PETERSBURG; LOVE AFFAIR; DROUZHÍNIN
Petersburg. Tourgénef. The _Contemporary_. Death of his brother
Demetrius. Drouzhínin. The Behrs. Love affairs. Engagement with V.V.A.
Illness. Leaves the army. Engagement broken off. Correspondence with
Tourgénef. Writings. Drouzhínin's criticism of _Youth_ and of Tolstoy's
style. Books that influenced him. Emancipation of serfs. Poúshkin.
Self-condemnation in his _Confession_.
A NUMBER of distinguished writers have recorded their opinions of the
talented young officer who appeared in Petersburg before the war was
quite over, and immediately entered the fraternity then supporting the
_Contemporary_. From their memoirs one sees what Tolstoy was like at
this, perhaps the stormiest and least satisfactory period of his life.
The _Contemporary_ was a monthly review founded by Poúshkin and
Pletnéf in 1836. It passed in 1847 to Panáef and the poet Nekrásof,
and when Tolstoy began to write, was recognised as the leading and
most progressive Russian literary periodical. Its chief contributors
formed an intimate group, united by close personal acquaintance, by
sympathy with the Emancipation movement then making itself felt, and
also by a common agreement (not it is true very strictly or very
permanently observed) to write exclusively for the _Contemporary_.
The point to be noticed is that the circle Tolstoy entered consisted
of a friendly, sociable group of people who considered themselves
ardent reformers; and that though Tolstoy's talent and his wish to have
his works published, threw him and them together, he never appears
to have had the least inclination to co-operate on that footing of
mutual give-and-take toleration which is so essential in public
life. Certainly he never became friendly with the more advanced men,
Tchernyshévsky, Miháylof, and the ultra-democratic Dobrolúbof, who were
intent on spreading democratic and socialistic ideas in Russia.
It has been suggested that this was due to the fact that he was an
aristocrat and that they were democrats; but one has to go deeper than
that for the explanation, which lies, to a considerable extent, in
the fact that the advanced Russian Radicals were, for the most part,
admirers of Governmental Jacobinism, whereas Tolstoy has from the very
start tended to be a No-Government man, an Anarchist, and has objected
to linking himself closely with any group, since such alliance always
implies some amount of compromise, and some subordination of one's own
opinions.
The poet Fet, himself a young officer, made Tolstoy's acquaintance
at this time. A couple of years later he purchased an estate at no
very great distance from Yásnaya Polyána, and became a friend of
Tolstoy's--one in fact of the very few people, not of his own family,
with whom the latter ever formed a close personal friendship.
1855
His first acquaintance with Tolstoy was however hardly auspicious.
Calling on Tourgénef in St. Petersburg at ten o'clock one morning, he
saw an officer's sword hanging in the hall, and asked the man-servant
whose it was. 'It's Count Tolstoy's sword,' replied the man. 'He is
sleeping in the drawing-room. Iván Sergéyevitch [Tourgénef] is having
breakfast in the study.' During Fet's visit of an hour's duration, he
and his host had to converse in low tones for fear of waking Tolstoy.
'He is like this all the time,' said Tourgénef. 'He came back from
his Sevastopol battery; put up here, and is going the pace. Sprees,
gipsy-girls and cards all night long--and then he sleeps like a corpse
till two in the afternoon. At first I tried to put the break on, but
now I've given it up, and let him do as he likes.'
Fet tells us that as soon as he met Tolstoy he noticed his instinctive
defiance of all accepted opinions; and at Nekrásof's lodgings, the
first time he saw Tolstoy and Tourgénef together, he witnessed the
desperation to which the former reduced the latter by his biting
retorts.
'I can't admit,' said Tolstoy, 'that what you say expresses your
convictions. If I stand at the door with a dagger or a sword,
and say, "While I am alive no one shall enter here," that shows
conviction. But you, here, try to conceal the true inwardness of
your thoughts from one another, and call _that_ conviction!'
'Why do you come here?' squeaked Tourgénef, panting, his voice
rising to a falsetto (as always happened when he was disputing).
'Your banner is not here! Go! Go to the salon of Princess B----!'
'Why should I ask you, where I am to go? Besides, empty talk won't
become conviction, merely because I am, or am not here,' replied
Tolstoy.
Though he cared little for politics, Fet's sympathies inclined to the
Conservative side, and he found himself in accord with Tolstoy rather
than with Tourgénef and the other Contemporarians; but Fet's stay in
Petersburg at this time was a short one, and he therefore saw little
of Tolstoy. D. V. Grigoróvitch, the novelist, however, reported to him
another scene which also occurred at Nekrásof's lodging.
