sent him regularly from headquarters. I cannot explain the object of the
Mormons in making him the point of attack. He thought very highly of the
doctrines of the Mormons as set forth by themselves, and could not
understand why they were "persecuted" in America. No one had ever sent
him documents on the other side of the question, and he seemed as
ignorant of it as I was of the Mormon arguments. In answer to his
queries, I told him that the problems involved were too numerous,
serious, and complicated for me to enter upon; that the best way, under
such circumstances, was for him to read statements set down in black and
white by recognized authorities on the subject; and that I would cause
books on the matter to be forwarded to him, which I did. But he
persisted that our government is in the wrong.
"It is a shame," said he, "that in a great and free country like America
a community of people should be so oppressed, and not allowed that
liberty of which you boast."
"You know your Dickens well," I answered. "Have you any recollection of
Martin Chuzzlewit? You will remember that when Martin was in America
with Mark Tapley he saw a slave being sold. Mark Tapley observed that
'the Americans were so fond of Liberty that they took liberties with
her.' That is, in brief, what ails the Mormons. The only argument in
favor of them which can possibly be made is that their practice, not
their preaching, offers the only solution of your own theory that all
women should be married. But that theory has never been advanced in
extenuation of their behavior. I offer it to you brand new, as a slight
illustration of a very unpleasant subject."
One day, during a chat in his study, he had praised Dickens.
"There are three requisites which go to make a perfect writer," he
remarked. "First, he must have something worth saying. Second, he must
have a proper way of saying it. Third, he must have sincerity. Dickens
had all three of these qualities. Thackeray had not much to say; he had
a great deal of art in saying it; but he had not enough sincerity.
Dostoevsky possessed all three requisites. Nekrasoff knew well how to
express himself, but he did not possess the first quality; he forced
himself to say something, whatever would catch the public at the moment,
of which he was a very keen judge. As he wrote to suit the popular
taste, believing not at all in what he said, he had none of the third
requisite." He declared that America had not as yet produced any
first-class woman writer, like George Eliot and George Sand.
Count Tolstoy's latest book at that time was "What to Do?" It was much
discussed, though not very new. It will be remembered that in the final
chapter of that work he argues that woman's whole duty consists in
marrying and having as large a family as possible. But, in speaking of
Mr. Howells's "The Undiscovered Country," which he had just discovered,
--it was odd to think he had never heard of Mr. Howells before,--he
remarked, in connection with the Shakers, that "it was a good thing that
they did not marry."
He said this more than once and at some length. I did not like to enter
on the subject lest he should go too far, in his earnestness, before the
assembled company. Therefore I seized an opportunity to ask his wife how
he reconciled that remark with his creed that all women should marry.
She answered that it certainly was not consistent, but that her husband
changed his opinion every two years; and, to my consternation, she
instantly appealed to him. He did not go into details, however. He
pulled out a letter which he had received from a Russian woman, a
stranger to him. The writer said: "While acknowledging the justice of
your views, I must remark that marriage is a fate which is not possible
to every woman. What, then, in your opinion, should a woman who has
missed that fate do?"
I was interested in his reply, because six months earlier he had advised
me to marry. I inquired what answer he intended to send,--that is, if
he meant to reply at all. He said that he considered the letter of
sufficient importance to merit an answer, and that he should tell her
that "every woman who had not married, whatever the reason, ought to
impose upon herself the hardest cross which she could devise, and bear
it."
"And so punish herself for the fault of others, perhaps?" I asked. "No.
If your correspondent is a woman of sufficient spirit to impose that
cross, she will also have sufficient spirit to retort that very few of
us choose our own crosses; and that women's crosses imposed by Fate,
Providence, or whatever one pleases to call it, are generally heavier,
more cruel, than any which they could imagine for themselves in the
maddest ecstasy of pain-worship. Are the Shaker women, of whom you
approve, also to invent crosses? And how about the Shaker men? What is
their duty in the matter of invoking suffering?"
