“If you knew how painful it is to me to hear it all! I have it always
on my conscience that I, with my wish to renounce property, once bought
estates. It is funny to think that it seems now as if I had wished
to make provision for my children, and in doing so I did them the
greatest injury. Look at my Andryusha. He is completely incapable of
doing anything, and lives on the people whom I once robbed and whom my
children keep on robbing. How terrible it is to listen to all this talk
now, to watch it all going on! It is so opposed to my ideas and desires
and to everything I live by.... Oh! that they would spare me!...”
Tolstoi was silent for a time, and then said:
“Why did I suddenly begin complaining?”
At that moment Tatyana Lvovna came up, and our conversation turned on
other subjects.
Tolstoi talked about poetry.
“When a poem deals with love, flowers, etc., it is a comparatively
innocent occupation until the age of sixteen. But to express in verse
an important and serious idea without distorting the idea is almost
impossible. How very difficult it is to express one’s thoughts by words
only, so that every one understands just what you want to express! How
much more difficult, then, it is when the writer is bound by metre and
rhyme! Only the very great poets have succeeded in doing it, and rarely
too. Perfectly false ideas are often hidden behind verses.”
An undergraduate who had written an article upon Tolstoi in reply to
Nordau’s criticism came, and turned out to be a foolish young man.
Tolstoi had been unwell for the last few days and in a bad temper, so
that he came to us quite upset and said:
“No, it is time, it is time for me to die! They stick to some single
idea, which they arbitrarily choose from the rest, and go on and on
repeating: Non-resistance! non-resistance! How am I to blame for it?”
Sophie Andreevna said to me:
“The private life of famous men is always distorted in their
biographies. They are sure to make me out a Xantippe. You must take my
side, Alexander Borisovich!” ...
During our walk Sophie Andreevna showed me the spot which is called
“the apiary,” and said:
“There actually was an apiary here once. Leo N. was at one time mad
about bees, and used to spend whole days in the apiary. We often drove
here, taking a samovar and having tea here. Once Fet came here, and we
went to join Leo N. at the apiary. It was a wonderful evening; we sat
here for a long time; and there were many glow-worms in the grass. Leo
N. said to me: ‘Now, Sonia, you always wanted emerald earrings; take
two glow-worms for earrings.’ Thereupon Fet wrote a poem in which were
these lines:
In my hand is thy hand--what a marvel!
On the ground are two glow-worms, two emeralds.”
At another point Sophie Andreevna showed me the field where Tolstoi and
Turgenev once stood when shooting, and she was with them.
Sophie Andreevna said:
“It was the last time Turgenev stayed at Yasnaya, not long before his
death. I asked him: ‘Ivan Sergeevich, why don’t you write now?’ He
answered: ‘In order to write I had always to be a little in love. Now I
am old, I can’t fall in love any more, and that is why I have stopped
writing.’”
_December 27th._ Last night I was at the Tolstois’. There were Tolstoi,
Ilya, and Andrey (Tolstoi’s sons). A message arrived that Tatyana
Lvovna had given birth prematurely to a stillborn child; a day before,
news reached Yasnaya Polyana that the son of Leo Lvovich, a boy of
about two, was dead. Sophie Andreevna left for Yasnaya. There was an
atmosphere of depression.
Tolstoi played chess with me. Later P. S. Usov came, who also played a
game of chess with Tolstoi. We began to talk. Tolstoi became animated.
The post arrived. There were three letters from Chertkov. In one of
them there were many pages of closely written manuscript.
Tolstoi glanced at it and said:
“It is probably a woman’s writing. How nice it would be if one need not
read it!”
The manuscript, however, turned out not to be from a woman, so that
Tolstoi put it aside to read it.
Referring to his daughter’s misfortune, Tolstoi said:
“I am not sorry that my daughters have no children; I cannot be glad
that I have grandchildren. I know that they will inevitably grow up
to be idlers. My daughters are certainly anxious that this should not
be so, but considering the surroundings in which they will have to be
brought up, it is very difficult to avoid it. All my life long I have
had these surroundings, and, however much I struggle, I can do nothing.
Now, during the Christmas season I can’t bear to look at this mad
extravagance; these visits. What a terrible absurdity it is!”
Usov was saying in what circumstances a doctor has the right to bring
on birth artificially, thereby killing the baby.
Tolstoi replied:
“It is always immoral. For the most part, when there are various ways
of relieving the patient, oxygen, etc., it is difficult to abstain
from using them; but it would be better if they did not exist. We shall
all die without fail, and the doctors’ activity is directed towards
fighting death. But to die--in ten days or in ten years--is all the
same. How terrible it is that it is always concealed from the patient
that he is dying! We are none of us accustomed to look death in the
face!”