You can't imagine what it was like! Great Heavens! said
Grigoróvitch. Tourgénef squeaked and squeaked, holding his hand to
his throat, and with the eyes of a dying gazelle whispered: 'I can
stand no more! I have bronchitis!' and began walking to and fro
through the three rooms.--'Bronchitis is an imaginary illness,'
growls Tolstoy after him: 'Bronchitis is a metal!'
Of course Nekrásof's heart sank: he feared to lose either of these
valuable contributors to the _Contemporary_. We were all agitated,
and at our wits' end to know what to say. Tolstoy, in the middle
room, lay sulking on the morocco sofa; while Tourgénef, spreading
the tails of his short coat and with his hands in his pockets,
strode to and fro through the three rooms. To avert a catastrophe,
I went to the sofa and said, 'Tolstoy, old chap, don't get excited!
You don't know how he esteems and loves you!'
'I won't allow him to do anything to spite me!' exclaimed Tolstoy
with dilated nostrils. 'There! Now he keeps marching past me on
purpose, wagging his democratic haunches!'
The rest of the evidence is of much the same nature. Of desire to
agree, there was hardly a trace in Tolstoy, who never doubted his own
sincerity and seldom credited that quality to others. The aristocratic
influences that surrounded his upbringing never induced him to be
lenient to men of his own class, such as Tourgénef; but they led him
to judge harshly and unsympathetically new men who were pushing their
way to the front by their own ability. Fet, in his _Mémoires_, speaks
with regret of the fact that the educated classes ('the Intelligents')
attracted by Liberal ideas which made for the Emancipation of the
serfs, formed so strong a current of opinion that even the literature
produced by the nobility (and he claims that the nobles supplied all
the truly artistic literature) advocated changes which struck at the
root of the most fundamental privileges of their class. This tendency,
he tells us, revolted 'Tolstoy's fresh, unwarped instinct.'
Grigoróvitch, in his _Literary Memoirs_, tells us that, knowing how
out of sympathy Tolstoy was with Petersburg, and how evident it was
that everything in Petersburg irritated him, he was surprised to find
that the latter took permanent lodgings there. Grigoróvitch, himself
a Contemporarian, had met Tolstoy in Moscow, and coming across him
again in Petersburg, and hearing that he was invited to dine with the
staff of the _Contemporary_, but did not yet know any of the members
intimately, agreed to accompany him.
On the way I warned him to be on his guard about certain matters,
and especially to avoid attacking George Sand, whom he much
disliked, but who was devoutly worshipped by many Contemporarians.
The dinner passed off all right, Tolstoy being rather quiet at
first, but at last he broke out. Some one praised George Sand's
new novel, and he abruptly declared his hatred of her, adding that
the heroines of the novels she was then writing, if they really
existed, ought to be tied to the hangman's cart and driven through
the streets of Petersburg. He had, adds Grigoróvitch, already then
developed that peculiar view of women and of the woman-question,
which he afterwards expressed so vividly in _Anna Karénina_.
With all the curious convolutions of Tolstoy's character, there is
a remarkable tenacity of conviction running through his whole life,
and a remark in _Resurrection_, written nearly half a century later,
throws a flood of light on the fact of his so detesting George Sand's
emancipated heroines while he was himself living a loose life. In
that book, the hero has been attracted as well as repelled first by
Mariette, the General's wife, and then by a handsome demi-mondaine he
passes in the street, and this is his reflection:
The animalism of the brute nature in man is disgusting, thought he;
but as long as it remains in its naked form we observe it from the
height of our spiritual life and despise it; and, _whether one has
fallen or resisted_, one remains what one was before. But when that
same animalism hides under a cloak of poetry and esthetic feeling,
and demands our worship--then we are swallowed up by it completely,
and worship animalism, no longer distinguishing good from evil.
Then it is awful!
[Illustration: PROMINENT RUSSIAN WRITERS, (1856): TOURGÉNEF, SOLOGOÚB,
TOLSTOY, NEKRÁSOF, GRIGÓRYEF, PANÁEF.]
Grigoróvitch in another place speaks of Tolstoy's 'readiness to
contradict.' It did not matter what opinion was being expressed; and
the more authoritative the speaker appeared to be, the more eager was
Tolstoy to oppose him and to begin a verbal duel. 'Watching how he
listened to the speaker and pierced him with his eyes, and noticing
how ironically he pressed his lips together, one conjectured that he
was preparing not a direct reply, but such an expression of opinion as
would perplex his opponent by its unexpectedness.'
Danílevsky, the novelist, confirms this impression of Tolstoy's
eagerness to oppose. They met at the house of a well-known sculptor.
Tolstoy entered the drawing-room while a new work of Herzen's was
being read aloud, and quietly took up a position behind the reader's
chair. When the reading was over, he began, at first gently and with
restraint, then hotly and boldly, to attack Herzen and the enthusiasm
then current for his revolutionary and emancipatory works; and he spoke
so convincingly and with such sincerity, that Danílevsky says he never
afterwards saw one of Herzen's publications in that house.