He made no reply, except that "non-marriage was the ideal state," and
then relapsed into silence, as was his habit when he did not intend to
relinquish his idea. Nevertheless I am convinced he is always open to
the influence--quite unconsciously, of course--of argument from any
quarter. His changes of belief prove it.
These remarks anent the Shakers seemed to indicate that another change
was imminent; and as the history of his progress through the links of
his chain of reasoning was a subject of the greatest interest to me, I
asked his wife for it. It cannot be called anything but a linked
progress, since the germs--nay, the nearly full-fledged idea--of his
present moral and religious attitude can be found in almost all of his
writings from the very beginning.
When the count married, he had attained to that familiar stage in the
spiritual life where men have forgotten, or outgrown, or thoroughly
neglected for a long time the religious instruction inculcated upon them
in their childhood. There is no doubt that the count had been well
grounded in religious tenets and ceremonies; the Russian church is
particular on this point, and examinations in "the law of God" form part
of the conditions for entrance to the state schools. But, having reached
the point where religion has no longer any solid grasp upon a man, he
did not like to see other people observe even the forms.
Later on he began a novel, to be called "The Decembrists." The
Decembrists is the name given to the participants in the disorders of
1825, on the accession of the Emperor Nicholas I. to the throne. Among
the preparations which he made for this work were excursions taken with
the object of acquainting himself with the divers dialects and
peculiarities of expression current in the different parts of the
empire. These he collected from pilgrims on the highways and byways.
"A pilgrim," said the witty countess, "is a man who has grown tired of
the jars and the cares and responsibilities of the household; out of
patience with the family in general. He feels the necessity, inborn in
every Russian, for roaming, for getting far away from people, into the
country and the forests. So he makes a pilgrimage to some distant
shrine. I should like to be a pilgrim myself, but the family ties me
down. I feel the need of freshening up my ideas."
In these excursions the count came to see how great a part religion
plays in the life of the lower classes; and he argued that, in order to
get into sympathy with them, one must share their ideas as to religion.
Accordingly he plunged into it with his customary ardor,--"he has a
passionate nature,"--and for several years he attended every church
service, observed every rite, kept every fast, and so on. He thought it
horrible if those about him did not do the same,--if they neglected a
single form. I think it quite probable that he initiated the trouble
with his stomach by these fasts. They are nothing to a person who has
always been used to them; but when we consider that the longer fasts
cover about four solid months,--not to mention the usual abstinence on
Wednesdays and Fridays and the special abstinences,--and that milk,
eggs, cheese, and butter are prohibited, as well as other customary
articles of food, it is not difficult to imagine the effect of sudden
and strict observance upon a man accustomed during the greater part of
his life to a meat diet. The vegetable diet in which he now persists
only aggravates the evil in one who is afflicted with liver trouble, and
who is too old to train his vital economy in fresh paths.
His religious ardor lasted until he went to church one day, during the
last Russo-Turkish war, when prayers were offered for the success of the
Russian army. It suddenly struck him that it was inconsistent with "Love
your enemies," "Love one another," "Do not kill," that prayers should be
offered for the death of enemies. From that day forth he ceased to go to
church, as he had also perceived that the practice of religious forms
did not, in reality, bring him much nearer to the peasants, and that one
must live among them, work among them, to appreciate their point of
view.
The only surprising thing about this is that he should never have
noticed that the army is prayed for, essentially in the same sense, at
every church service. After the petitions for the Emperor and the
imperial family, the liturgy proceeds, "And we pray for the army, that
Thou wilt assist Them [that is, the Imperial family and its army], and
subdue all foes and enemies under Their feet." Perhaps these familiar
words came home to him with special force on that particular day, as
familiar words sometimes do. Possibly it was a special prayer. In any
case, the prayer was strictly logical. If you have an army, pray for it;
and the only prayer that can be offered is, obviously, not for its
defeat. That would be tantamount to praying for the enemy; which might
be Scriptural, in one way, but would be neither natural, popular, nor
further removed from objections of murder than the other.