Usov defended the activity of doctors, considering it a useful one.
Tolstoi said:
“It is for this reason that I consider the activity of doctors harmful:
people are crowded in towns; they are infected with syphilis and
consumption; they are kept in terrible conditions, and then millions
are spent on the establishment of hospitals and clinics. But why
not spend that energy, not in curing people, but in improving the
conditions of their lives? While numbers of healthy, useful peasants
are infected with all sorts of diseases, and are worn out by work
beyond their strength, so that they die at thirty instead of seventy,
some useless old woman who is quite incurable has spent upon her all
the treatment that medicine can supply.
“All modern sciences do the very opposite of what they set out to do.
Theology hides moral truths, jurisprudence obscures in every possible
way the conception of justice, the natural sciences teach materialism,
and history distorts the true life of the people. Darwin’s theory is in
agreement with the crude fable of Moses. All discussions on Darwinism
are polemics against Moses.
“Every young man growing up in Russia passes through a terrible
contagion, a sort of moral syphilis; in the first place, the Orthodox
Church, and then, when he frees himself from that, the doctrines of
materialism. The best physiologists, like Krafft-Ebing or Claude
Bernard, openly admit that, however carefully we investigate even a
simple cell, there is always some _x_ in its composition which we do
not understand. Consequently the complex of organisms and the social
conditions of life are an _x_ raised to the _x_ degree. And if we
cannot investigate a cell completely, then how can we realize the laws
which govern the life of human societies? Yet some blockhead like B.
assures us that it is all very simple, and the science of history can
deduce immutable laws by which human life is shaped.
“Look at all our historians: what dull, stupid men they are! For
instance, Solovev. He was an incredibly dull man. And when some one
gifted appears among them--a Granovsky, Kostomarov, Kudryavzev--and
you ask, ‘What after all have they done?’ it turns out that they have
done nothing of any importance or value. Take Kluchevsky, for instance:
what has he done? He talks brilliantly, toys with the liberal point of
view about Catherine the Great, and says that she was a whore--well, we
knew that without him. Or take the man who dances the mazurka in the
Moscovskya Vedomsti, Ilovaisky--he is an historian too!
“What should be taught at school? Long ago, when I was interested in
education, I came to the conclusion that school teaching ought to
consist of two branches only, of languages and mathematics. This is the
only positive knowledge that one can give a pupil. There is no humbug
about this. Either you know it or you don’t know it. Besides, from
this fundamental knowledge all science can develop. From mathematics
come astronomy, physics, natural sciences. From languages, history,
geography, and so on. But with us, who is taught and what are they
taught? To-day I walked in the street. Drunken men were going about,
swearing obscenely, dragging women after them. Who has ever said a
single word to these men about their moral needs? What did we teach
them?
“The other evening I was coming home from the Turkish bath and walked
near the theatres. Policemen on horseback were lounging about; coachmen
with buttocks like this” (Tolstoi illustrated it with his hands) “and
rows of buttons on their backs sit on the boxes. And in the illuminated
theatres, crowded with people, a divine service is performed: a silly
and distorted story _Sadko_ (an opera) is acted, or ‘When we dead
awaken’ is played. It’s sheer madness!”
1901
_Moscow, February 1st._ Tolstoi began about a couple of months ago to
learn Dutch, and now he reads quite easily, at the age of seventy-three!
He has an original way of learning languages: he gets the New Testament
in the language he wants to know, and whilst reading it through he
learns the language.
Tolstoi said to me recently about modern art:
“The sense of shame is lost. I cannot call it anything else--the sense
of æsthetic shame. I wonder if you know the feeling? I feel it most
strongly when I read something that is artistically false, and I can
call it nothing else but shame.”
With regard to his play, _The Corpse_, Tolstoi said to me:
“The son of the wife of the man I described came to me, and then the
man himself. The son on behalf of his mother asked me not to publish
the play,[1] because it would be very painful to her, and also because
she was afraid of the consequences. I of course promised.
“Their visit was very interesting and useful to me. Once more, as so
many times before, I was convinced how much feebler and more unreal are
the psychological motives which one invents oneself in order to explain
actions. The actions of one’s imaginary characters are then the motives
which guided those people in real life. After talking to these people I
cooled to my work.”
On another occasion, in the dining-room downstairs, animated
conversation was going on among the younger people. Tolstoi, who
was resting in the next room in the dark, afterwards came into the
dining-room and said to me:
“I lay there and listened to your talk. It interested me from two
points of view: it was interesting simply to hear young people talking,
and then it was also interesting from the dramatic point of view. I
listened and said to myself: This is how one ought to write for the
stage. It is not one speaking and the others listening. It is never
like that. It is necessary that all should speak, and the art of the
writer consists in making what he wants run through it like a beautiful
thread.”
