MARRIAGE
At first he rejoiced in the new life, with the passion which he brought
to everything.[1] The personal influence of Countess Tolstoy was a
godsend to his art. Greatly gifted[2] in a literary sense, she was, as
she says, "a true author's wife," so keenly did she take her husband's
work to heart. She worked with him--worked to his dictation; re-copied
his rough drafts.[3] She sought to protect him from his religious
dæmon, that formidable genie which was already, at moments, whispering
words that meant the death of art. She tried to shut the door upon
all social Utopias.[4] She requickened her husband's creative genius.
She did more: she brought as an offering to that genius the wealth
of a fresh feminine temperament. With the exception of the charming
silhouettes in _Childhood_ and _Boyhood_, there are few women in the
earlier works of Tolstoy, or they remain of secondary importance. Woman
appears in _Family Happiness,_ written under the influence of his love
for Sophie Bers. In the works which follow there are numerous types
of young girls and women, full of intensest life, and even superior
to the male types. One likes to think not only that Countess Tolstoy
served her husband as the model for Natasha in _War and Peace_[5] and
for Kitty in _Anna Karenin_,[6] but that she was enabled, by means of
her confidences and her own vision, to become his discreet and valuable
collaborator. Certain pages of _Anna Karenin_ in particular seem to me
to reveal a woman's touch.
Thanks to the advantages of this union, Tolstoy enjoyed for a space
of twelve or fourteen years a peace and security which had been long
unknown to him.[7] He was able, sheltered by love, to dream and
to realise at leisure the masterpieces of his brain, the colossal
monuments which dominate the fiction of the nineteenth century_--War
and Peace_ (1864-69) and _Anna Karenin_ (1873-77).
_War and Peace_ is the vastest epic of our times--a modern _Iliad._ A
world of faces and of passions moves within it. Over this human ocean
of innumerable waves broods a sovereign mind, which serenely raises or
stills the tempest.
More than once in the past, while contemplating this work, I was
reminded of Homer and of Goethe, in spite of the vastly different
spirit and period of the work. Since then I have discovered that
at the period of writing these books Tolstoy was as a matter of
fact nourishing his mind upon Homer and Goethe.[8] Moreover, in the
notes, dated 1865, in which he classifies the various departments
of letters, he mentions, as belonging to the same family, "Odyssey,
Iliad, 1805,"[9] The natural development of his mind led him from the
romance of individual destinies to the romance of armies and peoples,
those vast human hordes in which the wills of millions of beings are
dissolved. His tragic experiences at the siege of Sebastopol helped
him to comprehend the soul of the Russian nation and its daily life.
According to his first intentions, the gigantic _War and Peace_ was
to be merely the central panel of a series of epic frescoes, in which
the poem of Russia should be developed from Peter the Great to the
Decembrists.[10]
And in June, 1863, he notes in his diary:
"I am reading Goethe, and many ideas are coming to life within me."
In the spring of 1863 Tolstoy was re-reading Goethe, and wrote of
_Faust_ as "the poetry of the world of thought; the poetry which
expresses that which can be expressed by no other art."
Later he sacrificed Goethe, as he did Shakespeare, to his God. But he
remained faithful in his admiration of Homer. In August, 1857, he was
reading, with equal zest, the _Iliad_ and the Bible. In one of his
latest works, the pamphlet attacking Shakespeare (1903), it is Homer
that he opposes to Shakespeare as an example of sincerity, balance, and
true art.
To be truly sensible of the power of this work, we must take into
account its hidden unity. Too many readers, unable to see it in
perspective, perceive in it nothing but thousands of details, whose
profusion amazes and distracts them. They are lost in this forest of
life. The reader must stand aloof, upon a height; he must attain the
view of the unobstructed horizon, the vast circle of forest and meadow;
then he will catch the Homeric spirit of the work, the calm of eternal
laws, the awful rhythm of the breathing of Destiny, the sense of the
whole of which every detail makes a part; and the genius of the artist,
supreme over the whole, like the God of Genesis who broods upon the
face of the waters.
In the beginning, the calm of the ocean. Peace, and the life of Russia
before the war. The first hundred pages reflect, with an impassive
precision, a detached irony, the yawning emptiness of worldly minds.
Only towards the hundredth page do we hear the cry of one of these
living dead--the worst among them, Prince Basil:
"We commit sins; we deceive one another; and why do we do it all?
My friend, I am more than sixty years old.... All ends in death....
Death--what horror!"