Tourgénef once said: 'In Tolstoy the character which afterwards lay
at the base of his whole outlook on life early made itself manifest.
He never believed in people's sincerity. Every spiritual movement
seemed to him false, and he used to pierce those on whom his suspicion
fell with his extraordinarily penetrating eyes'; and Tourgénef went
on to say that personally he had never encountered anything more
disconcerting than that inquisitorial look, which, accompanied by two
or three biting words, was enough to goad to fury any man who lacked
strong self control.
The different sides of men's characters do not always advance
simultaneously or harmoniously; and it frequently happens that those
awakening to a sense of public duty remain self-indulgent in respect to
wine or women, while others become abstainers or respectable husbands
while remaining oblivious of the political duties they owe to the
community. Among the reformers whose acquaintance Tolstoy made in
Petersburg, there was unfortunately a great deal of gluttony, drinking,
gambling and loose living, and Tolstoy--though he was often remorseful
and repentant about his own excesses with wine, women, and cards--with
his innate propensity for demanding _all or nothing_, bitterly resented
this in others. He would no doubt have considered it hypocritical had
he himself come forward as a reformer before obtaining mastery over his
own appetites, and he judged others by the same standard.
The ill success of the Crimean war had dealt a blow to the prestige of
the Tsardom, and a series of wide-reaching reforms were being prepared
at this time--among which the most important were the abolition of
serfdom, the reform of civil and criminal law, the introduction
of trial by jury and of oral proceedings in the law courts, the
establishment of a system of Local Government somewhat resembling
our County Councils, and some relaxation of the insensate severity
of the press censorship. But though Tolstoy reached Petersburg at a
moment when Russia was entering on this hopeful and fruitful period of
internal reform, neither in his published writings nor in any private
utterance we know of, does he express much sympathy with those reforms,
or show any perception of the advantage that accrues to a nation whose
inhabitants interest themselves in public affairs. He never realised
that even if a people make for themselves bad laws, the very fact
of being invited to think about large practical matters, and being
allowed to test their own conclusions in practice, fosters a habit of
not fearing to think and to act in accord with one's thought; and that
this habit of applying thought to the guidance of practical affairs,
overflows into a nation's commerce and industry and agriculture, and
ultimately causes the difference between the comparative material
security of our Western world and the chronic fear of famine that
oppresses many Eastern lands.
But complex problems of public policy--which are always difficult, and
call for patience, tolerant co-operation, and a willingness to accept
half-loaves when whole ones are unobtainable--never were to Tolstoy's
taste. He hankers after simple, clear-cut solutions, such as are
obtainable only subjectively, in the mind.
A few years later than the time of which we are speaking, Tolstoy
commenced a novel called _The Decembrists_, which begins with a
description of these reform years. The passage shows how scornfully he
regarded the whole movement for the liberation of the people and the
democratisation of their institutions. These are his words:
This happened not long ago, in the reign of Alexander II, in our
times of civilisation, progress, _problems_, re-birth of Russia,
etc. etc.; the time when the victorious Russian army returned
from Sevastopol which it had surrendered to the enemy; when all
Russia was celebrating the destruction of the Black Sea fleet; and
white-walled Moscow greeted, and congratulated on that auspicious
event, the remainder of the crews of that fleet, offering them
a good old Russian goblet of vódka, and in the good old Russian
way bringing them bread and salt and bowing at their feet. This
was the time when Russia, in the person of her far-sighted virgin
politicians, wept over the destruction of her dream of a Te Deum
in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, and the deep-felt loss to the
fatherland of two great men who had perished during the war (one
who, carried away by impatience to hear the Te Deum referred to
above, had fallen on the fields of Wallachia, not without leaving
there two squadrons of Hussars; and the other an invaluable man
who distributed tea, other people's money, and sheets, to the
wounded without stealing any of them); in that time when from all
sides, in all departments of human activity in Russia, great men
sprang up like mushrooms: commanders, administrators, economists,
writers, orators, and simply great men without any special calling
or aim; in that time when at the Jubilee of a Moscow actor, public
opinion, fortified by a toast, appeared and began to punish all
wrongdoers; when stern Commissioners galloped from Petersburg to
the South and captured, exposed, and punished the commissariat
rascals; when in all the towns dinners with toasts were given to
the heroes of Sevastopol, and to those of them whose arms and legs
had been torn off, coppers were given by those who met them on the
bridges or highways; at that time when oratorical talents were so
rapidly developed among the people that one publican everywhere and
