Karenina," indicates clearly the religious attitude of Tolstoi, and
prepares us for the crisis that followed. From 1877 to 1879 he passed
through a spiritual struggle, read the New Testament constantly, and
became completely converted to the practical teachings of the Gospel.
Then followed his well-known work, "My Religion," the abandonment of
his former way of life, and his attempts to live like a peasant, in
daily manual labour. Since that time he wrote a vast number of
religious, political, and social tracts, dealing with war, marriage,
law-courts, imprisonment, etc. Many of the religious tracts belong to
literature by the beauty and simple directness of their style. Two
short stories and one long novel, all written with a didactic purpose,
are of this period, and added to their author's reputation: "The Death
of Ivan Ilyich, The Kreuzer Sonata," and "Resurrection."
One cannot but admire the courage of Tolstoi in attempting to live in
accordance with his convictions, just as we admire Milton for his
motives in abandoning poetry for politics. But our unspeakable regret
at the loss to the world in both instances, when its greatest living
author devotes himself to things done much better by men destitute of
talent, makes us heartily sympathise with the attitude of the
Countess, who hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry. In a letter to
her husband, written in October 1884, and filled with terms of
affectionate tenderness, she said: "Yesterday I received your letter,
and it has made me very sad. I see that you have remained at Yasnaya
not for intellectual work, which I place above everything, but to play
'Robinson.' You have let the cook go . . . and from morning to night
you give yourself up to manual toil fit only for young men. . . . You
will say, of course, that this manner of life conforms to your
principles and that it does you good. That's another matter. I can
only say, 'Rejoice and take your pleasure,' and at the same time I
feel sad to think that such an intellectual force as yours should
expend itself in cutting wood, heating the samovar, and sewing boots.
That is all very well as a change of work, but not for an occupation.
Well, enough of this subject. If I had not written this, it would have
rankled in me, and now it has passed and I feel like laughing. I can
calm myself only by this Russian proverb: 'Let the child amuse
himself, no matter how, provided he doesn't cry."
In the last few weeks of his life, the differences of opinion between
the aged couple became so acute that Tolstoi fled from his home, and
refused to see the Countess again. This flight brought on a sudden
illness, and the great writer died early in the morning of the 20
November 1910. He was buried under an oak tree at Yasnaya Polyana.
Although Count Tolstoi divided his life into four distinct periods,
and although critics have often insisted on the great difference
between his earlier and his later work, these differences fade away on
a close scrutiny of the man's whole production, from "Childhood" to
"Resurrection."
"Souls alter not, and mine must still advance," said Browning. This is
particularly true of Tolstoi. He progressed, but did not change; and
he progressed along the path already clearly marked in his first
books. The author of "Sevastopol" and "The Cossacks" was the same man
mentally and spiritually who wrote "Anna Karenina," "Ivan Ilyich,"
"The Kreuzer Sonata," and "Resurrection." Indeed, few great authors
have steered so straight a course as he. No such change took place in
him as occurred with Bjornson. The teaching of the later books is more
evident, the didactic purpose is more obvious, but that is something
that happens to almost all writers as they descend into the vale of
years. The seed planted in the early novels simply came to a perfectly
natural and logical fruition.
Not only do the early novels indicate the direction that Tolstoi's
whole life was bound to assume, but his diary and letters show the
same thing. The extracts from these that I have given above are
substantial proof of this--he saw the truth just as clearly in 1855 as
he saw it in 1885, or in 1905. The difference between the early and
later Tolstoi is not, then, a difference in mental viewpoint, it is a
difference in conduct and action.* The eternal moral law of
self-sacrifice was revealed to him in letters of fire when he wrote
"The Cossacks" and "Sevastopol;" everything that he wrote after was a
mere amplification and additional emphasis. But he was young then; and
although he saw the light, he preferred the darkness. He knew then,
just as clearly as he knew later, that the life in accordance with New
Testament teaching was a better life than that spent in following his
animal instincts; but his knowledge did not save him.
