties and led to drinking vodka. One of the rehearsals took place in Tula and a part of the amateur troupe drove there in sleighs. After they had rehearsed till late one night, it was arranged to go for a sleigh ride by moonlight. "Do whatever you like,' 7 said the Countess Tatyana, "only don't disturb the servants, for if papa hears of it, he will be displeased. " At the last rehearsal but one, V. M. Lopatin, a Justice of the Peace, who was well acquainted with peasant life, came to take the part of the Third Muzhik. He tells how he drove over from Tula w T ith a large sleighing-party and reached Yasnaya late at night, tired by the drive and by the keen, frosty air. They found a well-spread supper- table, at which vodka was conspicuous by its absence. A member of the party, however, had provided for that emergency and some of them surreptitiously warmed themselves by a long pull at the bottle in a corner under the stairs, unbeknown to the host. All this time Tolstoi was in raptures, and he was so pleased with Lopatin's work that he added considerably to the Third Muzhik's part. Lopatin tells how abashed he was to hear the count's hearty Russian muzhik-laugh as he slapped his sides and wagged his head in ap- proval. The performance came off on the eleventh of January, 1 890, before a crowded audience and was a grand success. For a wonder the play was permitted by the censor and w r as publicly performed by an amateur company at Tula in aid of a Home for Destitute Children. Tolstoi went to see it and was as usual mistaken for a muzhik; the door- keeper roughly put him out. Afterward when he noticed how a local aristocrat-actor politely pushed the peasants out of Anna Pavlovna's door, Tolstoi stopped him, saying, "No, that is not natural; you 328 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI must bundle them out as the door-keeper just bundled me out!" It was next given at Tsarskoye Selo by a troupe of aristocratic amateurs before the Emperor, the Empress, and a throng of Grand Dukes and Duchesses. Alex- ander III. was so pleased with it that he publicly thanked the actors. XI C THE KREUTZER SONATA " The story about which Tolstoi wrote to Gay was "The Kreutzer Sonata. " It was finished just before the holiday performance of the comedy and read aloud to a company of fifteen persons who assembled in the Countess Sophia Andreyevna's bed-room. It was read by M. A. Stakhovitch. The introductory chapter went well, but when the plot of adultery and murder with the consequent plain speak- ing began to be revealed, Stakhovitch rebelled. The young girls were sent out. When the story, some of which the author himself took part in reading, was finished the company sat around the tea-table agitated and dum- founded. Tolstoi wanted them to express their opinions. Some one ventured to suggest that he might have given a more positive solution of the problem,* but Tolstoi defended himself and urged that in a work of art it was indispensable that the author should go beyond what others had done. "It won't do," he said, "to be like my friend Fyet, who at sixteen wrote, 'The fountain bubbles, the moon shines, and she loves me,' and at sixty wrote, ' She loves me and the fountain bubbles and the moon shines.'" Tolstoi's facing of the sex problem, illustrated in "The Kreutzer Sonata, " as well as his extreme views about non- resistance — both based on a literal interpretation of Christ's words, brought on him more criticism than any other of his doctrines. "The Kreutzer Sonata" was held up by the censor, but like his other books circulated * Shakespeare's Sonnet cxxix is pertinently illustrative of this thought. 329 330 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI clandestinely. Like compressed air it worked more energetically — in other words, had a greater influence — wherever it went. A book may influence in one direction or by its extreme views it may by an inevitable reaction produce quite opposite results. In " What do I Believe ?" he had urged marriage, large families, and the wrong of divorce; and had declared that he could not approve of a celibate life for those who were ripe for marriage and he considered any kind of a union with a woman, whether as wife or as mistress, as holy and obligatory. In "The Kreutzer Sonata," and especially in the "Afterword" written to answer those who thought he argued in favor of free love, he urged that only in case men and women were sure that all existing children were properly provided for could any one be justified in entering upon marriage without being guilty of a moral fall. In other words that " it was better for the unmarried not to marry/' and of course it goes as a corollary that the existent children should be brought up without education, without what we moderns generally consider as art or music or even pleasure, but simply learn to till the soil and commune with God — not only becoming like little children but continuing as little children from the cradle to the grave. Tolstoi had repudiated the Church and he refused to recognize the authority of the State; yet he was in accord with the Catholic Church, Greek and Roman, in placing virginity above either fatherhood or motherhood, as well as in regarding a marriage already consummated as a finality. "The Kreutzer Sonata" created more of a sensation all over the world than any of his other books. Arch- bishop Nikanor of Khersdn denounced Tolstoi as a wolf in sheep's clothing and clamored for his destruction on the ground that his teaching was undermining the whole structure of society. The Countess Sophia Andreyevna, desiring to include the story in her husband's collected "THE KREUTZER SONATA" 331 works, procured an interview with Alexander III. They talked together for nearly an hour at the Anitchkof palace. The Emperor asked her why she was so strenuous to obtain permission to publish a work directed against family and marriage — a work which ought to be dis- tasteful to her. She replied that she asked his permission not as Tol- stoi's wife but as the publisher of his works, and in that capacity desired to issue them complete. The Emperor assured himself that Tolstoi had no secret printing-press and then granted her the authorization on condition that it should not be issued or sold separately. This condition was violated a year later, when Tolstoi repudiated all the rights to whatever he had written after 1 881. It was not the countess's fault that various unscru- pulous publishers brought out "The Kreutzer Sonata," but the Emperor blamed her severely, exclaiming, " If that woman has deceived me, I know not whom I can trust. " The American translation met an obstacle in the post office authorities, who ruled that it was indecent and refused to transmit it by mail; and many persons who before reading it had professed a high admiration for Tolstoi completely reversed their opinions of him. In Russia the book had a more practical effect than elsewhere. It is said that in many cases in consequence of it young men and women who took his words as gospel truth refrained from marriage and in many families unhappiness was caused by its teaching. Others cried, " Sour grapes; Tolstoi is growing old. " These remarks troubled him. He wrote that it was grievous to him to have lived in his early days in a bestial manner and still more grievous because people would say: "It is all very well for you, a decrepit old man, to say these things; but you did not live so. We too when we are old will say the same. " It was a bitter thought to him that he was an unworthy instrument for the transmission of the will of God. 332 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Severe as he was on those who were not living in accord- ance with what he considered the will of God, he was sym- pathetic with those who were incontinent, and he was in- dignant — as indeed he had good right to be — at the treat- ment accorded to Gorky and the lady who came to Amer- ica with him as his wife. But there were reasons for that which he could not have known. A misunderstand- ing of the circumstances and a notion spread by the New York papers that he was an anarchist were responsible for Gorky's distress. Even a Chief Justice of the United States Court, without listening to his side, declared that he ought to have been kicked out of the country. Tolstoi could be very severe upon those of his own class that infringed his law of life; he was correspondingly lenient upon those, especially peasant folk, that were carried away by their passions. A baby's dead body was found in one of the ponds of his estate. Tolstoi went to the suspected mother of the child and said to her: "If you are innocent, you will not suffer, but if you are guilty, it must be very hard for you." The poor woman burst into tears and confessed that she had strangled her baby and thrown it into the pond. The same summer a girl in a neighboring village became the mother of twin boys. Tolstoi went to see her. She told him that if he had not come she would have killed her babies and committed suicide, for her father was very poor; she had no mother, and since that shame had come upon her she felt she could not hold up her head. Tolstoi replied that she should not feel ashamed before men but before God. "We are all sinners alike," he said. "It would have been a great crime, unfortunate girl, if you had smothered your innocent babes, and you would have suffered terribly." He bade the father not to scold or reproach the girl, but to console her. When the family learned the circumstances they gave "THE KREUTZER SONATA" 333 the man a horse, a cow, some money, some cotton and linen, and forty poods of flour, and promised him more flour every month. The muzhik shed tears of joy and fell at Tolstoi's feet. He rebuked him, saying: — "You must never do that. Kneel and pray only to God, who will alw r ays treat you mercifully," and he reiter- ated his command that he should not scold his daughter. 11 God forbid that I should scold her," exclaimed the muzhik. " I now have reason to rejoice in my grandsons ; but for them I should have starved. It is ten years since I have been able to afford a horse to plow with, and now I have a horse, a cow, and all that I need; I am the happiest of men." During these stormy days the two great painters, Gay and Ryepin, were using their art to preserve for posterity the features of the great writer. Ryepin painted Tolstoi in his room — that bare little room with scanty furniture, decorated only with spade, scythe, and saw. Gay made a bust of him which Tolstoi considered an excellent like- ness; he also painted a portrait of the Countess Marya Lvovna. He said it was not difficult to paint such a wise, kindly, and animated little figure, but without love for those qualities it would be impossible to paint it. Gay's picture of "What is Truth?" or "Christ before Pilate," was finished that year (1890), and being Tolstoi'an in style was not allowed public exhibition. Gay brought it to show Tolstoi, who was so impressed by it that for days he could hardly speak of anything else, though he ventured to criticise the modeling of the right hand and arm of Pilate. Tolstoi considered that Gay depicted Pilate as asking the question not for information but as a contemptuous retort, and he thought the idea new and profound and expressed clearly and strongly by the picture. " That fat, shaven neck of the Roman procurator, that large, stout, well-fed, sensual body half-turned away, that 334 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI outstretched arm with its gesture of contempt," he thought were splendid. He felt that the picture was alive; the slavish anxiety about himself, lest he should be denounced at Rome, the trepidation of his petty soul in spite of the toga, and the majestic pose and the height in contrast to "the worn-out sufferer who had during the night been subjected to arrest and insult seems to him very impressive.' ' Tolstoi's praise affected Gay so much that the latter embraced and kissed Tolstoi and said, "Do not praise it ... I shall become proud." Tolstoi' persuaded Tretyakof to buy it for his collection, but it was arranged to send it abroad first for exhibition. Tolstoi* was greatly interested in this plan and wrote Gay:— "You are excited about it! Shame, dear old fellow,* I say, shame! — Still, I myself am the same and prize earthly fame. But I struggle hard and obstinately and advise you to do the same. My life goes on well; the waves of the sea of worldliness wash over me, yet I con- trive not to get wholly choked." * Dyedushka golubchik. Literally, " Grandpa, little pigeon ! " XII RULES FOR PERFECTION During the summer Tolstoi went with Mdrya Lvovna to the Optin Monastery for the third time. His widowed sister, the Countess Marya Nikolayevna, had become a nun and was at the convent of Shamordin, founded by Tolstoi's friend Father Ambrosy. As usual he had an animated discussion with that reverend monk. He also had an interview with the author and scholar, K. N. Leontyef, and asked him how he, an educated man, could become an Orthodox believer and live in a monastery. Leontyef replied that if Tolstoi lived there he would come to believe. Tolstoi rather illogically agreed with him. He offered Leontyef a copy of his "Gospel in Brief," to which the monk retorted by handing Tolstoi a pamphlet in which he refuted Tolstoi's treatment of the Gospels. Tolstoi said, "This is a useful brochure: it advertises my Gospel." "Your Gospel!" exclaimed Leontyef, indignantly. "How dare you here in the Hermitage ruled over by such a saint as Father Ambrosy, speak about your Gospel? Such talk is permissible only in Tomsk or some out-of- the- world place like that." "Well," replied Tolstoi, "you have plenty of friends. Write to Petersburg and perhaps they'll banish me to Tomsk." This is what the Church authorities would have gladly done, had they dared, and even Pobyedonostsef did not 335 336 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI hesitate to incorporate slanders against him in his annual report to the Emperor. In 1 89 1 Tolstoi wrote V. V. Rakhmanof that he had already outlived the point of view expressed in " What do I Believe ?" and he laid down for him what he now felt were the five Rules for Perfection : — To consider all men as equals and love them as such — Zulus, idiots, scoundrels, and beasts. To be perfectly pure. To be perfectly free (not to take oaths). Never to use violence for the protection of oneself or others, even against an animal.* To do good to one's enemies. He assured him that Christianity is great just in that it was not invented by Christ but is a law humanity followed long before it was expressed, and which it always will follow. This year Tolstoi divided his property among the members of his family : about fifty thousand rubles to his wife, which was said to be about the sum that she brought him as her marriage-dowry; the estate of Yasnaya *Anutchin once asked him if he would be justified in killing a wolf that attacked him. "No," replied Tolstoi, "you must not; for if we kill a wolf, we may also kill a dog and a man, and there will be no limit. Such cases are quite exceptional; and if we once admit that we may kill and and may resist evil — evil and falsehood will reign in the whole world unchecked, as we see is now the case." Tolstoi* would have approved of the good American lady who would not let the worms be exterminated on her fine elm trees, with the result that the trees were killed. On the same principle in the great war raging between men and rats (in which some authorities predict the rodent will win out) Tolstoi would side with the rats, although he was mortally afraid of them, declaring that there was something terrible and symbolical about them. Their swiftness of movement, their restlessness, their cruelty, all seemed to him to symbolize sin and awoke in him a feeling of horror. His doctrine of non-resistance was expressed with even more startling vehemence in an interview with George Kennan, who after telling him of the horrible treatment of a delicately nurtured, well-educated girl whose clothes were stripped from her by brutal soldiers, asked him if in that case it would not be the duty of a man to use violence to defend her. The tears came into Tolstoi's eyes but he stuck to his colors. "No," he said, "not even in such circumstances would it be right." RULES FOR PERFECTION 337 Polyana was shared by her and their youngest son, Ivan, and the other properties went to the other children. The house in Moscow fell to the share of Lydf Lvovitch, who afterward sold it to his mother. Henceforth he lived like a stranger-guest, always wel- come, under an alien roof, eating his kasha-gruel and his simple vegetarian dishes, doing his own housework, and blaming himself for his weakness in enduring even that extreme of luxury. What that luxury was may be seen from the descriptions of visitors. The driveway to the house was rough and neglected; the house itself a plain two-story structure of stuccoed brick, simple and unpretentious, without piazzas, towers, or any striking architectural features; no vines relieved its bareness; the front door was like a back door and reached by a flight of steps and a small square platform of gray, uncut stones with grass growing in the chinks. The upstairs dining-room had bare floors, plain and old-fashioned furniture; the windows were shaded with simple muslin curtains, the walls whitewashed and hung with old portraits. His own small, untidy room was decorated with the utensils with which he earned his bread in the sweat of his brow. Mr. Kennan, whose description of his appearance and surroundings agrees with that of many others, says that the count seemed to take a deeper pride in being able to put on a boot-heel or trim an upper than in his ability to write "War and Peace/' but adds, "I should rather read his book than wear his boots." The Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, who visited him, says: "The simplicity of his attire and the plainness of his manner and the frugality of his evening meal — despite his hard work in the fields — which my companion and I were hospitably invited to share, imparted to his presence a grandeur that made my fashionable clothes seem the coarser of the two, made me ashamed of ever having indulged in luxuries at my table at home, made 338 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI me feel, despite my host's and his family's friendliness, so uncomfortable as sincerely to wish that by some magical art I could exchange my fashionable suit for a homespun crash blouse worn outside of homespun jean trousers girded at the waist with a belt, and my immaculate linen for a coarse woolen shirt with a broad open collar and my polished gaiters for a pair of common bast shoes." Many of those who enjoyed the hospitalities of Yasnaya Poly ana, where there were two camps, the unconventional following of the landless barin, and the fashionable world with which the countess and those of her children who agreed with her surrounded themselves, declared that from appearances the beam of happiness would tip to the former way of life rather than to the latter. But one visitor said of the countess: "If there are two kinds of halos in heaven, hers may be larger than that of her husband. To be a genius of his type is no small thing, but to be the wife of such a man requires peculiar greatness." Tolstoi was at Y&snaya Polyana working on "The Kingdom of Heaven is within You," when his sixty- third birthday was celebrated, and he called the atten- tion of Zinger the young mathematician to the inter- esting fact that the number twenty-eight, the second of the four perfect numbers in ten thousand (numbers which are equal to the sum of all their dividends), was particularly fortunate for him. He was born on the twenty-eighth day (O.S.) of the month in the twenty- eighth year of the century and had left the army when he was twenty-eight. With the same idea he asked a Japanese visitor in 1896, " Do you know how old I am ?" "I think you are seventy-eight," replied the visitor. "No, I am twenty-eight," said Tolstoi, referring to the fact that his new life began with the publication of "My Belief." An even more striking coincidence is seen in the fact that he left his home for the last time on the RULES FOR PERFECTION 339 twenty-eighth day of the month and that liberation from impossible conditions also seemed to him a fortunate event in his life. At this festivity they had music. N. N. Figner, the opera singer, and his wife sang all Tolstoi's favorite songs; they played games, and Tolstoi himself started the game we call "scandal." A young engaged couple happened to be present. He whispered to his next neighbor, "It is pleasant to w r atch the lover and his betrothed," and when it had gone round the dinner-table at which thirty sat down, it came out, "Why is this special official confused ?" About this time that brilliant mathematician and novel- ist, Sophia Kovalevskaya, had died; and one day when they were discussing, in reference to her, the question whether women could be the equal of men in scientific work, Tolstoi remarked that if women were as capable as men it would be unjust, for then they would be unques- tionably superior, as they already are in their femininity, their charm. XIII FAMINE RELIEF The next two years in Tolstoi's life were spent in active participation in the relief of the terrible famine condi- tions which were beginning to prevail in the govern- ment of Veronezh, and even in that of Tula, and which spread and caused infinite suffering and numberless deaths. The Russian authorities systematically made light of it, denying the reports that were circulated. At first Tolstoi stayed at home and contented himself with writing articles to awaken the people to sympathy. But through the influence and example of his friend Rayevsky, who actually gave up his life in the service of the people, Tolstoi went to the famine district with him, the better to study the conditions. He intended to stay only two days. He stayed two years. His whole family took hold with him. His wife, who remained in Moscow, procured linen and medicines for the typhus patients, and helped to enlist charitable individuals to go and serve as nurses. The two oldest sons worked in one province of Tula, and Lyof Lvovitch's health broke down owing to his labors in Samara. The Countess Tatyana Lvovna collaborated with her father and sister till her health gave out; when she had rested she returned to the work. Contributions of money and pro- visions flowed in from distant parts of the world as well as from Russia. Tolstoi's own remarkable vigor and strength were taxed to the utmost and he was often so exhausted that he could not express the simplest thoughts. What added to his difficulty was that he was convinced that the whole principle of feeding the hungry and 340 FAMINE RELIEF 341 distributing money was bad. He wrote: "I know I am not doing the right thing, but I can't do the right thing, and I can't refrain from doing. I dread the praise of men and ask myself every hour, 'Am I not sinning?' I try to judge myself strictly and to act as in God's sight and for His sake." He insisted that the famine came about only because men like himself stood aloof from their brothers ; that the only way to mend matters was for them to change their lives and destroy the separating wall, returning to the people what had been taken from them, and commingling with them. He could not help being drawn into the relief work, but when some one wrote for an autograph to be sold for the famine fund he wrote: "Who can have any need of a line of my handwriting? For heaven's sake don't imagine that I say what I do not think and feel. I cannot and never could either read in public or write in albums!" At one time there were under his supervision two hundred and forty-six eating-houses and one hundred and twenty-four kitchens for children, with from fifteen to sixteen thousand peasants to be fed. And that was only a part of the campaign. The whole story of his activities may be read in his famine articles. As soon as it was learned that he was engaged in this work, the Church proclaimed him Anti- Christ, and the priests tried to frighten the peasants with stories of his wickedness. It was preached from the pulpit that he branded men on their foreheads to seal them to the devil. A bishop delivered a sermon before a crowded audience, denouncing Tolstoi for seducing the peasantry with food, fuel, horses, and other worldly goods, and he assured them that the Church was strong enough to exterminate this evil-doer and all his works. It seemed strange to the simple-minded people that the 342 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Anti- Christ was doing so much for their comfort while the Church, like the Government, stood aloof and let them perish. In February, 1892, Tolstoi" allowed the Russian cor- respondent of the London "Daily Telegraph" to have his complete article on the famine. The " Telegraph" published it in full, while the Nedyelya ("The Week") was allowed by the censor to give only portions of it. The Moscow Vyedomosti ("Gazette"), inspired by Pobyedonostsef, printed a garbled version of what Tolstoi had done and editorially called for his annihila- tion. Prince Shcherbatof wrote a letter demanding his suppression and the report was circulated that he had been arrested. Many people who possessed portraits of him tore them up, lest they should be regarded as politi- cally compromising. He was indeed in imminent danger of being sent to the monastery fortress at Suzdal, where people deemed dangerous to the Church were sometimes confined by administrative process without trial for acts which the Church disapproved. Tolstoi himself had in 1883 been instrumental in obtaining from the Emperor the release of three Old Believer Bishops — Konon, Gennady, and Arkady — who had been left for twenty- three years in the damp dungeons of this inland Schliis- selberg and forgotten by the Government. His aunt the Countess Aleksandra Tolstaya went per- sonally to the Emperor and told him the exact state of things, and as soon as Alexander III. convinced himself that Tolstoi had no designs on his life " his face gradually assumed its usual mild and extremely genial expres- sion." A few days later he issued an order requesting the Minister of the Interior not to touch Tolstoi, saying, "I have no intention of making a martyr of him and bringing universal indignation on myself." Tolstoi's wife, who thought he was in serious danger, went to the Grand Duke Sergius, just appointed Governor- General of Moscow, and explained to him that her husband FAMINE RELIEF 343 had no sympathy with revolution. The Grand Duke told her that the best thing that Tolstoi could do would be to write a declaration to that effect for the Pravitelstvenny Vyestnik ("The Government Messenger"). Both his wife and the Countess Tatyana wrote Tolstoi urging him to do so. Tolstoi replied that for twelve years past he had been writing what he believed and what could not be pleasing to the Government. What he wrote about the famine was only a part of what he had been wTiting and saying during all those years and what he proposed to continue saying till he died. It was forbidden by "a senseless ille- gal censorship" and was therefore published abroad in a perverted form. Now only ignoramuses, the most ignorant of whom formed the court, could help knowing what he thought and only such ignoramuses could ever dream that views like his could suddenly change and become revolutionary. He therefore refused to bend to the demand of these unchristian people, even though he were accused of pride. It was not pride, he said, but con- viction. This brief article was sent to the Government gazette, which of course refused to print it. It was then sent to thirty other papers, some of which also refused it. Tolstoi w r as never again in serious danger of arrest, but many of those who from principle tried to carry out h's doctrines o helped to circulate his writings were impris- oned or exiled. This made him to the last degree indig- nant and he more than once protested, urging that if any one deserved to be punished it was he. "It has been noised abroad," he wrote, "that I have just been arrested. Unhappily for me, happily for my enemies, nothing of the sort has happened. I see that they are imprisoning my disciples, that they are multiply- ing the vexations of which my friends are the innocent victims. Yet I am the only one who is dangerous for the authorities. Evidently they do not think I am worth 344 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI persecuting. I am ashamed. If only they would con- sent to imprison me ! How happy I should be to suffer in my turn. " In 1892 Tolstoi began to give up regular work in the fields, and as if in commemoration of this activity the famous picture painted by Ryepin in the summer of 1887, "Tolstoi Plowing/' was widely circulated in litho- graphed copies. Tolstoi between the two horses is a sym- bol, and so indeed are the two horses so humorously and satirically contrasted. Under the title "The First Step," he wrote an intro- duction to a Russian translation of Howard Williams's "Ethics of Diet" and advocated vegetarianism on moral and humanitarian grounds. He had already written a preface to Dr. Alice Stockham's "Tokology," the principles of which appealed to him. His "Con- versation among Leisurely People" written about this time might have been suggested by "Is Life Worth Living?" though it grew out of his own experiences in trying to meet family objections and difficulties. This year Tolstoi indulged in one of those paradoxical and surprising sobresauts corresponding in his literary career to his suddenly leaping on Behrs's back or waltzing. He translated one of Guy de Maupassant's stories, "Notre Dame des Vents," adding touches of his own (after the manner of Fitzgerald), and published it under the name of "Frangoise" in a collection of that author's short stories which he edited. He remarked at the time that he con- sidered Guy de Maupassant, next to Victor Hugo, the best of contemporary writers, and when some one expressed surprise that he should have written a preface to such a book or allowed his name to be connected with it he said: "One must regard De Maupassant from the right view-point. He is not only a man of remarkable talent but also the only writer who has at last understood and presented the whole negative side of the relations of the sexes. . . . No one else has described the sufferings and Count L. N. Tolstoi, 1892. FAMINE RELIEF 345 spiritual torments born of base relations with women as he has. . . . Such stories certainly cannot evoke in the reader any love of profligacy or attraction for it, no matter into what mire the author may lead one." Tolstoi's literary judgments must always be taken with due consideration of his violent prejudices. He liked Emerson and Hawthorne, Whittier and Theodore Parker, but he considered the Rev. Adin Ballou the great- est of American writers. He was never tired of praising Henry George. He knew something of Longfellow but nothing of Lowell and, in general, though he was a reader of wide scope, he was unfortunate in not always knowing the best works of those whom he criticised. He had never read Manzoni's "I Promessi Sposi. " Once he had liked Walter Scott, but not in his later years. He cared little for Zola or Daudet but admired Balzac. He greatly admired the dramatist Octave Mirbeau, in whom he found a mingling of Dumas fils and De Maupas- sant, and especially liked his "Les Affaires Sont les Affaires." Above all, he enjoyed Flaubert's vigorous, keen, harmonious, complete, and perfect style of pure beauty. There is almost no mention in his writings of the great field of German fiction — Von ScheffePs "Ekkehard," Spielhagen, Frenssen, or the modern German dramatists, though he always spoke respectfully of Schiller and was familiar with Kant and some of the other philosophical writers and the German theologians. It was certainly unfortunate that the customs authorities on the border seized and retained all the books that he brought back with him from abroad. About this time his "Fruits of Enlightenment" had been performed at the Malui or Little Theater in Peters- burg and he was asked to write other pieces for it. He replied that he would be glad to do so and felt a special need to express himself in that way, but he w r as certain that the censor w^ould not pass any play that he would 346 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI be likely to write. He spoke with considerable feeling of the horrible sense that what he wrote would not be per- mitted, so that he kept abandoning his plans and his life was passing away all in vain. XIV PUBLIC UTTERANCES The most important book of the year was "The King- dom of God is within You/'* which contains the most terrible picture of tyrannical injustice ever given to the world — not even exceeded by Helen Hunt Jackson's story of the treatment of the Indians by the United States officials. In it he argued with illustrative examples that all governments which employ force are immoral, existing for the benefit of the few and to the injury of the majority, and therefore it is a man's duty to refuse service under them even as voters. It goes as a natural corollary with this that he shows up the wrong of war, including with it patriotism, the chief cause of war. Tolstoi's rigidity of demand reminds one of the Emperor Nicholas's plan of the railway between Moscow and Petersburg — drawn in a straight line and not deviating even to touch important cities. One must apply human reason and the light of experience to his arguments, and fortunately we are not required to accept all of his premises. But for stimulus, either in the way of agreement or dissent, nothing can be more vivid. Of course "The Kingdom " was forbidden by the censor, but the story that it told of the "wretched government, drunk with power," who so unjustly had the twelve peasants flogged, had its effect: the official was dismissed from the service. *The original manuscript was not entrusted to the mail but wa3 brought to the United States by Yanzhul, who gave it for translation to Mrs. Aline Delano. It was offered to all the principal publishers, but they had not as yet awakened to the importance of Tolstoi's theological writings, and no one had the foresight to accept it. The translation was then brought out in London by Walter