on all occasions wrote, printed, and repeated by heart at dinners,
such powerful speeches that the guardians of order were obliged to
undertake repressive measures to subdue his eloquence; when even
in the English Club in Moscow a special room was set apart for the
consideration of public affairs; when periodicals appeared under
the most varied banners; journals developing European principles
on a European basis but with a Russian world-conception, and
journals on an exclusively Russian basis, developing Russian
principles but with a European world-conception; when suddenly, so
many journals appeared that it seemed as if all possible titles
had been used up: 'The Messenger,' 'The Word,' 'The Discourse,'
'The Eagle,' and many others; when nevertheless fresh titles
presented themselves continually; at that time when pleiades of new
author-philosophers appeared, proving that Science is national and
is not national and is international, and so on: and pleiades of
writer-artists, who described woods and sun-rises, and thunders,
and the love of a Russian maiden, and the idleness of one official,
and the misconduct of many officials; at that time when from all
sides appeared problems (as in the year '56 every concourse of
circumstances was called of which nobody could make head or tail);
the problem of the Cadet Schools, the Universities, the Censor,
oral tribunals, finance, the banks, the police, the Emancipation,
and many others; everybody still tried to discover new questions,
and everybody tried to solve them; they wrote, and read, and
talked, and drew up projects, and all wished to amend, destroy
and alter, and all Russians, as one man, were in an indescribable
state of enthusiasm. That was a condition which has occurred twice
in Russia in the nineteenth century: the first time was in the
year '12 when we thrashed Napoleon I, and the second time was in
'56 when Napoleon III thrashed us. Great, unforgettable epoch of
the re-birth of the Russian people! Like the Frenchman who said
that he had not lived at all who had not lived during the Great
French Revolution, so I make bold to say that he who did not live
in Russia in '56, does not know what life is. The writer of these
lines not merely lived at that time, but was one of the workers of
that period. Not merely did he personally sit for some weeks in
one of the casemates of Sevastopol, but he wrote a work about the
Crimean War which brought him great fame, and in which he clearly
and minutely described how the soldiers in the bastion fired off
their muskets, how in the hospitals people were bound up with
bandages, and how in the cemetery they were buried in the earth.
Having performed these exploits, the writer of these lines arrived
at the heart of the Empire, at a rocket-station, where he reaped
his laurels. He witnessed the enthusiasm of both capitals and of
the whole people, and experienced in his own person how Russia
can reward real service. The great ones of the earth sought his
acquaintance, pressed his hands, offered him dinners, persistently
invited him to come and see them, and in order to hear from him
particulars about the war, narrated to him their own sensations.
Therefore the writer of these lines knows how to appreciate that
great and memorable time. But that is not what I want to tell about.
The very day he reached Petersburg from Sevastopol, in September 1855,
Tolstoy called on Tourgénef, who pressed him to stay with him and
introduced him to all that was most interesting in Petersburg literary
and artistic circles, watching over his interests 'like an old nurse,'
as Tourgénef himself once expressed it. Tourgénef fully appreciated
Tolstoy's artistic genius, but was strangely blind to the specially
Tolstoyan side of Tolstoy's complex nature. As we have already seen,
friction soon arose between the two men, and though they again and
again made friends, their friendship was very unstable and easily
upset.
1856
Early in 1856 Tolstoy's third brother, Demetrius, died in Orél. His
history has been told in Chapter II. Tolstoy says: 'I was particularly
horrid at that time. I went to Orél from Petersburg, where I frequented
society and was filled with conceit. I felt sorry for Mítenka, but not
very sorry. I paid him a hurried visit, but did not stay at Orél, and
my brother died a few days after I left.' On 2nd February the news
reached Leo; but he says: 'I really believe that what hurt me most, was
that it prevented my taking part in some private theatricals then being
got up at Court, and to which I had been invited.'
In March the war ended, and Tolstoy obtained furlough. On 25th March he
wrote to his brother Sergius:
I want to go abroad for eight months, and if they give me leave
I shall do so. I wrote to Nikólenka about it, and asked him to
come too. If we could all three arrange to go together it would
be first-rate. If each of us took Rs. 1000, we could do the trip
capitally.
Please write and tell me how you like _The Snow Storm_. I am
dissatisfied with it--seriously. But I now want to write many
things, only I positively have no time in this damned Petersburg.
Anyway, whether they let me go abroad or not, I intend to take
furlough in April and come to the country.
On 13th May he was still in Petersburg, and we find him noting in his
Diary:
The powerful means to true happiness in life, is to let flow from
oneself on all sides, without any laws, like a spider, a cobweb
of love, and to catch in it all that comes to hand: women old or
young, children, or policemen.