*For a very unfavourable view of Tolstoi's later conduct, the
"Tolstoi legend," see Merezhkovski, Tolstoi as Man and Artist.
Even the revolutionary views on art, which he expressed toward the end
of the century in his book, "What is Art?" were by no means a sudden
discovery, nor do they reveal a change in his attitude. The
accomplished translator, Mr. Maude, said in his preface, "The
fundamental thought expressed in this book leads inevitably to
conclusions so new, so unexpected, and so contrary to what is usually
maintained in literary and artistic circles," etc. But while the
conclusions seemed new (and absurd) to many artists, they were not at
all new to Tolstoi. So early as 1872 he practically held these views.
In a letter to Strakov, expressing his contempt for modern Russian
literature and the language of the great poets and novelists, he said:
"Pushkin himself appears to me ridiculous. The language of the people,
on the contrary, has sounds to express everything that the poet is
able to say, and it is very dear to me." In the same letter he wrote,
"'Poor Lisa' drew tears and received homage, but no one reads her any
more, while popular songs and tales, and folk-lore ballads will live
as long as the Russian language."
In his views of art, in his views of morals, in his views of religion,
Tolstoi developed, but he did not change. He simply followed his ideas
to their farthest possible extreme, so that many Anglo-Saxons
suspected him even of madness. In reality, the method of his thought
is characteristically and purely Russian. An Englishman may be in love
with an idea, and start out bravely to follow it; but if he finds it
leading him into a position contrary to the experience of humanity,
then he pulls up, and decides that the idea must be false, even if he
can detect no flaw in it; not so the Russian; the idea is right, and
humanity is wrong.
No author ever told us so much about himself as Tolstoi. Not only do
we now possess his letters and journals, in which he revealed his
inner life with the utmost clarity of detail, but all his novels, even
those that seem the most objective, are really part of his
autobiography. Through the persons of different characters he is
always talking about himself, always introspective. That is one reason
why his novels seem so amazingly true to life. They seem true because
they are true.
Some one said of John Stuart Mill, "Analysis is the king of his
intellect." This remark is also true of most Russian novelists, and
particularly true of Tolstoi. In all his work, historical romance,
realistic novels, religious tracts, his greatest power was shown in
the correct analysis of mental states. And he took all human nature
for his province. Strictly speaking, there are no minor characters in
his books. The same pains are taken with persons who have little
influence on the course of the story, as with the chief actors. The
normal interests him even more than the abnormal, which is the great
difference between his work and that of Gorki and Andreev, as it was
the most striking difference between Shakespeare and his later
contemporaries. To reveal ordinary people just as they really
are,--sometimes in terrific excitement, sometimes in humdrum
routine,--this was his aim. Natural scenery is occasionally
introduced, like the mountains in "The Cossacks," to show how the
spectacle affects the mind of the person who is looking at it. It is
seldom made use of for a background. Mere description occupied a very
small place in Tolstoi's method. The intense fidelity to detail in the
portrayal of character, whether obsessed by a mighty passion, or
playing with a trivial caprice, is the chief glory of his work. This
is why, after the reading of Tolstoi, so many other "realistic" novels
seem utterly untrue and absurd.
The three stories, "Childhood, Boyhood, Youth," now generally
published as one novel, are the work of a genius, but not a work of
genius. They are interesting in the light of their author's later
books, and they are valuable as autobiography. The fact that he
himself repudiated them, was ashamed of having written them, and
declared that their style was unnatural, means little or much,
according to one's viewpoint. But the undoubted power revealed here
and there in their pages is immature, a mere suggestion of what was to
follow. They are exercises in composition. He learned how to write in
writing these. But the intention of their author is clear enough. His
"stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul." There is
not a single unusual or sensational event in the whole narrative, nor
did the hero grow up in any strange or remarkable environment. The
interest therefore is not in what happened, but wholly in the ripening
character of the child. The circumstances are partly true of Tolstoi's
own boyhood, partly not; he purposely mixed his own and his friends'
experiences. But mentally the boy is Tolstoi himself, revealed in all
the awkwardness, self-consciousness, and morbidity of youth. The boy's
pride, vanity, and curious mixture of timidity and conceit do not form
a very attractive picture, and were not intended to. Tolstoi himself
as a young man had little charm, and his numerous portraits all
plainly indicate the fact. His Satanic pride made frank friendship
with him almost an impossibility. Despite our immense respect for his
literary power, despite the enormous influence for good that his later
books have effected, it must be said that of all the great Russian
writers, Tolstoi was the most unlovely.