Scott. A rival version by 347 348 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI The Russian press was forbidden to publ'sh appeals for help for the famine sufferers, and Tolstoi and several other leaders met at a private house in Moscow to devise means to overcome the difficulty. Tolstoi suggested publishing a Smyes or Miscellany, to which the best writers should contribute. This was carried out and he contributed his folk-story, "The Empty Drum," which the censor allowed when for "tsar" the word "chieftain" was substituted. For another number of Smyes he translated an article written by Henry George and advocating the single tax, which seemed to him to be a solvent for all economic difficulties. He was greatly impressed by "Progress and Poverty," and when a little later S. Semyonof came to consult him in regard to some land which his commune had authorized him to buy, Tol- stoi' told him the land ought to be free and all private rights in it ought to be abolished. Then he began to praise Henry George's system, which (if it were intro- duced), he said, would bring the land into the hands of those that worked it. He believed that this revolution in land-holding could be accomplished by the will of the Emperor just as emancipation had been. "No other power," he said, " would do it because it would be contrary to the interests of the classes that support a consti- tutional government." One evening Tolstoi', in his sheepskin tulup and felt boots, called to see D. Anutchin, who had editorial super- vision of Smyes. He was out and the skeptical maid was told to inform Anutchin that Count Tolstoi had called. She gave the message sarcastically, but was soon made to realize that the supposed muzhik was a count and regretted having treated the great writer so impertinently. S. Semyonof contributed to the Vyestnik Yevropui Constance Garrett was issued by Heinemann. Mrs. Delano was the first translator of " War and Peace," but at a time when even Tolstoi's novels had hardly risen above the literary horizon. PUBLIC UTTERANCES 349 some interesting details of his acquaintance with Tolstoi at this time. He describes him as having grown quite gray ; his hair had thinned considerably, and he seemed to have shrunk in size; but his keen gray eyes (Ernest Crosby said they were blue) still had the piercing quality which always made people stand in awe of him. He spoke with approval of a priest named Apollof who had renounced the dogmas of the Church and unfrocked himself. He also attached great importance to the action of a schoolmaster, E. N. Drozhzhin, who when he was summoned to serve in the army in 1891 refused to take the oath and was kept in solitary confinement in Kharkof for a year and then sent to a disciplinary battalion at Voronezh, where his health was frightfully injured by ill-treatment. He was afflicted with tuberculosis but was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. This was because he desired to follow God's law. Tolstoi's relations with the poet Fyet had considerably changed. Semyonof reported him as saying: "Fyet wants nothing and his demands are very modest. Give him a soft bed, a well-cooked steak, a bottle of good wine, and a pair of fine horses, and he wants nothing more." After the famine was relieved by good crops in 1893 Tol- stoi' wrote an essay entitled "Non- Acting" — a plea for a kind of quietism whereby men would pause and consider the meaning of life, before they became absorbed in use- less or baneful affairs. He himself translated it into French, as he felt that it was important to be accurately presented. He wrote a preface to AmiePs "Journal Intime," which his daughter had translated. In 1894 Gay died suddenly. He had only recently finished his picture of "The Crucifixion," which Tolstoi thought the greatest work of his brush; but when the Emperor saw it he pronounced it horrible, and, as Tolstoi had predicted, it was prohibited. During his stay in Moscow in January he attended a meeting of the ninth congress of Russian Naturalists and 3So THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI was given a seat on the stage. As soon as he was recognized the whole audience thundered its welcome. He arose and bowed, and it seemed as if the applause would never cease. He afterward said to Zinger: " Why did you say there was o be no ceremony ? . . . All those men in evening dress! ... It was not a scientific meeting, it was a scientific carnival.' ' During the Christmas holidays the young people of his household got up a masquerade, in which they and their friends impersonated some of the celebrities of the day — Anton Rubinstein, the historical novelist V. Soloviof, Ryepin, and others. Lopatin, the actor of the Third Muzhik, put on one of Tolstoi's blouses and a belt and impersonated Tolstoi* himself so well that some of the guests were deceived. Tolstoi' entered heartily into the spirit of the travesty and cordially shook hands with his double. This year Tolstoi passed the required test for license to ride the bicycle and like President Eliot took great delight in long rides on "the silent steed." His wife, knowing that he used a shabby old bicycle belonging to his son, wished to make him a present of a new one. Tolstoi went to the shop and selected one that suited him, but before it was delivered he came to the conclusion that it had been so long since he had had anything which belonged to him exclusively he ought not to encumber himself with it: he countermanded the order and con- tinued to ride his son's. He had attained the knack of riding without touching the handle-bar. He was stirred to some indignation at the report of the enthusiasm aroused in the Russians by the flirtation of the fleets at Kronstadt and Toulon; and he wrote "Patriotism and Christianity," in which he gave a humorous, almost comical description of the absurdities of such sham alliances. He wrote two of a series of articles or essays on religion. One was "Reason and Religion," which was like a bomb PUBLIC UTTERANCES 351 flung into the camp of his followers. "I know that I shall be blamed/ ' said Tolstoi' to Feinermann, with whom he still kept up an active correspondence, "but still I must repeat ' Reason, reason, reason!' There is no other way to attain the truth." In consequence of this Tolstoi'an encyclical many of his followers returned to the Mother Church, and some became monks and blamed Tolsto for rationalism. In January, 1895, he finished his essay on " Religion and Morality," in which he recognizes three types of religion: that of selfishness, the personal religion which makes a man seek salvation for himself, no matter what may happen to others; the religion of patriotism, which sets the chief aim of life in family, clan, nation, or in all humanity (Positivism), and thirdly that which takes as a gu ding star some Lord or Law the service of whom or of which swallows up all thought of personal advantage. He comes to the conclusion that " Religion is a relation established by man between his personality and the infinite universe or its source; while morality is the sufficient guide to life, resulting from that relation." The same idea is expressed by the Rev. Charles F. Dole's definition that "Religion is a working-theory of life." Every man must have a working-theory of life, consequently every man must have a religion. XV THE DUKHOBORS Alexander III., having escaped numerous attempts on his life, died at Livadia on November i, 1894. His suc- cessor, Nicholas II., received the representatives of the Local Governments on the twelfth of February of the following year and in reply to their congratulations, in which were mingled timid suggestions that the represen- tatives of the people ought to be allowed to take part in public affairs, he dashed their hopes by speaking of "the insensate fancies" of those who desired to participate in carrying on the government and by promising to uphold the principle of autocracy as firmly and unchangeably as it had been maintained by his never-to-be-forgotten father. A private meeting was called to discuss the situation and Prince Shakhovsko'i went to Tolstoi's house to invite him to be present. He found the count in the yard chopping ice. The tone in which he repeated the words "insensate fancies" proved to the prince that he sympa- thized with the indignation of all public-spirited men, and at the meeting he was asked to draw up a protest against the Emperor's rejection of their proposal. It was to be published in the press of other European countries. He replied that he thought any intervention on his part would be injurious to the cause, since a protest signed by him would be attributed to his anarchistical views and consequently not representative of the best Russian opin- ion. However, he did not refuse to do it. The following month Tolstoi's youngest child, Ivan, a boy of great promise, died at the age of seven. It was a terrible blow to the countess, who felt that she could not go 35 2 THE DUKHOBORS 353 back to Yasnaya where everything would remind her of the dear little fellow. It was therefore planned to go abroad, but the intimation was conveyed to them that though Tolstoi would not be prevented from going he would probably not be allowed to return. He himself was ill and had to undergo a slight operation, so that they did not move to Yasnaya until June. He wrote to Feiner- mann, who had heard that he was going abroad to escape arrest, that it was not because of any possibility of persecu- tion. " Sinner that I am," he said, "I desire persecution and have to restrain myself not to provoke it. But it seems that I am not worthy of it and shall have to die without having lived even approximately, or even tem- porarily, in the way I consider it right to live, and that it will not be my lot to be a witness to the truth by any suffering." After telling the real reason for their thought of going abroad he said, "If eel with every nerve of my body the truth of the words that a man and his wife are not separate entities, but one;" and he expressed his keen sorrow at not being able to give her a part of the religious consola- tion which his faith gave him. "I know," he said, "that women have great difficulty in attaining this." In spite of the great grief at the loss of "little Va- nitchka," he wrote his beautiful story of self-sacrifice, "Master and Man" — a most characteristic and artistic- ally perfect piece of narration; also the folk-tales, "Three Parables." It was noticed by those who talked with him that his memory was full of quaint and fascinating Orien- tal legends, like the story of "Justice and Injustice," "The Rich Miser," and the parable of "The Caravanserai." His conversation, like Christ's, was illuminated by these simple and exquisite little stories. He also protested against the newly legalized practice of flogging peasants. His article was entitled "Shame!" This year Tolstoi became the defender of the sect of Dukhobortsui, or Spirit Wrestlers, w T ho because of their 354 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI repudiation of army service, were undergoing persecution. For fifty years they had resided in the Caucasus and for- getting their earlier principles became soldiers and held private property. In 1864 their leader, whom they be- lieved to be an incarnation of God, died, appointing his wife, Lukeriya Vasilyevna, as his successor. She took an earthly fancy to a handsome young man named Piotr Virigin, by her divine authority selected him for her successor, and separated him from his wife. One time he met his wife in Tiflis, and ^ukeriya went into a fit in consequence of it and died. There was doubt whether he had received the genuine apostolic succession, and the Dukhobors split into pro-Viriginites and anti-Viriginites. They appealed to the Russian authorities to settle the quarrel, which involved the right to the " Widow's House" and the property thereto attached. The decision went against Virigin and he was banished to Lapland. There he got hold of Tolstoi's writings and adopted their teachings. As he was in secret touch with the pro-Viriginites, he instructed them to return to the doctrine of non-resistance, to cease possessing private property and to hold every- thing in common, to abstain from intoxicants and nar- cotics, and to become vegetarians; he went so far in follow- ing Tolstoi into his later vagaries that he bade them refrain from marital relations, at least during their "time of tribulation." The government regarded Virigin as a trouble-maker and removed him from the Lapland of comparative luxury to Obd6rsk in northern Siberia. Three of his followers came to Moscow to see him on his way. Tolstoi met them and was persuaded that they were a people who actually realized the ideal toward which he and his followers were striving. He declared that what was taking place among them was " the germi- nation of the seed sown by Christ himself eighteen hun- dred and eighty years ago." In July, 1895, on the eve of Virigin's name-day, the THE DUKHOBORS 355 Dukhobors in accordance with his instructions with one accord burned their arms. While engaged in this holy cause they were attacked by Cossacks and cruelly flogged. The persecution that followed resulted in the banishment and death of hundreds from exposure and starvation. Tolstoi and his friend Count Tchertkof sent Piotr Ivanovitch Biryukof to the Caucasus to collect all the facts. Biryukof is said to have contented himself with reporting what the Pro-Viriginites told him and did not consult with their opponents, who were in turn perse- cuted by the other faction. On his return to Moscow Biryukof together with Tchert- kof and another strong Tolstoian, Tregubof, issued an appeal for help, urging that the Dukhobors based their relations to all men and to all creatures on love. This idea of equality they applied to the government authori- ties and did not consider obedience binding upon them if the demands of the authorities conflicted with their consciences; though in all things not infringing the will of God, as they understood it, they were willingly obedient. "Help!" was published in December, 1896. Its authors were immediately banished: Biryukof and Tregubof to small towns in the Baltic provinces, and Tchertkof, who had court influence, was permitted to go to England. Virigin took advantage of his power as vicegerent of the Almighty to constrain his followers to give up the use of metals; he urged that the writing and printing of books was harmful, since the books themselves were often deleterious and the expense and labor involved in their production might be better spent in furnishing food and shelter for the needy; he also recommended setting horses and cattle free from the slavery of man and ceasing to spoil the earth by tillage. Virigin's letters were regarded by his followers as special revelations and that explains why, when through the benevolence of kindly people and the acquiescence of 358 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI him to his room and after reading some of his verses told him: "There is nothing original here, and besides every one writes poems nowadays. Hundreds and hundreds of people are producing them and not one of them writes a single good line. In the days of Pushkin and Lermontof there was good poetry, but not now. Poetry has gone out of fashion. Besides, what is the good of it? You must agree that prose expresses our thoughts much better — it is easier to read and has more sense in it. Take our talk, for instance; we say what we wish. But if some one tried to put it into verse, it would come out topsy-turvy. Wherever a definite clear expression is wanted it either spoils the rhythm or the needed rhyme spoils the sense; one has to substitute some other word, often far from the real meaning." In the same way when Tolstoi's attention was called to some of Matthew Arnold's most beautiful poems, he remarked what a pity it was they were not written in prose! Pozdnyak6f had been an employe in a factory, he had served as a house-porter, as a carter, and as laundryman. Tolstoi advised him to return to his work. This dis- couraging reception and various other disappointments drove the young fellow, who was only twenty, to the verge of suicide. He drifted back to his village, how- ever, and there taking Tolstoi's advice won success in prose tales dealing with peasant life and thought. The novelist Anton Tchekhof came to see him and was well received. Tolstoi recognized his ability as an artist in words, though he regretted that his works ex- pressed no clear philosophy of life. One day Tolstoi re- marked to him: "You are a right good fellow and I am very fond of you. As you know, I can't bear Shake- speare, yet his plays are better than yours." His dislike of Shakespeare led him at the age of seventy-five to write an essay on " Shakespeare and the Drama." In order to prepare for it, he read all of the Count and Countess Tolstoi in 1895. THE DUKHOBORS 359 dramas and came to the conclusion that they were repul- sive, wearisome, and bewildering. He declared that Shakespeare's characters constantly do and say what is not only unnatural to them but utterly unnecessary, and he thought the subjects of his pieces represented the lowest and vulgarest view of life. XVI TOLSTOI AND ART A curious instance of the manner in which the Church authorities waged war on Tolstoi* came to his notice this year. It was a pamphlet printed under the auspices of the Holy Synod and bearing a title which might be taken to mean "The Fruits of Teaching" of Count L. N. Tolstoi or by Count L. N. Tolstoi. It was everywhere sold on the streets and people bought it, thinking it was a sort of companion to his "Fruits of Enlightenment.' ' It contained a bitter attack on Tolstoi and emphasized the insinuation of Father Iv£n of Riga that Tolstoi was insane. This same Father Ivan, when nominated by the University of Dorpat to receive an honorary degree, together with Tolstoi, declined it, declaring that he did not wish to be in the same category with an infidel! He was shrewd enough to realize that this was an excellent advertisement. The Pan-Russian Missionary Congress, held a little later, proclaimed Tolstoism to be a definite and harmful sect and in consequence he received threat- ening letters, declaring that his pernicious activity had worn out the patience of the Church militant and it had been decided to kill him before April 15, 1898. In July of this year, Miss Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, with her niece visited at Yasnaya Polyana. When they arrived they found that Tolstoi had gone to Tula at the request of an American who previously had agreed to take some letters to Prince Khilkof, then in banishment. Tolstoi had hoped to receive a reply from Khilkdf, but the American, instead of delivering 360 TOLSTOI AND ART 361 Tolstoi's correspondence directly to the prince, had allowed it to be taken by the Russian officials, who opened it and refused to let it be delivered. The rather audacious sum- mons of the American visitor, who had not hesitated to make sport of Tolstoi's vegetarian principles, and the long and fruitless drive to Tula and back did not affect the count's temper, and he was ready for a walk down to the river. On the way Miss Addams told him of her work and the conditions of the poor in Chicago. Tolstoi touched the loose, fluffy sleeve of her silk gown and remarked that there was enough stuff in it to make a frock for a little girl, and asked her if she did not find such a dress a barrier to the people. Miss Addams replied that the people among whom she worked liked to see her well dressed. He retorted that she ought not to be dressed differently from them. Miss Addams laughingly replied that it would be difficult to adopt the costumes of all the thirty-six different nationalities there represented. To this Tolstoi said: "All the more reason why you should choose some cheap and simple dress that any of them might adopt and no* cut yourself off by your costume from those you wish i*o serve." Miss Addams's impressions of Tolstoi may be read in her book. She was deeply influenced by the life, the gentleness, the Christfdiiity in the soul of the man. When she returned to Hull House she resolved to follow his teaching to the extent of working some hours each day in the bakery, but her practical common sense soon taught her that this was a waste of her energies, which could be better spent in other things. An amusing instance of Tolstoi's own difficulty in carrying out his theories as regards luxurious habits happened when at one time he went to call on Prince Urusof. The prince was away but the Chief of the District Police offered him every attention and accom- panied him to the station, insisting on purchasing his ticket for him. Tolstoi had not the courage to say 362 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " Third class," but told him to get a second-class ticket. S. Persky relates an incident that happened when Tolstoi was at a railroad station as a train pulled in. A gentleman left the first-class coach and hastened to the buffet. His wife wanted to call him back. " Georges! Georges!" she cried in French, but " Georges" had vanished. Then she caught sight of Tolstoi' in his muzhik-costume: "H£! there, Dyedushka, " she commanded, "run quick and tell that gentleman to come back. I will give you a tip." Tolstoi brought back the husband and received a five- kopek piece. A moment later she heard some one cry : "Look, there's Tolstoi!" "Where, where?" asked the lady, and when he was pointed out she hastened to him, saying, "Pardon me, Count! I am mortified!" and begged him to give back the coin. "No, no, I will keep it," he said, smiling, "I earned it." Tolstoi had been for years interested in various forms of art, and at last he bent his energies to the task of writing a treatise which should express his mature judgment. His definition is that art is a human activity, whereby a man consciously, using external signs, communicates to others the feelings which he has experienced, so that they also experience them. L Art does not exist for its own 'sake, he argues, but is valuable or meretricious in proportion to the good or the evil it does mankind. Feelings are its subject-matter; they are communicated from one person to another and it is extremely important what those feelings are. Art unites men, and the better the art the better it is for humanity. Therefore the connection between art and morals should be recognized by all men. He prophesies that in the future the person who composes a fairy-tale, a touching song, a lullaby, an entertaining riddle, an amus- ing jest, or makes a sketch which will delight dozens of generations, millions of children and adults, will be incomparably more important and more fruitful than TOLSTOI AND ART 363 one who produces a novel or a symphony or a picture to divert the members of the wealthy classes for a short time and then be forgotten. True as the first part of his comparison is — for many a simple poem contains more in it than literature vastly larger in dimensions — it would seem to be also true that Tolstoi entirely neglects the possibility that through edu- cation the human race may be lifted to a degree where the great novel, the great symphony or the great paint- ing will appeal to every one. He speaks with scorn of the "half-barbarous" Greeks and their nude statues; but nevertheless at the Olympic Games thousands of the common people of that day met to listen to dramas which have been models for two thousand years. "What is Art?" is one of the most stimulating of all Tolstoi's ethical writings. His criticisms of musicians, authors, and painters are extremely entertaining and there is no question that the general argument is sound. It was abominably mutilated by the censor, and the only version of it that at all represents what Tolstoi wrote is the English translation, which had the advantage of his careful revision. He wrote for it a special preface ask- ing all who should be interested in his views on the subject to judge of them by the work in its English text. He went on to say that contrary to his later practice — of not allowing his works to be submitted to the censor — he had allowed his friend Professor Grot to print it in the magazine that he edited on condition that he would get it through the censor's office unmutilated, merely toning down a few very unimportant expressions. When it appeared Tolstoi found that not only were such words as "always" replaced by "sometimes," "all" by "some," "Church religion" by "Roman Catholic religion"; but his disapproval of luxurious life was made to apply not to the time of Nicholas II. but to that of 364 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI the Caesars. Finally the ecclesiastical censor, who, Tolstoi' says, probably understood art and was inter- ested in it as much as Tolstoi was interested in church services, got hold of the manuscript and completely garbled it, so that the book appeared under Tolstoi's name with thoughts that were not his. A great deal of the criticism is delightfully satirical and justified; but as one might suspect, Tolstoi goes too far, including with decadents, impressionists, and symbolists "the meaningless works of the ancient Greeks," — Sopho- cles, Euripides, ^Eschylus and especially Aristophanes, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Bach and Beethoven, and, of late years, Ibsen, Maeter- linck, Verlaine, Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Brahms, Richard Strauss and "all that immense mass of good-for-nothing imitators of those imitators!" He attributes all the evil of these false artists to the critics. As a preparation for writing the book Tolstoi* went to the theater to see plays and operas, and he read an immense amount of literature in different languages. As he criticised these produc- tions with an arriere pensee, his judgment is more amusing than convincing. His comical description of a Wagner opera makes one laugh; but one might just as well go up close to a painting and make fun of the blotches of paint; out of focus they are meaningless, but at a proper distance they blend into harmonious completeness and give the impression, that the painter intended to convey. Every opera and every play is ludicrous, if one is not in the atmosphere of it. So that when Tolstoi compares the celebrated novels of Zola, Paul Bourget, Huysmans and Kipling with a child's story by an unknown author to the advantage of the latter, one must make allowances for the personal equation and the mood of the moment. Yet his attempt to present a criterion of art deserves respect, and one can scarcely quarrel with his constructive appreciation of Schiller's "Robbers," Victor Hugo's TOLSTOI AND ART 365 tt Les Mis6rables," Dickens's novels, " Uncle Tom's Cabin/' Dostoyevsky's works and "Adam Bede," or the few pieces of music (Chopin's E-flat major nocturne among them) which he tentatively mentions. As is well known, he relegated his own artistic productions to the category of bad art, with the exception of " God Sees the Truth" and "The Prisoner in the Caucasus." It is odd that he speaks as respectfully as he does of 11 Don Quixote, " for assuredly in spite of certain passages Cervantes's treatment of a poor half-insane old knight seems calculated to inculcate cruelty and may be in no small measure responsible for the fact that Spain still permits bull-fighting as its national amusement. One would suppose that Nietzsche would find little favor in his eyes. But Tolstoi was absolutely charmed by the vigor and beauty of Nietzsche's language and so carried away that he quite forgot himself; he especially liked the way that Nietzsche gave Christianity its coup de grace. For fifteen years, off and on, beginning seven times or more, Tolstoi occupied himself with the formulation of his treatise on art — with certainly a noble purpose and with the highest ideal of what art should teach. Because one may not agree with all his statements or accept all his conclusions, one may yet be fair to him and recognize the vast amount of good that such a work is sure to accomplish — if in nothing else than holding up sim- plicity, sincerity, and morality as among the chief handmaidens of art. The persecution of the Dukhobors still continued, and at last in 1898, after opposing many difficulties, the Russian Government gave permission that those that desired, with the exception of such as were conscripted for the army and a certain number condemned to exile, might emigrate to Canada, where a lot of vacant land was put at their disposal. Ships were sent to Batum, where Prince Galitsuin facilitated Count Sergye'i Lvovitch 366 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Tolstoi in embarking the eight thousand who had elected to expatriate themselves. To carry these emigrants a distance almost a quarter around the world money was required, although very advantageous terms were made. Tolstoi broke his rule and at the end of 1899 allowed "Resurrection" (Vos- kresenye), his new novel "in his former style" as he called it, to be printed for a monetary consideration and devoted the proceeds to this philanthropic work. It brought in twenty-two thousand rubles. A translation of it was begun in an American magazine, but its out- spokenness regarding matters sexual caused its suppres- sion. In England it was for a time regarded askance, but after it was dramatized with great success, it began to have a large sale, the proceeds of which, amounting to almost as much as it brought in Russia, were also generously given to assist the Dukhobors, and for other public purposes. Its hero bears the name of Nekhlyudof, who had so often in his earlier works stood for himself. And the behavior of that hero is what Tolstoi would have himself exemplified in similar circumstances. It is not auto- biographical, but rather a projection of his own soul as redeemed by his theories. Its pictures of Russian official life, its fearless exposure of rottenness in high places, its denunciation of the cring- ing Church — to say nothing of its tremendous indictment of Pobyedonostsef, show no falling off in its author's abilities. It is one of the great novels of the world. PART V THE EXCOMMUNICATED TEACHER I TOLSTOI AND THE HOLY SYNOD During the last two years of the nineteenth century, Tolstoi' continued his literary activities. He contributed a preface to his son Count Sergyei's translation of Edward Carpenter's "Modern Science, " he wrote a number of vigorous letters regarding Russian famine and other phenomena of the times. When the Emperor Nicholas II. summoned th first Conference at The Hague, Tolstoi attacked it violently, calling it a hypocritical affair, not directed to bring about peace but rather to obscure the only path that could lead to peace. "Armies," he said, " will first decrease and then vanish, as soon as public opinion brands with its contempt those w T ho, whether from fear or for profit, sell their liberty and join the ranks of those murderers called soldiers." He also wrote an open letter on the Boer War. As the last year of the century wore on his health grew precarious, and the Holy Synod sent out a confidential circular to the clergy decreeing that the performances of requiems, masses, and liturgies for the repose of his soul, in the event of his dying unrepentant, should be forbidden. This was on the ground that he had plainly shown himself to be an enemy of the Orthodox Church. His illness did not prevent him from writing letters and he brought out his treatise "The Slavery of our Time" — ■ 367 368 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI a sequel to "What is to be Done?" — still further eluci- dating his doctrine of non-resistance. The winter months of 1900 and 1901 were marked by disturbances in nearly all the Russian universities, the students revolting against the interference of the civil authorities with the teaching furnished by the professors. The organ of the students — Soyuzny Sovyet — expressed their desires: "We wish to follow the laws, we wish to do what is right, and we wish true freedom of science, but it must be independent of the caprices and whims of every stupid person. We do not wish to engage in hand- to-hand struggles with those who yesterday sent Cossacks and soldiers against us, with those who maybe will send them to-morrow." There was apparently no attempt to treat these students reasonably, but their manifestat ons, however harmless, were regarded as insurrections and were ruthlessly suppressed by the military. Many were killed, many were exiled, and in the melees that took place in Peters- burg, Moscow, Kief, and other university cities, innocent women and children were trampled by the cavalry or were killed* and wounded by careless shooting. There were street demonstrations also, which were no less ruthlessly broken up by violence and bloodshed. Some of the universities were closed, and the relations between the "intelligentsia" and the authorities became more and more strained. Protests were everywhere made in the form of resolutions. In some cases those who signed them were arrested. The sympathy of the learned world was aroused and forty professors connected with colleges, universities, and other educational in- stitutions in Great Britain and Ireland expressed their reprobation of the arbitrary actions of the Russian Government. In the midst of this excitement, in the early days of March, the Holy Synod issued a public anathema against Tolstoi*. It began with an encouraging affirma- TOLSTOI AND THE HOLY SYNOD 369 tion that all the forces of hell should not prevail against the eternally founded Church of Christ. It informed the faithful children of the Orthodox Graeco-Russian Church that God had permitted a new false teacher to appear. Well known as a writer, Russian by birth, orthodox by baptism and education, and seduced by his pride of intellect, this insolent Count Tolstoi had repudiated the Mother Church which had reared and trained him. He was now disseminating among the people teachings re- pugnant to Christ and the Church. It went on in a sentence of one hundred and twenty-seven words — almost twice as many would be required in English — to re- hearse his heresies, and then threatened him with excom- munication unless he should repent and reenter the communion. It was signed by the metropolitans of Pe- tersburg, Moscow, Kief, the Archbishop of Warsaw, and three bishops, all of whom prefixed the word " smirenny" " humble," to their