Among these idle, insipid, untruthful souls, capable of every
aberration, of every crime, certain saner natures are prominent:
genuine natures by their clumsy candour, like Pierre Besoukhov; by
their deeply rooted independence, their Old Russian peculiarities, like
Marie Dmitrievna; by the freshness of their youth, like the little
Rostoffs: natures full of goodness and resignation, like the Princess
Marie; and those who, like Prince Andrei, are not good, but proud, and
are tormented by an unhealthy existence.
Now comes the first muttering of the waves. The Russian army is in
Austria. Fatality is supreme: nowhere more visibly imperious than
in the loosing of elementary forces--in the war. The true leaders
are those who do not seek to lead or direct, but, like Kutuzov or
Bagration, to "allow it to be believed that their personal intentions
are in perfect agreement with what is really the simple result of the
force of circumstances, the will of subordinates, and the caprices of
chance." The advantage of surrendering to the hand of Destiny! The
happiness of simple action, a sane and normal state.... The troubled
spirits regain their poise. Prince Andrei breathes, begins to live....
And while in the far distance, remote from the lifegiving breath of
the holy tempest, Pierre and the Princess Marie are threatened by the
contagion of their world and the deception of love, Andrei, wounded
at Austerlitz, has suddenly, amid the intoxication of action brutally
interrupted, the revelation of the serene immensity of the universe.
Lying on his back, "he sees nothing now, except, very far above him, a
sky infinitely deep, wherein light, greyish clouds go softly wandering."
"What peacefulness! How calm!" he was saying to himself; "it was not
like this when I was running by and shouting.... How was it I did not
notice it before, this illimitable depth? How happy I am to have found
it at last! Yes, all is emptiness, all is deception, except this. And
God be praised for this calm!..."
But life resumes him, and again the wave falls. Left once more to
themselves, in the demoralising atmosphere of cities, the restless,
discouraged souls wander blindly in the darkness. Sometimes through
the poisoned atmosphere of the world sweep the intoxicating, maddening
odours of nature, love, and springtime; the blind forces, which draw
together Prince Andrei and the charming Natasha, to throw her, a moment
later, into the arms of the first seducer to hand. So _I_ much poetry,
so much tenderness, so much purity of heart, tarnished by the world!
And always "the wide sky which broods above the outrage and abjectness
of the earth." But man does not see it. Even Andrei has forgotten the
light of Austerlitz. For him the sky is now only "a dark, heavy vault"
which covers the face of emptiness.
It is time for the hurricane of war to burst once more upon these
vitiated minds. The fatherland, Russia, is invaded. Then comes the
day of Borodino, with its solemn majesty. Enmities are effaced.
Dologhov embraces his enemy Pierre. Andrei, wounded, weeps for
pity and compassion over the misery of the man whom he most hated,
Anatol Kuraguin, his neighbour in the ambulance. The unity of hearts
is accomplished; unity in passionate sacrifice to the country and
submission to the divine laws.
"To accept the frightful necessity of war, seriously and austerely....
To human liberty, war is the most painful act of submission to the
divine laws. Simplicity of heart consists in submission to the will of
God."
The soul of the Russian people and its submission to Destiny are
incarnated in the person of the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov. "This
old man, who has no passions left, but only experience, the result of
the passions, and in whom intelligence, which is intended to group
together facts and to draw from them conclusions, is replaced by a
philosophical contemplation of events, devises nothing and undertakes
nothing; but he listens to and remembers everything; he knows how to
profit by it at the right moment; he will hinder nothing that is of
use, he will permit nothing harmful. He sees on the faces of his troops
that inexpressible force which is known as the will to conquer; it is
latent victory. He admits something more powerful than his own will:
the inevitable march of the facts which pass before his eyes; he sees
them, he follows them, and he is able mentally to stand aloof."
In short, he has the heart of a Russian. This fatalism of the Russian
people, calmly heroic, is personified also in the poor moujik, Platon
Karatayev, simple, pious, and resigned, with his kindly patient smile
in suffering and in death. Through suffering and experience, above the
ruins of their country, after the horrors of its agony, Pierre and
Andrei, the two heroes of the book, attain, through love and faith,
to the moral deliverance and the mystic joy by which they behold God
living.