These three sketches, taken as one, are grounded on moral ideas--the
same ideas that later completely dominated the author's life. We feel
his hatred of dissipation and of artificiality. The chapter on Love,
in "Youth," might also form a part of the "Kreuzer Sonata," so fully
does it harmonise with the teaching of the later work.
"I do not speak of the love of a young man for a young girl, and hers
for him; I fear these tendernesses, and I have been so unfortunate in
life as never to have seen a single spark of truth in this species of
love, but only a lie, in which sentiment, connubial relations, money,
a desire to bind or to unbind one's hands, have to such an extent
confused the feeling itself, that it has been impossible to
disentangle it. I am speaking of the love for man."*
*Translated by Isabel Hapgood.
Throughout this book, as in all Tolstoi's work, is the eternal
question WHY? For what purpose is life, and to what end am I living?
What is the real meaning of human ambition and human effort?
Tolstoi's reputation as an artist quite rightly began with the
publication of the three Sevastopol stories, "Sevastopol in December"
[1854], "Sevastopol in May, Sevastopol in August." This is the work,
not of a promising youth, but of a master. There is not a weak or a
superfluous paragraph. Maurice Hewlett has cleverly turned the charge
that those 'who oppose war are sentimentalists, by risposting that the
believers in war are the real sentimentalists: "they do not see the
murder beneath the khaki and the flags." Tolstoi was one of the first
novelists to strip war of its glamour, and portray its dull,
commonplace filth, and its unspeakable horror. In reading that
masterpiece "La Debacle," and every one who believes in war ought to
read it, one feels that Zola must have learned something from Tolstoi.
The Russian novelist stood in the midst of the flying shells, and how
little did any one then realise that his own escape from death was an
event of far greater importance to the world than the outcome of the
war!
There is little patriotic feeling in "Sevastopol," and its success was
artistic rather than political. Of course Russian courage is praised,
but so is the courage of the French. In spite of the fact that Tolstoi
was a Russian officer, actively fighting for his country, he shows a
singular aloofness from party passion in all his descriptions. The
only partisan statement is in the half sentence, "it is a comfort to
think that it was not we who began this war, that we are only
defending our own country," which might profitably be read by those
who believe in "just" wars, along with Tennyson's "Maud," published at
the same time. Tennyson was cock-sure that the English were God's own
people, and in all this bloodshed were doing the blessed work of their
Father in heaven.
"God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar."
Throughout the heat of the conflict, Tolstoi felt its utter absurdity,
really holding the same views of war that he held as an old man. "And
why do not Christian people," he wrote in "Sevastopol in May," "who
profess the one great law of love and self-sacrifice, when they behold
what they have wrought, fall in repentance upon their knees before Him
who, when He gave them life, implanted in the soul of each of them,
together with the fear of death, a love of the good and beautiful,
and, with tears of joy and happiness, embrace each other like
brothers?"
Together with the fear of death-this fear is analysed by Tolstoi in
all its manifestations. The fear of the young officer, as he exchanges
the enthusiastic departure from Petersburg for the grim reality of the
bastions; the fear of the still sound and healthy man as he enters the
improvised hospitals; the fear as the men watch the point of
approaching light that means a shell; the fear of the men lying on the
ground, waiting with closed eyes for the shell to burst. It is the
very psychology of death. In reading the account of Praskukhin's
sensations just before death, one feels, as one does in reading the
thoughts of Anna Karenina under the train, that Tolstoi himself must
have died in some previous existence, in order to analyse death so
clearly. And all these officers, who walk in the Valley of the Shadow,
have their selfish ambitions, their absurd social distinctions, and
their overweening, egotistical vanity.