names! This thunderbolt was more crushing to the countess than to Tolstoi. Without his knowledge, she imme- diately addressed a letter to the Ober-prokurdr of the Synod and to the metropolitans. She began by saying that she had read in the dailies the cruel communication of the Synod, depriving her husband of the privileges of the Church, and there were no bounds to her indignation. The life of a human soul from the religious point of view was fortunately indepen- dent of any other person, she said, but from the point of view of that Church to which she belonged and from which she should never secede, which was created by Christ in order to hallow in God's name all the most significant moments of human life — birth, marriage, death, the joys and sorrows of men — which is in duty bound to proclaim loudly the law of love, universal for- giveness, love for enemies, for those that hate us, and to pray for all men — from this point of view, the decree of the Synod was incomprehensible to her. 37o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " It will call forth not the approval (except in the case of the Moscow Vyedomosti) but the indignation of men and will evoke great love and sympathy for Lyof Nikolayevitch. "I cannot forget the anguish I experienced at that absurdity about which I recently heard, namely the Synod's secret order to the clergy not to perform the church burial service for Ly6f Nikolayevitch in case of his death. Whom is this meant to punish? The dead man who no longer has feelings, or his relatives, those who are believers? If this is a threat, then against whom and to what end ? "Is it possible that I should not find to perform the service over my husband and to pray for him in the church either a reputable priest who has no fear of men in the presence of the God of Love, or a disreputable priest who could be bribed by a goodly sum of money to do this? But for me this is not necessary. For me the Church is an abstract conception and I acknowl- edge as its servants only those who truly comprehend the meaning of the Church. If we must recognize as the Church those people who dare in their wickedness to transgress Christ's supreme law of love, it is time for all of us who truly believe and attend the Church to leave it. "And those who are to blame for sinful secession from the Church are not mistaken truth-seekers, but rather those who in pride set themselves up at its head and instead of manifesting love, humility, and forgiveness become the spiritual persecutors of those whom God more truly pardons because of their humble lives full of renun- ciations of earthly advantages, full of love and of help- fulness to their fellows, even though they be outside of the Church, rather than those who wear diamond-studded miters and stars but drive out of the Church its shepherds. "To refute my words with hypocritical arguments is easy. But the profound understanding of the truth and of the actual purposes of men deceives no one." TOLSTOI AND THE HOLY SYNOD 371 The decree and the countess's letter caused a sensation. People took sides; fanatics threatened to kill the prophet; his books were excluded from public libraries; demonstra- tions of sympathy occurred, but the newspapers were forbidden to mention them. Sermons were as before preached against him and a Moscow temperance society expelled him from membership. All sorts of stories were circulated and people were led to believe that he was expelled from the Church because, having written that marriage was unnecessary and that children were born for destruction, he himself was the father of a child in his advancing years and had been punished for breaking his own rule. The censor forbade one of the newspapers to reproduce his picture, and Ryepin's new portrait of him, which was in a Petersburg gallery, having been decorated with flowers by the public was ordered removed from the exhibition. He received countless letters and telegrams, but none touched him more than an address from the workmen of the Prokorovsky factory who, as representatives of the Russian common people, simple laborers, assured him of their sympathy and, declaring that they were as truly Christians as the haughty self-constituted directors of the Church, found in his writings plain and simple directions for entering into the Kingdom of Heaven. " Did not our great Teacher for the same reason suffer on the Cross ?" Many young people, in consequence of the ridiculous action of the Synod, voluntarily separated from the Church. Tolstoi wrote a dignified and noble letter in reply to the false statements promulgated by the Synod, answering in detail all of the charges against him. He put at the head of it Coleridge's dictum : " He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity and end in loving himself better than all." 372 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI He said he had gone the opposite way by loving his orthodox belief more than his peace of mind; then he loved Christianity more than his church; and finally he loved truth more than anything else in the world. That truth he formulated in the passage which said: "I believe in God whom I understand as a Spirit, as Love, as the source of all. I believe that He is in me and I in Him. " I believe that God's will is expressed more clearly and intelligibly than anywhere else in the teaching of the man Christ, whom to consider as God and pray to I regard as the greatest blasphemy. " I believe that man's true welfare consists in fulfilling the will of God and that His will is that men should love one another and consequently should do unto others as they would wish men to do unto them, just as it says in the Gospels that in this is all the law and the prophets. "I believe that the meaning of every man's life, there- fore, lies in increasing love within him; that this increase of love leads every man to ever greater and greater blessedness in this life; gives him after death greater blessedness according as love was in him and at the same time helps more than anything else to establish the Kingdom of God on earth; that is to the establishment of an order of life in which truth and fraternal love will replace by free consent the discord, deception, and violence now prevalent. "I believe that for progress in love there is only one means — prayer — not public prayer in churches directly forbidden by Christ (Matthew vi. 5-13), but the soli- tary prayer of which Christ gave us a pattern, consist- ing in the renewal and strengthening in our own con- sciousness of the meaning of life and of our dependence on the will of God alone." He went on to say that, even though they offended, grieved, or displeased others, he could not change those beliefs of his any more than he could change his body. AypaKOBX. Hto-kt., nponajaTB Tarn, bh 3a iv$t^ ^tCHre B. k ' l JlUUldJ I ,! ! B JM 0TBJI3UM T L ' ms^ jomaat, Joajj nepeKUHyjn. noBOAifHa weio a xorfcjrB bcko\ ^Zfa&T&w Hee, ho copBaaca. Tor^a obi BCTajrt Ha caHH a xoita ci. ca-V / nefl ctcTB. Ho caHH noKaiHyjiHci no^i ero TasecTba h ohi ohhtb otfop-^- Bams. HaBOHeuT. bi Tperifl pa3i ohi ohhtb noABHHyjif jiouiaAb ki caHHMi, CTajii na EpaB an, 11 cxtJiaBi yemiie bckoihjit. TaEf., ito Jierc, tfproxoMi nonepeKi chhhh jioma,p. Ilo.iesani xaict, oht> nocyHyjica Bnepcyy> iHegi. nepesHHyji^ nory qepe3^ CHHHy jomajHJ /^npaBiii '^^noTflHyjt 3a oflHHfr noBo gi^eSg i- * T * HHKHTa ci Ttxt nop*, nasi cta^noKpHBmi «omi caHefi, chjI**- HenoABHKHO. Mucjib o tomi, ito oht> Moatei'b.n jaae no bcbmi B'BpoflTiaii'b .nojiKem, yuepen. bt> 9tj hoib, npnaiJia eMy bt> to BpeHH, KOixa obt, ycasuBajicJi 3a caaaMB^XoTfl eiwy eme (Shjio tmuio, noTOMy qro obi BHoro ABBrajica, aa3DJii n npopBaHHOMi canort ^CTbiaa h ohi. y«e He lygji Ha eefl ooraioro naatna, n nnii ijnirrnnr — "'^ Y i ^ T —»i j l/SuiA npnanaiumm i. i i l i j . ^ i i.mi ■ ■ I ^ \ - " ^ fa £?&**' TOLSTOI AND THE HOLY SYNOD 373 "I must live my own life," he said, "and so must I die (and very soon), and therefore I cannot believe otherwise than as I believe, making ready to go to that God from whom I came. I do not believe that my belief is the one indubitable truth for all time, but I see none other that is simpler, clearer, or more perfectly answers all the demands of my intellect and of my heart. Should I find such an one, I would instantly accept it. God requires nothing but the truth. I can never again return to what I escaped from with such sufferings any more than the flying bird can reenter the egg from which it has emerged." Not since the defense of Socrates has a sincerer or more convincing reply to a man's judges been pronounced than this of Tolstoi's, and how the Pharisees of the Most Holy Synod could read it without remembering the Man of Galilee passes all comprehension. n POPULAR OVATIONS Owing to the disturbances in the universities, the decree of excommunication did not attract so much attention as it would otherwise have done. Tolstoi was in Moscow at the time and wherever he appeared he was the object of unexampled interest and awakened tremendous enthusiasm. A friend who happened to be with him one day de- scribes the ovations that he received in the streets when he was recognized. As he passed by the University in the afternoon he was at first greeted most respectfully, then little groups of people began to follow him, until such a crowd had gathered that it was feared that the police might descend upon them or the Cossacks with their nagaikas or loaded whips. A tiny woman ran along beside him in great excite- ment and explained that she must speak to him, and she told him how they had been beating the students; but it seemed to Tolstoi that she exaggerated the bad conduct of the police and he tried to calm her in a very kindly and gentle manner. By the time he had reached the Teatralny Square the crowd had increased to several hundreds, and when he and his friend started to cross it they found it literally packed with people. They managed to slip away un- observed, but on the Myasnitskaya he was again recog- nized and followed by an ever increasing throng. Some one, probably with ironical reference to the pro- nunciamento of the Holy Synod, shouted out at the top of 374 POPULAR OVATIONS 375 his voice : " There is the Devil in human form ! " and those words served as the signal for an ovation. Shouts were heard on all sides — " Hurrah! Tolstoi! Long life to Tostoi!" A student ran forward and cried to every one he met: "Boys, this way! Ly6f Nikolayevitch is here!" A moment later and the enormous throng on the square began to flow and rush toward him as to a center, shout- ing, waving their hats and expressing their enthusiasm in every extravagant manner. It was becoming not only embarrassing but also some- what dangerous, and Tolstoi said to his friend, " Where can we go?" An izvoshchik was stationed not far away and Tolstoi's friend was just about to signal to him, when the driver, seeing the crowd, whipped up his horse and fled with- out looking back. So they almost ran to the Little Theater, but the crowd again closed in on them and they found it impossible to get within a hundred steps of a cab — the drivers were all seized with a panic at the sight of the crowd. On Neglinniya Street they got an izvoshchik, but before they could climb into the sleigh the students flocked around and tried to stand on the runners and clung to the robes and climbed up beside the driver. However, when they were politely asked to jump off they immediately did so; yet when at last the izvosh- chik cracked his whip and started away the crowd fol- lowed running, shouting, and waving their hats. The shouts attracted the attention of the gendarmes, and down from the Kuznetsky Bridge a detachment came at a gallop. But the commander apparently recognized Tolstoi and ordered his men to let him pass and then close ranks. When they looked back they saw that the whole street was black with people and the police were trying to disperse them. Tolstoi was both touched and terrified at the spectacle. It was terrifying because if he had slipped he might have been crushed by the throng, and touching because 376 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI of the universal enthusiasm which seemed a popular rebuke to the stupid administrators of the Church which tried to pillory a man of such character and fame. Tolstoi himself laughed good-naturedly at the decree of the Synod, saying that while they boasted their courage against the gates of hell yet they trembled before a retired lieutenant of artillery. When he reached his house on the Khamovniki he found a vast heap of letters and telegrams offering sympathy and assistance. Before dinner a deputation of ladies appeared, who were introduced to Tolstoi' by name. After dinner a throng of students gathered, and Tolstoi sent word to them that he would be glad to receive them but begged them not to make any disturbance and not to greet him with cheers. He then went out into the court-yard and for twenty minutes he spoke to the throng, which consisted of about a hundred students, young women and working-people. Everything went off very pleasantly and quietly and every one felt that atmosphere of dignity and respect which he always inspired. He had not been five minutes in the house before a pristaf or police commissioner and two other officers — okolototchnniye — and eleven common policemen made their appearance, but all the students had disappeared. Tolstoi took an active part in the protests against the inhumane and stupid treatment of the students, and as a member of the Guild of Russian Writers sent the following address : — " With genuine concern we have learned of the brutal behavior of the police on the seventeenth of March and the consequent declaration of the Guild of Russian Writers. That declaration involves the dissolution of the Guild. We feel that this action will be advantageous rather than injurious for those ends which are dear to Russian writers. By causing our dissolution the Govern- ment acknowledged itself in the wrong and not as being POPULAR OVATIONS 377 in condition to justify its lawless and despotic actions; it performs still another act of violence and by this very act still more weakens it and magnifies the natural in- fluence of the Society that is contending with it. And therefore we are with all our hearts grateful to you for what you have done and we hope that your activity in spite of the violent dissolution of the Guild will not be diminished but will increase and go on in that direction of freedom and enlightenment in which it has always ex- erted itself among our best Russian writers." On Count Tolstoi's initiative a letter of sympathy and commendation w r as sent to Lieutenant- General Prince Leonid Dmitrievitch Vy£zemsky for his manly and noble protest against the massacre of March 16 and 17, which had brought upon him the stern reproof of the Emperor. Finally Tolstoi wrote his open letter to the Emperor and those who were so culpably deceiving him. It began: — (March 28, 1901) "Again murders, again bloodshed, again punishments, again apprehension, terror, charges and accusations, threats and irritation, on the one hand, and on the other hatred, desire for vengeance, and readiness for sacrifice. Again all the Russian people are divided into two hostile camps and are preparing and are waiting to commit great crimes.' ' After pointing out the reasons for the disturbances he showed how simple it would be to quiet them : — (a) In the first place — give the peasants the same rights as all the other citizens and then abolish special enact- ments enabling the Common Law to be overridden; (b) Liberty of education, and most important of all, (c) Religious liberty. He went on to say that such were the modest and easily realizable desires of the majority of the Russian people. Their adoption would undoubtedly pacify the people and free them from the terrible sufferings and crimes which 378 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI would be inevitably committed on both sides if the Govern- ment should concern itself only with the suppression of the disturbances, leaving their cause. The letter ended : — "Lyof Tolstoi has written this, and in writing it has striven to expound not his own opinion but the opinion of many of the best, the kindest, the most disinterested, reasonable, and peace-loving people, who all desire the same thing.' ' Ill A WINTER IN THE CRIMEA The excitement of all these events had a bad effect on Tolstoi's health. In June, 1901, he made a visit to his eldest daughter, who had married M. S. Sukhotm two years before. The estate, situated beyond Orel,* was ten miles from the railway. On the day of his return to the station he insisted on walking and would not permit any one to accompany him. He missed his way in the forest. A muzhik whom he asked to con- duct him to the road, refused, being afraid of wolves. Fortunately he managed to strike the road and was caught up by other members of the family who were driving to the station. He arrived there at night, ex- hausted and suffering. The train was crowded. He obstinately refused to ride first-class and there was no chance for him to lie down. At Orel a friend insisted on having a special coach coupled to the train. After reaching Yasnaya he was miserably ill; yet he wrote many letters, he worked on his article "The Only Means," dealing with the labor problem, and read or tried to read in Bulgarian the work of a young truth-seeker named Shopof, who pleased him by his earnestness. On the tenth of July the action of his heart became so irregular that the countess against his wishes sent to Tula for a doctor. He believed that physical sufferings were intended to free the spirit from subjection to the flesh, and purify it from the desires and passions of earth. He had a sinking spell but recovered from it. He said to his daughter: "The sleigh was at the door and I had only * Pronounced Aryol. 379 3 8o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI to get in and depart, then suddenly the horses turned round and the conveyance was sent away. It is a pity, for it was good sleighing and when I have to start again, it may be rough." By the middle of July his condition was more serious, and the friendly doctor from Moscow came and diag- nosed his case as angina pectoris. He recommended a warmer climate, and the Countess Panina offered him the use of her palace at Gaspra in the Crimea. Early in September, accompanied by the countess, two daughters, and some friends, he drove to Tula at night. It was ten o'clock when they reached the station. The roads were very rough and he was tired and ill. But Prince Khilkof , the Minister of Railways, furnished a special car so that he would be able to travel without change. In the morn- ing it was sunny and warm, and when the train reached Kharkdf, where a crowd collected to see him, he permitted a delegation of students to speak to him and he showed himself at the car window. He spent a day at Sevastopol and was able to go for a walk and visited the museum to see the relics of the war. He related reminiscences of the siege but was distressed to see his own portrait, and on the way back to the hotel remarked that it was a pity to use such an expensive building to store that collection "of splinters and but- tons." He thought that it made people remember the horror, savagery and shame of that war which had cost a half-million lives and countless millions of money. He was driven from Sevastopol to Yalta, and while they were changing horses on the road he walked ahead. He met a young man and inquired the name of some place on the shore below. As he was old and feeble and, as usual, dressed like a muzhik, the young man gave an insolent answer. A moment later the countess drove up and Tolstoi entered the carriage. " Who is that old man?" asked the young fellow of one of the party; and, when he was told, "What!" he ex- TCHEKOF AND COUNT TOLSTOI DURING THE CRIMEAN VlSIT. A WINTER IN THE CRIMEA 381 claimed, flinging his cap down in the dust, "Count Tolstoi, the writer! Oh, Bozhe moi! Bozhe moi'! I would have given all I own to see him, and how I spoke to him!" At Gaspra the weather was delightful and as Tolstoi's health improved he again resumed his writing. He was still at work on his unfinished story, "Hadji-Murat," and on " What is Religion and in what Consists its Essence ?" He was roused to indignation by the unchristian advice about self-defense in General Dragomirof's "Soldier's Notes." Tchekof and Gorky were staying at Yalta near by, and he liked to see them. The pianist Goldenweiser came and played for him. When he was not feverish or suffering from rheumatism or pain in his heart he wrote letters, in which he liked to reiterate his rule of right living. He also worked — for in- stance on an article on "Religious Toleration." On the first of February he wrote a friend: "My physical health is wretched, but spiritually it is well with me and I am able to work and work, I think, more seriously in the presence of the approaching end." His idea of a useful life is expressed in another letter written from Gaspra, in which he tells of a paralytic monk living at the Optin Monastery. This man for more than thirty years had been able to use only his left hand; the doctor said that his sufferings must have been dreadful and yet he made no complaint, but constantly crossing himself, smilingly gazing at the ikons, he expressed his gratitude to God and his joy in the spark of life which glowed in him. Tolstoi thought that he did more good than thousands and thousands of healthy men who in various institu- tions imagine they are doing service to the world. He wrote a letter to the Emperor which is like one of the reproofs administered by an Isaiah to King Manasseh. He addressed him as "Dear Brother" and said he wrote as from the other world. He told him that autocracy was an obsolete form of government, such as might suit a 382 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI people somewhere in central Africa but not the en- lightened Russian people, as was proved by the fact that it could be preserved, together with Orthodoxy, only by acts of violence, banishments by administrative process, executions, religious persecution, the prohibition of books and journals, the perversion of education, and all sorts of wicked and cruel deeds. He enumerated all the evil deeds of his reign — the regulations in regard to Finland, the project of a Hague Conference accompanied by an in- crease in the army, the restriction of self-government, the amplification of administrative tyranny, and his obstinacy in maintaining corporal punishment, so disgraceful to the Russian people. He called his attention to the modern idea that the only means of governing a people was for a ruler to make him- self a leader in their advance from darkness to light, from evil to good, and this could be accomplished only by letting them express their desires and needs and then fulfilling the demands of the majority of the people — of the working people. Those demands were the abolition of special laws which made paupers of the peasantry, freedom to go from one place to another, freedom of education, freedom of conscience, and freedom to use the land, private ownership of which should be abolished; but first of all the removal of the gag that prevented the people from ex- pressing its desires. "You cannot do good to a man whose mouth has been tied up lest what he wants should be spoken." On the last day of May, just before he left the Crimea to return home, he wrote his friend " Pasha" Biryukof, promising to aid him in writing his biography. Fearing the insincerity which he said was characteristic of every autobiography, he felt at first disinclined to contribute; but he had at last discovered a method of overcoming that difficulty and he promised that as soon as he was in a con- dition to write he would try to devote some hours to this work. A WINTER IN THE CRIMEA 383 During his stay at Gaspra he had an attack of inflam- mation of the lungs. News that a doctor had gone to him from Moscow and that he was not expected to survive reached the Holy Synod ; and Pobyedonostsef issued secret instructions that if he died, a priest should immediately enter the palace, which contained a private chapel, and on coming out should make public announcement that Tolstoi had repented, returned to the Church, confessed, and received the Eucharist. This thoroughly Jesuitical lie was necessary to counteract the effect that Tolstoi's attitude and teaching were having on the minds of true believers. In May he suffered from an enteric fever but recovered sufficiently to make the homeward journey. He was taken to Sevastopol by steamer and while waiting for the train went into the garden attached to the station. An im- pulsive lady ordered him out, saying, "This garden be- longs to a high railway tchinovnik and is not the place for idle loafers." When this lady discovered that she had driven out the great Tolstoi she was to the last degree penitent and brought a bunch of flowers for him. " How could I tell that it was Tolstoi ?" she exclaimed in her despair. After his return to Yasnaya Polyana he consented to have a doctor in residence, but only on condition that the neighboring peasants might consult him freely. He was more reconciled to the profession when he found that injections of camphor had a stimulating effect on him and medicines really helped him. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "I have always spoken ill of doctors but now that I have come to know you better, I see that I have done you great injustice. You are really good and know all that your science teaches; the only, pity is that it knows nothing." IV LATER WRITINGS As he grew stronger he resumed his writing and finished a new play with the grewsome title, "Trup" — "The Corpse" — based on a true story. A drunkard had a wife who was in love with another man. He disap- peared in order to set her free. His clothes and pass- port were found on the bank of a river. But one day when drunk a man was heard boasting of being a corpse and his identity was discovered. He was arrested and sentenced to Siberia. One day Tolstoi received a call from a boy who said he was the " corpse's" son. Later the supposed corpse, who had returned from Siberia, appeared. Tolstoi sent him to Judge N. V. Davuidof , who had told him of the case. Davuidof secured him a small position in the Law Courts, where he served under an assumed name and never again betrayed himself. After this episode Tolstoi rewrote a part of the drama, so as to make it more favorable to the muzhik. It is rather odd to hear of Tolstoi playing cards for money; but one visitor says that he won almost a ruble and a half at "ving" in the course of two evenings. Not long before he had surprised a reverend gentleman from America by playing to him a waltz which he had com- posed in his gay Petersburg days. His vigor of mind was shown by his " Circular to the Clergy," published in 1903, which must have made any sensitive person in that body cringe with shame. This same year he wrote his ringing protests against the Jew- baiting and pogr6ms in Kishenef and Gomel, and contrib- 384 LATER WRITINGS 385 uted three short stories for the relief of the victims of those terrible riots. In September of that year a member of the maritime court-martial, named Lazarevsky, came to visit Tolstoi', who was then suffering from a slight accident. The day after his seventy-fifth birthday he was riding horseback and dismounted to cross a ravine. While leading the horse it stepped on his foot and lamed him, so that for some time he was obliged to go about in a wheeled chair. Tolstoi did not approve of Lazarevsky's occupation, though he was glad to learn that for several years no one had been condemned to death by his court. He was especially interested in the case of a sailor who belonged to a dissenting sect, had been accused of proselyting among his comrades and was acquitted. "God be praised!" exclaimed the count. They spoke about the poverty of people and Lazarevsky told of seeing people eat rotten fish, eggs, and fruit in the Khitrof Market at Moscow; but when he suggested to Tolstoi to write an article calling attention to this misery and protesting against the sale of such articles, Tolstoi declared that drunkenness and debauchery in the majority of cases and not misfortune reduced people to these conditions. He had ceased to believe in establish- ments for aiding men; he declared that philanthropists had done more harm than good. He expressed very much the same opinion to Andreye- vitch, who also had been visiting the market. "Why did you want to go there?" demanded Tolstoi. "They always have been bosyaki and they always will be. They drink, are lazy and that is all there is to it." He thought it was a miserable curiosity which led people to go slumming; bosyaki, the barefooted beggars, were "lost souls" for whom nothing could be done. Lazarevsky found the home-life of the Tolstois — as indeed did all other visitors — full of interest. He was asked to fill up the blanks in a series of questions supposed 386 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI to betray one's individuality. He noticed that all the others who had complied answered the question "Who is your favorite author ?" with the word "Tolstoi." Then, as often, they had delightful music, the two sisters singing folk-songs or other simple melodies such as their father loved. There were two grand pianos, which were in frequent use, as well as guitars and the three-stringed balalaika. Tolstoi's extreme views in advocating the doctrine of individualism were well illustrated in December, 1904, when he cabled to "The North American Review" that he objected to the Zemstvo agitation and the establish- ment of representative government in Russia. "True social amelioration," he said, "can be attained only by the perfecting of all individuals. Political agitation, put- ting before individuals pernicious illustration of social improvement by change of forms, habitually stops real progress, as can be observed in all constitutional coun- tries — France, England, America." His attitude was a bitter disappointment to those self- sacrificing men who saw no help for Russia except by a government in which representatives of the people should replace the irresponsible beaureaucracy defending its privileges by arbitrary acts of oppression. Indeed, his attitude was strange in view of his letter to the Emperor. The Russo-Japanese War broke out, and of course Tol- stoi* looked upon it with horror. He wrote several open letters regarding it. The war and the massacre of the Petersburg workmen as they were led by Father Gapdn to petition the Emperor, his own limitations of strength, and a serious illness of his wife combined to distress him. Although he felt that it was the duty of a man to submit to the will of God and not by surgery or medicine infringe on the solemnity of approaching death, he opposed no objection to the operation which the doc- tors proposed to have performed. It proved to be a perfect success. The countess entirely recovered. LATER WRITINGS 387 Another work in which at this time he was greatly- interested was a sort of periodical called Krug Chteniya, or " Circle of Reading," for which he wrote several articles and furnished others from various sources. This also came into frequent collision with the censor. In December, 1906, his second daughter, Marya, who had married Prince N. L. Obolyensky in June, 1897, and who with her husband had been living in one "wing" of the Yasnaya home, died suddenly. She had agreed with her father that it was shameful for them to live in luxury while their brethren were perishing from want, and when he divided his property among his children in 1891 had refused to accept her share; but her mother, being wiser, kept it for her so that she was enabled to take it to her husband as a marriage portion. Even this sorrow Tolstoi's philosophy of life enabled him to bear without a murmur. His brother Sergyei, with whom he had come into closer touch in these later years, died in Sep- tember, 1904. He again occupied himself with the instruction of village children and in 1908 published his "Exposition of the Teaching of Jesus for Children," which grew out of his experiences in these lessons. The list of his published articles during the four years from 1906 to 1909 counts up to seventy, besides scores of private letters; it includes stories for children, biographical sketches and articles applying his doctrine of non-resist- ance to the questions of the day. He wrote to one paper asking that no mention be made of his illnesses. He publicly announced that having renounced the holding of property he had nothing to give the hundreds of appli- cants who wanted to beg or borrow from him for all sorts of purposes. One young man wanted to live in accord- ance with Tolstoian principles but wanted to borrow one hundred and fifty rubles to pay his debts before he could begin; another had a sick mother and wanted fifty; a lady demanded that he should send her five hundred so that 388 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI her daughter might continue at the Conservatory; others would only be satisfied with several thousands. His plea that people should cease applying to him ended with the dilemma that if he told the truth and had no money to give away, he could not give any away, but if he lied and had money, he was not the man from whom to expect aid. Another of his writings was in protest against the execu- tions of Russian revolutionists. It was entitled "Nye Mogu Molchat'," "I cannot be silent." It argued that the terrible things that were taking place in Russia — the destitution of the people caused by their being robbed of the land and their enlistment in armies where they were taught to kill, the false priesthood perverting true Christianity, the thousands of hungry workmen tramping through Russia, the thousands of cases of typhus and scurvy in fortresses and prisons; the wives, mothers, and fathers of the exiles and the executed — all existed for him : it was his fault as long as he shared in the protection of that government. So he wrote and promised to circulate his protest by all the means in his power both at home and abroad, that one of two things might happen: that the inhuman deeds might be stopped or that he might be put into prison where he would no longer realize that these things were done on his behalf, or