Among his literary acquaintances at this time the one for whom he
seems to have felt most sympathy and respect was Drouzhínin, a critic,
writer of stories, and translator of Shakespear. Before long we find
Drouzhínin leading a revolt against the _Contemporary_ and attracting
some of the contributors to the _Reading Library_, a rival magazine, to
which Tolstoy contributed an article in December 1856.
It was not till the end of May that he got away from Petersburg; and
on his road home he stopped in Moscow and visited the family of Dr.
Behrs, a Russian of German origin, who had married Miss Islényef. The
first mention one gets of Tolstoy's future wife is a note in his Diary
relating to this visit to the Behrs's country house near Moscow. He
says: 'The children served us. What dear, merry little girls! Little
more than six years later, the second of these 'merry little girls' was
Countess Tolstoy!
Three days later he writes to his brother Sergius: 'I spent ten days
in Moscow ... very pleasantly, without champagne or gipsies, but a
little in love--I will tell you later on with whom.' The object of his
affection at that time was of course not Dr. Behrs's twelve-year-old
daughter.
From Yásnaya he made a round of visits to see his married sister and
other neighbours; among them Tourgénef, at whose house a gathering of
the Tolstoys took place. Special honour was paid to Leo, who comically
posed as the hero of a Triumph. He was being crowned and almost covered
with flowers, leaves, grass, and anything that came handy, when the
approach of an unwelcome guest--a lady neighbour of Tourgénef's--was
announced. Thereupon the host seized his head in despair; the
triumpher, with a howl, began to turn rapid catherine-wheel somersaults
through the rooms; and his sister's husband was quickly bandaged up as
an invalid, to be used as an excuse and a protection from the unwelcome
intruder.
The letter to Sergius, quoted above, contains an allusion to Tolstoy's
first serious matrimonial project.
He had in childhood been much attached to a certain Sónitchka
Kalóshina. While at the University, he had had a sentimental love
affair with a certain Z. M., who seems hardly to have been aware of
his devotion. Then there was the Cossack damsel who figures in _The
Cossacks_, and subsequently he much admired a society lady, Madame
Sch., who may also have been scarcely aware of his feelings, for
Tolstoy was shy and timid in these matters--which were quite different
from his affairs with gipsy girls and other hireable women.
The present affair with V. V. A. was more serious than any of its
predecessors. It led to a long correspondence, and even to their
engagement being announced among relations and friends. The lady was
the good-looking daughter of a landowner in the neighbourhood of
Yásnaya Polyána.
In August she accompanied her family to Moscow for the Coronation
of Alexander II. At these festivities she enjoyed herself greatly,
and described her feelings in a letter which dealt the first blow to
Tolstoy's admiration. He at once assumed towards her the rôle which
more than twenty-five years later he assumed towards mankind in
general, and upbraided her with the insignificant and unworthy nature
of her interests and enjoyments, besides indulging in scathing sarcasms
about the fashionable circles with which she was so enraptured.
The young lady did not reply. Tolstoy then begged pardon--which was
granted.
Meanwhile he had fallen ill; and early in September he wrote to his
brother Sergius:
Only now, at nine o'clock on Monday evening, can I give you a
satisfactory reply, for till now things went worse and worse. Two
doctors were sent for, and administered another forty leeches,
but only now have I had a good sleep and, on waking up, feel
considerably better. All the same, there can be no question of my
leaving home for five or six days yet. So _au revoir_; please let
me know when you go (shooting) and whether it is true that your
farming has been seriously neglected; and do not kill all the game
without me. I will send the dogs, perhaps, to-morrow.
He recovered. The young lady returned to her family's estate at
Soudakóva, and his visits being renewed, Tolstoy's intimacy with her
continued and grew closer.
Yet to 'test himself,' he started for a visit to Petersburg, and as
soon as he had got as far as Moscow, wrote a letter to the young lady
in which he dwelt on the importance of the mutual attraction of the
sexes, the serious nature of his and her relation to one another, and
the necessity of testing themselves by time and distance.
While living in Petersburg, he learnt the particulars of a flirtation
the young lady had carried on at the time of the Coronation with
a French music-master, Mortier; and he wrote her a letter full
of reproaches. Instead of posting it, however, he wrote her
another--telling her of the one he had written, which he intended to
show her when they met.
After once breaking off relations with Mortier, the young lady allowed
them to be again renewed, and what Tolstoy learned of the matter caused
him seriously to reconsider his position. For some time his feelings
evidently wavered. The very day after posting his remonstrance, he
wrote another letter in a conciliatory tone, and though no reply
came, he assumed that all was well, and continued the correspondence
by sending her a detailed plan of the life they might hope to live
together: its surroundings, circle of acquaintance, and the arrangement
of their time. He also tried to interest her in the most serious
problems of life.
No answer reaching him for a long time, he became agitated and
perplexed. Then several letters, delayed in the post, arrived all at
once, and cordial intercourse was re-established between the lovers.