But Count Tolstoy was logical, also, in another way. Once started on
this train of thought, most worldly institutions of the present day,
beginning with the army, appeared to him opposed to the teaching of
Christ, on which point no rational man will differ from him. As to the
possibility of living the life of Christ, or even the advisability of
trying it, at this period of the world, that is quite another matter.
It is not necessary for me to recapitulate here that which all the world
knows already,--the minute details of his belief in personal property,
labor, the renunciation of art and science, and so forth. We discussed
them. But I neglected my opportunities to worry him with demands for his
catechism, which his visitors delight in grinding out of him as though
from a machine, when the reading public must be sufficiently informed on
that score already. I have endeavored to set down only the special
illustrations of his doctrines, out of the rich mass of his
conversation.
Those who have perused attentively his earlier works will have perceived
that there is really very little that is absolutely new in these
doctrines. They are so strictly the development of ideas which are an
integral part of him, through heredity, environment, and personal bias,
that the only surprise would be that he should not have ended in this
way. Community of goods, mutual help, and kindred doctrines are the
national birthright of every Russian, often bartered, it is true. But
long residence in the country among the peasants who do not preach these
doctrines, but simply practice them, naturally affected the thoughtful
student of humanity though he was of a different rank. He began to
announce his theories to the world, and found followers, as teachers of
these views generally do,--a proof that they satisfy an instinct in
the human breast. Solitary country life anywhere is productive of such
views.
Disciples, or "adepts," began to make pilgrimages to the prophet. There
is a characteristic, a highly characteristic history of one such who
came and established himself in the village at the count's park gate.
"This F. was a Jew, who did not finish his studies, got led astray by
socialists, and joined a community where, like the other members, he
lived out of marriage with a young girl student. At last he came across
a treatise of Lyeff Nikolaevitch, and decided that he was wrong and
Lyeff Nikolaevitch right. He removed to Yasnaya Polyana, married his
former mistress, and began to live and work among the peasants." (He
first joined the Russian church, and one of the count's daughters stood
godmother for him.) "His wife worked also; but, with delicate health and
two small children to care for, she could do little, through weakness
and lack of skill. The peasants laughed at him and at Lyeff
Nikola'itch."
Mrs. F. came to the countess with her griefs, and the latter helped her
with food, clothing, and in other ways. "One day nothing remained in the
house to eat but a single crust. F. was ill. His wife, who was also ill
and feeble, went off to work. On her return she found no bread. Some one
had come along begging '_Khristi radi_' [for Christ's sake], and F. had
given him the crust,--with absolute consistency, it must be confessed.
This was the end. There was a scene. The wife went back to her friends.
F. also gave up, went off to Ekaterinoslaff, learned the tailor's trade,
and married again!" How he managed this second marriage without
committing bigamy, in view of the laws of Russia on that point, I am at
a loss to understand.
"All my husband's disciples," said the countess, "are small, blond,
sickly, and homely; all as like one to another as a pair of old boots.
You have seen them. X. Z.--you know him--had a very pretty talent
for verses; but he has ruined it and his mind, and made himself quite an
idiot, by following my husband's teachings."
The count provided a complement to these remarks in a conversation on
Russian writers. He said of a certain author; "That man has never been
duly appreciated, has never received the recognition which his genius
deserves. Yet you know how superbly he writes,--or rather, did write.
He has spoiled himself now by imitating me. It is a pity."
This ingenuous comment is rescued from any tinge of conceit or egotism
by its absolute simplicity and truth. The imitation referred to is of
the moral "Tales" for popular reading of the lower classes, which my
cabman had studied. The pity of it is, when so many of the contemporary
writers of Russia owe their inspiration, their very existence, to
Turgeneff and Tolstoy having preceded them, that a man who possesses
personal talent and a delightful individual style should sacrifice them.
In his case it is unnecessary. Count Tolstoy's recognition of this fact
is characteristic.