better still that the hangmen might put on him the shroud and death cap and push him off the bench so that by his own weight he might tighten the well-soaped noose about his old throat. This protest was printed by a number of the Russian papers, and in consequence they had to pay fines of from two hundred to three thousand rubles. The authorities, both spiritual and secular, combined to limit the celebration of Tolstoi's eightieth birthday. The Holy Synod as usual came out against him with warnings, threatenings and false accusations. Father Ivan prayed for his death. Literary and other societies were for- LATER WRITINGS 389 bidden to mention his name except as a literarian pure and simple. One of Tolstoi's friends had been sent to prison for six months for circulating some of his anti-government and anti-army writings. This man made the suggestion that the proper way to celebrate the jubilee would be to send Tolstoi himself to prison. Tolstoi, who disapproved of any celebration, was much pleased with this idea and wrote that he could not refrain from longing with his whole soul that the suggestion should be taken not as a joke but as "a course which would satisfy those who objected to his writings and their circulation and at the same time would afford him in his old age, before he died, genuine happiness and satisfaction as well as re- lease him from the burden of the threatened celebration." The Government and the Church, however, did not dare stem the tide of popular appreciation. Many news- papers and magazines devoted all the space they desired to his career, and gatherings were not hindered from passing congratulatory resolutions. Two thousand tele- grams were received at Yasnaya. Of course it was impossible for Tolstoi to reply individually to all these congratulations and he wrote a letter to the papers thanking all the universities, the city Dumas, the rural boards, the various classical institutions, all societies, unions, clubs, groups of individuals, editors of newspapers and journals, who sent him addresses and salutations. He thanked all his friends and acquaintances, in Russia and abroad, for remembering him; he thanked all strangers of every station in life, many of them confined in prisons or in exile; he thanked young men and maidens and children; he thanked the clergy — few to be sure — but all the more welcome because of the risks they ran. And above all he thanked those who expressed their sympathy for his endeavors to show forth the eternal truths in his writings — especially the peasants and working-men. He had not wished the day to be celebrated but he could 3QO THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI not help being deeply touched by such a spontaneous outpouring of affection and appreciation. At Petersburg his friends and admirers founded a museum in his honor, and manuscripts, editions of his works in nearly fifty languages, portraits, busts, and even caricatures were there deposited. Among the visitors to Yasnaya the year of his Jubilee was William Jennings Bryan, who reached there at four o'clock in the morning. In October of that year Tolstoi wrote a letter expressing his hope that the "great Com- moner" might win success in his campaign for the presi- dency. He of course did not agree that there should be such offices as that of President, but as long as they existed he felt they should be occupied by men worthy of trust; and Mr. Bryan had awakened his respect and sympathy, since the basis of his activity he felt was kindred with his own in his sympathy with the interests of the working people, his anti-militarism, and his recognition of the fallacies of capitalism. A woman, a member of the sect of the Starovyerui or Old Believers, wrote him that if she had the power she would shoot him for his blasphemous writings and relent- lessly put all his followers to death. Tolstoi' replied to her in a sweet spirit of conciliation, thanking her for her letter, which, he said, gave him great pleasure because he saw in her a truly religious woman desirous of living in ac- cordance with the law of God. He thought, however, that a man could fulfill God's law only by purifying his heart from all evil and increasing the good. Her humility in speaking of herself delighted him but it offended him that she thought, that is seemed to think, she and her teachers were the only people that knew the truth and that all the rest were lost. "I do not think," he said, "that I am the only person that knows the truth and that every one else is in darkness. I am eighty years old and am still search- ing for the truth. Your teachers have led you into the sin of conceit and condemnation." He ended by praying Count Tolstoi and William J. Bryan. LATER WRITINGS 391 that God might help her to fulfill His will. He offered to send her his writings, and signed his letter, "Liubyashchy vas" — " Yours lovingly. " In accordance with his suggestion she continued the cor- respondence and finally came over to his way of thinking. VISITS TO AN INSANE ASYLUM The following year (1909) Tolstoi's friend and chief follower, V. Tchertkof, was banished by administrative order from the Government of Tula. He settled in the village of Otradnoye, not far from Moscow. If he could not visit Tolstoi, Tolstoi certainly managed to visit him. The first time he went the excitement was too much for him. He had not been in Moscow in eight years, and the crowds that pressed around him and the new im- pressions wearied him so that when he reached Yasnaya Polyana, after an absence of a fortnight, he had two fainting spells. In the summer of 19 10 he went to Otradnoye again and then for the first time in his life visited an insane asylum. He had many interviews with the patients and physicians and asked no end of questions. The director took him all over the institution and was surprised to see how alert and quick he was to see every detail. As usual he wore a simple canvas blouse reaching to his knees and belted, old wide trousers of soft dark-gray tricot, and a canvas cap. In his pocket he carried a silver watch on a black cord. He had also a folding chair. In spite of his resemblance to a common peasant he revealed by all the motions of his head, by his walk, by his whole attitude, that he was the aristocrat. Some of the patients did not give him intelligent answers to his questions, but others recognized him, either by his resemblance to his pictures or from having seen him before. In the women's ward, where the patients were drinking tea, he spoke to one .woman, who 392 VISITS TO AN INSANE ASYLUM 393 had been very sullen all day. But as soon as he spoke to her she got up and smiled pleasantly, saying, "Zdravst- vuite, Ly6f Nikolai'tch" — " Good evening." "What! Do you know me?" asked the count. 11 We all know you. When I was a teacher, I had your portrait in my room." She told him that she did not believe in any one or anything. "But you believe in God?" "No, if I believe in anything it is Science." Tolstoi began to tell her about the necessity of religion for human beings, but when he offered to explain what she did not understand she replied that religious questions did not interest her. He shook his head sadly and turned to an old woman who he heard had been tempted to commit suicide, and remarked to her that it was a great sin, that one should not go against God's law. Another jolly old person, whom he asked if she prayed to God, replied, "No." "But you know 'Otche nash'— 'Our Father'?" "No, I know ' Otche Byes'— 'Father of Devils.'" "How can you say such a thing? There is no such prayer. Do you want me to teach you 'Our Father'?" "No, it is not necessary. At my home in Mozhaisk they teach 'Our Father,' but here they teach you 'Otche Byes.'" "No," said Tolstoi, "you are mistaken, they teach the same thing everywhere. In your situation especially you must believe and pray." He was photographed as he took tea with the patients. On the next floor a patient recognized him and immedi- ately began to complain that the doctors would not listen to what she said. Tolstoi told her that they understood her case better than she did. She became violent. Wishing to calm her, he offered to shake hands, but she refused. He remarked, "You know women are obstinate." 394 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI He was pleased that the patients were permitted to work and surprised at the things they did. "I am very glad/' he said, "to find that here and there work has its mighty significance recognized.' ' In the men's ward, after trying to discover an inter- esting face, he picked out a tall young man who had become insane through drink. Tolstoi, after a few questions, urged him to give up drinking. "All it requires is to have the strong desire to do so," he said. "Now — here for example you can caress me or you can strike me. You can drink or you can cease drinking. Now give me your word that you will give it up." The patient listened very attentively but finally said, "I cannot give you my word. Here I don't drink; but I have spells, and outside I can't restrain myself." When Tolstoi found that he was an educated man he said, " Of course you can conquer the habit, and when you have, write me all about it and I will help you; I will send you books that will interest you." Another drunkard — an old man — met him. "How old are you?" asked Tolstoi. "Three quarters of a century." "Well, I am older than you — I shall soon be eighty- two," said Tolstoi. "Tell me, was your former life better than this ?" The patient raised his eyebrows and looked down. "How can I tell whether it was better or not — it was ampler." "That is likely, Step£n Andreyevitch. 'Ampler.' You are right." "Just so," continued the muzhik, "but at least my former life was rather hard." Tolstoi frowned and made a motion with his lips. "That is the trouble. Well, good-by, Stepan Andreyevitch, thank you for a pleasant talk. Who knows ? This may be the last time we shall ever meet. You will be seeking for me in this world with a lantern." VISITS TO AN INSANE ASYLUM 395 The old man replied, " You will live to be a hundred." Then he asked for a present and ended with an impu- dent joke which Tolstoi' pretended not to hear. During the expedition Tolstoi and Tchertkof went into a peasant's izba and the count was greatly pleased with its neat appearance. The muzhik had been at Tolstoi's house in Moscow twelve years before. He had a library and Tolstoi advised him to read Semyonof, a writer for the people. When he found that he never drank and was a member of the Trezvost or Temperance Society, he was greatly pleased. He talked with the muzhik's old father and asked him which were better, the old days or now. The old man replied, "Now," because he had white bread to eat all the time whereas formerly he had it only on great holidays. The count rejoined: "Not by bread alone is a man fed," and asked him if he drank vodka. He replied, "Sometimes." "Didn't men drink more vodka formerly?" "No, certainly less." To which Tolstoi replied in the enigmatic staccato phrase, "Vot to-to i ono-to" — "Well, that is just the way of it." He returned to the institution another day and asked the doctors all sorts of questions and was surprised to learn how many patients were permanently cured. He wanted to know all about practical and theoretical psy- chiatry and the boundaries between normal health and mental illness, or the three elements of the soul. He thought one difficulty was that one theory was super- seded by a second and that by a third. One of the doctors asked him if he had ever been at any other insane hospital. He replied that he had attended a clinic many years before. When asked if he had been at the Tula Asylum, he said he could not remember and remarked that they as alienists must be interested in such phenomena as lapses of memory. 396 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI "My memory," he said, "is really growing feeble. What is that called? Amnemonika, isn't it? How- ever," he went on to say, after a brief pause, "I am not at all regretful for this but rather glad, because owing to this all trivialities, all superfluities, vanish out of my mind and only what is important and necessary for me remains." At his last visit he sat with the patients and watched a kinetoscope. He was received with flowers and sat be- tween his daughter, Aleksandra, and one of the directors. Among the films that he liked were the burning of Rome, Schafhausen, the Zoological Gardens at Antwerp, and the coronation of King Edward. When horses came stepping along he exclaimed to his daughter: "Look! look! how they move their legs, how they prance! That is a fine one on which the officer is sitting. I should like a horse like that, he!" When he started to ride the kilometer and a half to Otradnoye, he mounted his horse without any assistance and galloped off like a young cavalier. While he was staying at Otradnoye he received as many as a hundred letters and telegrams a day. He usually answered those that were addressed to him simply as L. N. Tolstoi; but those that carried his title he declared could wait and they were often not answered at all. He still kept up his habit of writing long letters. That which he wrote to Biryukof, with a full account of the execution of the soldier for striking his superior, occupies nearly eight pages of small type. Many of his last articles were left unfinished or are still in manuscript. VI "titan entangled in foul circumstance" On his return to Yasnaya, at ten o'clock in the evening on the seventeenth of August a number of men in uniform appeared at his house and demanded to see his secretary, Nikolai Nikolayevitch Gusef. They informed him that he was to go with them. Tolstoi went downstairs and asked what it meant. Their ispravnik drew out of his pocket a paper and proceeded to read in a solemn tone the decision of the Minister of Internal Affairs, that as a lesson to the Russian people, N. N. Gusef, who had been distributing revolutionary literature, was to be punished by being first confined in the Krapivensky prison and thence banished to the Tcherduinsky district of Perm. Tolstoi immediately wrote one of his most vigorous letters to the editor of the Russkiya Vyedoniosti, protesting against such an act of tyranny. Gusef during his two years in the service of Tolstoi had never distributed or even read any revolutionary literature. It was simply the Government, "ready to wound but afraid to strike,'' injuring Tolstoi's friends and not touching him. He had written in a somewhat similar strain in May, 1896, to Muraviof, the Minister of Justice, urging him to release a lady of Tula who had been arrested for lending one of his prohibited books to a peasant. Was she the only person in Russia, he had asked, who distributed his writings! Why did they not imprison him, the source of this pernicious literature! He was invited to attend the proposed Peace Congress at Stockholm and wrote to the president that if he had 397 398 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI sufficient strength he would make every endeavor to be there, but if not he would send what he wanted to say, in the hope that the members would care to know his opinions. The cause which the congress met to serve had, he said, occupied him for many years and he thought it of the highest importance. He had written the Baroness von Suttner at an earlier date that the abolition of war could never be accomplished by peace congresses. His panacea of non-resistance was the only means. The congress was postponed for a year owing to the Swedish strikes, and so he did not go. The Nobel Prize was conferred upon him, but as it was contrary to his principles to accept money he refused it. One day toward the end of his life an officer who had written a denunciation of Tolstoi came to call him to account for his inconsistency in riding a fine horse while preaching poverty. After the officer had gone Tolstoi gave orders to turn the old horse out to pasture and for a time abstained from riding. But as he required exercise and could not walk with any comfort, he took to riding a common work-horse; but ultimately he had Delire shod again. He had a characteristic exchange of letters with Bernard Shaw, who sent him his "Showing up of Blanco Posnet" and ended the letter accompanying it with the jesting question, " Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one ?" Tolstoi could not agree with Shaw's theology and he reprimanded him for the flippant question. He thought the problem about good and evil too important to be spoken of in jest. One of the most powerful and effective of all Tolstoi's articles came out the last year of his life. It was entitled "Three Days in a Village. " It describes with marvelous vividness all the wretchedness, the degradation, and the sordid squalor of a typical Russian village. This more " TITAN IN FOUL CIRCUMSTANCE" 399 than any of his works aroused the wrath of the authorities, and yet it was read with more avidity than almost any other of his later works except "Resurrection." After his death his daughter proposed to establish a sort of rest-house or caravanserai where homeless wanderers might find shelter. But the peasantry of the vicinity strenuously objected and the Countess Aleksan- dra wrote to the Vyestnik Yevropui a letter explaining the reason for the abandonment of the plan and quite justifying the peasants in their objections. In many of Tolstoi's letters he speaks of his spiritual contentment. It therefore comes as a not unexpected surprise — knowing how dissatisfied he was to live in a big house, with liveried servants and surrounded with what he called luxury — to read a letter to his wife written in the early morning of the twenty-seventh of July, 1910. After being sent from room to room it was handed to the countess. He wrote: — "I might continue to live on in this way, if I could calmly endure thy sufferings. But I cannot. Yesterday thou went out irritated and suffering. I wanted to go to sleep, but I began not so much to think as to be conscious of thee and I could not sleep; and I listened for an hour, for two hours, and then I fell into a doze and still I listened and in a dream or what was almost a dream I saw thee. "Think calmly, dear friend, listen to thine own heart, trust thy feelings, and thou wilt decide upon whatever is necessary. I will say that for my part I have decided irrevocably what I must do. Goliibushka, darling, cease tormenting not others, but thyself, thyself. Because thou sufferest a hundred times more than the rest. This is all." He had written a similar but much longer letter to his wife in June, 1897. It was found among his papers after his death and published by the countess in the Novoye Vremya. In it he spoke of the discord between his religious views and the temptations to which he 4 oo THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI was exposed. "The chief thing is that, just as the Hindus when nearing sixty retire into the woods, and as old religious men seek to devote their last years to God and not to jokes, puns, gossip, or tennis, so for me entering into my seventieth year, the all soul-absorbing desire is for tranquillity, for solitude.'' He said that he had long desired to do this and the fact that he was about to do it did not mean that he was displeased with her, but during the last fifteen years they had drifted apart. "I cannot blame you that you did not follow me, but I thank you and lovingly remember and shall continue to remember you for what you gave me." There was no immediate change, but on the tenth of November, Tolstoi, finally exasperated by the conditions of his life at home,* left Yasnaya in the darkness of the early morning with his friend and physician, Dushan Petrovitch Makovitsky, never to return. He left a letter of explanation for his wife. It said : — "My departure will wound thee; I regret it, but thou must realize and believe that I cannot do otherwise. My position at home is unendurable. , I cannot longer live in these conditions of luxury in which I have been living and I am doing what old men of my age are accustomed to do. They escape from the worldly life so as to live their last days in solitude and peace. Please understand this and do not follow me, even if thou knowest where I am. If thou shouldst do so it would not alter my decision. " I thank thee for thy honorable life of forty-eight years with me and I beg thee to forgive me for all wherein I have been to blame toward thee, just as I forgive thee * Peasants had cut down and carried off wood from the estate; the countess proceeded against them; he felt they had a right to take it, as it was theirs as much as his. Other conflicts arising from "the rights of property," which he did not recognize and which the countess, in her management of the estate, insisted upon regarding, made him very unhappy. A Late Portrait of Count Tolstoi. "TITAN IN FOUL CIRCUMSTANCE" 401 with all my heart for whatever thou hast been to blame toward me. I advise thee to reconcile thyself to the new situation in which my departure leaves thee and do not bear me any ill will." For the last time he had gone forth to seek the Blue- bird Happiness. CHAPTER VII THE WOUNDED LION SEEKS A LAIR It was a gray, gloomy morning long before light when this modern Buddha stole away from the home where he might have enjoyed every comfort, every luxury. He was driven to the little railway station of Shchyokino, where he dismissed the coachman. Until the train arrived he walked in great agitation up and down the platform in the chilling damp air. Then he took his seat and leaned back in weariness on the cushion which the doctor had arranged for him. After a journey of fifty-five versts in comparative comfort, he left the coach at Gorbatchyovo and entered a dirty, ill- ventilated third- class car attached to a freight train and rode with a crowd of ill-smelling workmen one hundred and five versts to Kozyel'sko, whence he was driven eighteen versts to the Optin Pustuin Hermitage and from there to the nunnery at Shamardino, where his sister was living her secluded life. He called to see her and was not re- fused admittance. The testimony of his physician and his diary show that at first his soul was intensely satisfied with his new freedom. At Shamardino he wrote a letter at four o'clock in the morning to his nieces "Mashenka" and"Lizanka," asking them not to be surprised and not to be offended for his having gone away without bidding them farewell. He thanked them for the love and sympathy which they had always shown him, and here also he expressed his joy at having taken the final and irrevocable step. He slept at the monastery and is thought to have caught cold from the open ventilator of the window, his 402 THE WOUNDED LION SEEKS A LAIR 403 power of endurance having undoubtedly been weakened by the dreadful atmosphere of the car. From Shamar- dino he was driven back to KozyePsko in a cold pouring rain, and increased his cold by the exposure. What his intentions were after returning to the railway station cannot be definitely told. His great desire was to shun publicity. Like a sick lion he must have known that his death was at hand, and with the instinct to go away and hide until the great change should come, he sought the wilderness, doubling on his tracks to elude the impertinence of the inquisitive. Yet he could not help realizing that this unusual step would not only cause his family deep distress but also create a powerful sensation throughout the world. His daughter, Aleksandra, who had joined him, told a re- porter that they noticed that some one was deliberately following them on the train, and although he several times changed his disguise, they were aware of his presence. It became very unpleasant and annoying to her father, and every effort was made to throw the spy off his track. Tolstoi's great desire was to gain a few days and then to find some way of keeping out of sight. And so she and the doctor acquiesced in his desire to keep on the move. But she did not say where he intended ultimately to find a resting-place except to intimate that if he could have secured a passport he would have gone abroad. Some think that he w T as intending to join a Tolstoian community* on the shores of the Black Sea or in the Caucasus. At all events, he continued his journey south until he reached Rostof-on-the-Don, nearly two hundred versts farther. He was already feeling ill but still he pushed on until, on the fourth day, he was compelled to leave the train at the little village of Astapovo, more than one hundred versts from Rostof. He was carried to the humble little old red house of the station-master, I. I. Ozolin, and there his illness grew * See Appendix II. 4 o4 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI so serious that his family was notified and six physicians were immediately enlisted in the desperate battle to save his life. Before they came he whispered in his feeble voice to his daughter and to his friends Tchertkdf and Boulanger, who were by his bedside, " There are so many suffering people in the world and you are concerned only with me!" Early in the morning of the twentieth, the Countess Sophia Andreyevna, herself ill from grief and sleepless- ness, reached Astapovo, but when the doctors informed her that her presence in the sick-room might disturb the flickering flame of life, she had the self-control to acqui- esce. Not until he had lost consciousness was she per- mitted to enter the room. Reporters from the Russian newspapers gathered around the house of death and sent telegraphic reports of every change. One message read: — "The minutes drag themselves out painfully like hours. The night is a torture. Day is just dawning. Occa- sionally some one of the family appears at the door. All of them are in the house. " Just before the end came Count Ilya Lvovitch left the house. When he returned ten minutes later the front door was locked. He tapped lightly at the window but no one heeded. Several newspaper correspondents and two storozhd or railway-guards were on the door-step. Ilya Lvovitch knocked again. The window-ventilator was opened and one of the doctors uttered the one word : " Skontchalsa" — "He has passed away." All bent their heads. Some one sobbed. Then deep silence reigned, broken only by the distant whistle of a freight-train. When the door was opened they could hear the sound of sobbing. The station-master was in tears. The police- captain in great agitation was asking if it could be true that the fatal event had taken place. At the station the telegraph operator was wringing his hands, and when asked to send the sad news replied in a THE WOUNDED LION SEEKS A LAIR 405 broken voice, "I cannot, I cannot." All Astdpovo and many of the inhabitants of the neighboring villages solemnly gathered about the house, and after the beloved form had been laved and attired in the well-known blouse and gray trousers and laid on the bed, which was adorned with juniper boughs, they were admitted ten at a time to look on the peaceful features of the man they all loved. Bowing to the ground they kissed the cold hand, many of them sobbing as if their hearts would break. Some- what later the correspondent from whose account these details are taken looked into the room and saw the count- ess bent low over the pillow, with her tears streaming over the emaciated face. With her hand she was smoothing his noble forehead and exclaiming in broken accents: "Dusha rnoyd! Zhizw? moyd!" As she heard the man's steps, she looked up with stony politeness and turned back the covering as far as the belt. The correspondent knelt before the bier and touching his head to the floor and trembling with emotion whis- pered: — " O great spirit, accept my last earthly farewell in the name of all who have been awaiting news of thee, of all who have read with anxiety and hope the tidings of thy welfare. No one knows, great teacher of humanity, but that thou art still in our midst. " The body seemed to have shrunk; the face had greatly changed; the nose was sharp; the skin was like parch- ment; the eyes were closed. A white handkerchief was bound about the lower jaw, hiding the gray beard. The hands, shriveled and dark, lay on his breast. And it seemed to the imagination of the correspondent that the bare walls of the little red house opened out into infinity, so that the whole world might gaze on the grand, peaceful face of the prophet, with his lofty brow shining with the light of the loftiest thoughts. "Even in the grave," said he, "he asks the world his direct, inexorable question concerning the real meaning of life. The room 4 o6 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI seemed full of agonized broken lamentations. If not actually heard they are expressed in the utterance of the words VydtchnayaPdmyaf — "Eternal Memory," resound- ing from time to time in the room. Some simple-hearted, gray-haired man stops before the bier, speaks it in deep tones, brokenly, disconnectedly. Words are of little moment. This itself is a lamentation. At the pillow the countess joins in the common grief. This is the heart- stirring litany of lament. "This untroubled face of the dead man in this barren chamber, this singing, the in- harmonious singing of laborers and muzhiks over 'our count,' represent a state of feeling impossible for my feeble pen to reproduce. " When the day came to an end and the swinging lampada was lighted, it shone on the face of one who seemed to sleep and might at any moment awaken. After a time the white handkerchief was removed and all present joined in the Vyetchnaya Pdmyat\ twice repeated. Even into the evening the peasants in their long overcoats stood in groups around the door-step embracing one another. One was heard to comfort the others, saying: — "Fear not for him; he loved the people so." Some of them went in and dropping on their knees kissed the cold hand of the dead, weeping and wiping away their tears. At his pillow had been placed a wreath of forget-me-nots with the inscription: Vyelikomu Dyedushkye — "To our distinguished grandfather." Before the countess could be induced to leave the body of her husband she threw herself upon it and sobbed: "If only sufferings could expiate sins! — there could be greater agony than this. " CHAPTER VIII THE FUNERAL The general attitude of the clergy was shown in the words of the priest of Astapovo, Father Gratsyensky, who when asked if he should make any mention of the count's death in church exclaimed in a startled tone: — "Why! is he dead?" and then, crossing himself, whis- pered, "No, I shall have nothing to say. " The Hermit Varsonofy of the Optin Pustuin, who had been on hand to take advantage of any signs of repentance on the part of the outcast son of the Church, as soon as he heard that death had occurred said, "My mission is at an end;" but when he was asked if the panikhida or antiphonal service for the dead would be performed, he replied, "I know as much about it as I do about the inhabitants of the moon." The Bishop of Tula, Parfeny, arrived opportunely at Astapovo, as if merely passing through, but it was known that he had been sent by the Holy Synod to secure definite information as to whether Tolstoi before losing conscious- ness had expressed any desire for reconciliation with the Church. Not leaving the train, he had a long conversa- tion with Count Andrei Lvovitch and his sister Tatyana. When he learned that no such desire had been expressed, he said, "Then nothing remains for me but to go on my way." Count Tolstoi had hardly breathed his last when the Ober-Prokuror of the Synod, S. M. Lukyanof, and other high ecclesiastics began to receive telegrams asking instructions. Lukyanof and the Metropolitan Antony had a consultation and decided that if by evening their 407 4 o8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI representatives Bishop Parfeny and Iosif, the Father- superior of the Hermitage, had not sent definite informa- tion regarding Tolstoi's last days, or if they were not assured of Tolstoi's last wishes, which some of the mem- bers of the Synod imagined were favorable to reconcilia- tion, then the only concession that the Synod would per- mit would be for the priest to conduct the body to its burial with the song Svyatui Bozhe — " God of Holiness." The Synod was convened at the residence of the Metropolitan at seven o'clock. In the meantime the Prime Minister Stoluipin, the son of Tolstoi's old Cossack friend, informed the Ober-Prokuror that he had received from Prince Obolyensky, Governor of Ryazan, a telegram announcing that the Tolstoi family had decided to fulfill the expressed will of Count Tolstoi', that his body should be buried as promptly as possible in the cheapest coffin, in the cheapest graveyard, without wreaths, without newspaper notices, without obituary sketches, and if possible without Church services. This telegram pro- duced a most painful impression on the Prime Minister and the Ober-Prokuror. At the meeting of the Synod, Lukyanof made a lengthy speech in which he said that the Church had done all in its power to bring Tolstoi back to the fold. The Hermit Iosif had been intrusted with the task of admonishing the " wandering sheep," while the Bishops of Tula and of Ryazan together with the Father Superior of the Optin Pustuin had been instructed to use all their influence to reconcile him with the Church before his death. Finally he informed the Synod of the telegram from Prince Obolyensky and of a similar one from the countess. The question was then discussed, the members of the Synod being divided in their opinions. Some thought that the fact that Tolstoi had gone from Yasnaya Polyana to the Optin Hermitage in itself showed a change in his feelings and opinions and that this should be reckoned in his favor. Others thought that as Tolstoi had voluntarily THE FUNERAL 409 left the Church his return to it should also be made volun- tarily, while in his latest writings there was not the slight- est sign of such an intention. It was finally decided that in view of Tolstoi's wish and that of the family the Supreme Council of the Church must leave the matter in statu quo. It was also decided to send instructions to all the clergy of Russia to refrain from all liturgical or other services in Tolstoi's memory. Thus the Church took no farewell of her great outcast son. Nevertheless the Countess Tolstaya and several mem- bers of her family, together with Prince Obolyensky, the Hermit Varsonofy, and others, caused a liturgy to be per- formed over the remains at Astapovo. During the service the countess fainted away. Before the remains were removed from the house, the station-master announced that he should leave the room in which Tolstoi had died, exactly as it was. The pro- posal was also made that the little old house should be bought by subscription and made into a memorial either as a school-house to bear his name, or should be repaired and transported to Yasnaya Polyana to be used as a Tolstoi museum. A passenger-coach attached to a freight-train conveyed the dead writer and his family back to the little station of Shchyokino, where it arrived about nine o'clock in the evening. A great crowd had collected, dominated by the ever present police. The Chief of Police of Tula was present, having driven over with his troika. When the train drew up the Countess Aleksandra Lvovna, V. G. Tchertkof, I. Kuzminsky, and a few others dismounted; as the reporter graphically expressed it, " Despair breathed from the little group." The funeral took place the following day — the twenty- second of November. Various explanations were offered for the precipitancy of the interment. Many supposed that it was due to the desire of "the temporal pow r ers" to cut short what they regarded as a " scandalous spectacle." 