SOME ANECDOTES OF TOLSTOY
A good illustration of Tolstoy's irresponsibility on the estate, or what
he meant to be such, is the way he invited me to stop one night at his
house. I had gone swimming with the boys to a pool perhaps a quarter of
a mile from the house, and it was getting to be time for me to know
whether I was to sleep at the Tolstoy's or in the neighbor's barn. While
we were drying and dressing ourselves, I heard a voice in the brushwood
near-by saying: "Meester Fleent, my wife invites you to spend the night
with us." It was the Count himself, who had come all that distance to
tell me that his _wife_ had _told him_ that _he_ was to seek _me_ out,
and deliver _her_ invitation, not _his_. I shall always remember his
face as it appeared through the twigs, and the errand-boy accent in his
voice and manner. I have never before seen greatness in such a humble
posture. It was openly said to me by one of the Count's friends that
this humility has given the old gentleman considerable trouble, in its
acquirement as well as in its exercise. Probably we shall know much more
about all this when the Count's Journal is published. I learned this
much on the spot: Tolstoy feels very keenly the seeming inconsistency of
his life, the fact that he cannot make his altruistic notions harmonize
with his daily life. His chagrin has, on one or two occasions, nearly
made a coward of him. At night, when no one was looking, he has slunk
away toward Moscow, like a tramp, to be himself somewhere. But always,
before he has got far, a voice has said to him: "Lyoff Nicolayevitch,
you are afraid. You dread the remarks of the crowd. You shrink on
hearing that you preach what you don't practice. You are trying to run
away from it all, to be comfortable yourself whether others are or not.
"Think of your wife and children, of the home you have made. Is it your
right to sneak away from all this just to make yourself look and sound
consistent? Have you not duties toward your wife and children to
observe? Do you think you can throw over all that you were to them and
they to you merely to satisfy your vanity--vanity, Lyoff, and nothing
more. You are vain in your very sneaking. You insist upon appearing all
that you think you are.
"Back, back, back! Remember your wife and children. Remember that you
have no right to make them think and live the way you would. Remember
that to sneak away is cowardly. Back, Lyoff Nicolayevitch!" And back the
old man has trudged, to take up his burden as a citizen.
One night he talked with me about my tramps. He asked me why I had made
them, how the vagabonds lived, and why I had not continued to live among
them. I told him the truth. He stroked his white beard and looked
dreamily at the chess-board.
"If I were younger," he said at last, "I should like to make a tramp
trip with you here in Russia. Years ago I used to wander about among
them a good deal. Now, I am too old--too old," and he ran his hands
rheumatically up and down his legs.
When leaving Yasnaya Polyana, I asked the Count's neighbor in whose
house I had slept whether there was anything I could do for him or the
Count during my travels. My railroad pass was good yet for a number of
weeks, and it occurred to me that, perhaps, during my wanderings I could
run some errand for Tolstoy. At the time, I had no thought that my
proposition could get him, myself or anybody else into trouble. To be
sure, Mr. Breckenridge, the American Minister at St. Petersburg, had
given me, in addition to my passport, a general letter "To whom it may
concern," recommending me to everybody as a bona fide American citizen
and gentleman, and bespeaking for me in advance the friendly offices of
all with whom I might be thrown. But I failed utterly to see how I was
going back on this letter in offering to render a service that the
Count, or rather his neighbor, asked me to render.
When it came time to go, the neighbor handed me a large sealed envelope,
containing letters, which I was to deliver, if possible, into the hands
of one Prince Chilkoff, a nephew I believe of the then Minister of
Railways, who was temporarily banished to a rural community in the
Baltic Provinces, about two hundred miles from St. Petersburg. I knew
nothing about the Prince, or what he had done to offend the powers that
be. What the letters contained, was, of course, a private matter into
which I knew enough not to inquire. There was a promise in the
undertaking which attracted me, and I willingly accepted the commission.
Arriving in St. Petersburg I called on Mr. Breckenridge and happened to
mention the errand that I was on. I told him that Chilkoff was banished
in the sense that he had to live within given boundaries, but that I
hardly thought he had done anything very serious, adding that his uncle
was one of the Ministers of State. All that I know to-day about young
Chilkoff's offense was that he was alleged to have been mixed up too
intimately for his own good with the Donkhobors and other more or less
tabooed religious sects in the Caucasus.