Tolstoy does not stop here. The epilogue, of which the action passes
in 1820, deals with the transition from one age to another: from one
Napoleonic era to the era of the Decembrists. It produces an impression
of continuity, and of the resumption of life. Instead of commencing and
ending in the midst of a crisis, Tolstoy finishes, as he began, at the
moment when a great wave has spent itself, while that following it is
gathering itself together. Already we obtain a glimpse of the heroes to
be, of the conflicts which will ensue between them, and of the dead who
are born again in the living.[11]
I have tried to indicate the broad lines of the romance; for few
readers take the trouble to look for them. But what words are adequate
to describe the extraordinary vitality of these hundreds of heroes, all
distinct individuals, all drawn with unforgettable mastery: soldiers,
peasants, great nobles, Russians, Austrians, Frenchmen! Not a line
savours of improvisation. For this gallery of portraits, unexampled in
European literature, Tolstoy made sketches without number: "combined,"
as he says, "millions of projects"; buried himself in libraries; laid
under contribution his family archives,[12] his previous notes, his
personal memories. This meticulous preparation ensured the solidity
of the work, but did not damp his spontaneity. Tolstoy worked with
enthusiasm, with an eagerness and a delight which communicate
themselves to the reader. Above all, the great charm of _War and Peace_
resides in its spirit of youth. No other work of Tolstoy's presents in
such abundance the soul of childhood and of youth; and each youthful
spirit is a strain of music, pure as a spring, full of a touching and
penetrating grace, like a melody of Mozart's. Of such are the young
Nikolas Rostoff, Sonia, and poor little Petia.
Most exquisite of all is Natasha. Dear little girl!--fantastic, full
of laughter, her heart full of affection, we see her grow up before
us, we follow her through life, with the tenderness one would feel for
a sister--who that has read of her does not feel that he has known
her?... That wonderful night of spring, when Natasha, at her window,
flooded with the moonlight, dreams and speaks wildly, above the
window of the listening Andrei ... the emotions of the first ball, the
expectation of love, the burgeoning of riotous dreams and desires, the
sleigh-ride, the night in the snow-bound forest, full of fantastic
lights; Nature, and the embrace of her vague tenderness: the evening at
the Opera, the unfamiliar world of art, in which reason grows confused;
the folly of the heart, and the folly of the body yearning for love;
the misery that floods the soul; the divine pity which watches over
the dying lover.... One cannot evoke these pitiful memories without
emotion; such emotion as one would feel in speaking of a dear and
beloved woman. How such a creation shows the weakness of the female
types in almost the whole of contemporary drama and fiction! Life
itself has been captured; life so fluid, so supple, that we seem to see
it throbbing and changing from one line to another.
Princess Marie, the ugly woman, whose goodness makes her beautiful, is
no less perfect a portrait; but how the timid, awkward girl would have
blushed, how those who resemble her must blush, at finding unveiled
all the secrets of a heart which hides itself so fearfully from every
glance!
In general the portraits of women are, as I have said, very much finer
than the male characters; in especial than those of the two heroes
to whom Tolstoy has given his own ideas: the weak, pliable nature
of Pierre Besoukhov, and the hard, eager nature of Prince Andrie
Bolkonsky. These are characters which lack a centre of gravity; they
oscillate perpetually, rather than evolve; they run from one extreme
to the other, yet never advance. One may, of course, reply that in
this they are thoroughly Russian. I find, however, that Russians have
criticised them in similar terms. Tourgenev doubtless had them in mind
when he complained that Tolstoy's psychology was a stationary matter.
"No real development. Eternal hesitations: oscillations of feeling."[13]
Tolstoy himself admitted that he had at times rather sacrificed the
individual character to the historical design.[14]
It is true, in fact, that the glory of _War and Peace_ resides in
the resurrection of a complete historical period, with its national
migrations, its warfare of peoples. Its true heroes are these peoples;
and behind them, as behind the heroes of Homer, the gods who lead them;
the forces, invisible, "infinitely small, which direct the masses," the
breath of the Infinite. These gigantic conflicts, in which a hidden
destiny hurls the blind nations together, have a mythical grandeur. Our
thoughts go beyond the _Iliad:_ we are reminded of the Hindu epics.
[1] "Domestic happiness completely absorbs me" (January 5, 1863). "I
am so happy! so happy! I love her so!" (February 8, 1863). See _Vie et
Oeuvre._
[2] She had written several novels.
[3] It is said that she copied _War and Peace_ seven times.
[4] Directly after his marriage Tolstoy suspended his work of teaching,
his review, and his school.
[5] Her sister Tatiana, intelligent and artistic, whose wit and musical
talent were greatly admired by Tolstoy, also served him as a model.
Tolstoy used to say, "I took Tania [Tatiana]; I beat her up with Sonia
{Sophie Bers, Countess Tolstoy}, and out came Natasha" (cited by P.
Birukov).
[6] The installation of Dolly in the tumble-down country house; Dolly
and the children; a number of details of dress and toilet; without
speaking of certain secrets of the feminine mind, which even the
intuition of a man of genius might perhaps have failed to penetrate, if
a woman had not betrayed them to him.