4 io THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Others thought it was due to the initiative of the family, who were anxious to carry out the great man's wishes. When the countess was asked by the representatives of the Government what should be done about the funeral, she replied, "Let it be as speedily as possible and without formalities. " The local police remained neutral, simply maintaining order in a perfunctory manner, having received no other instructions. But at the grave, persons close to the family declared that "Somewhere, far away, at Petersburg, the highest authorities of the State and of the Church had long before settled the status of the third moral Power represented by the mortal remains of the great Russian; that after long diplomatic conferences the Temporal and the Eccle- siastical Powers had failed to agree, and that the diplomacy of this world had influenced the Ecclesiastical Power to circumvent the will of the great Christian heretic and take charge of the remains under governmental auspices. The family knew of this and had no intention that it should be carried out : hence the unusual haste. The railways at first established an especial train service to accommodate those from a distance who desired to be present; but for some reason the Government interfered and the extra trains were taken off, so that only people from Moscow and neighboring points were enabled to get to Yasnaya Polyana in time. The body in a simple coffin was borne on the shoulders of students and muzhiks and was laid away in a mound at the edge of the ravine, in the very place amid the old oaks where the mysterious "green stick" of his boyhood game, with its secret inscription showing how all men may be happy, was supposed to be hidden. The distinguished author and editor, Vladimir Koro- lenko, who had been sent to describe the event, arrived only on the morning of the following day; when he dis- mounted from his train long before the dawn of the chill, THE FUNERAL 411 gloomy, foggy day, he saw appearing through the mist the dim forms of weary and sleepless pilgrims returning from Yasnaya. Although he was not present, he gathered from those who were there material for an interesting story. " All day long," he said, "from Zasyeka by forest paths and from Tula over the wide highway came the people singly and in groups, on foot and by carriage, to gather round this grave. From time to time some one would sing the Vyetchnaya Pdmyaf; heads were bared; the voices sounded sad and simple; then silence would ensue and all that could be heard would be the rustle of the few dry oak-leaves mingling with the low murmur of the subdued voices of men talking solemnly. ... In the general gossip about everyday affairs mingled streams of conversation about Tolstoi", who had passed forever away from this world into a world of endless mystery and eternal question. People talked about the great Russian writer and the fact that the good man wished 'to go thither' without Church rites, without incense, without the usual farewell of those whom the centuries and the millions of men have recognized as the official potentates of that invisible world with its mysteries and its judg- ments. "The talk on this subject was varied like the murmur of a varied human sea. But into the elemental wide note of this sea broke a new note; into millions of minds as yet untouched fell a new fact, and in millions of hearts stirred a new feeling. This thought and this feeling w r ere those of toleration. "As soon as I entered the third-class car to depart from Zasyeka and Yasnaya Polyana, I heard some one reading poetry. I could only make out snatches, but they pro- duced in me a strange sad feeling of disgust. I borrowed the paper: it was the Kursk Buil\ All the contents of this journal were in the style of the c Black Hundred' — reactionary and venomous. But even the 'Black Hundred' poet speaks of Tolstoi: — 412 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Beneath his magic pen Alive his characters grow; With his genius' heavenly fire His every page is aglow. And though this stanza follows : — His high tempestuous soul In senseless conflict was tost, And in the forests of doubt His mighty talent was lost — still the author refrains from cursing him and does not let loose on his head all the powers of hell. But he says : — For all his errors and sins, To the merciful Trinity Russia's believing hearts Pray, 'Pardoned may he be.' "It is true," continues Korolenko, "it is only a transient gleam; but behold, there is he, under the fascination of a mighty spirit, flashing like heat-lightning over all the ancient ' Black Russia, ' down into depths and up on the heights, compelling her to recognize the man in the excommunicated, to admit the possibility of divine mercy and salvation without ecclesiastical intercession and even without the forgiveness of the Church. "It is true that Tolstoi is a genius, one of the highest pinnacles of humanity, and, since this victory of his, represents exclusively the triumph of genius. But we know how the sun first of all illumines the highest peaks, while on the plains below thick lie fog and gloom. It is indeed a good and encouraging symbol when above the gloom and fog even the illuminated peaks rise clearly !" Some have thought that Tolstoi's death was a tragedy, but it seems clear that in the course of time it will be recognized as the crowning glory of his life. To his family and immediate friends, unable at the time to look beyond the pathetic circumstances, it was of course a bitter thing; but in the great order of events, like the crucifixion of Christ, like the assassination of Lincoln, it concentrated THE FUNERAL 413 into its final act the whole great drama of his moral evo- lution. Had he lived longer, still giving utterance to his views on all questions that would have arisen, and then have died under his own roof, surrounded by the luxuries against which he had in vain protested, there would have remained the serious doubt in the minds of many whether his diatribes against wealth were sincere. But his last great protest, involving with it the absolute renunciation of everything, was like the act of the hermit-king, who, having preserved the jeweled cup that reminds him of his past glory, at last gives that up also that there may be no material possession between his soul and God. CHAPTER IX ESTIMATES OE TOLSTOI* A tidal wave of sorrow swept over Russia and the whole world at the news of Tolstoi's death. Few men have ever been more sincerely mourned. To thousands who had never seen him it came as a personal bereave- ment. " What a tremendous, incomparable loss!" writes a Russian doctor, "and especially to us Russians. We could ill spare him, especially at the present day of almost utter reactionary demoralization, with no ray of hope for a better future. Not within my span of life (and I am forty) has the death of any great man been felt as a personal loss to the extent that Tolstoi's death is felt by all of us. I only hope that this death may serve as a sort of moral shock to awaken the dormant conscience of the Russian 'Intelligentsia' and bring it out of that stupor into which it has been plunged by the events of the last few years." The literary societies of Russia wished to celebrate his life and services, but in many cases the police interfered to prevent. At Voronezh a session of the Society of People's Universities, discussing what memorial to make, was closed. A women's school proposed to give the "Fruits of Enlightenment." It was forbidden. Even compressed air becomes dangerous, and the attempt of the government to repress the Russian intelligence cannot be successful forever. The exaggerated reports of scandalous family dis- sensions which were spread broadcast after Tolstoi's will was read, the story of the attempt of his relatives to * See Appendix III. 414 ESTIMATES OF TOLSTOI 415 induce some American millionaire to buy Y£snaya Polyana at a ridiculously high price, the more or less fabulous accounts of interviews with Tolstoi before his death and with members of his family after his death, show how easily legends cluster about the memory of great men. Undoubtedly the family did desire to dispose of Yas- naya Polyana, but the idea of conferring it as a gift on the peasantry of the district, which was suggested by his daughter, was most in consonance with what were Tolstoi's own wishes. He loved his peasants and they, if at first suspicious of his motives in making himself one of them, came to adore him. The pleasantest picture that is preserved of Tolstoi engaged in his manifold activities is that where we see him advising, teaching, helping those who came to him under the great tree — the a Tree of the Poor" — at Y£snaya Polyana. Tolstoi's will related chiefly to his literary remains, his real estate and other property having been, as we have seen, divided among the members of his family. His unpublished manuscripts were left in trust to his daughter Aleksandra and his friends Tchertkdf and Strakhof, to be published for the benefit of humanity. They were said to consist of two complete novels, "Otyets Syergii" and "Hadji-Murat," the completed, though not wholly revised, second part of "The Cos- sacks," a story entitled "Dnyevnik Kiizmitcha" — "Kuz- mitch's Diary," which may have been intended to form a part of a historical novel relating to Katharine II., Alexander, Araktcheef and other well-known characters, and other manuscripts. Many passages from his stories mutilated by the censor — as for instance the " Sevastopol Sketches," "The Invaders," " Childhood and Boy- hood" and the "Recollections of a Billiard-marker," as well as chapters omitted for the same reason from "War and Peace" — were found in their original form and are to be published. 4 i6 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Among Tolstoi's papers was a passage from his diary under date of April 8, 1895, in which he anticipates the formal expression of his desires regarding his burial and also disposes of his literary remains. Speaking of his diary he said: "The journal of my earlier bachelor life I ask to have destroyed and also whatever from the journals of my married life might, if published, be unpleasant to any one." He expressly states that he does this not because he wanted anything in his life concealed,, for he had only lived as all the young men in his own circle lived, but because he was afraid that these extracts might produce a false impression. He began to write, 1 'They show me up ... ," but did not finish the sentence, and it is supposed that he meant to conclude it with "better than I was." Then he added, "Not- withstanding all the vileness of my life, still I was not abandoned by God and although I began only when well along in life to love and understand God." He explains that he does not give these directions as commands but only as a request because he believed that it would be good for all. " Do good," he says to his lega- tees, "do not do your own will; of course you are not as yet ready," and he makes it evident that the fact that what he produced during the ten years previous had been sold was excessively painful to him. But in June, 19 10, he made a strong effort to overcome his repugnance to the idea that his works should bring in money and provided that for a time, a very short time only, after his death, they might be sold under the pro- viso that as soon as the Yasnaya Polyana lands were turned over to the peasants then all his literary remains should "be given to the world." He requested that his friends should refrain from all praise of him and should prize only those passages where the power of God spoke through him, for at least then the Truth was delivered through him and "then were the happiest moments of his life." ESTIMATES OF TOLSTOI 417 In the case of some men time is required to determine their relative position. In many instances a few years have seen a great shrinkage in reputations; in others they have risen like mountain peaks that have been hidden by too close proximity. As Tolstoi's tendency was to simplify and make little allowance for conditions, it becomes easy to put him into his place, which certainly belongs with the very greatest men of not only his time but of all time. One may qualify his life-work by all sorts of attenuations; one may strip it of a large part of its practicability for imitation; the very fact of its openness to criticism leaves the residue separate and clear. The good and bad of many men are like a chemical mixture, difficult to analyze and disentangle; others remind one of a nut where the shell entirely separates from the kernel. Tolstoi depicted himself with utter frankness. His growth, his changes in opinion, as he himself said, were a proof of his sincerity. He went through the whole gamut of human passions; who better, therefore, than he could know the dangerous music that those chords utter in the ears of men ? Practically even now we have Tolstoi's complete figure and can estimate him both as a novelist and as a philosopher. Not all will have the same opinion of him, either as a writer or a theologian. It is quite possible to agree that his style is often clumsy and tautological. He repeats himself; he gets tangled up in long sentences, which, however, are not so obscure in Russian as they are when translated into English; he is careless of details; he is, like Homer, fond of applying the same adjective again and again, as for instance the epithet "krasivoi," handsome, to every muzhik. He likes too much to indulge in long-winded digressions. He stands (at least in his two great novels) at the very antipodes to Turgenief. But, after all criticism is said, what a vivid touch he 4i 8 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI has in descriptions; how skillfully he picks out the char- acteristics of his heroines, how certain his hand is in all analysis of motives, how dramatic his instinct! In the case of many of the Russian writers one can trace their literary pedigree. Just as one can trace Thackeray's literary kinship to Fielding, so the great masters of modern Russian fiction hark back to Gogol and to Pushkin. In all of them we find the cult of the "type" of which the Russian critics are always prating. Dickens delineated individual or exaggerated characters, but in Gogol's "Dead Souls," in Turgenief's artistic novels, beginning with the "Zapiski Okhotnika," in Gon- tcharof's "Oblomof ," and in the long and rather portentous lucubrations of Mikhailof (influenced though they are by Dickens), the heroes are recognized — they are types. Oblomof is such a perfect type of the lazy, easy-going Russian who does not bother to have his dishes washed because he will have to soil them again the next day, that the word oblomovism was coined to represent that essen- tially Slavic nature. So does Rudin stand for another, and one might mention scores of clear-cut characters, representing distinct sections of Russian life. Tolstoi puts before us one type — the representative of himself. That self-type, however, has so many phases that it is not monotonous as in the case of Byron's heroes. He tells what books had the greatest influence upon him but in his style it is difficult to recognize their pattern. If he was a realist, he was a realist like most of the Russian novelists. The conversations, particularly those of the peasants, seem to be registered almost phonographically. The memory and the note-book combine to give a dialogue of wonderful naturalness. And contrasted with the serious matter one finds the gay trivialities of fashionable society also caught with clever accuracy. One comes back after all to the universal judgment of those who read his novels understanding^ and appre- ciatively, that life itself is depicted. In this respect, ,srr f />j.jt£t **//*£-/*■< ^ssJ //£#"* ^^4 ■*/*/*"» Jmj'< *? Jh* 'zaM"j*'< 4s*& a/a,* ESTIMATES OF TOLSTOI 419 paradoxically, he is a creator, a poet, and as such will more and more stand forth as the greatest ever produced by Russia and one of the greatest in all modern times. Andrew D. White says that Tolstoi's chief defect was that, having lived for the most part in the interior of Russia and traveled little, he had developed opinions without modification by rational exchange of thought with other men. " Under such circumstances,' ' he says, "any man, no matter how noble and gifted, having given birth to striking ideas, cuddles them and pets them until they become the full-grown spoiled children of his brain. " But Tolstoi did not believe that travel was necessary for an intellectual man. The world came to him. He is constantly depicted as having violent discussions with the ablest men of his own country. These men who attacked him — men also from other lands — found him obstinately entrenched in his opinions and their argu- ments, however sound, only confirmed them. If Turgenief, living for a large part of his life in France, still retained to the last his Slavic character, still wrote books absolutely Russian in spirit, then we may be sure that travel would not have modified but would rather have intensified Tolstoi's idiosyncrasies. He was an individualist of the most pronounced type and an individualist he would have remained. He always stood aloof from concerted action with others. It was impossible for him to pull in harness. Hence he was oftentimes out of touch and oftentimes in ill favor with parties in Russia. He was alone. It is perhaps impossible to refrain from comparing him with other men. Many such comparisons were made at the time of his death. Anatole France, speaking of his ability to see with his spiritual eyes horizons invisible to other men, declares that in this respect he was like Homer, and like Homer is destined to live during all the ages to come. He also says that he will be to Russia what Voltaire has been to France. 420 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Gerard Hauptmann placed him on the same level with Buddha, with Martin Luther and with the other great reformers of the world. Octave Mirbeau called him "the giant of universal literature, through whose writings, all of them, like a beautiful thread ran his love and sympathy for mankind." The well-known French dramatist, Henri Bataille, compared him to Moses who by a blow of his rod caused the healing waters to gush forth from the rock. Jules Claretie compared him to the Wandering Jew, with the sole difference that Tolstoi, "the apostle of forgiveness and mercy, became the 'tramp' of world- wide sympathy." Doctor Kralik, of Vienna, the greatest living repre- sentative of clerical philosophy, though he regarded him as a "sectant" in religion and art, and though he declared that all sectants being "rigorists" were laboring under error, though he called him an "Utopian" in that while he had the highest intentions he nevertheless forgot that the sufferings of humanity were inevitable, at the same time indirectly compared him to Christ and said that his crown of thorns was his desire to depart from this life. His services, he said, consisted in his awakening of the human conscience, his demand for essential reforms. Prof essor Ludwig Stein, of Berlin, declared that human- ity had lost in Tolstoi an apostle, a saint, whom in days to come the Church would canonize, and predicted that Nietzsche, Bjornson and Ibsen would shine pallid in the bright image of the greatest of their contemporaries. Leopold von Schroder, Professor of Philosophy at Vienna, called him the Russian Buddha. "He was the Prometheus Bound, the great martyr and at the same time the marvelous conqueror, enlightening the world. Notwithstanding his lack of success in the practical accomplishment of his ideals, Tolstoi' gave a great impulse to the world. Only Philistines can regard him as a visionary. Such a visionary was Christ." ESTIMATES OF TOLSTOI 421 Perhaps the most obvious and striking likeness that one can find among the men of the past with whom to compare Tolstoi* is Jean- Jacques Rousseau, and one can- not avoid the thought that the impulse to many of the great Russian writer's idiosyncrasies must have come from the author of "Emile," whom Tolstoi so adored in his early youth. If the comparison be only superficial, it is certainly, remarkable. As children both Rousseau and Tolstoi were left to be brought up by relatives. Both Rousseau and Tolstoi were impelled to examine into the claims of various forms of religion. Both taught, and not having had the right training for teaching both failed, recogniz- ing their failure and its cause. Both in their early days lived immoral lives and described their evil deeds with vivid details in their journals. Both were interested in music. Rousseau wrote a hymn tune (" Rousseau's Dream"); Tolstoi composed a waltz. Rousseau in his " Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" denounced all culture, literary, scientific, musical or graphic, as directly leading to corruption; Tolstoi's views on Progress, on Literature, Painting and Music are not dissimilar. Rousseau in his " Discourse on the Origin of In- equality" argues that all civilization is a state of social degradation and that the ignorant condition of the savage is the ideal of simplicity and perfection. Rousseau declared all property to be the result of one man's violently taking it from others; that all wealth is a crime, all government tyranny, all social laws unjust. In order to give emphasis to these views he lived in the humblest manner, dressed shabbily and acted churlishly to show his independence; he also quarreled with his friends; his views on rulers and government expressed in his " Contrat Social" and in " Emile," while giving him his reputation, made him obnoxious to the State; and his revolutionary teaching about religion caused him to be persecuted by the Church. He fled 422 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI from his own country and died under tragic circum- stances. In nearly all these particulars there is a parallel in Tolstoi's life. Rousseau made lace; Tolstoi* made boots. Rousseau's later views on education were revolutionary; so were Tolstoi's. This comparison is based on the external conditions of their lives rather than on their ethical and religious teachings. Tolstoi's are immeasurably higher than Rousseau's. It is interesting to notice as time goes on that the world has rapidly settled down into the opinion that Tolstoi, great, perhaps incomparably great, as he is as a novel- ist, is great principally as one of the mightiest moral forces of his day in concrete human form. Occasionally a Churchman will be found like Cardinal Vanutelli, who confesses his own narrowness and ignorance by declaring, "I do not know Tolstoi, I have never read one of his books;" but the Church especially must stand up before his ideal and be judged by his inexorable Truth. Inde- pendent Thought has the right to criticise his premises and find fault with his Weltanschauung; but those that claim to follow the Carpenter of Nazareth who had not where to lay his head, who was the friend of publicans and sinners, who preached the Gospel of Peace, must ask themselves, "Wherein are we Christians?" Tolstoi has put before the world his touchstone of Truth. It may well be that it is not of universal appli- cation. If every man could be absolutely independent of every other, each little circle or globule of personality not touch- ing any other or blending with others, then the simplicity* * His simplification of everything is shown in a definition of religion expressed in a letter written in English to John Coleman Kenworthy: "Christianity for to be powerful (sic) must be pure from all melange — of Dogmatism, Sentimentalism, Evangelism, as well as of Socialism, Anarchy, or Philanthropism." He taught that the greatest enemy of humanity is social Democracy. ESTIMATES OF TOLSTOI 423 of his ideal life would be practicable. But life is com- plicated. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and it seems hardly desirable that all men should be brought down to a dead level of uni- formity. The poor man who possesses the true philos- ophy of life can feel no bitterness against those who have more than he. There are always compensations, and happiness, like the air, is fairly well divided among all who fulfill the laws of nature. Just as the healthy man is unconscious of his bodily functions, so may any one attain the Nirvana of delight even in this Samsara of physical existence and can at least be happy in making others happy. In this way only does the Oiseau Bleu settle in his nest. The story of Tolstoi's struggles to conquer his passions, his failures, the undoubted truths that he inculcated, aside from the extremes to which he went, his clear summons to do the right thing, his courage in upholding his views, his unbounded generosity, the love that he manifested to humanity at large, all combine to make him a tremendous influence in the world. He caused millions of men to think for themselves and woke them from complacent selfish dreams to realize their responsi- bilities. The good that he advocated was so good that it cannot fail to better the world. One may not be able to accept all of his teaching, and it would be undoubtedly a misfortune if many should follow him to the full length; but the gold in the sand is distinct and precious, and it is easy to sift it out and add it to the riches of human thought. APPENDIX I CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF COUNT LYOF NIKOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOI N.S. 1822. Marriage of Count Nikolai Ilyitch Tolstoi and the Princess Mariya Nikolayevna Volkonskaya. 1823. Nikolai Nikolayevitch Tolstoi" (Nikolenka) born. 1826. Sergye'i Nikolayevitch Tolstoi (Seryozha) born. 1827. Dmitri Nikolayevitch Tolstoi (Mitenka) born. 1828. September 9. Lyof (Leo) Nikolayevitch Tolstoi' born. 1830. Countess Marya Nikolayevna Tolstaya born. 1830. March 19. Death of Tolstoi's mother. 1833. The idea of the " Ant-Brotherhood. " 1837. Death of Count Nikolai Ilyitch Tolstoi and of the grandmother Tolstaya, n£e Princess Gortchakova. 1841. Death of the Tolstois' guardian, the Countess Osten- Saken. Family moves to Kazan. 1844. L. N. becomes a student of Turkish- Arabic languages in the Philosophical Faculty of Kazan University. 1845. Transfers to Law Faculty. Ceases to believe in prayer or go to church. Writes essay comparing Montesquieu's "De l'Esprit des Lois" with Kath- arine's Viliki Nakdz; Commentary on Rousseau's Discussions. 1846. Becomes dissatisfied with his manner of life. 1847. Leaves the university. Stays at Y£snaya Polyana with his Aunt Tatyana Yorgolskaya (Erglskaya). 1848. Passes two examinations at Petersburg. Plans to enter regiment of horse-guards. Returns to Yas- naya. 1849. Starts school for Peasant children at Yasnaya. 1850. "Living an animal but not wholly disorderly existence, abandoning all occupations, vacant in mind." 425 426 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI 1851. May 2. Departs for the Caucasus. Autumn at Tiflis, writing " Childhood. " 1852. Jan. Appointed Junker in Fourth Battery of Artil- lery. — Prefers simplicity (firostotd) above all other qualities. — " Childhood" {Dyetstvo) comes out in Sovremennik (" Contemporary") under initials L. N. T. September 18, "The Cossacks" {Kazaki) begun. 1853. Jan. Writes "The Raid" (Nabyeg). Serves against Shamyl. March 2, nearly killed by grenade. "The Raid" appears in the Sovremennik. Writes "Recollections of a Billiard Marker" {Zapiski Markyora). July to Oct., stays at the mineral springs of Pyatigorsk (Besh-tau). Quite dissat- isfied with his mode of life; determines to change it. War between Russia and Turkey, 1854. Jan. 25. Passes his officer's examination. — Feb., at Yasnaya. — March, starts for Bukharest. — At Siege of Silistria. — French and English land at Crimea (Sept. 26) — Oct., "Boyhood" {Cjtrotchestvo) pub- lished in Sovremennik. — Tolstoi reaches Sevastopol. 1855. Jan. "Recollections of a Billiard Marker" {Zapiski Markyora) published.— May 2 5- June, serves in Fourth Bastion. — June, "Sevastopol in December" Sevastopol f Dekabrye) — Aug. "Sevastopol in August" {Sevastopol f Av gusty e) — Sept., "The Cut- ting of the Forest" {Rubka Lyesa). — Russians aban- don Sevastopol — Tolstoi returns to Petersburg with despatches. — March 17, conceives idea of founding a new religion. — First meeting with Fyet. 1856. "Sevastopol in May" {Sevastopol f Maye). — Jan. Death of brother Dmitry — March, peace declared — March, "The Snow Storm" (MetySP)-Mzy, "Two Hussars" {Dva Guss&ri) — Dec, Tolstoi' leaves the army — Dec, "Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance" {Vstretcha f Otradnom) — Dec, "The Morning of a Proprietor" (JJtro pomyeshchika written in 1852). 1857. Jan. "Youth" {Yunost'). Feb.-Aug., Journey abroad. — Sept., " Lucerne "(Iz Zapisok Kn. Nyekhlyudova). 1858. Visits Petersburg and Moscow. — March, helps found the Moscow Musical Society. — Aug., "Albert" (writ- APPENDIX I 427 ten in Jan.) — Signs Resolution of the 105 nobles regarding Emancipation. 1859. Jan. 3. Encounter with infuriated bear. — Writes " Three Deaths" (Tri Smerti). — Feb. 16, Address on v Art before Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. — April, "Family Happiness" (Seme'inoye Stchastye) — Establishes school at Yasnaya. i860. Summer: Berlin, Dresden, Kissingen. — Oct. 2, Niko- lai Nikolayevitch T. dies at Hyeres. — Visits Florence, Rome, Naples, Marseilles. — Writes "Polikushka" — Writes "Necrolog of Dr. Visnevsky. " 1 86 1. Paris, London; meets Herzen. — May, returns to Rus- sia. — June 7: challenges Turgenief. — Arbiter or Umpire of the Peace (Mirovoi posrednik) of Fourth section of the Krapivensky District. — Writes "Khol- stomyer." 1862. Feb. Yasnaya Poly ana magazine appears — Attacks progress: "The Law of Progress or Perfection is written in the soul of every man and only in conse- quence of error is carried over into history. Left to the individual, this law is useful and practicable for every one; transported into history it becomes empty, foolish balderdash, leading to the justification of every kind of absurdity and fantasy" (from Yasnaya Poly ana) . May. Discharged from office of Arbiter — Goes to Samara for kumys cure. — Police Raid on Yasnaya. — Oct. 5: marries Sofiya Andreyevna Behrs (Bers, Beers) — ("A happy and a new, entirely new man. ") Abandons school. Loses 1000 rubles at Chinese billiards — Raises money on "The Cossacks" — "Concerning Popular Education "(O narodnom Ob- razovanii) — "Concerning Methods of Teaching Reading" (O Metodakh obutcheniya Gramotye) — "Project of a General Scheme of Popular Schools" (Proyekt obshchavo Plana narodnuikh Utchilishch) — "Education and Culture" (Vospitdniye i Obrazo- vdniye) — "Progress and the Definition of Culture" (Pr ogres i Opredyelyeniye Obrazovdniya) — "Whom shall the Art of Writing be Taught by — by Peasant children to us or by us to Peasant Children? (Romuu 428 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Kovo utchifsa Pisat : Krestyanskim Rebyatam u nas Hi Nam u Krestyanskikh Rebydt?) — "Yasnaya Polyana School in November and December" (Yasnopolyanskaya Shkola za Noyabr' i Dyekabr'). 1863. Jan. "The Cossacks" (Kazaki)— Feb., "Polikush- ka " — " Dekabrists " (Dekabristui) begun. — July, eldest son, Sergyei' Lvovitch born. Writes two comedies: "The Nihilist" {Nihilist) and "The In- fected Family " (Zarazhennoye Semeyestvo) . ' ' Son — of little interest (tnalo blizok) to me. " " Choice long made: Literature, Art, Pedagogics, Family. Incon- sistency, timidity, laziness, weakness — my enemies." 1864. "War and Peace" (Vo'ind i Mir) begun. — Collected edition of works in four volumes. — Oct., birth of eldest daughter, Tatyana Lvovna. 1865. First part of "War and Peace" — Visits Borodino. — "I begin to love my son" — Worried by the symp- toms of famine among the people. 1866. May. Second son, Ilya Lvovitch born. — June, defends the soldier, Vasili Shibunin before Court Martial. Shibunin executed August 21. 1867. Goes to Moscow for the winter. Still troubled with ill health. 1868. "War and Peace " having great vogue (three vols. pub. this year). Plans his Primer (Azbuka). 1869. June 1. Third son, Lyof Lvovitch born. Nov., sixth and last vol. "War and Peace. " Begins writing and translating stories for children. Begins special study of the Drama. 1870. Takes up study of Greek. 187 1. Feb. 24. Second daughter, Marya Lvovna born. Studying Greek from morning till night. Summer at Samara for kumys. Meets Hadji- Murat. Buys 2000 acres of virgin land. Reads the Koran. "Regarding the Samara Famine" (O Samarskom Golodye). 1872. "My Azbuka gives me no leisure for other occupa- tions." — "These days I am driven wild with trying to finish my Arithmetic." — "I am convinced that I have erected a monument in my 'A'zbuka.' " Jan. Starts school again. — "God Sees the Truth" APPENDIX I 429 (Bog pravdn vidit, da nye skoroSkazhet) — " A Prisoner in the Caucasus" (Kavkazsky Plennik) — Fourth son, Piotr Lvovitch born June 25. — September, confined to Yasnaya by Magistrate because of truculent bull. — Threatens to go to live in England. — Nov., "Az- buka. — Plans novel of Peter the Great's time. — Plans bast-shoe University for peasantry. — Terribly depressed. 