But though the engagement and correspondence continued, and expressions
of affection were interchanged, it gradually became more and more
evident that there was something artificial and unsatisfactory in their
relation to one another.
Meanwhile Tolstoy was having other difficulties in Petersburg. On 10th
November 1856 he writes to his brother Sergius:
Forgive me, dear friend Seryózha, for only writing two words--I
have no time for more. I have been most unlucky since I left home;
there is no one here I like. It seems that I have been abused in
the _Fatherland Journal_ for my war stories--I have not yet read
the attack; but the worst is that Konstantínof [the General under
whose command was the battery to which Tolstoy was attached]
informed me as soon as I got here that the Grand Duke Michael,
having learnt that I am supposed to have composed the Soldiers'
Song, is displeased, particularly at my having (as rumour says)
taught it to the soldiers. This is abominable. I have had an
explanation with the Head of the Staff. The only satisfactory thing
is that my health is good, and that (Dr.) Schipoulínsky says my
lungs are thoroughly sound.
On 20th November 1856 Tolstoy left the army, in which he had never
secured promotion though he had private influence enough to enable him,
about this time, to save from trial by Court Martial the Commander of
the battery in which he had served in the Crimea.
Early in December he left Petersburg for Moscow. From there, on 5th
December, he writes to Aunt Tatiána:
When I first went away and for a week after, I thought I was 'in
love' as it is called; but with an imagination such as mine that
was not difficult.
Now, however, especially since I have set to work diligently, I
should like--and very much like--to be able to say that I am in
love, or even that I love her; but it is not the case. The only
feeling I have for her is gratitude for her love of me, and the
thought that of all the girls I have known or know, she would have
made me the best wife, as I understand family life. And that is
what I should like to have your candid opinion about. Am I mistaken
or not? I should like to hear your advice because, in the first
place, you know both her and me; and chiefly because you love me,
and those who love are never wrong. It is true that I have tested
myself very badly, for from the time I left home I have led a
solitary rather than a dissipated life, and have seen few women;
but notwithstanding that, I have had many moments of vexation with
myself for having become connected with her, and I have repented
of it. All the same, I repeat that if I were convinced that she is
of a steadfast nature, and would love me always--even though not
as now, yet more than any one else--then I should not hesitate for
a moment about marrying her. I am confident that then my love of
her would increase more and more and that through that feeling she
would become a good woman.
[Illustration: TOLSTOY IN 1856, THE YEAR HE LEFT THE ARMY.]
The young lady in question visited Petersburg for part of the winter
season, but Tolstoy does not appear to have met her there, being
himself away in Moscow for several weeks. The correspondence was
largely didactic on his side, and was so unsatisfactory to the young
lady that she finally forbade him to write again. He disobeyed the
injunction, asking her pardon, telling her he was going abroad, and
begging that she would write to him once more, to an address in Paris.
He wrote to Aunt Tatiána from Moscow, on 12th January 1857, a letter in
which Russian and French alternate.
[31]CHÈRE TANTE!--J'ai reçu mon passeport pour l'étranger et je
suis venu à Moscou pour y passer quelques jours avec Marie arranger
mes affaires et prendre congé de vous.
But now I have reconsidered the matter, especially on Máshenka's
advice, and have decided to remain with her here a week or two
and then to go straight through Warsaw to Paris. You no doubt
understand, _chère tante_, why I do not wish and why it is not
right for me to come now to Yásnaya, or rather to Soudakóva. I, it
seems, have acted very badly in relation to V., but were I to see
her now, I should behave still worse. As I wrote you, I am more
than indifferent to her, and feel that I can no longer deceive
either her or myself. But were I to come, I might perhaps, from
weakness of character, again delude myself.
Vous rappelez-vous, chère tante, comme vous vous êtes moquée de
moi, quand je vous ai dit que je partais pour Pétersbourg 'pour
m'éprouver,' et cependant c'est à cette idée que je suis redevable
de n'avoir pas fait le malheur de la jeune personne et le mien,
car ne croyez pas que ce soit de l'inconstance ou de l'infidélité;
personne ne m'a plu pendant ces deux mois, mais tout bonnement j'ai
vu que je me trompais moi-même; que non seulement jamais je n'ai
eu, mais jamais je n'aurais pour V. le moindre sentiment d'amour
véritable. La seule chose qui me fait beaucoup de peine c'est que
j'ai fait du tort à la demoiselle et que je ne pourrai prendre
congé de vous avant de partir....
[31] DEAR AUNT,--I have received my passport for abroad, and I
have come to Moscow to pass some days with Mary, and to take
leave of you. (See sentences in English in letter above.)
But now I have reconsidered the matter, especially on
Máshenka's advice, and have decided to remain with her here a
week or two and then to go straight through Warsaw to Paris.