The countess's description of the "adepts" was as clever as the rest of
her remarks, and absolutely accurate. One of them was at the house for a
day or two. (I had seen them elsewhere as well.) He had evidently got
himself a new blouse for the visit. It was of coarse blue and white
cloth, checked, and so stiff with newness that, having a long slit and
only one button, at the neck, I could see the whole of his hairy breast
every time I looked at him from the left side. I sympathized with Prince
K., who being next him at table turned his back on him and ignored him
conversationally; which embarrassed the young man extremely. Apropos of
his shirt, I never saw any one but the count himself wear a shirt that a
real peasant would have worn; and I do not believe that even he had one
of the characteristic red cotton garments which are the peasant's pride.
I found this adept interesting when he sat opposite me, and he incited
the count to vivacity. He contributed a very good anecdote illustrative
of the count's followers.
A man in one of the southern governments--which one is immaterial here
--sent a quantity of lithographed copies of five or ten forbidden books
(Tolstoy's and others) to a disciple of Tolstoy in one of the northern
governments. In the village of this disciple, some young women students
in the higher or university courses for women, and followers of Tolstoy,
were living for the summer in peasant fashion, and working in the
fields, "_to the scornful pity of the peasants_" (I italicize this
phrase as remarkable on the lips of an adept.) These young women, having
heard of the dispatch by post of the books, and being in the town,
thought to do the count's disciple a favor by asking if they had
arrived. Had they refrained, nothing would have happened and the books
would have been delivered without a question. As it was, attention was
attracted to the parcel by the inquiry of these girls of eccentric
behavior. The fifty or sixty copies were confiscated; the girls'
passports were taken from them. The disciple appealed to a relative in
high official position in their behalf. The girls were informed, in
consequence, that they might hire themselves out to work for this
disciple of gentle birth as much as they liked; but they were forbidden
to work for or among the peasants. The adventure was not ended when this
story was told. Whether the students were satisfied with the permission
to work I do not know. Probably not; their fellow-disciple would not
have scorned them as the peasants did, and contradiction, that spice of
life to enthusiastic worshipers of impracticable ideas, would have been
lacking. In my opinion, the authorities committed an error in judgment.
They should have shown more faith in the peasants, the toil, and the
girls' unhardened frames. All three elements combined could have been
trusted to effect a permanent cure of those disciples by the end of the
harvest, had they been gently encouraged not only to work with the
peasants but to prove that they were capable of toiling and enduring in
precisely the same manner and measure.
Still the authorities very naturally looked upon the action of the girls
as a case of _idti v narod_ (going to the people), in the sense
understood by the revolutionary propagandists. Their prohibition was
based on this ground.
In some way we got upon the subject of English things and ways. The
count's eyes flashed.
"The English are the most brutal nation on earth!" he exclaimed. "Along
with the Zulus, that is to say. Both go naked: the Zulus all day long,
the Englishwomen as soon as dinner is served. The English worship their
muscle; they think of it, talk of it. If I had time, I should like to
write a book on their ways. And then their executions, which they go to
see as a pleasure!"
I asked which nation was a model, in his opinion.
"The French," he answered, which seemed to me inconsistent, when he told
of the execution which he had witnessed in Paris, where a father had
lifted up his little child that it might have a good view of the horrors
of the guillotine.
"Defective as is Russian civilization in many respects," he said, "you
will never find the Russian peasant like that. He abhors deliberate
murder, like an execution."
"Yet he will himself commit murder," I objected. "There has been a
perfect flood of murders reported in the newspapers this very spring.
Those perpetrated in town were all by men of the peasant class; and most
of them were by lads under twenty years of age."
He insisted that I must have misread the papers. So I proceeded to
inquire, "What will a peasant do in case of an execution?"
"He will murder, but without premeditation. What he will do in case of
an execution I can illustrate for you by something which occurred in
this very neighborhood some years ago.