1873. May. Goes with family to Samara — Samara Famine. Appeals for funds. March 31, "Anna Kardnina" begun. — Kramskoi's portrait of L. N. T. — Nov. 21, Death of son Piotr. 1874. Jan. 27. Speaks before Moscow Society of Literacy on the Teaching of Reading. April 4, fifth son, Nikolai Lvovitch born. — July 2, death of Aunt Tatyana Yorgolskaya. — Pub. article "On Popular Education" (1875?). (Q narodnom Obrazovanii) . — Busied with Educational affairs. — Enters Zemstvo. — Buys addi- tional land at Nikolskoye; tries to borrow 10,000 rubles on mortgage of Fyet. Fyet refuses. 1875. "New Primer" (Nov ay a Xzbuka). — Four Russian Reading Books. — Four Slavonic Reading Books. — March 4, death of Nikolai Lvovitch — First in- stalment of "Anna Karenina" — Summer: Horse- races on Samara estate. — Nov. 13, third daughter, Varvara Lvovna born and dies. Dec, death of Aunt Pelageya Yushkova. 1876. Conversation with the priest Vasily Ivanovitch; begins to attend Church services. — Four new instalments of "Anna Karenina." — Lack of mental tranquility. — Buys horses in Orenburg. — Dec, meets Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky — Goes to Moscow to learn about the War (between Russia and Turkey). — Quarrels with Katkof. 1877. Final installments of "Anna Karenina" — Summer: Pays first visit to the Optin Pustuin or Hermitage — Tormented with spiritual problems — Dec. 18., sixth son, Andrei Lvovitch born. 1878. Writes second beginning of "The Dekabrists." — May, renews relations with Turgenief — June 15, "Yesterday I wrote a good deal in a little boot. I 43o THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI myself do not know why — on Faith. " Aug. 19, Turgenief at Ydsnaya. — Engages V. G. Alekseyef, a socialist, as tutor for his sons. — " First Recollec- tions" (Pyervuiya Vospomindniya). — Writing "Con- fession" (Ispovyed) — Summer with family at Samara. November: Busy writing; "his eyes fixed and strange; he scarcely talks at all; has entirely ceased to belong to this world" (Letter from Count- ess). 1879. June. Makes pilgrimage to the catacomb-monastery at Ki£f — Visits Fyet. — Many visitors at Yasnaya: "All, including myself, were gay" — Autumn, aban- dons Church fasting. "Alas! he is writing some sort of religious discussion. He reads and thinks until his head aches, and all to show how incompatible the Church is with the Gospel teachings. Hardly ten people in Russia will be interested in it; but nothing can be done about it. I only wish he would make haste and finish it and that it would pass like an illness" (Letter from Countess) . 1880. Jan. 1. Tenth child, Mikhail Lvovitch born. — Spring: Refuses to take part in Pushkin Jubilee. — Visit from Turgenief — Writes "A Criticism of Dogmatic Theology (Kritika dogmatitcheskava Bogosloviya). — "Summer and a charming Summer and as usual I become intoxicated with life and forget my work." 1881. Letter to the Emperor Alexander III. in behalf of the tsaricides. "Concordance and Translation of the Four Gospels" (Soyedineniye i Perevdd Che- tuirekh Yevangelii). — "He has very much changed. He has become a most sincere and ardent Christian. But he has grown gray; his health is worse and he is quieter and more depressed" (Letter from Countess) — June, pilgrimage on foot to Optin-Pustuin. — July: "I am not well. Have not slept or eaten anything solid for four days. Have tried to feel happy. Dif- ficult but possible. I am conscious of making prog- ress toward it" (Diary) — Visits Turgenief at Spas- skoye. "Short Exposition of the Gospels" (Krdtkoye Izlozheniye Yevangeliya) "What Men Live by" (Tchyetn Liudi Zhivui). — Nov. 12, eleventh child, APPENDIX I 431 Aleksei* Lvovitch born. Goes to Samara; finds in- spection of property "an unendurable occupation. " — Discusses with the Molokans — September: Tur- g£nief at Yasnaya: dances the cancan. "I often wish to die" (Diary) Autumn: Family settles in hired house at Moscow. Oldest son enters uni- versity of Moscow. — L. N. goes to Tver; meets Sutayef — Saws wood for exercise. 1882. Acquaintance with Gay and Mikhailovsky. — Slum- ming in Moscow — Writes "The Census in Moscow" (O Perepisi f Moskvye) — Addresses Moscow Duma on destitution — Censor destroys printed sheets of "My Confession" — Summer at Yasnaya; takes part in "Post-box" sport — Autumn: Buys house in Moscow for 36,000 rubles. — Studies Hebrew with Rabbi Minor. "I am very deeply grieved about it: he wastes his energies on trifles" (Letter from Countess) — Drops use of title. — Letter to M. A. Engelhardt on Non-resistance — (Pismo k N. A T .) — "If the seed is of God, then no doubt it will grow (Diary)" — Writes Church and State (Tserkov' i Gosudarstvo); "The Kingdom of God" {Tsarstvo Bozhiye); "In what consists Happiness?" (F Tchyem Stchastye?) 1883. January: writing "What do I believe?" or "My belief" {F Tchyem moyd Vyera?) — "He is a leader: one who goes ahead of the crowd, pointing the way men should go. But I am the crowd; I live in its current. ... I cannot go faster; I am held by the crowd and by my environ- ment and habits." (Letter from Countess.) Fire at Yasnaya — Tolstoi sought by many titled imi- tators and others. May: goes to Samara. "I am in a serious, not joyful but tranquil mood and cannot live without work — Letter from Tur- genief: "My friend — great writer of the Russian land — listen to my appeal." — Sept. 3, death of Turgenief. — L. N. refuses, from religious scruples, to serve on Krapivny jury: fined 100 rubles. — Pre- pares paper on Turgenief s literary career. Nov. 4, lecture before Soc. Lovers of Rus. Lit. can- 432 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI celed by Police. — Takes first lesson in shoe-mak- ing — celebrates it by dancing a waltz. — Makes acquaintance of V. G. Tchertkdf. 1884. Jan. Prints fifty copies of "My Belief" which are confiscated by the Ecclesiastical Censor, three fragments of "Dekabrists" published. Gay paints TVs portrait. — June 30, daughter Aleksandra Lvovna born. — L. N.'s first attempt to escape from " intolerable luxury." — Proposes to turn estate over to his wife — Visits Gay at Tchernigof — Makes acquaintance of P. I. Biryukdf — Musical and Art evenings at the Kham6vniki house — Countess pub- lishes TVs works. 1885. Visits the Crimea with Prince L. D. Urusof. — Founds "The Mediator" (Posrednik) Publishing Society — Writes "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Utcheniye Dvenddtsati Aposioloj) — Publishes: "Three Hermits" (Tri Startsa) ; "If you Neglect the Fire, it Spreads" (Upustish' Ogon — Nye Potushisti ,) — "Where Love is, there God is Also" (GdyeLiubov' Tarn i Bog) — "Two Old Men" (Dva Starikd)— "The Candle" (Svyetchka) — Texts for Wood-Cuts — "Two Brothers and Gold" (Dva Brata i Zoloto) — "Maidens Wiser than Old Men" (Dyevotchki Umneye Starikdf) — Autum: William Frey (V. K. Heins) visits at Yasnaya. L. N. becomes vegetarian; gives up hunting and tobacco. 1886. Jan. 30. Death of Aleksei' Lvovitch — Feb. 26, finishes "What are we to Do then?" (Tak Shto zhe Nam DyelaP?) begun in '84. — June 3: "I am writing a continuation of 'What then are we to do?' and booklets for the people" (From letter) — "Ilyas" — "The Temptation of Christ in the Desert" (Is- kusheniye Khrista f Pustuinye) — "The sufferings of Christ" (Straddniya Khrista) — "The Lord's Sup- per" (Tainaya V etcher') — "The Death of Ivan 1 1 y i t c h " (Smert Ivana Ilyitcha) — " Concerning Women" (O Zhenshchinakh) — "Concerning Charity" (O Blagotvorityelnosti)— "The Tale of Iv£n the Fool" (Skazka ob Ivanye Durakye) — "How the Little Devil Got Back His Crust" (Kak Tchertyonoh APPENDIX I 433 krayushku Vuikupdl) — " The First Distiller" (Pyervui Vinokur, for popular Theater) — "The Repentant Sinner" (Kayushchysa Gryeshnik) — "A Seed Like a Hen's Egg" (Zyemo s Kurinoye Ya'itsd) — "Does a Man need Much Land?" (Mnogo li Tchelovyeku Zemli Nuzhno?) — "The Godson" (Kryestnik) — "Nicholas Stick" (Nikolai Palkin) — Supplement to Nikolai Palkin— "To Whom do we Belong?" (Tchyi Mui?)—" Different Beliefs" (O Raznuikh Vyerakh) — "To Young People" (K Moloduim Liudyam) — "The Power of Darkness" (Vlast' Tmui)— Com- piles "Popular Calendar" — Spring: Walks with young Gay from Moscow to Yasnaya — Summer: — Arrival of Feinermann — Hay-making and barn- building — Visits from George Kennan and D£roulede — and M. A. Stakhovitch — L. N. seriously ill w r ith erysipelas — Nov 12, "All goes well with me. I am happy. God gives me too much" (from Letter to Gay) — Countess Marya Lvovna qualifies as a Primary School teacher. 1887. Jan. "The Power of Darkness" forbidden. — Oct. 4, Silver Wedding — Autumn: Ryepin's first portrait of L.N. (in wadded Dressing-gown), also "Tolstoi plow- ing" — Founds Temperance Society; addresses Psy- chological Society — "In WTiat Consists Truth in Art?" (V tchyem Pravda f Iskusstvye) — Publishes "Calendar with Proverbs" (Kalenddr s Poslovi- tsami)— "On Life" (O Zhizni)—"Uie and Death" (O Zhizni i Smerti) — "Walk in the Light" (Khoditef Svyetye) — "Letter to the Young Ladies of Tiflis. — "Emelyan the Workman" (Rabotnik Yemelydn) — "Three Sons" (Tri Suina) — Writes "The Hollow Drum" (Pustoi Barab&n) — "Power of Darkness" privately performed. 1888. Introduction to the Works of Bondaref ("Industry and Idleness") — Letter to a Frenchman ("Manual Labor and Intellectual Activity": Rutchno'i Trud i Umstvennaya Deyatelnosf). — Feb. 22, "The Power of Darkness" performed at Antoine's Theatre libre in Paris — April 12, ninth son, Ivan Lvovitch born. 434 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI — Writes " Culture's Holiday " (Prazdnik Prosvyesh- cheniya) — " Kholstomyer " published (written 1861). 1889. "Time to Reform!" (Pora Opomnitsa) — " Address to Our Brethren" (Obrashcheniye k Liudyam-bratyam) — "Love to God and One's Neighbor" (Liubvi k Bogu i Blizhnemu) — "The Kreutzer Sonata" — "The Fruits of Culture" (Plodui Prosvyeshcheniya) — Introduction to A. I. Yershof's "Recollections of Sevastopol" — Letter to a Revolutionist. — Corre- spondence with Adin H. Ballou (on Non-resistance). 1890. Jan. 9. "Kreutzer Sonata" read aloud at Yasnaya. Jan. 11, T.'s children and others give first per- formance of "Fruits of Culture" at Yasnaya. — Also given at Tula, and at Tsarskoye Selo before the Im- perial family. — Ryepin paints picture of Tolstoi in his room; also models bust of him. — Summer: Visits Optin Pustuin. — Emperor gives Countess permis- sion to pub. "Kreutzer Sonata" in collected works only. — Bondar^f, Henry George: for Vengerofs "Biographical Dictionary." — New ending to Legend "Forty Years" by Kostomarof — Postscript to "Kreutzer Sonata" — Introduction to Dr. Alice Stockham's " Tokology "—" Why do Men Stupefy Themselves?" (Dlya Tchevo Liudi Odurtndniva- yutsa?) — "Community and Commune" (Obshchina i Mir) — L. N. attacked by Clergy as Anti-Christ. 1891. Feb. 5. First performance of "Fruits of Culture at Moscow Little Theater. — Oct. 1, L. N. divides property among his wife and children — Begins Famine-relief- work. — "The Coffee-House of Surat" (Le Cafe de Surate), free translation from B. de St. Pierre.— "Too Dear" {Trop Cher) from De Mau- passant. — Famine articles — Sept., "Fruits of Culture" at Alexandrinsky Theater. 1892. Famine Articles: "Help to the Starving" (Pomoshch 9 Golodnuim); "A Terrible Problem" (Strashnui Vopros); "Among the Needy" (Sredi Nuzhdayu- shchikhsye) — " The First Step, in Favor of Vegetarian- ism" (Pyrevaya Stupyen?) — "Francoise" {Notre Dame des Vents) from De Maupassant. — Asked to write more plays: "I feel certain the Censor would APPENDIX I 435 not pass my plays. You would not believe how from the very beginning of my activity that horrible censor question has tormented me." — Article in London Daily Telegraph raises storm; L. N. in danger of in- carceration at Suzdal Monastery. — June 30: Work- ing on "The Kingdom of God is within You." "My ideas have not as yet completed their strange necessary and to me unexpected development. (Let- ter to Gay.) — Preface to Howard Williams's "Ethics of Diet." — " Conversation among Leisurely People." — "Reason and Religion" (Letter to Baron Rosen). — Suggests publishing a "Miscellany" to aid the starving peasantry. 1893. Conclusion to "Account of Sustenance for the Starv- ing"— "The Kingdom of God is Within You" (Tsarstvo Bozhiye Vntitri Vas) — Significance of Re- fusal of Military Service" (Znatcheniye Otkaza ot Voenno'i Sluzhbui) . — "Non-acting " (Nedyelaniye) — "The Freedom of the Will" (K Voprosu Svobodye Voli) — "Ripened Ears" (Speluiye Kolosya) (a col- lection of thoughts and aphorisms from L. N.'s private letters, etc.) . Preface to Tr. of Amiel — "The Demands of Love" (Trebovaniya Liubvi, from Diary.) 1894. Feb. Death of E. N. Drozhzhin (the schoolmaster who refused military service and suffered persecu- tion) — June, death of the artist N. N. Gay — "Christianity and Patriotism" (Khristianstvo i Pa- triotizm) — "Religion and Morality" (Religiya i Nrdvstvennosf) — "Reason and Religion" (Razum i Religiya) — Translation of Mazzini's Letter on Im- mortality — Translation of Paul Carus's "Karma, A Buddhist Legend" — Preface to works of Guy de Maupassant — Spring: writes "Master and Man" (Khozyain i Rabotnik) . 1895 March 5. Death of Son Ivan. — July 11, Dukhobortsui attacked by Cossacks — Writes Letter to London Times on "A Persecution of Christians in Russia." — Preface to Life and Death of E. N. Drozhzhin —"Three Parables" {Tri Pritchi)— Preface to Tales of S. T. Semyonof — Postscript to "Persecution of 436 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Christians" — Letter to P. V. Virigin (leader of the Dukhobors) — Letter toaPole (M. Ursin) — " Shame" (Stuidno). — Dec, "Help" {Pomogite) pub. by Biryu- kof, Tregubof, and Tchertkdf. 1896. First public performance of "Power of Darkness" — July, visit of Miss Jane Addams at Yasnaya — "Patriotism or Peace" (P. Hi Mir) (Letter to Man- son). — Letter to Ernest Crosby — "Ecclesiastical De- ception" (O Tserkovnom Obmanye) — Letter to the Ministers — "How to Read the Gospels" (Kak Tchitdf Yevdngeliye) — Letter to the Liberals — "The Beginning (or Approach) of the End" (Pribli- zheniye Kontsd) — Letter to the editor of a German Journal — Second Letter to P. V. Virigin— Letter to the Commander of the Irkutsk Disciplinary Division — Letter to the Commander of the Yekat. Dis. Div. — "Relation to Legal and Governmental Order. — Afterword to "Help."— "For God or Mammon" (Bogu Hi Mamonu) . 1897. Pan-Russian Missionary Congress pronounces Tol- stoism to be a harmful sect. — Threats of assassination — " The Christian Teaching" (Khristyanskoye Utche- niye) — "Tolstoism" (O Tolstovstvye, from Diary) —"What is Art?" (Shto Takoye Iskusstvo?)— The same with variants — (Also called "Art and Not- Art") — June: Marriage of Marya Lvovna to Prince N. L. Obolyensky. — Again plans to leave home: letter to Countess (Posthumous). 1898. Canadian Government agrees to receive Dukhobors — Consents to prepare novel "Resurrection" (Voskrese- niye) "in old manner" for publication in behalf of the Dukhobors — "Carthago delenda est" — 'Fam- ine or No-famine" {Golod Hi nye Golod) — "Two Wars" (Dvye Voinui) — Letters to Feinermann (in Recollections of Teneromo) — Preface to E. Car- penter's "Modern Science" — Letter to a Non- commissioned Officer. 1899. Dukhobor Migration, superintended by Count Sergyei Lvovitch from Batum — "Three Relations to Life" (Tri Otnosheniye k Zhizni) — Letter on Hague Con- ference — "Resurrection" — Letter to V. A. Vlasof — APPENDIX I 437 "Regarding the Transvaal War" — " Religious Edu- cation" {O Religioznom Vospitdnii). — Nov., mar- riage of Countess Tatyana Lvovna to M. S. Sukhotin (Soohoteen). 1900. April: Secret Circular Holy Synod, forbidding clergy to perform religious services for L. N. T. — 111 with influenza and liver trouble — Thoughts concerning Education and Teaching {Muisli Vospitanii i Obutchenii) — " Concerning Suicide" {O Samoubii- stvye) — "Thoughts concerning God" {Muisli Bogye)* — "Patriotism and the Government" {P. i Pravityelstvo) — Letter to the Director of a Popular School — "The Slavery of Our Time" {Rabstvo Ndshevo V Yemeni) — "Thou Shalt not Kill" {Nye Ubi'i). (Relating to the assassination of King Hum- bert of Italy. Edition seized and destroyed in Germany.) — "Where is the Way Out?" {Gdye Vui- khod?) — "Is it really so Necessary?" {Nyeuzheli tak Nado?) 1 901. March 7. Decree of Excommunication — Protest of Countess — L. N. T.'s Reply — University Disturb- ances — Letter to Prince L. D. Vyazemsky (Com- mending him for his attitude) — March 25, Union of Russian Writers dissolved. — Appeal to the Em- peror, March 28 — Visit from Senator Beveridge — Visit from Andrew D. White — Summer: serious ill- ness — Aug., goes to Crimea. — Works on "Hadji Murat." — "Reason, Faith and Prayer" {O Rdzumye, Vyerye i Molitvye) — "The Clockmaker" {Tchasov- shchik) — "The Significance of Life"* {O Smuislye Zhizni) — "The Only Means" {Yedinstvennoye Sred- stvo) — "The Sexual Problem" {O Polovom Vo- • prosy e)* — "The Tolstoi' Society" {O Tolstovskom Obshchestvye) — "The Franco-Russian Alliance" {O frankorusskom Soyuzye) — Letter to a Bulgarian Paper — ' ' Concerning Popular Newspapers ' ' {Po Povodu Narodnuikh Listkof) — "Religious Tolera- tion" {O Vyeroterpimosti). * Three booklets compiled by V. G. Tchertkof f rom letters, diaries, etc. "However carefully and with however good an intent they may be made, I cannot be held responsible for them." 438 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI 1902. Ill at Gaspra with angina pectoris — Jan. 29, writes letter to the Emperor — Recovers, writes "What is Religion ?" (Shto Tdkoye Religiya i f Tchom yeyd SushchnosV ?) — Returns to Yasnaya — August, Ginz- burg models bust of L. N. — Foreign Publisher offers 1,000,000 rubles for copyright of works, refused. — Works at "Hadji Murat;" also on play, "The Corpse" (Trup); also "Father Sergyei" (Otyets Sergyi'i). — Reply to Swedish Society of Artists and Literarians — "On the Relation of "Religion to Life" (O Reli- gioznom Otnoshenii k Zhizni) — "To the Working People" (K Rabotchemu Narodu) — Letter to a Mahometan — Introduction to Von Polents's novel "The Peasant" (Der Buttnerbauer) — Letter to a Hindu — Nov. 14, "Appeal to the Clergy" (Obra- shcheniye k Dukhovyenstvu) — Elected Hon. Member of the Academy. 1903. Yurief University at Dorpat confers Hon. degree — Letter on "Karma" — Five Letters to M. A. Novo- selof — Two Letters to Princess Luisa of Tuscany. — Letter to a person concerning Faith — "The Kishinef Pogrom" — "The Renovation of Hell" (Vozstano- vleniye Ada; a legend) — To Political Agents — "Self Perfection" (O Samosovershyenstvovanii) — Injured by horse — "The Consciousness of a Spiritual Origin; Power and Slavery" (O Soznanii Dukhdvnavo Nat- chala, Vlasti i Rabdtye: Tchertkof's Comp.) — Letter to M. S. D. on Physical Labor — Letter to Octave Mirbeau (in French). . 1 904. Jan. Writes Preface to projected Biography of William Lloyd Garrison, "Garrison and Non-resistance" Telegram concerning the Russ.-Jap. War — "The Red Cross" (O Krasnom Krestye: a reply to the Russian women) — "Bethink Yourselves" {Odumai- tes: Denunciation of the War) — "The Assyrian Tsar, Esarhaddon" (Assiri'isky Tsar Assarkhaddon) — "Three Questions" (Tri Voprosa, Parables) — "Revolution" (O Revolyutsii: a Preface to an article by Tchertkof) — "Thoughts of Wise Men" (Muisli Mudruikh Liudyei) — "Corpse, Death and Illness" Trudy Smyertf i Bolyezrf: an allegory) — Two letters APPENDIX I 439 on Orthodoxy (0 Pravosldvii) — Letters to Countess A. A. Tolstaya (collected, in Recollections of Zakhar Yakunin). Starts " Circle of Reading' ' (Krug Tcheniya). 1905. " Everything relating to the agrarian movement, every- thing included in the social question, constitutes my occupation in Russia" — Letter to a Friend (O Guryskom Dvizhenii) — "The Social Movement in Russia" (Ob Obshchestvennom Dvizhenii f Rossii) — Two Letters to Japanese — "How to Free the Work- ing People" (Kak osvobodifsa Rabotchemu Narodu) — "The One Thing Necessary" (Yedinoye na Po- trebu) — "A Great Iniquity" (Veliky Gryekh: Land- owning) — "Kornei Vasilyef" (short story) — "A Prayer" (Molitva) — Afterword to A. Tchekof's story "Dushetchka" — " Strawberries' ' (Ydgodui) — "The End of the Age" (Konyets Vyeka}— "Recollec- tions of Childhood" (Vospomindniya Dyetstva) — "An Indispensable Revolution" (Nyeobkhodimy Perevordt). 1906. September: Countess ill; relieved by operation — Dec. 9, death of Marya Lvovna Obolyenskaya — "Pascal" (Kr. Teh.) "Piotr Kheltchitsky" (Kr. Teh.) —"Wherefore?" (ZaShto? K. Teh.)— Lamennais" (Kr. Teh.)— "God's and Man's" (Bozheskoye i Tchelovyetcheskoye or "Divine and Human") — "To the People" (K Narodu) — "Military Service" (O Boyenno'i Sluzhbye) — "The Significance of the Russian Revolution" (O Znatchenii Russkoi Revolyu- tsii) — "Circle of Reading" (Krug Tchteniya: Compilation)— "It is Thou" (Eto Tui: Allegory)— Extracts from Diary and Letters (1885-1906) — Letter to a Chinaman — Letter to Paul Sabatier in French (On Catholicism) — "Shakespeare and the Drama"— "What is to be Done?" (Shto zheDyela??). 1907. William J. Bryan visits Yasnaya — Feb. 13, Police seizure of Tolstoi's books. — Holds classes for village children — "Appeal to the Government, the Revolu- tionists, and the People" (Obrashcheniye k PravityeV- stvu, Revolyutsioneram i Narodu) — "The Only possible Solution of the Land Question" (Yedin- 44© THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI stvyennoye V ozmoznoye Ryesheniye Zemelnavo Vo- prosa: Henry George's Single Tax) — Preface to Henry George's " Social Questions" — "True Free- dom " (Istinnaya Svoboda) — "Our Conception of Life" (Nashe Zhizneponimdniye) — Preface to Com- pilation of the Thoughts of La Bruyere, La Roche- foucauld et al. Short Biographical sketches (in Posrednik)— "Thou shalt kill No One" {Nye Ubii Nikovd) — " Love one another " (Liubite Drug Druga) — Introduction to Collection relating to E. Crosby — "Why Christian People in General and the Russian Nation especially Fall into Distress" (Potchemu Khristydnskiye Narodui voobshchei Russky f Osobyen- nosti Nakhodyatsa f Byedstvennom Polozhenii) . 1908. "I cannot be Silent" — (Nye Mogu Moltchdf) — "Against the Imprisonment of Molotchnikof " (O Zakliutchenii f Tiurmye Molotchnikova) — ' ' The law of Violence and the Law of Love" (K Zakonu Nasiliya i Zakonu Liubvi) — "The Blessing of Love" (Blago Liubvi) — "The Annexation to Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina" (O Prisoyedinenii Bdsnii i Hertse- govinui k Avstrii) — Letter to a Hindu — "The Teaching of Christ for Children" (Izlozheniye Utcheniya Khristd dlya DyeteV) — Introduction to an album of Orlof's Pictures. — Introduction to a story by V. Morozof "For One Word" (Za odno Slovo) — "Prayer" (Molitva in Posrednik) — Introduction to Novel of A. Ertel: "Gardminui"— "The Wolf" (Volk: a story for children) — Arrest and banishment of Tolstoi's Secretary N. N. Gusyef. — September 10, jubilee in honor of L. N.'s eightieth Birthday. — Holy Synod warns the Orthodox not to take part — "Strange to say, the longer I live, the better it is with me" (Letter to Nazhivin). 1909. Banishment of Tchertkof from Tula. — Correspond- ence with Bernard Shaw — Attempts to give up horse- back riding — "Capital Punishment and Christianity" (Smiertnaya Kazrt i Khristyanstvo) — Letter to a Revolutionist — Letter to an Old Believer — "No Evil without Good" (Nyet Khuda bez Dobrd) — "Welcome to you " (Privy et Vam: To those suffering APPENDIX I 441 for the Truth) — "For Every Day" (Compilation) — " Number of a Paper" (Nomer Gazetui) — " On Gov- ernment, " O Gosudarstvye (from Diary) — On Gogol — "The Truth" (OPravdye)— "Education" (O Vos- pitanii)—" On Guideposts" (O Vyekhakh)— "The Visit of Henry George's Son" (article in Russkoye Slovo) — "Childish Wisdom" (Dyetskaya MudrosV) — "On Science" (O N auk ye) — Statement regarding the arrest of Gusyef. — "The Inevitable Revolution" (Nyeizbyezhny Perevorot) — "The Only Command- ment" (Yedinaya Zdpovyed') — Address to (Stock- holm) Peace Congress — To a Polish Woman — " Con- versation with a Passer-by" (Razgovor Prokhozhim) — "Songs in the Village" (Pyesni na Deryevnye) — "It is Time to Understand": (Pora Ponydt\ Article on Vituperative Letters) — "Hanging" (O Vyeshanii) — "Traveler and Peasant" (Proyezhy i Krestyanin) — Reply to articles by Struve — Letter to the English Henry George League — Letter to a Priest — "Educa- tion" (O Vospitanii: No. 2) — "Have Faith in Your- selves" (VyertyeSebye). "Permit me to live out my life in those religious convictions into which I have come — I trust that I am not mistaken — with a true desire to fulfil the will of Him who gave me my life (Letter to a Priest) . 1 9 1 o. " Three D ays in a Village ' ' ( Tri Dnyd f Deryevnye) — "From her All Qualities" (Otneya Vsye Kdtchestva) — Supplement to Address to Peace Congress — "In- sanity" (O Bezumii: unfinished) — "Suicides" (O Samoubi'istvakh: unfinished) — Preface to the book "The Way of Life"— "Socialism" (O Sotsyalizmye) —"The Death Penalty" (O Smyertnoi Kazni).—"! am not in prison; unfortunately, but my prison, though without bolts, sometimes, in moments of weakness, seems to me worse than yours. It is pain- ful to you but to me it is wholly shameful" (Letter to Molotchnikof ) . Nov. 10, early in the morning, L. N. leaves Yasnaya; goes on horseback to Shchyo- kino (8 versts) — to Gorbatchovo by rail, 55 versts — to Kozelsk by goods-train in coach filled with work- men and badly ventilated, 105 versts — to Optin 442 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Pustuin and the Sharmandsky Monastery, on horse- back, 1 8 versts; from there to Kozelsk, on horse- back, 1 8 versts; to Dvorki by rail, thence to Volovo, 196 versts; starts for Rostof-on-the-Don but is obliged to stop at Astapovo Nov. 14 — 11 versts, 325; while suffering from illness. — Nov. 20, the Count- ess joines the other members of the family at the little red izbd. — L. N. T. passes away at 6.05 in the morning. — Nov. 23, buried at Yasnaya without religious ceremonies. — Posthumously published : "Tolstoi Almanac:" Letters of L. N. Tolstoi selected and edited by P. A. Syergyeenko. (Pisma L. N. Tolstovo 1 848-1 9 10, sobrdnnuiya i redakti- rovannuiya P. A. Syergyeenko.) Note: In the bibliography no guarantee can be made as to exact accuracy in noting the year of publication. Owing to the strictness of the Russian censorship many of Tolstoi's books were issued in Switzer- land and other countries. His repudiation of copyright also made for uncertainty. The bibliography contained in the second volume of Aylmer Maude's "Life" differs frequently by a year or more from that com- piled by Biryuk6f. How wide the variation is may be seen from the fact that Maude dates "The Demands of Law" 1893; Biryukof gives it 1899; and the Bibliography compiled by V. N. in Riisskoye Slovo sets it as 1897. APPENDIX II TOLSTOIAN COLONIES A book might be written concerning cooperative and social- istic communities, beginning with the experiments of the early Christians and continuing down through the ages, including such modifications as Brook Farm, the Shaker settlements in Massachusetts, the various attempts made in California and Kansas, the Dukhobors in the Caucasus and in Canada (their first leader is said to have been Lukeria, an illegitimate daughter of the Emperor Alexander I.) and finally the several colonies founded by enthusiastic disciples of Tolstoi. In all cases human nature has at last asserted its supremacy and individualism begun to disintegrate the principle of mutuality. A scientific Socialism controlling all natural monopolies, even the land, but still encouraging individual effort and confirming family occupation of homes and estates, levying a rental instead of taxes, will be the only kind of Socialism that can ever prevail unless by a substitution of a popular tyranny for the capitalistic tyranny that now prevails. The Tolstoi'an communities are based not only on the prin- ciple that the holding of all property by individuals is wrong but also on the principle that all violence, even self-defense, is contrary to Christ's teaching. Such colonies were founded in Holland, in England, and in America as well as in Russia. They all speedily fell to pieces. At Smolensk, a boy adopted into the Community took a waistcoat belonging to the man who had charge of him. The boy, basing his argument on the general principle of the sect, claimed that it was as much his as any one's. The colonists took sides and the dispute ended with the usual result. Another colony at Tver was established on poor land but controlled eighty acres of forest. The colonists cut off some timber to build a house for a man who proposed to join them. He changed his mind and peasants from a neighboring village 443 444 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI offered to ouy the lumber. The colonists decided that as they themselves no longer needed the lumber it ethically belonged to those that did, for instance to the peasants who wanted it sufficiently to buy it. They said to the peasants: "God and not we created the trees, and therefore, as you need the lumber more than we do, it is yours. " The peasants then proceeded to remove not only the trees that had been felled but also to cut off the whole forest. Some came with one sledge; some with five or more and those that took advantage of this unexpected windfall got into a fight over the most desirable trees. The doctrine of non- resistance prevented the colonists from using force to restore order but they appointed an outside muzhik as forester with instructions to let only a few men in at a time. This thrifty man collected fees from those who applied to him. Great dissatisfaction resulted. Crowds of peasants came to get passes and when they were refused became indignant. Even more angry were those who having got some had not got more. Others blamed the colonists for not having divided the wood among the poorest peasants; as it was, the rich ones, who had several horses, carried off most of the timber. Excellent in theory, the doctrine of communism always fails in practice. There was an agricultural colony formed by members of the Intelligentsia at Poltava, but there again the men, though educated, could not agree. A still more striking example of the impracticability of the idea of non-resistance was afforded by an Intelligentsia Colony in the Province of Kharkof. The land and house had been bought for the Disciples by a man named Alyokhin, who held the thoroughly Tolstoian belief that no one had any right to own property, to defend it by force, or to go to law about it. A crank named Klobsky, calling himself "The Teacher of Life,'' appeared one day and having obtained a clear idea of this doctrine announced to the colonists the next morning at breakfast that their farm-house and all its appurtenances — the garden, the fields, the outbuildings — belonged to him. Proclaiming himself master, he ordered them to vacate. He was good enough to give them three days to make their arrangements. The colonists were true to their colors and departed; but Alyokhin called the peasants of the neighboring village to- APPENDIX II 445 gether and presented the farm to them, not very consistently signing the legal deeds requisite and necessary. Klobsky, outwitted, vanished and the peasants took possession. When Tolstoi was informed of this he expressed his opinion that it was the proper solution. He was glad that the peas- ants had the land and he advised the "intelligents" to settle down with them and work for them. It does not require a microscope to detect the flaw in Alyokhin's logic. At Purleigh, in England, Tolstoian ideas were put into practice, but five or six of its chief members were so insane as to require medical treatment and the others were involved in such violent quarrels that it went to pieces. It must be borne in mind that Tolstoi* himself did not take much stock in such concerted movements. He did not object to the agricultural colonies, but material things concerned him very little. He was more interested in spiritual matters. He often remarked that it was important to maintain pleasant relations with those about one and if that involved, as it did in his own case, remaining in the conditions of one's former well-to-do life, it was better to sacrifice one's spiritual peace than to cause anger and bitterness in one's family. In reply to this, his extreme disciples cited the text "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." These men strove to realize Tolstoi's teachings in their own lives but were prone to reaction, while those who sympathized with his religio-philosophical opinions, understanding him better and having really more respect for him, cherished their new views as well as they could without making their former homes im- possible and contented themselves with merely refusing to serve in the army. (See Tolstoian doctor cited in Maude, Vol. II., p. 345-) .Tolstoi himself said in a letter written in 1891 to V. V. Rakhmanof : " Christ's teaching consists in the establishment of the ideal of God's kingdom, for the attainment of which it is necessary to be perfect like the Father; that is, the ideal of perfection is internal and external. The Commandments, the five commandments, are only indications, on that endless path of the place below which, at the present period in the life of humanity, we ought to attain. ' ' Perfection consists : 1 . In regarding all — the Zulu, the idiot, the criminal, the wild beast as equals, as brothers, and loving 446 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI them as you love your dearest. The milestone is the Com- mandment that one cannot and should not be angry with his brother. 2. In being perfectly pure. The Command- ment is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. 3. In being perfectly free, not being bound in any way. The Command- ment is, Not to take oaths. 4. Never to use violence either to defend others or yourself against any living thing. The Commandment is, Not to destroy evil by violence. 