You no doubt understand, _chère tante_, why I do not wish and
why it is not right for me to come now to Yásnaya, or rather
to Soudakóva. I, it seems, have acted very badly in relation
to V., but were I to see her now, I should behave still worse.
As I wrote you, I am more than indifferent to her, and feel
that I can no longer deceive either her or myself. But were I
to come, I might perhaps, from weakness of character, again
delude myself.
Do you remember, dear Aunt, how you made fun of me when I
told you I was going to Petersburg 'to test myself'? Yet it
is that idea that has saved me from bringing misery on the
young lady and on myself; for do not suppose that it is a case
of inconstancy or unfaithfulness. No one has taken my fancy
during these two months, but simply I have come to see that
I was deceiving myself, and that I not only never had, but
never shall have, the least feeling of true love for V. V. A.
The only things which give me much pain are that I have hurt
the young lady, and that I cannot take leave of you before my
departure....
After reaching Paris (an event belonging properly to the next chapter)
he received a last communication from V. V. A. and wrote her a friendly
letter in reply, speaking of his love as of something past, thanking
her for her friendship, and wishing her every happiness.
His Aunt Tatiána--generally the mildest of critics where he was
concerned--appears to have blamed him for his conduct; and the friends
of V. V. A., including a French governess, Mlle. Vergani, did so yet
more severely. In one of his letters, which contains indications of an
agitation too strong to allow him to complete the construction of the
opening sentence, he says:
[32]Si Mlle. V. qui m'a écrit une lettre aussi ridicule, voulait
se rappeler toute ma conduite vis-à-vis de V. V. A., comment je
tâchais de venir le plus rarement possible, comment c'est elle qui
m'engageait à venir plus souvent et à entrer dans des relations
plus proches. Je comprends qu'elle soit fâchée de ce qu'une chose
qu'elle a beaucoup désirée ne s'est pas faite (j'en suis fâché
peut-être plus qu'elle) mais ce n'est pas une raison pour dire à un
homme qui s'est efforcé d'agir le mieux possible, qui a fait des
sacrifices de peur de faire le malheur des autres, de lui dire,
qu'il est un _pig_ [this one word is in Russian in the original] et
de le faire accroire à tout le monde. Je suis sûr que Toúla [the
town nearest his estate] est convaincu que je suis le plus grand
des monstres.
[32] If Mlle. Vergani, who has written me so absurd a letter,
would remember my whole conduct towards V. V. A., how I tried
to come as seldom as possible, and how it was she who induced
me to come more frequently and to enter into closer relations.
I understand her being vexed that an affair she much desired
has not come off (I perhaps am more vexed about it than she)
but that is no reason for her to tell a man who has tried to
act as well as he could, and who has made sacrifices in order
not to make others unhappy, that he is a pig, and to spread
that report about. I am sure all Toúla is convinced that I am
the greatest of monsters....
Turning from love to literature and friendship, we have two letters of
this period from Tourgénef. The first is dated Paris, 16th November
1856, and is as follows:
DEAREST TOLSTOY,--Your letter of 15 October took a whole month
crawling to me--I received it only yesterday. I have thought
carefully about what you write me--and I think you are wrong. It
is true I cannot be quite sincere, because I can't be quite frank,
with you. I think we got to know each other awkwardly and at a bad
time, and when we meet again it will be much easier and smoother.
I feel that I love you as a man (as an author it needs no saying);
but much in you is trying to me, and ultimately I found it better
to keep at a distance from you. When we meet we will again try
to go hand in hand--perhaps we shall succeed better; for strange
as it may sound, my heart turns to you when at a distance, as to
a brother: I even feel tenderly towards you. In a word, I love
you--that is certain; perchance from that, in time, all good will
follow. I heard of your illness and grieved; but now, I beg you,
drive the thought of it out of your head. For you too have your
fancies, and are perhaps thinking of consumption--but, God knows,
you have nothing of the sort....
You have finished the first part of _Youth_--that is capital. How
sorry I am to be unable to hear it read! If you do not go astray
(which I think there is no reason to anticipate) you will go very
far. I wish you good health, activity--and freedom, spiritual
freedom.
As to my _Faust_, I do not think it will please you very much. My
things could please you and perhaps have some influence on you,
only until you became independent. Now you have no need to study
me; you see only the difference of our manners, the mistakes and
the omissions; what you have to do is to study man, your own
heart, and the really great writers. I am a writer of a transition
period--and am of use only to men in a transition state. So
farewell, and be well. Write to me.