"The regimental secretary of a regiment stationed at Z. was persecuted
by one of his officers, who found fault with him continually, and even
placed him under arrest for days at a time, when the man had only obeyed
his own orders. At last the secretary's patience failed him, and one day
he struck the officer. A court-martial followed. I was chosen to defend
him. He was sentenced to death. I appealed to the Emperor through Madame
A.,--you know her. For some reason she spoke to one of the ministers.
'You have not stated the number of his regiment; that is indispensable,'
was the reply. Evidently this was a subterfuge, that time might be
consumed in correspondence, and the pardon might arrive too late. The
reason for this was, in all probability, that just at this time a
soldier had struck an officer in Moscow and had been condemned. If one
were pardoned, in justice the other must be also. Otherwise discipline
would suffer. This coincidence was awkward for the secretary, strong as
his case was, and he was shot.
"The adjutant's hands trembled so with emotion that he could not apply
the bandage to the prisoner's eyes. Others tried and gave it up. Well,
as soon as that man was buried his grave was covered with flowers,
crosses, and all sorts of things by the peasants, who came many versts
from all directions, as to the grave of a martyr. Masses for the dead
were ordered there, in uninterrupted succession, by these poor peasants.
The feeling was so great and appeared to be spreading to such an extent
that the authorities were forced not only to prohibit access to the
grave, but even to level it off so that it could not be found. But an
Englishman! If he were told to cut the throat of his own father and eat
him, he would do it."
"Still, in spite of your very striking illustration, and your doubts as
to my having read the papers correctly," I remarked, "I am sure that the
Russian peasant does, occasionally, murder with premeditation. He is a
fine-tempered, much-enduring, admirable fellow, I admit, but he is
human. He cannot be so different in this respect from all other races of
men. Moreover, I have the testimony of a celebrated Russian author on my
side."
"What author? What testimony?"
"Have you ever read The 'Power of Darkness'? The amount of deliberation,
of premeditation, in any murder is often a matter of opinion; but the
murder of the child in the last act of that comedy is surely deliberate
enough to admit of no difference of judgment. Don't you think that the
author supports me?"
He gasped at my audacity in quoting his own writings against him, and
retreated into the silence which was his resource when he could not or
would not answer. Put him in a corner and he would refuse to come out.
Beggars used to come while we were eating out-of-doors; some called
themselves "pilgrims." The count would give them a little money, and
they would tramp off again. One day, when the birthday of an absent
member of the family was being celebrated, and we were drinking healths
in _voditchka_ (a sort of effervescent water flavored with fruit
juices), we had a distinguished visitor, "Prince Romanoff." This was the
crazy Balakhin mentioned in "What to Do?" as having had his brain turned
by the sight of the luxury in the lives of others. His rags and patches,
or rather his conglomeration of patches, surpassed anything we had seen
in that line. One of the lads jumped up and gave him a glass of
raspberry _voditchka_, telling him that it was rare old wine. The man
sipped it, looked through it, and pretended (I am sure that it was mere
pretense) to believe that it was wine. He promised us all large estates
when the Emperor should give him back his own, now wrongfully withheld
from him.
Balakhin stayed about the place, making himself at home with the
servants, for twenty-four hours or more. I believe that he strays about
among the landed proprietors of the district as a profession. In spite
of his willingness to call himself "Prince Romanoff" as often as any one
chose to incite him thereto, this did not impress me as a proof that he
was too deranged to earn his own living, with his healthy frame, if he
saw fit. I had observed the mania for titles in other persons (not all
Russians, by any means) who would vigorously resent the imputation that
they should be in a lunatic asylum. Moreover, this imperial "Prince
Romanoff" never forgot his "manners." He invariably rose when his
superiors (or his inferiors, perhaps I should say) approached, like any
other peasant, and he looked far more crafty than crazy.
As the peasants were all busy haying, we postponed our visit to the
village until the afternoon of Peter and Paul's day, in the hope that we
should then find some of them at home. The butler's family were drinking
tea on the porch of their neat new log house with a tinned roof, at the
end of the village near the park gate. They rose and invited us to honor
them with our company and share their meal. We declined, for lack of
time.