5. Not to have enemies. The Commandment is, Do good to your enemies. " And after glorying in the fact that he no longer held the views expressed in "What do I Believe?", that he had outgrown them, he says: "Christianity is great in the very fact that it was not in- vented by Christ but is an eternal law which humanity obeyed long, long before this law was formulated, which it always will obey and which it obeys now in the person of those who neither know nor wish to know Christianity. The dif- ference consists only in this, that for those that know the idea of Christianity life is full of stimulus and joy. " The Christian life consists not in obeying Commandments nor even in following its teaching but in the movement toward perfection, toward a cleaner and clearer understanding of this perfection and an ever nearer approach to it. The strength of the Christian life consists not in any definite degree of perfection (all degrees are equal because the road is endless) but in the acceleration of the movement; the swifter the movement, the more powerful the life. This idea of life gives especial delight, when it is shared with all men though they stand on the most varied degrees and not dividing them as the evil-doer does. The murderer on the Cross and Zaccheus live more Christian lives than the Apostles. " Tolstoi has often been called a crank, but he was a crank that turned the right way. APPENDIX III TOLSTOI IN THE EYES OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES Aylmer Maude, who of Englishmen was nearest to Tolstoi, sums up his estimate of him as follows: — "It is Tolstoi's life that attracts, more than the doctrines that are peculiarly his own. Especially his old age is a proof that the pursuit of the great things he has cared for, yields more permanent stimulation, interest and enjoyment than the pursuit either of pleasure or of gain — for few indeed are the men of his age who are as ardently alive as he or who feel so little regret for what the years have filched from them. "It was his passionate ardor that gave driving force to his message, causing his words to change the lives of many men, and making his influence — as it truly is — quite incalculable. . . . There are few great men whose lives it w T ould be pos- sible to lay bare before the public, with such full assurance that by perfect frankness one will not diminish the respect and affection in which they are held by mankind. " Without Tolstoi's self-reliance, and readiness to challenge things that have grown up through ages and are deep-rooted in men's affections, he never could have accomplished what he has done in revaluing all values, putting down the mighty from their seats and exalting the humble and meek. That his qualities run to excess, and cause him to condemn occu- pations, pursuits, and men he knows little about, may be true; as also that there is in him a spirit of contradiction, a suspiciousness of men's motives, and a vigor of invective, that contrast strangely with the humility and meekness he so sedulously cultivates, and the warm-hearted affection that was his from the first. But these things are spots on the sun. His genius, sincerity, industry, courage, endurance, and tena- city; his marvelous intuition, extraordinary capacity for observation and artistic reproduction; his devotion to the service of truth and goodness; his self-abnegation, his concen- 447 448 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI tration upon the most vital branches of human thought, and his unparalleled capacity for making his meaning plain and his feeling attractive, mark him as by far the greatest and most interesting man alive." (Maude, "The Life of Tolstoi, Vol. II., page 669.) V. M. Lopatin, who took the part of the third peasant in "The Power of Darkness/' had a high admiration for him: "I was convinced of the ardor of Tolstoi's desire to find the truth of life, to obtain it from any source, and to induce men to follow the only path that leads to the accomplishment of man's true destiny. The simplicity of his relation toward the thoughts and feelings of every man, his interest in what each one thought and knew; his keen regret at the discrepancy between his view of life and the inclinations of those about him, and the pure, almost childish joy with which he glowed at any indication that his spiritual world was understood by some one else, convinced me of the profound sincerity which has made the great artist a great Christian teacher." Gilbert Chesterton begins his article on Tolstoi with his usual paradox: — "If any one wishes to form the fullest estimate of the great man, he will not find it in his novels, splendid as they are, or in his ethical views, clearly as they are conceived and expanded. He will find it best in the news that has recently come from Canada that a sect of Russian Christian anarchists has turned all its animals loose on the ground that is immoral to possess them or control them. " Tolstoi," he goes on to say, "with his immense genius, with his colossal faith, with his vast fearlessness and vast knowledge of life, is deficient in one faculty alone. He is not a mystic and therefore he has a tendency to go mad. ... In the main and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic. " Emile Fagiiet of the Academie Francaise mingles criticism with encomium: — "Tolstoi is one of the tenor twelve greatest names of Euro- pean literature of the nineteenth century. Posterity will place him a little below Goethe, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Byron, Tennyson, Dickens, Balzac; on a level with Schiller, George Sand, Musset, Vigny, Thackeray. He will remain one of the APPENDIX III 449 great lights of artist-humanity and even of philosophic humanity. He was, though a degree inferior, very closely, but very closely as a replica (to a certain extent concordant), the Jean- Jacques Rousseau* of Russia. "Like Jean- Jacques Rousseau, he began with novels; like Jean- Jacques Rousseau, he went off into sociological and moralistic works; like Jean- Jacques Rousseau, he denied his works of fiction in his sociological and moralistic works; like Jean- Jacques Rousseau, he wrote his memoirs, with this differ- ence, that he began with them instead of ending with them; like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he attempted (both of them vainly) to conform his private conduct to his written doctrines and maxims; like Jean- Jacques Rousseau, he was regarded as a prophet and as a saint by some superior minds and by a great number of imbeciles, the first establishing his celebrity, the others his glory. . . . "This great man w T ill be challenged as a philosopher, even as a moralist; he will not be challenged as a great soul or as a great artist. He possessed that duplex imagination which vivifies characters wdth universal life (qui fait vivre les per- sonnages d'une vie de tons les instants) and which makes crowds live and powerfully agitates them before our eyes and makes collective beings of them, having a soul the irradiation of which we perceive from the outside. "He had, finally, his dream of human regeneration, far from original doubtless, but drawn from sacred and eternally gushing springs; he had his deeply respectable dream from which we must never turn away our eyes except to see not only how distant it is but also how one may travel toward it and then once more look at it. "And thus he who has passed on is a grand example of humanity; he is a lofty lighthouse of the earth whose light has gone out." Anatole France of the Academie Francaise has only praise, in somewhat banal and inadequate but still genuine estimate: "We may salute in Tolstoi the most august and the loftiest thought that to-day rises above our humanity. * Fagiiet's comparison of Tolstoi to Rousseau was brought to my at- tention after I had independently made a somewhat similar one in the text of the volume. It still seems unquestionable that Tolstoi stands on a moral level far higher than Rousseau. 45© THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI "As an epic novel-writer Tolstoi is the master of all of us by his observation of human beings as well in the exterior signs by which they betray their nature as in what they conceal ; he is our master by reason of the abundance and the force of the creations which animate his work; he is our master by his infallible selection of the circumstances which can communicate to the reader the feeling of life in its infinite complexity. These marks of his genius are found again and again in the works throughout the whole period of his activity. "Again Tolstoi is an inimitable example of intellectual nobility, courage and generosity. With a heroic tranquillity, a terrible gentleness, he has denounced the crimes of a society which asks of the laws only confirmation of its injustices and its violences. In this he is good among the best. "Even though we, less saintly, might not find as he did, in simplicity of soul and in resignation a panacea against all the ills of existence, whenever we go to teach some idea of justice to the rough industrial cities of our age of steel, we shall carry in our hearts the image of the great evangelical and patri- archal Pan of Ydsnaya Polyana, that new demigod of the fields and the woods. "What ancient Greece conceived and realized by the ri- valry of cities and the harmonious flights of ages — a Homer, Nature has produced for Russia in creating Tolstoi — Tolstoi, the soul and the voice of an immense people, the river from which children, men and the shepherds of men will drink in all times to come." Maurice Maeterlinck says:— "Tolstoi is the greatest artist of our present civilization. No one, I opine, will exercise a deeper and more real moral influence. By moral influence we must understand not so much the evident action of morals, the sentiments and the thoughts of men as that somewhat obscure power which goes further than thought, touches with a penetrating and diffusive fashion the mysterious central point of each life, introduces into the atmosphere of spirit and feeling, in regions where it is as yet unrecognized but still very active, a new element which escapes all analysis and gradually modifies the chem- ical formula of the atmosphere which our thought, or rather the mystic mother of all our thoughts, will breathe to-morrow. APPENDIX III 451 II Certain artists have this gift. In others who are great in another way no trace of this is found, as for example in Zola, who never had this influence of which I speak. Tolstoi's after having been at first rather dubious, then charitable and humane but limited by a sort of puerile and sickly Christianism, seems to have purified itself day by day and in its last mani- festations admirably blends with the highest ideal which the provisory thoughts of the men of our time can conceive. " The novelist Paul Margudritte acknowledged Tolstoi as his spiritual master: — " Tolstoi at the present time represents the highest con- science of humanity. During his life and now that he is dead his radiance is clear and brilliant and will long continue to shine like those lingering twilights which, after the sun has set, seem like the brightness of another and unknown world. II I know that I should strive less, that I should cherish less love for the light of goodness, truth and justice, if Tolstoi had not filled my mind with his thought during a period of years. - "His influence on my people has been just as significant as it has been on me. To recognize this, to proclaim it aloud, must be the very modest tribute which I can lay at the feet of this rough genius, this anchorite, this great shepherd of human souls, this novelist of genius, this new Christ of a religion of goodness and love, in whom the noblest and holiest thought attained those heights up to which the mass of men gaze with vague unrest and reverent emotion. " His thought is like the great light of Sinai shining through the darkness of our corrupt civilized world.' ' D. N. Ovsyannikof-Kulikovsky, in his book analyzing Tolstoi's services as a national novelist and as a thinker, says: "Endowed with the unique gift of creative genius, a con- summate realist, and a profound psychologist, Tolstoi created immortal gems of art which from century to century will serve mankind as the inexhaustible fount of knowledge of the human soul. "He did not present broad artistic types comprehending a great number of varied phenomena, but those comparatively narrow class and national types that we find in his productions are expounded and elaborated in a way in which not another of the greatest artists has had the power to do. In this respect, 452 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI Tolstoi gave what no one else ever gave. His creative power is to the highest degree intensive; it reveals to us the deepest and most secret matrices of the human mind. "The aim of Art is to recognize everything that is human, and there are two tracks leading to this: i. the way of a broader artistic synthesis, and 2. the way of more or less pro- found artistic-psychological analysis. Every true artist goes on either the one or the other of these tracks, but only rarely is breadth of generalization united with profound analysis. This was the case with Shakespeare, who is therefore hailed by us as the very Tsar of poets. " In Tolstoi analysis evidently prevails over synthesis. But the depth and perfection of his analysis abundantly com- pensates for the lack of breadth in his generalizations. "Now if you take the human soul in its natural appearance without any artistic generalizations and submit it to such an analysis as we find in Tolstoi', the result will have an undoubted universal significance. In fact the artistic synthesis is a great work, but the human soul above all demands analysis. In this respect remember Goethe's lines: "Greift nur hinein iris voile Menschenleben! Ein Jeder lebt's — nicht vielen ist's bekannt, Und wo iWs packt — da ist's interessant!* "No one ever had such skill to catch the life (that is to say, the soul) of man as Tolstoi had, provided that life was known to him, if it was accessible to his artistic compre- hension. And all that he grasped was humanly interesting, beginning with the childhood recollections of Irtenyef and ending with the drama of Anna Karenina. And all this makes deposits of enormous value both in psychology and in ethics and in that highest order of Art which of necessity does not divert, does not drive away thought, but on the contrary leads it to new and occasionally far from happy ideas and dominates work and intellect and feeling and conscience." W. D. Howells {North American Review, Dec, 1908), on the occasion of Tolstoi's eightieth birthday wrote: — "The century in which Tolstoi mostly lived and mostly wrought had among its many great names few more memor- * Grasp into the full life of men. Each one lives it; unknown it is to most, and when it takes hold of you, then it becomes interesting. APPENDIX III 453 able than his, if it had any. There was Napoleon and there was Lincoln, and then there was Tolstoi in an order which time may change, though it appears to me certain that time will not change the number of these supreme names. . . . " I do not think that in fiction he has any peer or even any rival, because from the beginning he 'took truth for his sole hero/ and would have no other in any extremity or for any end. But even with his devotion to reality in the study of life, which, so far as I can note, was absolute, the prime affair was to captivate the reader, to lead his fancy, not to convince and per- suade his reason. . . . But when once the call of Religion came to Tolstoi, it came so powerfully, so loudly, that it must shut from his senses every voice that called before; there he stood; so help him God, he could no other than obey it, and it alone, testifying for it with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind. The moral spectacle is of unsurpassed sub- limity and no riches of fiction is conceivable, fiction even from him, the supreme master, which would console our poverty if we had failed of such books as 'My Confession/ 'My Re- ligion/ 'The Kingdom of God/ 'What is Art?' 'What is Religion?' 'Life/ 'What is to be Done?' and many of the briefer essays and occasional appeals to the world in signal events and emergencies against its blindness and cruelty and folly. . . . Before he came to his awakening Tolstoi had done enough for fiction and the art of it, for he had done incom- parably more for it than any other master of it. . . . No doubt Tolstoi was qualified and fortified for his ethical work by his esthetic achievement. But he descended to the labor of teaching from such heights of art in fiction as no man had reached before — from 'War and Peace/ from 'Anna Karenina/ he humbled his art to such prentice work as those little fables and allegories and sketches adapted to the un- derstanding of peasants and peasants' children, as he humbled his life to the level of theirs. . . . The event was a com- promise, or it was a defeat, if you choose to think it so; but it was no more a compromise or a defeat than that of any other human career. Compared with the event of any other career in this time, the career of the greatest warrior, statesman, king, priest, or poet, it is a flawless triumph." Theodore Roosevelt (in the Outlook, March, 1909) said: — 454 THE LIFE OF TOLSTOI " Count Tolstoi is a man of genius, a great novelist. l War and Peace/ 'Anna Karenina/ 'The Cossacks/ ' Sevas- topol/ are great books. As a novelist he has added mate- rially to the sum of the production of his generation. As a professional philosopher and moralist I doubt if his in- fluence has been very extensive among men of action." Mathew Arnold's estimate (published in the Fortnightly in 1887):— "Whatever else we have or have not in Count Tolstoi, we have at least a great soul and a great writer. . . . Count Tolstoi sees rightly that whatever the propertied and satisfied classes may think, the world, ever since Jesus Christ came, is judged; 'A New Earth' is in prospect. ... I arrive at the conclusion that Count Tolstoi' has perhaps not done well in abandoning the work of the poet and artist, and that he might with advantage return to it. But whatever he may do in the future, the work which he has already done, and his work in religious as well as his work in imaginative literature, is more than sufficient to signalize him as one of the most marked, interesting, and sympathy-inspiring men of our time — an honor, I must add, to Russia, although he forbids us to heed nationality/' W. T. Stead: "In Russia and out of Russia, I have found people more interested in the personality of Count Leo Tolstoi, the novelist, than in that of any other living Russian. He is the first man of letters in contemporary Russia, but that alone would not account for the widespread interest in his character. He is a great original, an independent thinker, a religious teacher, and the founder of something that is mid- way between a church, a school, and a socio-political organi- zation. He not only thinks strange things and says them with rugged force and vivid utterance — he does strange things, and, what is more, he induces others to do the same. A man of genius who spends his time in planting potatoes and cobbling shoes, a great literary artist who has founded a propaganda of Christian anarchy, an aristocrat who spends his life as a peasant — such a man in any country would com- mand attention. In Russia he monopolizes it." INDEX A-B-C-book, the New, 328-229. Addams, Jane, visit of, to Yasnaya Poly ana, 360-361. Agnosticism, discussion over the ad- vantages of, 280. Akim, cesspool-cleaner, character of, 316. Aksakof, S. T., 124, 268. "Albert," short story, 36, 116. Alcott, Amos Bronson, similarities between educational theories of, and those of Tolstoi, 174. Aleksei, Tsesarevitch, 2. Aleksei, Tolstoi's body-servant. See Arbuzof. Aleksei dungeons, Tolstoi's attempted visit to, 252. Alekseyef, Lieutenant-Colonel, 42-43, 49-So. Alekseyef, Vasily Ivanovitch, socialist and infidel, 259, 262-263. Alexander I., Emperor, 7. Alexander II., Emperor, appreciation of Tolstoi's Sevastopol Sketches by, 82; mentioned, 93; emancipation of the serfs by, 155; Tolstoi's com- plaint to, of police search of Yas- naya Polyana, 185-186; assassina- tion of (March 13, 1881), 273. Alexander III., Emperor, Tolstoi's letter to, 274-276; "The Fruits of Enlightenment" given before, 328; protection of Tolstoi by, against hostile forces, 342; death of, 352. Alexei Mikhailovitch, Emperor, 1. Alphabet of sounds, first devised by Dekabrists, 252. Ambrosy, Father Superior of the Optin Monastery, 253, 280, 335. America, "The Kreutzer Sonata" in, 331; Gorky's experiences in, and Tolstoi's indignation over, 332. American writers, Tolstoi's judgments concerning various, 345. Amiel's "Journal," preface to, by Tolstoi, 349. Anarchy, peaceful, 156; scientific, 207. Anathema issued by Holy Synod against Tolstoi, 368-369. Animals, theory of non-destruction of, 336. Ankovsky-pie, 320. "Anna Kardnina," mentioned, 8, 100, 190. 193; circumstances under which started, 239; Turgenief's unfavor- able opinion of, 240; completion of, 243; prototypes of characters in, 245; position of the work in the world's literature, 246; judgment of, according to Tolstoi's theory of Art, 246-247. Ant-brethren, the, 12-14, 52. Antiquity, impressions of, 152. Anutchin, D., 336 n., 348. Apollof, progressive and unfrocked priest, 349. Arabic, Tolstoi as a student of, 25. Arbiter of Peace, appointment of Tolstoi as, 155; activities as, 169- 17 1 ; removal from position, 171. Arboriculture, Tolstoi's system of, at Samara, 223. Arbuzof, Aleksei, Tolstoi's body- servant, 24, 82, 182, 207; quoted on Tolstoi's change in attitude toward the Church, 241; experiences with Tolstoi during visit to Optin Monas- tery, 278-279; cited, 307-308. "Archbishop and the Thief, The," story, 254. Archiv, monthly typewritten maga- zine published by Tolstoi and his friends, 357. Arm-breaking experience, 200-201. Army life, in the Caucasus, 42-43, 56— 72; in the Crimean War, 74 ff.; at Sevastopol, 79-92. Arnold, Matthew, poetry of, not appreciated by Tolstoi, 358; esti- mate of Tolstoi by, quoted, 454. Art, Tolstoi's address on pure literary, 134-135; Tolstoi on the develop- ment of feeling for, in the young, 179; realization of importance of, to the masses, 179; "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" judged by Tolstoi's theory of, 246-247; unique discussion of, in "What is Art?" 362-365. Artels (trades unions), Tolstoi's views of, 144-145- Astapovo, Tolstoi's last hours passed at, 403-404. Athletics, 123, 129, 149, 208. 455 456 INDEX Auerbach, Berthold, tales by, read by Tolstoi, 138; Tolstoi's visit to, in Dresden, 142; Tolstoi's second visit to, and description of, 158. Authors' and Students' Aid Society, the, 114. Azbuka, compilation of the, 228-229. Bacon, Francis, read by Tolstoi, 144. Baedeker, international evangelist, 260. Balaklava, battle of, 79. Ballou, Rev. Adin, Tolstoi's admira- tion of, 345. Baryatinsky, Prince, 48, 50. Bast shoes, University in, 238. Bataille, Henri, opinion of Tolstoi of, 420. Battles, descriptions of, 218, 220. Bear, narrow escape from a, 132-134. Beethoven, Russian folk-songs and melodies favorably contrasted with music of, 179; Tolstoi's views of, 249, 250-251. " Beginning of the End, The," article, 357. Behrs, Dr. Andrey, 10 1, 188, 191. Behrs, Islenyeva, 23, 101. Behrs, Sony a Andrey evna. Set Tol- staya, S. A. Behrs, Sonya, 191, 192. Behrs, Stepan A., brother-in-law ot Tolstoi, 201, 203-204; quoted on Tolstoi's characteristics, 208, 209, 211, 212; visits Samara with Tolstoi in 187 1, 224-227; cited regarding Tolstoi's change of personality, 318-321; coolness between Tolstoi and, 321. Behrs, Tanya (Tatyana), 191, 202. Berlin, Tolstoi's visit to, 141; second visit to and inspection of schools in, 158. Bernhardt, Sarah, 289, 290. Besh-tau, visit to the springs at, 61-63. Beyle, Marie-Henri, Tolstoi's indebt- edness to, 87. Bible teaching, Tolstoi on, 177, 178; the "Wicked Bible," 265. Bicycle- riding, Tolstoi's skill in, 350. Biryukof, Piotr Ivanovitch, banish- ment of, 355; letter written to, in 1902, 382. " Black Fowl," Pogarefsky's, 23. Black Hundred poetry inspired by Tolstoi's death, 412. Blake, William, quoted, 14. " Blizzard, The" (" The Snowstorm") , 72, 101. Boboruikin, 296. Boer War, letter on the, 367. Bondaryof, exiled peasant author, „ 305-306. Borisof, I. P., 123. Borodino, visit to battle-field of, 203- 204; mistakes of Tolstoi concerning, 222. Botkin, V. P., 118, 124; on Tolstoi's " eccentricities," 138; on the quarrel between Tolstoi and Turgenief , 164- 165. Bourget, Paul, 364. " Boyhood," 58, 82, no. Braddon, M. E., novels of, impress Tolstoi favorably, 212. Brussels, Tolstoi's visit to, 155-156. Bryan, W. J., visit of, to Yasnaya Poly ana, 390. Bukharest, life at, during the Crimean War, 74-75, 76 ff. Bulka, bulldog, 40, 49, 228. Bull, incident of the keeper killed by a, 186-187. Butlerof, Professor, spiritualist, 326. Buzuluk Monastery, visit to, 254. Capital punishment, Tolstoi's views on, 116-117, 206. Card-playing, 34, 37, 40, 51, 81, 87, 95, 114, 127, 384. Carmen Sylva, high opinion held by, of "What Men Live By," 281. Cattle-breeding, 222. Caucasus, conditions in the, 40; Tol- stoi's departure for the, 40-41; description of first view of the mountains, 43-45; Tolstoi not af- fected by poetic and romantic aspects of, 72. Censor, experiences with the, 66, 68, 82-83, 299, 304-305, 316, 363, 387; "My Confession" prohibited by, 262; Tolstoi expresses his feeling about, 345-346; passages from stories mutilated by, to be published in their original form, 415. Census, Tolstoi's newspaper article on the, in Moscow, 288. Census-taker, Tolstoi as a, in Moscow, 287-289. Chesterton, Gilbert, quoted on Tolstoi, 448. "Childhood," mentioned, 10; quoted, 15, 18, 21] the writing of, 48-49. Chinese billiards, Tolstoi's losses at, 187. "Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery," Polyenof's painting, 325. " Christ before Pilate," Gay's painting, 333-334. Christianity, Auerbach s definition of, 158. "Christian Teaching, The," treatise for benefit of Dukhobors, 356. Church, Tolstoi's attitude toward, in 1867, 240; confusion of false and true in teachings of, 261-262 ; analy- sis and confutation of dogmas of the, 270—272; repudiation of, by Tol- stoi, 330; Tolstoi proclaimed Anti- Christ by, 341; excommunication of Tolstoi by the, 368-369; attitude of, after death of Tolstoi, 407-409. "Circle of Reading," periodical, 387. INDEX 457 "Circular to the Clergy," published in 1903. 384. Clar^tie, Jules, opinion of Tolstoi of, 420. Cobbling, lessons in, 298; Tolstoi's pride in, 337. Commandments, Five, 271. Composition, literary, 156, 178. "Confession." See "My Confession.'* Consumption, Tolstoi's fear of, 140. "Conversation among Leisurely Peo- ple," 344. "Corpse, The," play, 384. Cossacks, description of, in the Cau- casus, 44-45. "Cossacks, The," mentioned, 31, 57- 59, 65, 138; quoted, 43~45; story of publication of, 187-188; quality of, as a work, 188-189; Turgenief's translation of, into French, 258. Courage, secret of, 309. Crimea, winter of 190 1 spent in, 380- 383. Crimean War, 73-92. "Critique of Dogmatic Theology," Tolstoi's, 264-265, 270. Crosby, Ernest H., influence of Tolstoi felt by, 317. "Crucifixion," Gay's painting, 349. "Culture's Holiday," pamphlet, 324. "Daily Telegraph" famine article, 342. Danilyevsky, G. P., quoted, 98; Tol- stoi's remarks to, on physical labor, 310- Danubian principalities, troubles in the (1876-77), 243. Danubian provinces, evacuation of, by Russia, 76. Daudet, little cared for by Tolstoi, 345- David and Goliath, Tolstoi on, 167- 168. "David Copperfield," 33, 71. Davuidof, Judge N. V., 384. "Dead Souls," Gogol's, 120, 215, 418. Death, thoughts on, 118, 134, 146- 147, 151-152, 230, 236, 243, 258, 260, 268, 380. " Death of Ivan Ilyitch," the writing of (1886) , 309. Debts, 35, 40, 52, 77, 81. Dekabrists, the, 11 3- 114, 199; pro- posed novel on, 251; sound alphabet of prisoners' invented by, 252; reminiscences of the, 252; aban- donment of plan for novel based on, and reasons, 252-253. De Kock, Paul, praised by Tolstoi, 152-153. Delano, Mrs. Aline, translation of "Kingdom of God" and "War and Peace" by, 347 n. Dentists, Tolstoi's views of, 153. Deroulede, visit to Tolstoi from, 312- 313. Diary, rules of behavior entered by Tolstoi in, 30-31; causes of his failures entered in, 36; other entries in, 37, 45, 59, 65, 147; read aloud by police commissioner who raided Yasnaya Polyana, 185; discontin- uance of, in 1865, 201; renewed in 1878, 264; Tolstoi's request for destruction of, after his death, 416. Dickens, Charles, Tolstoi's opinion of, 33; Paul de Kock the French, ac- cording to Tolstoi, 153. Diesterweg, Tolstoi's meeting with son of Friedrich, at Berlin, 158-159. Disciples, 306, 343. Division of property, Tolstoi's, 336- _ 337- . . Divorce, opinions of, 246. Doctors, 212. "Dog, The," Turgenief's poem in prose, 268. Dole, Charles F., definition of religion by, 3Si. Dolgoruky, Prince, Tolstoi and, 312. " Don Quixote," Tolstoi and, 365. Dostoyevsky, F. M., "Childhood" meets with appreciation by, 67; advised by Turgenief not to meet Tolstoi, 268. Dragomirof , General, " Soldier's Notes" by, 381. Drama, essay on Shakespeare and the, 358. Dresden, Tolstoi's visit to, 142. Droysen, J. G., Tolstoi attends lec- tures by, 141. Drozhzhin, E. N., schoolmaster, 349. Druzhinin, translator of Shakespeare, 108; criticism of Tolstoi's "Youth" by, no— in ; pedestrian tour with, 118; mentioned, 130, 131; on Tolstoi's proposed abandonment of literary work, 139. Du Bois-Reymond, Tolstoi attends lectures by, 141. Duels, Tolstoi on the fighting of, 165- 168. Dukhobors, mentioned, 319; Tolstoi's defense of and activities in behalf of, 353-356; emigration of, to Manitoba, 365; profits from "Resur- rection" devoted to assistance of, 366. Dumas, Alexandre, Tolstoi's opinion of, 153. Education, Tolstoi's activities in, at Yasnaya Polyana, 1 74-181; Tol- stoi's theories not applied to his own children, 210; Tolstoi's discus- sion of, with educators at Moscow (1874), 237; failure of Tolstoi's plan for a normal school forYasnaya Polyana pupils, 238; Tolstoi's loss of interest in, and reasons, 318. "Education of the People," paper on, 237-238. 458 INDEX " Egyptian Nights," Pushkin's method of starting a work shown in, 239. Emancipation of the serfs, 130-13 1, 155- Tolstoi's opinion on the effect of the, 173- Enissienne, Mile., 6. Epishka, Cossack visitor at Yasnaya Poly ana, 283. "Ethics of Diet," introduction to, by Tolstoi, 344. Excommunication of Tolstoi, 368- 369; Countess Tolstaya's letter concerning, 369-370; Tolstoi's digni- fied attitude, 371-3 73- Executions, Tolstoi and Thackeray on, 116-117. 44 Exposition of the Teaching of Jesu3 for Children," 387. Faguet, Emile, criticism of Tolstoi by, 448-449- "Family Happiness," mentioned, 77; writing of (1859), 134. Famine, of 1873 in the Samara region, 232-233; relief work by the Tol- stoi's in 1890-92, 340; dangers to Tolstoi resulting from activities during the, 342-343. Fasting, Tolstoi's abandonment of, 266. "Father Sergyei," posthumous novel, 253. Feinermann, young Jew, 274, 305; experiences of, at Yasnaya Polyana, Fiction, Russian, 128. Figner, N. N., signs for Tolstoi, 339. Firdausi, nickname of Count Nikolai Tolstoi, 130, 140. "First Distiller, The," drama, 314. "First Step, The," introduction to "Ethics of Diet," 344. Flaubert, G., quoted on "War and Peace," 222; Tolstoi's enjoyment of, 345- Flesh-eating, Tolstoi's forswearing of, 306. Flogging of peasants, article "Shame!" a protest against, 353. Flowers, as Tolstoi's one dissipation, 319. Folk-songs, Tolstoi on the beauties of, 179; Tchaikovsky's comments on those sent him by Tolstoi, 249-250; collections of, by various hands, 250. Force, folly of, 181. See Non-resist- ance. "Four Gospels Harmonized and Tran- slated," 264-265; considered by Tol- stoi the most important of his writings, 272. France, Turgenief's efforts to popu- larize Tolstoi in, 240, 258. France, Anatole, on Tolstoi's perma- nent literary position, 419, 449— 450. French writers, Tolstoi's judgments of, 345- Friends of Russian Literature, Society of, 134. "Fruits of Enlightenment," comedy, 326;performance of, in Petersburg, 345; production of, as a memorial to Tolstoi forbidden by Government, 414. Funeral of Tolstoi, 407-411. Fy£t (Afanasy A. Shenshin), first meeting of, with Tolstoi, 95-97; mentioned, 123, 124, 131, 132, 136, 146, 160, 164, 188, 196, 242-243, 25s, 256, 258; visit of, to Yasnaya Polyana in 1858, 127; Tolstoi's letter to, 129-130; quarrel between Tolstoi and Turgenief at home of, 161-165; change in Tolstoi's rela- tions toward, 349. Fy6dorof, N.F., Moscow librarian, 286^ 287. Galitsuin, Prince, 4, 365. Galitsuina, Princess, 145. Gambling experiences, 34~35, 37, 39. 40, 52-53, 70, 81, 89; loss of $750 at Chinese billiards and resulting sale of "The Cossacks," 187-188. Games in the steppe, 234. Garrett, Constance, translates " King- dom of God is within You," 347 n. Garshin, mentioned, 96. Gaspra, winter spent by Tolstoi at, 380-383. Gay (Ge), Nikolai N., friendship between Tolstoi and, 291; portrait of Tolstoi by, 299; at Yasnaya Polyana and Moscow, 307, 311; sketches made by, illustrating Tolstoi's short stories and the life of Jesus, 311; paintings by, compared with Polyenof's, 325; bust of Tolstoi by, 333; "Christ before Pilate" by, 333-334; death of (1894), 394- Geneva, Tolstoi's visit to, in 1857, 118-120. Geography, Tolstoi on the teaching of, 177, 178. George, Henry, praised by Tolstoi, 345, 348. Gerasimovna, Mary a, nun, 9. German writers, little mention of, in Tolstoi's writings, 345. Germany, Tolstoi's visits to, 141-145, 156-159. Gnyeditch, Greek translator, 224. God, Tolstoi's seeking after and crea- tion of a, 260-261. " God sees the Truth," publication of, 229; origins of, 314. Goethe, influence of, on Tolstoi, 112, 212 ; effects of travel on Tolstoi and, contrasted, 152. Gogol, N. V., Tolstoi's opinion of stories by, 33; the "Dead Souls" of, mentioned, 120, 418; comparison INDEX 459 ofTurgenief and, 137; description by, of nights on the Dniepr, 233; influence of, over modern masters of Russian fiction, 418. Golden Rule, stress laid on, by Tolstoi, 271. Goldenweiser, pianist, plays for Tol- stoi, 381. Goodness, basis of, 273. Gorky, Maxim, treatment of, in America, 332; visits Tolstoi in the Crimea, 381. Gortchakof, Prince S. D., 71, 74-75, 78. "Gospel in Brief," discussion over, with the monk and scholar Leonty ef , 335-336. "Gospels, How to Read the,' pam- phlet, 357. "Graf Nulin," poem by Pushkin, 10, 11 n. Gratsyensky, Father, priest of Asta- povo, 407. Greek, study of, by Tolstoi, 223-224. Greeks, Tolstoi's criticism of art of, 364. Grigorovitch, Dmitry V. , reminiscences of Tolstoi by, 94-95, 128. Grisha, character of, in "Childhood," 15, 16. Gromeka, S. S., publicist, 132. Guillotine, Tolstoi a witness of an execution by the, 116-117. Gusef, N. N., Tolstoi's secretary, arrest of, 397. Gymnastics, Tolstoi's fondness for, 123-124, 149, 208. Gypsies, 35, 41, 127, 128. Hadji Murat, Tchetchen chief, 225. " Hadji-Murat," unfinished story, 381, 415- Hall, Bolton, paraphrase of "Life "by, 317. Hauptmann, Gerard, rank given Tol- stoi by, 420. Hebrew, Tolstoi's study of, 296. "Help!" by Biryukof, Tchertkof, and Tregubof, 355. "Hermann and Dorothea," Tolstoi af- fected by, 112. Herodotus, reading of, by Tolstoi, 223, 227. Herzen, Aleksandr I., Tolstoi on, 98; Tolstoi's meeting with, in London, I53-I54. History, Tolstois views on, 28; on the teaching of, 177. Holland, Tolstoian colony founded in, m 357- Homer, influence of, on Tolstoi, 112, 122, 177, 224. Horses, purchase of, by Tolstoi, 223, 248. Hot springs of Goryatchev6dsk, 46-47. Howells, W. D., quoted on Tolstoi, 452-453. " How I learned to Ride Horseback," story, 18. " How the Little Devil earned a Crust of Bread," story, 314. Hugo, Victor, effect of " Notre Dame" by, on Tolstoi, 112; works of, im- press Tolstoi, 212, 344. Hunting, 123, 131, 132, 202, 203, 226, 267, 307, 313. Hyeres, the Tolstois at, 145; death of Nikolai Tolstoi at, 146; Tolstoi's prolonged stay at, 149-152. Immortality, 272. " Industry and Idleness," preface written for Bondaryof'sbook, 305. " Infected Family, The," comedy, 198. Inkerman, battle of , 79. Insane asylum, visits to an, 392-396. "Invaders, The," 57, 67. Islenyef, A. ML, 10, 23, 36, 37. Italy, Tolstoi's journey in, 152. Ivan, Father, insinuates that Tolstoi is insane, 360; prays for Tolstoi's death, 388. Jackson, H. H., mentioned, 347. Jesus, 264, 266, 270, 273, 276, 302, 305, 311. 