At the end of the middle sketch, "Sevastopol in May," Tolstoi wrote
out the only creed to which he remained consistently true all his
life, the creed of Art.
"Who is the villain, who the hero? All are good and all are evil.
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the strength of my soul,
whom I have tried to set forth in all his beauty, and who has always
been, is, and always will be most beautiful, is--the truth."
The next important book, "The Cossacks," is not a great novel. Tolstoi
himself grew tired of it, and never finished it. It is interesting as
an excellent picture of an interesting community, and it is
interesting as a diary, for the chief character, Olenin, is none other
than Leo Tolstoi. He departed for the Caucasus in much the same manner
as the young writer, and his observations and reflections there are
Tolstoi's own. The triple contrast in the book is powerfully shown:
first, the contrast between the majesty of the mountains and the
pettiness of man; second, the contrast between the noble simplicity of
the Cossack women and the artificiality of the padded shapes of
society females; third, the contrast between the two ways of life,
that which Olenin recognises as right, the Christian law of
self-denial, but which he does not follow, and the almost sublime
pagan bodily joy of old Uncle Yeroshka, who lives in exact harmony
with his creed. Yeroshka is a living force, a real character, and
might have been created by Gogol.
Olenin, who is young Tolstoi, and not very much of a man, soliloquises
in language that was echoed word for word by the Tolstoi of the
twentieth century.
"Happiness consists in living for others. This also is clear. Man is
endowed with a craving for happiness; therefore it must be legitimate.
If he satisfies it egotistically,--that is, if he bends his energies
toward acquiring wealth, fame, physical comforts, love, it may happen
that circumstances will make it impossible to satisfy this craving. In
fact, these cravings are illegitimate, but the craving for happiness
is not illegitimate. What cravings can always be satisfied
independently of external conditions? Love, self-denial."*
*Translated by Isabel Hapgood.
His later glorification of physical labour, as the way of salvation
for irresolute and overeducated Russians, is as emphatically stated in
"The Cossacks" as it is in the "Kreuzer Sonata."
"The constant hard field labour, and the duties intrusted to them,
give a peculiarly independent, masculine character to the Greben
women, and have served to develop in them, to a remarkable degree,
physical powers, healthy minds, decision and stability of character."
The chief difference between Turgenev and Tolstoi is that Turgenev was
always an artist; Tolstoi always a moralist. It was not necessary for
him to abandon novels, and write tracts; for in every novel his moral
teaching was abundantly clear.
With the possible exception of "Taras Bulba," "War and Peace" is the
greatest historical romance in the Russian language, perhaps the
greatest in any language. It is not illumined by the humour of any
such character as Zagloba, who brightens the great chronicles of
Sienkiewicz; for if Tolstoi had had an accurate sense of humour, or
the power to create great comic personages, he would never have been
led into the final extremes of doctrine. But although this long book
is unrelieved by mirth, and although as an objective historical
panorama it does not surpass "The Deluge," it is nevertheless a
greater book. It is greater because its psychological analysis is more
profound and more cunning. It is not so much a study of war, or the
study of a vital period in the earth's history, as it is a revelation
of all phases of human nature in a time of terrible stress. It is
filled with individual portraits, amazingly distinct.
Professors of history and military experts have differed widely--as it
is the especial privilege of scholars and experts to differ--concerning
the accuracy of "War and Peace" as a truthful narrative of events. But
this is really a matter of no importance. Shakespeare is the greatest
writer the world has ever seen; but he is not an authority on history;
he is an authority on man. When we wish to study the Wars of the Roses,
we do not turn to his pages, brilliant as they are. Despite all the
geographical and historical research that Tolstoi imposed on himself
as a preliminary to the writing of "War and Peace," he did not write
the history of that epoch, nor would a genuine student quote him as in
authority. He created a prose epic, a splendid historical panorama,
vitalised by a marvellous imagination, where the creatures of his fancy
are more alive than Napoleon and Alexander. Underneath all the march of
armies, the spiritual purpose of the author is clear. The real greatness
of man consists not in fame or pride of place, but in simplicity and
purity of heart. Once more he gives us the contrast between artificiality
and reality.