[7] Here is a characteristic instance of Tolstoy's enslavement by his
creative genius: his _Journal_ is interrupted for thirteen years,
from November 1, 1865, when the composition of _War and Peace_ was
in full swing. The egoism of the artist has silenced the monologue
of the conscience.--This period of creation was also a period of
robust physical life. Tolstoy was "mad on hunting." "Hunting, I forget
everything...." (Letter of 1864.) In September, 1864, during a hunt on
horse back, he broke his arm, and it was during his convalescence that
the first portions of _War and Peace_ were dictated.--"On recovering
consciousness after fainting, I said to myself: 'I am an artist.' And
I am, but a lonely artist." (Letter to Fet, January 29, 1865.) All the
letters written at this time to Fet are full of an exulting joy of
creation. "I regard all that I have hitherto published," he says, "as
merely a trial of my pen." (_Ibid._)
[8] Before this date Tolstoy had noted, among the books which
influenced him between the ages of twenty and thirty-five:
"Goethe: _Hermann and Dorothea_--Very great influence."
"Homer: _Iliad and Odyssey_ (in Russian)--Very great influence."
[9] The two first parts of _War and Peace_ appeared in 1865-66 under
the title _The Year 1805._
[10] Tolstoy commenced this work in 1863 by _The Decembrists_, of which
he wrote three fragments. But he saw that the foundations of his plan
were not sufficiently assured, and going further back, to the period
of the Napoleonic Wars, he wrote _War and Peace._ Publication was
commenced in the _Rousski Viestnik_ of January, 1865; the sixth volume
was completed in the autumn of 1869. Then Tolstoy ascended the stream
of history; and he conceived the plan of an epic romance dealing with
Peter the Great; then of another, _Mirovitch_, dealing with the rule
of the Empresses of the eighteenth century and their favourites. He
worked at it from 1870 to 1873, surrounded with documents, and writing
the first drafts of various portions; but his realistic scruples made
him renounce the project: he was conscious that he could never succeed
in resuscitating the spirit of those distant periods in a sufficiently
truthful fashion. Later, in January, 1876, he conceived the idea of
another romance of the period of Nikolas I.; then he eagerly returned
to the _Decembrists_, collecting the evidence of survivors and visiting
the scenes of the action. In 1878 he wrote to his aunt, Countess A. A.
Tolstoy: "This work is so important to me! You cannot imagine how much
it means to me; it is as much to me as your faith is to you. I would
say even more." (_Correspondence_) But in proportion as he plumbed the
subject he grew away from it; his heart was in it no longer. As early
as April, 1879, he wrote to Fet: "_The Decembrists_? If I were thinking
of it, if I were to write it, I should flatter myself with the hope
that the very atmosphere of my mind would be insupportable to those
who fire upon men for the good of humanity." (_Ibid._) At this period
of his life the religious crisis had set in; he was about to burn his
ancient idols.
[11] Pierre Besoukhov, who has married Natasha, will become a
Decembrist. He has founded a secret society to watch over the general
good, a sort of _Tugelbund._ Natasha associates herself with his plans
with the utmost enthusiasm. Denissov cannot conceive of a pacific
revolution; but is quite ready for an armed revolt. Nikolas Rostoff has
retained his blind soldier's loyalty. He who said before Austerlitz,
"We have only one thing to do: to fight and never to think," is angry
with Pierre, and exclaims: "My oath before all! If I were ordered to
march against you with my squadron I should march and I should strike
home." His wife, Princess Marie, agrees with him. Prince Andrei's
son, little Nikolas Bolkonsky, fifteen years old, delicate, sickly,
yet charming, with wide eyes and golden hair, listens feverishly to
the discussion; all his love is Pierre's and Natasha's; he does not
care greatly for Nikolas and Marie; he worships his father, whom he
has never seen; he dreams of growing like him, of being grown up, of
doing something wonderful, he knows not what. "Whatever they tell me,
I will do it.... Yes, I shall do it. _He_ would have been pleased with
me."--And the book ends with the dream of a child, who sees himself in
the guise of one of Plutarch's heroes, with his uncle Pierre by his
side, preceded by Glory, and followed by an army.--If the _Decembrists_
had been written then little Bolkonsky would doubtless have been one of
its heroes.
[12] I have remarked that the two families Rostoff and Bolkonsky, in
_War and Peace,_ recall the families of Tolstoy's father and mother
by many characteristics. Again, in the novels of the Caucasus and
Sebastopol there are many of the types of soldiers, officers and men,
which appear in _War and Peace_.
[13] Letter of February 2, 1868, cited by Birukov.
[14] Notably, he said, that of Prince Andrei in the first part.