320, 329, 333, 369, 372, 387. Journalists, 212. Juryman, Tolstoi's refusal to serve as, 298. Kansas, socialist colony in, mentioned, 259, 43o. Kant, read by Tolstoi, 212, 345. Karamzin, 128. Kashkin, Nikolai, 290. Katharine the Great, Empress, 20, 28, 78, 238. Katharine II., 216, 271. Katkof, Mikhail N., 93; editor of Vyedomosti, 124; Ydsnaya Polyana magazine published by, 183; pub- lishes "War and Peace" serially, 201 ; disagreement between Tolstoi and, over "Anna Kar£nina," 244. Kazan, early life at, 24-25. Keller, German mathematician and teacher, 158. Kennan, George, visits Tolstoi, 324; discussion of theory of non-resist- ance with, 336 n.; description of Tolstoi cited, 337. Kenworthy, John Coleman, Tolstoi's definition of religion in letter to, 422 n. Khilkof, Prince, radical thinker, 319; the American and the letters to, 360-361. " Kholstomyer," story, 195 n. Khomyakof, A. S., dramatist and theologian, 134-135. Kief, Tolstoi's pilgrimage to, 265. 460 INDEX Kiesewetter, in "Resurrection," the prototype of, 260. "Kingdom of God is within You," 338; declined by publishers in United States, 347 n.; publication of, 347- , . . Kissinger, Tolstoi s visit to, 142-145. Kdlokol, Herzen's journal, 153. Kolokoltsof, Grisha, 205, 206. Konstantinof, General, 103. Korenitsky, Captain, 103. Korolenko, Vladimir, description by, of the mourning for Tolstoi, 410- 412. KovaleVskaya, Sophia, 339. Kralik, Dr., opinion of Tolstoi ex- pressed by, 420. Kramskoi, artist, 209; Tolstoi sits to, 235. Krauskopf, Rabbi Joseph, description of Tolstoi by, 33 7~338. " Kreutzer Sonata," mentioned, 193; reading aloud of, and ensuing discussion, 329; views expressed in, 329-330; sensation created by, 330— 33i- Kruizhanovsky, Commandant of Ar- tillery, 89, 92. Kugushef, Prince, public reading of "War and Peace" by, 215. Kumys-drinking at Samara, 182-183, 224—227, 282—283. Kuzminsky, I., at Tolstoi's funeral, 409. " Kuzmitch's Diary," unfinished man- uscript, 415. Lazarevsky, member of maritime court-martial, 385. Leipzig, Tolstoi's visit to, 142. Leontief, Professor, Tolstoi tested in Greek by, 224. Leontyef, K. N., author, scholar, and monk, 335. L£rmontof, M. Y., poet, 72. Levin, character of, 56, 193, 245. "Letter to the Liberals," 357. " Letter to the Minister of the Interior and of Justice," 357. Levin, the character of, in "Anna Karenina," 56, 193, 243, 245. "Life," treatise on, 316-317; Bolton Hall's paraphrase of, 317. Literary composition, study of, at Yasnaya Poly ana School, 178-179. Literary Fund, the, 114. Literature for the masses, 304-306. "Lives of the Saints," Rostovsky's, 6. London, Tolstoi's visit to, 153-155. Lopatin, V. M., 327; impersonation of Tolstoi by, 350; quoted on Tolstoi, 448. Love affairs, Tolstoi's, 101-108, 191- 195- Lovers of Russian Literature, pro- jected reading by Tolstoi before the, on Turgenief, 298. Lucerne, Tolstoi's visit to, 120-122. "Lucerne," story entitled, 1 21-122. " Lucrece," Pushkin's opinion of, 11 n. Lukyanof, S. M., Ober-Prokurdr of Holy Synod, 407-408. Luther, Martin, Tolstoi's interest in, 144; comparison of Tolstoi to, 440. Luxury, dislike of, 208. Lvof, aristocratic Moscow spiritualist, 326. Maeterlinck, Maurice, quoted on Tol- stoi, 450-451. Makovitsky, D. P., friend and physi- cian of Tolstoi's, 400. Malakhof, capture of the, 88. Manitoba, settlement of Dukhobors in, 356, 365. Manual labor theory and practice, 296-299, 301, 306-309. Marcus Aurelius, quoted, 15. Margueritte, Paul, quoted on Tolstoi, 45i. Markof, description of police raid on Yasnaya Polyana by, 184. Marriage, essential elements of, 37; Tolstoi's courtship and, 191-197; views on, in "What do I Believe?" and "The Kreutzer Sonata," 330. Marseilles, Tolstoi visits schools at, 150-151. "Master and Man," writing of, 353. Maude, Aylmer, quoted on Tolstoi's educational work at Yasnaya Polyana, 176; estimate of Tolstoi by, 447-448. Maupassant, Guy de, story by, trans- lated by Tolstoi, 334; Tolstoi's opin- ion of, 344-345. Menschikof, Aleksandr, 2. Menshikof, Prince, 78. Mikhailovsky, Nikolai K., critic, meeting with Tolstoi, 291-292. Mikhailovsky-Danielefsky, as a his- torian, 219. Military Sketches, the, 81-86. Milton, Tolstoi's dog, 49, 228. Mirbeau, Octave, admired by Tolstoi, 345; on Tolstoi's rank in universal literature, 420. Moabit Prison, Tolstoi's visit to, 141. Modeling in clay by Tolstoi, 205. Moliere, Tolstoi's liking for comedies of, 212. Molokans, religious sect, 227, 282. Monasteries, Tolstoi's visits to, 253, 254, 265, 278, 335. Monastery fortress at Suzdal, 342. Morozof , Vaska, Moscow cabman, 308. Mortier, 124. Moscow, Tolstoi's residence in, as a young man, 36-37; Tolstoi's resi- dence in, after first trip abroad, 123-125; removal to, for education of children, 284; unhappiness of Tolstoi over conditions in, 286; Tolstoi as a census- taker in, 287- INDEX 461 289; house bought by Tolstoi in, 295; prohibition of public reading by Tolstoi in, 298; disposition of house in, in division of Tolstoi's property, 337; Tolstoi's reception at congress of Russian Naturalists in, 349-350; overwhelming ovation to Tolstoi in, after excommunica- tion, 374-3 76. Moscow Conservatory, inception of, in the Moscow Musical Society, 125. Mountains, description of, quoted, 43-45- Murat, Tolstoi's treatment of, in "War and Peace," 221. Music, early study of, under Rudolf, German musician, 35; evenings of, during early residence in Moscow, 123-125; folk songs and melodies compared with Beethoven, 179; Tolstoi and, 249 ff. Muzhiks, debt of, to Russian writers, 128; emancipation of the, 130-13 1, 155; Tolstoi's efforts in behalf of, as Peace Arbiter, 1 69-1 71; mourn- ing of, for Tolstoi, 404. 410-41 1. "My Confession," quoted, 22, 27, 93, 242; mentioned, 114, 117, 154, 254, 260; a possible fictional element in, 25S; publication of, forbidden by censor, 262, 295. Names, Russian, 216. " Napoleon," poem by Pushkin, 10, 23. Napoleon I., 216, 219, 265; Tolstoi's treatment of, in "War and Peace," 221. Napoleon III., 74. Naturalists, Tolstoi at congress of Russian, 349~35o. Nature, Tolstoi's love of, 207, 264, 293- Nazaryef, student at Kazan, 28, 29. Nekhlyudof, Prince, 31, 32, 121, 336. Nekrasof, N. A., editor of Sovremen- nik, 64, 65, 82; poem "Russian Women" by, 199. " Nest of Noblemen," Turgenief's. 137. " New Life," Auerbach's novel, 142. Newspapers, Tolstoi and, 212. Nicholas I., Emperor, 7, 73, 82. Nicholas II., Emperor, accession of, 352. Nietzsche, Tolstoi charmed by, 365. "Night in Sevastopol," 82. "Nihilist, The," farcical comedy, 198. Nikanor, Archbishop, denunciation of Tolstoi by, 330. Nikolskoye estate, 163. Nirvana, 230, 231, 243. Nizhni Novgorod, 24. Nobel Prize, refused by Tolstoi, 398. " Non- Acting," essay, 349. Non-resistance, Tolstoi's theory of, 3 29 1 33 6 ". doctrine elucidated in" The Slavery of Our Time," 367-368; proof of impracticability of, 444, 445- Novosyolof, M. A., 305. Oberlander, Fraulein, pianist, 253. Obolyensky, Prince, 184-185, 223, 254, 409. Ogaryof, Nikolai P., collaborator of Herzen's on the Kdlokol, 154. Old Believers, 265, 342. "Only Means, The," article dealing with labor problem, 379. "On the Eve," Turgenief's, 137. "On the Heights," Auerbach's, 142. Optin Monastery, visits to, 253, 278- _ 280, 335. Optin Pustuin Hermitage, visit to, 402. Oriental languages, Tolstoi's study of, as a young man, 25. Orlof, teacher in railway school, 287. Ostashkof, hunter, 132-133. Osten-Saken, Countess Aleksandra, 20, 21, 24. Ostrovsky, A. N., "The Thunder Storm" by, 137. " Oty£ts Serrgyei," unpublished manu- script, 415. Ovations to Tolstoi after excommuni- cation, 3 74-3 76. Ovsyanniko-K u 1 i k o v s k y, D. N., quoted on Tolstoi, 451-452. Ozolin, I. I., station-master at Asta- povo, 403. Palmerston, Lord, 74; in the House of Commons, 155. Pamphlet against Tolstoi promulgated by the Church, 360. Panayef, 83, 97, 108. Panslavism, 124, 135, 136, 259. Parables, 353. 'Parasha," poem by Turg£nief, 136. Parfeny, Bishop of Tula, 407, 408. Paris, Tolstoi's visit to, in 1857, 116- 117; second visit to (1861), 152-153. "Patriotism and Christianity," treat- ise, 350. "Patriotism and Peace," essay, 357. Peace Arbiter, appointment and ser- vice of Tolstoi as, 155, 1 69-1 71. Peace Conference, Hague, attacked by Tolstoi, 367, 397-398. Peasants, indebtedness of, to Russian novelists and poets, 128-129; eman- cipation of the, 130— 131, 155; inter- est in German, roused by Auerbach's tales, 142; Tolstoi's activities in aid of, as Peace Arbiter, 169-17 1. See also Muzhiks. Penza, proposed purchase of an estate in, 222. Perfection, five Rules for, 336. Perovskaya, Sophia, conspirator, 274. Persky, S., reminiscence of Tolstoi by, 362. Pessimism, 260. "Peter Parley" as a model in history teaching, 177. 462 INDEX Petersburg, Tolstoi's candidacy for the University at, and life in, 34-35; Tolstoi's life in, at close of Crimean War, 93-101; performance of "Fruits of Enlightenment" in, 345; gerformance of "The Power of >arkness " in , 3 5 6 ; museum founded at, in honor of Tolstoi's eightieth birthday, 390. Peter the Great, Tsar, 1-2; failure of proposed novel by Tolstoi dealing with, 231; Schuyler's standard ac- count of, 231-232. Petropavlovsk, visit to fortress of, 252. Philanthropy, Tolstoi's views on, 385. Pisemsky, 128. Plagiarisms, Tolstoi's, 254. Plaksin, Sergyei, on Tolstoi and the children at Hyeres, 149. Play- writing, 315. Pobyedonostsef , Prokuror of the Holy Synod, 275-276; prohibits pub- lication of "What do I Believe?" 299; activities of, against Tolstoi, 342; indictment of, in "Resurrec- tion," 366; Jesuitical plan of, incase of Tolstoi's death, 383. Poems in prose, Tolstoi's and Tur- genief's, 267-268. Poetry, Tolstoi's remarks concerning, 357-358. Pokrovskoye, estate of the Behrs', 191. " Polikushka," the writing of, in Brussels, 156; mentioned, 195. Polonsky, meeting with Tolstoi at Spasskoye, 281. Polyenof, painting of "Woman taken in Adultery" by, 324. Positivism, 351. Posrednik, publishing enterprise found- ed by Tolstoi and others, 304-305. "Post-box" magazine, 294. "Power of Darkness, The," play, 315, 316; performance of, in Petersburg, 356. Pozdnyakof, poet, Tolstoi's discour- aging advice to, 3 57~3 58. Prayer, 45, 53, 71, 88, 138. Prescott, W. H., Tolstoi's opinion of, 33- Printing, of little use to the people, according to Tolstoi, 172-173. "Prisoner of the Caucasus," men- tioned, 69; publication of, 229. "Progress and Poverty," impression of, on Tolstoi, 348. Property, division of Tolstoi's, 336- 337- Proprietor's Morning, A," quoted, 31-32; appearance of, and Turge- nief's criticism, 113. Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, Tolstoi's meeting with, 155-156. Psychological Society, Moscow, 316. Pushkin, Aleksandr Serg6yevitch, poet, 10— ii, 23, 72, 128; Tolstoi's attention attracted to beauties of works of, 179; projected history of Peter the Great's reign by, 231; characteristic method of starting a work, 239; Tolstoi's refusal to join in ovation to memory of, 267-268: argument between Tolstoi and Turg£nief over, 268; influence of, shown in modern Russian writers, 418. Pushkin, curator of University of Kazan, 25. Pushkin, President of Committee of Censors, 83. " Quail, The," Turg^nief s story, 281. Quarrel with Turgenief, 1 61-165. Question-box scheme at the Work- man's Union, 141. "Raid, The" ("The Invaders"), 67. Railway, Tolstoi's dislike for travel by, 212. Rakhmanof, V. V., 336. Rayevsky, famine relief worker, 340. Reading, art of, 178; Tolstoi reads paper on, before Moscow educators, 237. Reading-books compiled by Tolstoi, 228-229. Reason, Law of, 265, 351. "Reason and Religion," essay, 350- 35i- "Recollections," Tolstoi's, quoted, 9, 10— ii, 12, 14. Religion, definition of, by Tolstoi, 351, 422 n. "Religion and Morality," essay, 351. "Religious Toleration," article, 381. Renan, Tolstoi's opinion of "Life of Jesus" by, 264. "Resurrection," mentioned, 189, 190; Baedeker, international preacher, the prototype of Kiesewetter in, 260; beginning of work on, 357, publication of, to aid Dukhobors to emigrate, 366; description of; 366. Revolution, the spirit of, throughout Russia in 1877, 259. Riding, first lesson in, 18. Riehl, W. H., works of, 145. "Romanism in Russia," by D. A. Tolstoi, 3. Roosevelt, Theodore, Outlook article on Tolstoi by, quoted, 453-454. Rossel.Feodorlvanuitch.tutor, 15, 18. Rostopchin and the burning of Mos- cow, 220. Rostovsky, Dmitry, work by, cited, 6. Rousseau, J. J., influence of, on Tol- stoi, 33, 59; comparison of Tolstoi and, 421, 449. Rubinstein, Anton, 125; story of con- cert by, and Tolstoi's complimen- tary ticket, 311. Rubinstein, Nikolai, director of Mos- cow Conservatory, 125, 249; Tol- INDEX 463 stoi's acquaintance with and fond- ness for music of, 254. Rudolf, German musician, 35-36, 116. Rules for Perfection, 336. Rules of conduct, 30-31. Rumyantsof Museum, study of docu- ments at, 204. Ruskin, John, comparison of Tolstoi and, 155. M Russian Women," poem by Nekra- sof, 199. Russky Vyestnik, serial publication of "War and Peace" in, 201; appear- ance of "Anna Karenina" in, 239- 240; withdrawal of conclusion of "Anna Karenina" from, 244. Russo-Japanese War, looked on with horror by Tolstoi, 386. Ryepin, painter, 209; Tolstoi sits to, 333; painting by, "Tolstoi Plowing," 344; portrait of Tolstoi by, ordered removed from Petersburg gallery, 37i. Sado, Tchetchen friend of Tolstoi's, 52-54, 68-69. St. George's Cross, 56, 86. Saints, religious pilgrims called, 15. St. Thomas, Prosper, tutor, 19. Saltuikof, Mikhail Y., editor, 124, 291. Samara, first visit to (1862), 182-183; second visit to (1864), 200; visit to, in 1871, 224-227; visit to, in 1872, and purchase of land at, 232; famine in region of, 232-233; continued visits of the Tolstois to, and descrip- tion of life at, 233-235, 257, 282- 283. Samarin, P. F., Marshal of Nobility for Tula, 187, 326. Sand, George, Tolstoi's aversion to, 94, 212. Sandusky "Times" article on Tolstoi, 324. Schelholm, Minna, kindergarten man- ager, 156. Schools, visits to German, 1 41-14 2; to French, 1 50-151; at Weimar, 156-158. Schools for peasants, 37, 137, 142, 174 175, 180, 182, 184, 187, 209. Schopenhauer, Tolstoi's admiration of, 222, 260. Schroder, Leopold von, opinion of Tolstoi of, 420. Schumann, Tolstoi's views of, 249, 250-251. Schuyler, Eugene, meeting of, with Tolstoi in Paris (1861), 152; cited on Tolstoi's opinion on effect of emancipation of serfs, 173; men- tioned, 176; quoted concerning Tolstoi's remarks on " War and Peace," 215-221; assists Tolstoi in obtaining American primers and readers, 228; history of Peter the Great by, 231-232. Scott, Sir Walter, method of, con- trasted with Tolstoi's in " War and Peace," 221; Tolstoi's opinion of, 345- Semyonof, S., description of Tolstoi by, 348-349. " Senilia," Turgenief's, 268. "Sentimental Journey," Sterne's, 33, 40, 112. Sermon on the Mount censored by Russian officials, 305. Seuron, Anna, cited, 306, 319. Sevastopol, siege of, 78 ff.; revisited by Tolstoi in 1885, 304. "Sevastopol in August," 88. "Sevastopol in December," 82. Sevastopol Sketches, the, 82-86; pub- lished in he Temps, 258. Sevastopol Song, the, 89-90, 103. Sex problem in books, 329-330, 344- 345- Shakespeare, Pushkin's opinion of "Lucrece," n n.; Tolstoi's dislike and lack of appreciation of, 358— 359- Shakhovskoi, Prince, 352. "Shame!" article against practice of flogging peasants, 353. Shamordin, convent of, 9, 335; Tol- stoi's stop at, during last wander- ings, 402. Shamyl, Sufi Mollah, Tartar leader, 40, 67. Shaw, Bernard, correspondence be- tween Tolstoi and, 398. Shenshin, A. A. See Fy£t. "She was Crafty" ("Fruits of En- lightenment"), comedy, 326. Shibunin, soldier executed for striking his captain, 205-207. Shoe-making, 297, 301, 324. Silistria, siege of, 76. Silver wedding, the Tolstois', 320. Simferopol, Tolstoi at, in Crimean War, 79, 81. Skobelyef, General, Tolstoi's refusal to receive, 267. "Slavery of our Time, The," treatise, 367-368. Slavonic question, 244. "Smoke," Turgenief's, 213. Smye's, publication to aid famine sufferers, 348. Solitary confinement, Tolstoi's views on, 141. Sovremennik, publication of "Child- hood" in, 64-67; appearance of the Sevastopol Sketches in, 82; sup- pression of, for too liberal tenden- cies, 238. Spasskoye, Turgenief's estate, 66, 80. Spiritualism, 272, 326. Spring, effect of, 126. Stakhovitch, M. A., visitor at Yas- naya Poly ana, 313. Starogladovsk, Tolstoi's life at, 56 ff.; memories of Tolstoi preserved in, 72-73. 464 INDEX Stary Yurt, life at, 42-43; gambling incident at, 51-54. Stasulyevitch, Ensign, 205, 206. Stead, W. T., quoted on Tolstoi, 454. Stein, Ludwig, opinion of Tolstoi, 420. Steiner, Edward A., quoted on Tol- stoi and Ruskin, 155. Steppe, life in the, 233-235. See Samara. Sterne, Laurence, Tolstoi's opinion of, 33. 112. Stevenson, R. L., reference to, 147. Stoetrer, Julius, visit of Tolstoi to school of, 156-158. Stoluipin, commander of Cossacks at Uralsk, 183. Stoluipin, Prime Minister, 408. "Stories of My Dogs," 40, 228-229. Strakhof, N., literary assistant and critic of Tolstoi's, 229, 253, 269. Students, suppression of manifesta- tions by (1900, 1901), 368; Tolstoi takes part in protests against treat- ment of, 376-377. Suicide, thoughts on, 147, 246, 393; Tolstoi's temptation to commit, after completing " Anna Karenina," 254-255, 261. Sulphur springs of Besh-tau, 61-63. Sutayef, sectarian Christian peasant, 285, 290. Suzdal, monastery fortress at, 342. Switzerland, Tolstoi in (1857), 118- 122. Synod, Holy, 360, 367, 368, 374, 383, 389, 407-409. Talmud, reading of, by Tolstoi, 296. Tartar tribes in the Caucasus, 40; experiences in warfare with, 67-69, Tchaikovsky, Piotr Ilyitch, composer. 249; folk-songs sent to, by Tolstoi, 249-250; disappointed in Tolstoi, 250; quoted, 251—252. Tchekof, Anton, receives advice from Tolstoi, 358; visits Tolstoi, 381. Tchertkof,V., banishment of, 355, 392; at Tolstoi's funeral, 409. Tchirkof, Dr., 315. Tchitcherin, V. N., 124. Tchornaya River, battle of, 87. " Telegraph" (London) famine article, ™ 342. Temeshova, Dunetchka, 9. Temperance movement at Yasnaya Polyana, 3 2 2—3 23 . Text-books, preparation of a series by Tolstoi, 228-229. Thackeray, W. M., on executions, 117. Theological studies, Tolstoi's, 270 ff. Thiers, Tolstoi on, as a historian, 219. Thoreau, H. D., reminders of, in Tol- stoi, 264; a Russian peasant co- thinker with, 305. "Three Days in a Village," 398-399. "Three Deaths," story, 126; criticism of, 135. Three Hermits, The," 254. "Three Parables," folk-tales, 353. "Thunder Storm," Ostrovsky's, 137. Tirlis, Tolstoi's life at, as a candidate for the army, 48-50. Title, pride in, 97; dropping of, 296. Tobacco, giving up of, by Tolstoi, 307; remarks on effects of, 327. Todleben, General, 79. "Tokology," Dr. Stockham's, preface to, by Tolstoi, 344. Tolstaya, Aleksandra, youngest daugh- ter of L. N. Tolstoi, 300; joins Tolstoi in his last wanderings, 403; in the funeral train, 409; Tolstoi's unpublished Mss. left to, 415. Tolstaya, Aleksandra A., relative of L. N. Tolstoi, 119, 126, 136, 145, 232; interviews Alexander III. in behalf of Tolstoi, 342. Tolstaya, Princess Mariya Volkons- kaya, mother of L. N. Tolstoi, 4, 5-7, 10. Tolstaya, Marya, second daughter of L. N. Tolstoi, 209, 326, 333, 387. Tolstaya, Marya N., sister of L. N. Tolstoi, 9, 39, 63, 66, 81, 105, 122, 123, 335, 402. Tolstaya, Sophia Andreyevna (S. A. Behrs), wife of L. N. Tolstoi, 191, 192-194; marriage of, 195; Fy£t's description of, 196; activities of, as housekeeper, private secretary, and manager, 198; called the "prime minister" by Tolstoi, 209; opposi- tion of, to Tolstoi's educational activities, 238-239; inability of, to understand Tolstoi's behavior, 266- 267; argument of, that the Chris- tian teaching is not practicable, 276-277; description of, during residence in Moscow, 287; letter to the count from, 292; undertakes publication of Tolstoi's books, 302; complains to her brother, of her cares, 319-320; an illustration of difficulties of being consort of a genius, 320, 338; interview with Alexander III. over " The Kreutzer Sonata," 330-331 ; letter written by, in reply to public anathema issued by Holy Synod against Tolstoi, 3 69- 370; description of, at Tolstoi's death-bed, 403-404, 406; at Tolstoi's funeral, 409. Tolstaya, Tatyana N., eldest daughter of L. N. Tolstoi, 201, 326, 327, 340, 387, 407. Tolstaya, Varvara, infant daughter of L. N. Tolstoi, 237. Tolstoi, Aleksei, son of L. N. Tolstoi, 287; death of, 311. Tolstoi, Aleksei Konstantinovitch, poet, ancestor of L. N. Tolstoi, 3. Tolstoi, Dmitry Andreyevitch, states- man and author, 3 . Tolstoi, Dmitry (Mitenka), brother of L. N. Tolstoi, 8, 23, 25, 29, 39; career, illness, and death of, 99—101. Tolstoi, Feodor Petrovitch, artist, 3. INDEX 465 Tolstoi, Ilya A., grandfather of L. N. Tolstoi, 3,5- Tolstoi, Ilya N., second son of L. N. Tolstoi, 205, 404. Tolstoi, Ivan, youngest son of L. N. Tolstoi, 337; death of, 352. Tolstoi, Ivan Petrovitch, 2. Tolstoi, Lyof L., third son of L. N. Tolstoi, 109, 205, 340. Tolstoi, Lyof Nikolayevitch, ancestry, 1-6; brothers of, 7-8; birth of (1828) and early recollections, 9-16; child- hood at Yasnaya Polyana, and loss of father and mother, 17-23; removal to Kazan and experiences at University there, 24-29; leaves University without taking his degree, to reside at Yasnaya Polyana (1847), 30; experiences as a young proprietor, 31-33; goes to Peters- burg (1848), 33-35; returns to Yasnaya Polyana, 35-36; life in Moscow, 36-37; puts estate in hands of his brother-in-law and goes on tour in the Caucasus, 40—47 ; decides to enter the army as a volunteer, 48; works on "Child- hood," 48-49; gambling experience at Stary Yurt, 51-54; a non-com- missioned officer in the artillery, 56; visit to sulphur springs of Besh- tau, 61-63; publication of "Child- hood," 64-67; writes "The Invad- ers," 67 ; experiences in warfare with Tartar tribes, 67-69; leaves the Caucasus (1854), 72; joins the army of the Danube, in Crimean War (March, 1854), 74; army life, 76 ff.; "Sevastopol Sketches," 82-86; mili- tary life, and end of army career (December, 1855), 87-92; in literary circles at Petersburg, 93-100; spends summer of 1856 at Y'asnaya Polyana, 101; love affair with V. V. A. and return to Petersburg, 102- 109; completes writing of "Youth," no; visit to Paris (1857), 116; mgers in Switzerland, 1 18-122; tours Germany and returns to Petersburg, 122; residence during the winter in Moscow, with sister and brothers, 122-125; the follow- ing summer at Yasnaya Polyana, 126 ff.; the encounter with a bear, 132-134; writes "Family Happi- ness," 134; starts the Yasnaya Polyana School and works on " The Cossacks" (winter of 1859-60), 137; phases of inner development, 138- 140; second journey abroad, with sister and her children (July, i860), 141; visits Germany, and goes to Hyeres for the winter of 1861, 141- 148; death of brother Nikolai, 146; travels through Italy, 152; revisits Paris, 153; goes to London, 153-155", appointment as Arbiter of Peace and return to Russia via Brussels and German cities, 155-159; settles in country, 160; the quarrel with Turgenief, 160-165; service as Arbiter of Peace, 169-171; educa- tional activities, 174-182; visit to Samara, in the steppe (1862), 182 fT.; police descent on Yasnaya Polyana, during absence, 183-186; loss of 1000 rubles at Chinese bil- liards and resulting sale and publi- cation of "The Cossacks," 187-188; courtship and marriage to Sofiya Andreyevna Behrs (October 5, 1862), 191-195; life at Yasnaya Polyana, 195-197; work on "War and Peace" and serial publication of, 198-204; takes family to Moscow for_ winter of 1867, 215; continues visits to Samara, 222, 224-227, 232-235; compiles educational text- books, 228-229; begins "Anna Karenina" (March, 1873), 239; changes in his relations to the Church, beginning with 1876,241; completion of " Anna Karenina ' (1876), 243; fondness for musical matters, 249-252; difficulties over Church questions, 261-263; theolog- ical studies, 270-277; pilgrimage to Optin Monastery, 278-280; neces- sity of moving to Moscow for educa- tion of children, 284; slumming, census- taking, and attempted charity-relief work in Moscow, 285— 289; summer of 1882 spent at Yasnaya Polyana, 294; purchase of house in Moscow, 295; beginning of practice of manual labor, 296— 297; publication of works given over to Countess Tolstaya, 302; writing of literature for the masses, 304 ff.; productivity of year 188 6, 309; "Death of Ivan Ilyitch," "What Must be Done, Then?" etc., 3 09 ff; further change of personality, 318-321; temperance lesson by, 322-323; "The Fruits of Enlighten- ment" performed in public, 326— 328; "The Kreutzer Sonata," 329- 331; rules for perfection, 336; division of property among wife and children, 336-337; work in relieving famine conditions, 340 ff.; attitude of the Church toward, 341— 343; activities as defender of the Dukhobors, 353-357, 365-366; in- terest in and treatise on Art, 362— 365; publication of "Resurrection" to aid the Dukhobors, 366; excom- municated by the Holy Synod, 368- 369; attitude of, in regard to his excommunication, 3 7 1-3 73 ; remark- able public ovations to, 374-376; autumn and winter of 1901 spent in the Crimea, 379-383; later writ- ings, home life at Yasnaya Polyana, visitors to, etc., 384-391; descrip- tion of visits to an insane asylum, 466 INDEX 392-396; last days at Yasnaya Polyana, 397; departure from home on November 10, 19 10, 400; wanderings of, and death, 402-404; mourning for, and funeral, 404-413 ; public sorrow for, 414; disposition of literary remains, 415-417; esti- mates of, as a man and a writer, 417-423. Tolstoi, Nikolai, father of L. N. Tol- stoi, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 17; death of, 19. Tolstoi, Nikolai N. (Nikolenka) , broth- er of L. N. Tolstoi, 7, 12-14, 19, 25, 37-38, 41. 42, 5Xi 53, 54, 59, 60, 87, 99, 129, 140; Tolstoi's recollec- tions of, 10-12; last days and death of, 142-146; character of, 148. Tolstoi, Nikolai, youngest son of L. N. Tolstoi, death of, 237. Tolstoi, Peter, fourth son of L. N. Tolstoi, 232, 236. Tolstoi, Pyotr Andreyevitch, 1-2, 3. Tolstoi, Sergyei, brother of L. N. Tolstoi, 7-8, 23, 25, 26, 29, 35, 49, 128, 202; death of (1904), 387. Tolstoi, Sergyei N. (Seryozha), eldest son of L. N. Tolstoi, 198, 280; helps Dukhobors to embark at Batum, 365-366; translation of Carpenter's "Modern Science" by, 367. Tolstoian colonies, 357 n., 443-446. "Tolstoi Plowing," Ryepin's painting, 344- Toothache, sufferings from, 141, 153. Topffer, influence of, on Tolstoi, 112. Tours, Eugenie, novelist, 139. Trades unions, Tolstoi's views of, 144- 145. Translators, remarks on, 302. Tregubof, banishment of, 355. Tretyakof's Gallery, 235; "Christ be- fore Pilate" bought for, 334. Trollope, Anthony, liked by Tolstoi, 212. Trubetskaya, Princess Yekaterina, 4. Tula, "The Fruits of Enlightenment" given at, 327. Turg£nief, Ivan, Tolstoi's opinion of "Memoirs of a Sportsman" by, 33; mentioned, 66, 80, 93, 128; "Wood- cutting Expedition" dedicated to, 84; accounts of disagreements be- tween Tolstoi and, 95~97; corre- spondence with Tolstoi on love affairs, 1 07-1 08; opinion of "Youth," 112; influence of, on Tolstoi, 113; quoted on " A Proprietor's Morn- ing," 113; Tolstoi's visit to, in Paris (1857), 116; as a poet, 136; work of, discussed by Tolstoi, 137; on Tol- stoi's "eccentricities," 138; Tolstoi's visit to in Paris in 1861, 153; Tol- stoi's almost fatal quarrel with, at Fyet's, 161-165; "Smoke" by, dis- liked by Tolstoi, 213; opinion of "War and Peace" quoted, 214; calls Tolstoi "the only hope" of Russian literature, 226; opinion of "The Prisoner in the Caucasus, ', 229; efforts of, to popularize Tol- stoi's works in France, 240, 258; opinion of "Anna Kar^nina, 240; renewal of friendly relations with (1878), 257; discussions and dissen- sions with, at Yasnaya Polyana, 257-258; visit of, to Tolstoi in 1879, 267; reads his poem in prose, "The Dog," 267-268; renewed praise of Tolstoi by, 268-269; Tolstoi's visit to, at Spasskoye, 281; dances a cancan for the children at Yasnaya Polyana, 284; on "My Confession," 295; note written by, on death-bed, to "the great writer of our Russian land," 297; death of "the giant of the Steppes," 298; reading of paper on, by Tolstoi prohibited, 298; Tolstoi contrasted with, 417. Turgenieva, Assy a, illegitimate daughter of Turgenief, 161. " Ufanizing," 129, 196. " Uncle Tom's Cabin," appreciation of, by Tolstoi, 365. Universities, revolutionary disturb- ances in (1900, 1901), 368. Urusof, Prince L. D., arbitrament of war by game of chess suggested by, 91-92; at Yasnaya Polyana, 267— 268, 273; translates "War and Peace" into French, 304; Tolstoi's trip to the Crimea with, 304. Vanutelli, Cardinal, 422. Varsonofy, Hermit of Optin Pustuin, 407, 409. Vegetarianism, Tolstoi s advocacy of, 344- Vereshchagin, painter, Tolstoi's un- willingness to receive, 267. Viardot, Madame, 107, 112, 118. " Village Stories," Auerbach's, 138, 142, 145. Virigin, Dukhobor leader, 354~356. " Vlas," poem by Nekrasof, 181. Vogel, Professor, 27. Volga, journey down the, 42, 224. Volkonskaya, Princess, 126. Volkonsky family, the, 4. Volkonsky, Prince Mikhail, 6. Volkonsky, Prince Nikolai, maternal grandfather of L. N. Tolstoi, 4-5, 17. Vorgani, Mile., French governess, 102-106. Voron6k, horse, 18. " V. V. A.," young lady entitled, 101-108. Vyazemsky, Prince L. D., 377. Wagner, Tolstoi's criticism of, 364. War, descriptions of, 85, 86, 87; hatred of, 91. INDEX 467 •'War and Peace," mentioned, 3, 4, 6, 126, 190; the writing of, 198-204; serial rights sold to Rus sky Vyestnik, 201; Turgenief's opinion of, 214; chapter from, read in public by Prince Kugushef, 215; Tolstoi's remarks regarding, as chronicled by Schuyler, 215-221; Tolstoi s method in, contrasted with Scott's in his historical novels, 221; enthusiasm of Russian people over, and recog- nition of as a masterpiece of universal literature, 222; Tolstoi's realiza- tion of unsuitableness of philo- sophic disquisitions in, 244; judg- ment of, according to Tolstoi's theory of Art, 246-247; American translator of, 348 n. Weimar, Tolstoi's visits to schools at, 156-158. "What do I Believe?" loss of manu- script of, 298; experiences of, with board of censors, 299; translated into French by Prince Urusof, 304. K What is Art ? r ' work on, 357; analysis of, 362-363. "What is to be Done, Then?" origins of, 288; should be studied by charity- workers, 290; completion of, 309-310- "What is Truth?" Gay's, 333~334. "What Men Live By," 254; publica- tion of, 281. "Where Love is, there God is^ Also," 254- White, Andrew D., criticism of Tolstoi by, 419. Women, Tolstoi on the peculiarities of, 320; on the inequality of, with men, 339. Women's rights, attack on, in "What Must be Done, Then?" 310. Wood, Mrs. Henry, novels of, liked by Tolstoi, 212. "Wood-cutting Expedition," 82, 84. Work-room, description of Tolstoi's, 333, 337- Yanzhul, I. L, visits Tolstoi, 324: "Kingdom of God is within You' brought to United States by, 347 n. Yanzhul, M. A., reminiscences of service in the Caucasus by, 72-73. Yargolskaya, "Aunt Tatyana" Alek- sandrovna, 6-7, 12, 35, 105-106; assumes care of Tolstoi children, 20- 21; simplicity of character of, 127- 128; after Tolstoi's marriage, 196- 197; last days and death of, 236. Yasnaya Polyana, estate^ of, 4, 5, 16; location of, and description, 17; return of Tolstoi to, from Kazan University and attempts to amelio- rate condition.of serfs, 31-33; police descent on, and search of, 183-185; life at, after Tolstoi's marriage, 196- 197; company at, 267; destructive fire at, in 1883, 297; swarms of disciples at, 306; play, "The Fruits of Enlightenment," given at, 326- 327; disposition of, in division of Tolstoi's property, 336-337; condi- tions at, after division of property, 33 7 - 338; interesting home life at (1903), 385-386; final departure of Tolstoi from, 400-401, 402; funeral and burial of Tolstoi at, 409-411; question of disposition of, 414-415. Yasnaya Polyana, educational maga- zine, 160, 175-176, 183; reasons for discontinuing, 187. Yasnaya Polyana School, beginning of the, 137; description of, 1 75-181; reasons for closing, 187; renewal of, in 1872, 230. Yazuikof, S. T., Tolstoi's godfather, 10, 11. Yepishka, Cossack friend of Tolstoi's, 48. \ eremeyevna, Russian bugaboo, 15. "Youth," quoted, 26; writing of, at Sevastopol, 82; criticism of, by Druzhinin, 110-111; Turgenief's opinion of, 112. Yushkof, V. I., 24, 183. \ ushkof family, Kazan, 42. Yiishkova, Countess Pelageya Ilyi- nishna, aunt of L. N. Tolstoi, 24-26; death of, 237. Zagoskin, quoted, 31. Zakharin, Moscow specialist consulted by Tolstoi, 213. Zasyeka, crown forest near Yasnaya Polyana, 17. Zinger, A. V., 327, 338. Zinovief, M. A., incident of search of house of, and results, 165-166. Zola, not cared for by Tolstoi, 345; contrasted with Tolstoi, in extent of moral influence, 438. Zyelinsky, critic, 67. 1& 1911 One copy del. to Cat. Div. re.33 X