At first Mr. Breckenridge did not see anything out of the way in my
errand, and very kindly offered to assist me officially in seeing the
Prince, _i.e._, he suggested that we openly ask for governmental
permission to proceed to the Prince's home. Then I mentioned the secret
package of letters. The Minister's manner changed. "Suppose you dine
with me to-night," he said, "and we will discuss those letters." I did
so, and the upshot of the meeting was that the package of letters was
ordered back to Yasnaya Polyana. At the time it seemed a pretty
humiliating trip to be sent on, but I am glad now that I did not shirk
it. "I have recommended you as a gentleman to the Russian government and
people," said the Minister, "both in the letter I gave you to the
Minister of Finance when you were getting the correspondent's pass and
in the later one of a general character. For you to undertake secret
missions of this character may very easily make the government wonder
whether I knew what constitutes a gentleman when I gave you those
letters."
I have had to eat a number of different kinds of humble pie in my day,
and tramp life let me into some of the inner recesses of humiliation
that no one but a tramp ever knows about; but no journey has ever made
me feel quite so cheap and small as that return trip from St. Petersburg
to Tula, the railway station where visitors to Yasnaya Polyana leave the
train. I telegraphed ahead advising the Count's neighbor of my coming,
and expected that he would meet me at the station. What was my surprise,
on arriving at Tula, to find the old Count himself waiting for me.
"Ah! Meester Fleent," he exclaimed as I got off the train and greeted
him, "have you brought me news from Prince Chilkoff?"
I wished at the time that I could sink out of sight under the platform,
so pathetically eager was the Count's expectancy. There were only a few
moments to spare, and I clumsily blurted out the truth, trying at the
same time to explain how sorry I was. The Count calmly opened the
envelope and glanced at the letters.
"Oh, it wouldn't have mattered," he said, and after shaking hands, went
back to his house. He neither seemed vexed nor embarrassed. A suggestion
of a tired look came into his face--he had ridden seventeen versts--that
was all.
One of his "disciples," referring to this affair and my connection with
it, some weeks later, ventured the statement that I had "funked" in the
matter. I hardly think the Count felt this way about it, whatever else
he may have thought. At the time, however, as he rode away on his horse,
the letters tucked carelessly under his blouse, I would have given a
good deal to know exactly what was in his mind. I remember very
accurately what was in mine--a resolution, that, whatever else I did or
did not do in life, I would never accept an official letter to the
effect that I was a gentleman and then proceed to do something which was
likely to get the letter-writer into trouble. "Either leave such letters
alone," I counseled myself, "and be your own interpreter of
gentlemanliness, or know, before accepting them, what will be expected
of you."
Tolstoy, no doubt, has long since forgotten this episode, but I never
will. In a way it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I felt that I had
spoiled my experience at Yasnaya Polyana. I outgrew this feeling,
however, and often think now of my visit to the Count and his family as
I did when I drove away to Tula in the two-wheeled cart. I likened
myself at the time to a dog "caught with the goods on," so to speak, and
slinking away with his tail between his legs, but with the "goods" held
tight in his mouth. Something, I know not what, unless it was the sweet
peace and kindliness of the Count and his surroundings, seemed such
forbidden fruit for me of my tempestuous career to taste of, that I felt
very much as I used to feel as a boy when caught trespassing in other
people's orchards. It did not seem right that one who had been through
what I had should be allowed to enter into such an atmosphere of good
cheer. Nevertheless, I was glad that entrance had not been denied me,
and made many solemn resolutions to profit by the experience. Whether
the resolutions have been kept with the fervor and determination that
animated me in 1896, I would rather not say. But one remembrance is as
vivid and dear to me to-day as when I rode away in the cart: the Count
and his desire to do the right thing. "If to be like him," I have often
caught myself saying, "makes one a fakir, then let us all be fakirs as
quickly as possible." Unpractical, yes, in some things; a visionary,
perhaps; a "literary" reformer, also perhaps. But my simple testimony
about him and his is that I have yet to spend ten days in a gentler and
sweeter neighborhood than those I enjoyed in and about Yasnaya Polyana.