This novel, like all of Tolstoi's, is by no means a perfect work of
art. Its outline is irregular and ragged; its development devious. It
contains many excrescences, superfluities, digressions. But it is a
dictionary of life, where one may look up any passion, any emotion,
any ambition, any weakness, and find its meaning. Strakov called it a
complete picture of the Russia of that time, and a complete picture of
humanity.
Its astonishing inequalities make the reader at times angrily
impatient, and at other times inspired. One easily understands the
varying emotions of Turgenev, who read the story piecemeal, in the
course of its publication. "The second part of 1805 is weak. How petty
and artificial all that is! . . . where are the real features of the
epoch? where is the historical colour?" Again: "I have just finished
reading the fourth volume. It contains things that are intolerable and
things that are astounding; these latter are the things that dominate
the work, and they are so admirable that never has a Russian written
anything better; I do not believe there has ever been written anything
so good." Again: "How tormenting are his obstinate repetitions of the
same thing: the down on the upper lip of the Princess Bolkonsky. But
with all that, there are in this novel passages that no man in Europe
except Tolstoi could have written, things which put me into a frenzy
of enthusiasm."
Tolstoi's genius reached its climax in "Anna Karenina." Greatly as I
admire some of his other books, I would go so far as to say that if a
forced choice had to be made, I had rather have "Anna Karenina" than
all the rest of his works put together. Leave that out, and his
position in the history of fiction diminishes at once. It is surely
the most powerful novel written by any man of our time, and it would
be difficult to name a novel of any period that surpasses it in
strength. I well remember the excitement with which we American
undergraduates in the eighties read the poor and clipped English
translation of this book. Twenty years' contemplation of it makes it
seem steadily greater.
Yet its composition was begun by a mere freak, by something analogous
to a sporting proposition. He was thinking of writing a historical
romance of the times of Peter the Great, but the task seemed
formidable, and he felt no well of inspiration. One evening, the 19
March 1873, he entered a room where his ten-year-old boy had been
reading aloud from a story by Pushkin. Tolstoi picked up the book and
read the first sentence: "On the eve of the fete the guests began to
arrive." He was charmed by the abrupt opening, and cried: "That's the
way to begin a book! The reader is immediately taken into the action.
Another writer would have begun by a description, but Pushkin, he goes
straight to his goal." Some one in the room suggested playfully to
Tolstoi that he try a similar commencement and write a novel. He
immediately withdrew, and wrote the first sentence of Anna Karenina.
The next day the Countess said in a letter to her sister: "Yesterday
Leo all of a sudden began to write a novel of contemporary life. The
subject: the unfaithful wife and the whole resulting tragedy. I am
very happy."
The suicide of the heroine was taken almost literally from an event
that happened in January 1872. We learn this by a letter of the
Countess, written on the 10 January in that year: "We have just
learned of a very dramatic story. You remember, at Bibikov's, Anna
Stepanova? Well, this Anna Stepanova was jealous of all the
governesses at Bibikov's house. She displayed her jealousy so much
that finally Bibikov became angry and quarrelled with her; then Anna
Stepanova left him and went to Tula. For three days no one knew where
she was. At last, on the third day, she appeared at Yassenky, at five
o'clock in the afternoon, with a little parcel. At the railway station
she gave the coachman a letter for Bibikov, and gave him a ruble for a
tip. Bibikov would not take the letter, and when the coachman returned
to the station, he learned that Anna Stepanova had thrown herself
under the train and was crushed to death. She had certainly done it
intentionally. The judge came, and they read him the letter. It said:
'You are my murderer: be happy, if assassins can be. If you care to,
you can see my corpse on the rails, at Yassenky.' Leo and Uncle Kostia
have gone to the autopsy."
Most of the prominent characters in the book are taken from life, and
the description of the death of Levin's brother is a recollection of
the time when Tolstoi's own brother died in his arms.