_March 8th._ Yesterday Tolstoi was in good form. At tea he laughed and
joked. The conversation was about luxury.
Tolstoi said:
“How much more money people spend nowadays than they used! When Sophie
Andreevna and I lived in Yasnaya, our income from the Nikolsky estate
was about five thousand roubles and we lived superbly. I remember when
Sophie Andreevna bought little mats to lay by the beds, it seemed
to me a useless and incredible luxury. And now my sons--I seem to
have about twenty of them--squander money right and left, buy dogs,
horses, gramophones. I asked myself then, why buy carpets when we have
slippers? Certainly we did not go barefoot, but, behold, Riepin painted
me _décolleté_, barefooted, in a shirt! I have to thank him for not
having taken off my nether garments! And he never asked me, if I liked
it! But I have long since got used to being treated as if I were dead.
There, in the Peredvizhni exhibition, you will see the Devil (Riepin’s
‘Temptation of Christ’), and you’ll also see the man possessed by the
Devil!”
On February 25th Tolstoi’s excommunication was announced. That day
Tolstoi and A. N. Dunaev went on some business to a doctor and came
into the Lubiansky Square. In the square, by the fountain, the crowd
recognized Tolstoi. At first, as Dunaev relates, an ironical voice was
heard: “Here’s the Devil in the likeness of a man!” This served for a
signal. The crowd threw themselves like one man on Tolstoi. All shouted
and threw up their hats. Tolstoi was confused; he didn’t know what to
do and walked away almost at a run. The crowd followed him. With great
difficulty Tolstoi and Dunaev managed to get a sledge at the corner of
Neglinny. The crowd wanted to stop the cabman and many held on to the
sledge. At that moment a troop of mounted police appeared, let the cab
through, and immediately made a ring and cut off the crowd.
On the occasion of his excommunication Tolstoi received, and is still
receiving, a number of addresses, letters of sympathy, etc. One lady
sent him a piece of holy bread and a letter in which she said that she
had just received the Sacrament and took the Host for his benefit.
She ends her letter: “Eat it in health and pay no heed to these stupid
priests.”
_August 9th._ I was the other day in Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoi is hale
and hearty. I have not seen him like that for a long time.
The conversation was about Russian writers.
Tolstoi said:
“I was fond of Turgenev as a man. As a writer, I do not attribute
particular importance to him or to Goncharov. Their subjects, the
number of ordinary characters and love scenes, have too ephemeral an
importance. If I were asked which of the Russian writers I consider the
most important, I would say: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Hertzen, whom
our Liberals have forgotten, and Dostoevsky, whom they do not read at
all. Well, and then: Griboedov, Ostrovsky, Tyutchev.”
Of Gogol’s works Tolstoi does not like _Taras Bulba_ at all. He far
prefers _The Revisor_ (_Inspector General_), _Dead Souls_, _Shinel_,
_Koliaska_ (“it’s a masterpiece in miniature”), _Nevsky Prospect_. Of
Pushkin’s works, he considers _Boris Godunov_ a failure.
It is characteristic that in making his selection Tolstoi said:
“I do not speak of myself; it’s not for me, but for others, to
judge of my importance.”
That evening in his study Tolstoi said to me:
“Alexander Borisovich, an image comes before me. Rays spread out
from a centre. The centre is the spiritual essence; the rays are the
perpetually growing needs of the body. A time comes when a spiritual
life begins to exist inside these rays. They spread out at an ever
diminishing angle, become parallel, and at last draw together and
finally unite in the one infinitely small and entirely spiritual
centre--death.”
_Gaspra, Crimea, September 12th._ Chekhov was here yesterday. He
does not look well; he looks old and coughs perpetually. He speaks
little, in short sentences, but they are always to the point. He gave
a touching account of his life with his mother in the winter at Yalta.
Tolstoi was very glad to see him.
_Gaspra, Crimea, September 16th._ Life here goes on very quietly.
After dinner I or N. L. Obolensky, or both in turn, read Chekhov’s
stories aloud, which Tolstoi greatly enjoys. The other day I read
_The Tedious Story_. Tolstoi was in constant raptures over Chekhov’s
understanding. He also liked, for the originality of the idea and the
mastery of the writing, _The Bet_, and particularly _The Steppe_.
Of Chekhov Tolstoi said:
“He is a strange writer: he throws words about as if at random,
and yet everything is alive. And what understanding! He never has
any superfluous details; every one of them is either necessary or
beautiful.”
_September 20th._ I told Tolstoi about the article in the _Moscow
Courier_ where Maeterlinck’s is quoted as saying that _Power of
Darkness_ is in his opinion almost the greatest play.
Tolstoi laughed and said:
“Why doesn’t he imitate it, then?”