On 8th December 1856 he writes again:
DEAR TOLSTOY,--Yesterday my good genius led me past the
post-office, and it occurred to me to ask if there were any letters
for me at the _poste-restante_ (though I think that all my friends
ought long ago to have learnt my Paris address) and I found your
letter, in which you speak of my _Faust_. You can well imagine how
glad I was to read it. Your sympathy gladdened me truly and deeply.
Yes, and from the whole letter there breathes a mild, clear and
friendly peacefulness. It remains for me to hold out my hand across
the 'ravine' which has long since become a hardly perceptible
crack, about which we will speak no more--it is not worth it.
I fear to speak of one thing you mention: it is a delicate
matter,--words may blight such things before they are ripe, but
when they are ripe a hammer will not break them. God grant that all
may turn out favourably and well. It may bring you that spiritual
repose which you lacked when I knew you.
You have, I see, now become very intimate with Drouzhínin--and are
under his influence. That is right, only take care not to swallow
too much of him. When I was your age, only men of enthusiastic
natures influenced me; but you are built differently, and perhaps
also the times are changed.... Let me know in which numbers of the
_Contemporary_ your _Youth_ will appear; and by the way, let me
know the final impression made on you by _Lear_, which you probably
have read, if only for Drouzhínin's sake.
About the same time Tourgénef wrote to Drouzhínin:
I hear that you have become very intimate with Tolstoy--and he has
become very pleasant and serene. I am very glad. When that new wine
has finished fermenting, it will yield a drink fit for the Gods.
What about his _Youth_, which was sent for your verdict?
The allusion to Drouzhínin's translation of _King Lear_ is worth
noticing because fully fifty years later it was this play that Tolstoy
selected for hostile analysis in his famous attack on Shakespear.
One gathers from a letter written by V. P. Bótkin, that Drouzhínin's
rendering impressed Tolstoy favourably at the time.
Before quoting Drouzhínin's criticism of _Youth_, it will be in place
to mention other works by Tolstoy, not yet enumerated, which appeared
at this period. _Memoirs of a Billiard Marker_, giving a glimpse of
temptations Tolstoy had experienced, was published in January 1855,
while he was in Sevastopol. In January 1856 came _Sevastopol in
August_. In March 1856 appeared _The Snow Storm_. In May 1856 came a
rollicking tale, with flashes of humour like that of Charles Lever,
entitled _Two Hussars_. It is the only story Tolstoy ever wrote in
that vein; and in it are introduced gipsy singers such as those of
whom repeated mention occurs in his letters. In December, before he
went abroad, two more tales were published: one of these, entitled
_Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance in the Detachment_, containing a
scathing portrayal of the cowardice a man, who had passed muster in
'good society,' displayed when circumstances put him to the test. The
other story, _A Squire's Morning_, is closely drawn from Tolstoy's
own experience when on first leaving the University he settled on
his estate and attempted to better the condition of his serfs. Their
stolidity, their distrust, and the immense difficulty of introducing
any changes, are all brought out.
In a letter to Drouzhínin, Tourgénef wrote:
I have read his _Squire's Morning_, which pleased me exceedingly
by its sincerity and almost complete freedom of outlook. I say
'almost' because in the way he set himself the task, there still
is hidden (without his perhaps being aware of it) a certain
amount of prejudice. The chief moral impression produced by the
story (leaving the artistic impression aside) is that so long
as the state of serfdom exists, there is no possibility of the
two sides drawing together, despite the most disinterested and
honourable desire to do so; and this impression is good and true.
But beside it, like a horse cantering beside a trotter, there is
another: namely, that in general to try to enlighten or improve the
condition of the peasants leads to nothing; and this impression is
unpleasant. But the mastery of language, the way it is told, and
his character-drawing, are grand.
1857
In January 1857 appeared _Youth_, the continuation of _Childhood_ and
_Boyhood_.
How great Drouzhínin's influence was with Tolstoy at this time, may be
judged by the tone of his letter to him, giving an opinion on _Youth_.
He writes:
About _Youth_ one ought to write twenty pages. I read it with
anger, with yells and with oaths--not on account of its literary
quality, but because of the quality of the notebooks in which
it is written, and the handwritings. The mixing of two hands,
a known and an unknown, diverted my attention and hindered an
intelligent perusal. It was as though two voices shouted in my ear
and purposely distracted my attention, and I know that this has
prevented my receiving an adequate impression. All the same I will
say what I can. Your task was a terrible one, and you have executed
it very well. No other writer of our day could have so seized and
sketched the agitated and disorderly period of youth. To those who
are developed, your _Youth_ will furnish an immense pleasure; and
if any one tells you it is inferior to _Childhood_ and _Boyhood_
you may spit in his physiognomy. There is a world of poetry in
it--all the first chapters are admirable; only the introduction is
dry till one reaches the description of spring.... In many chapters
one scents the poetic charm of old Moscow, which no one has yet
reproduced properly. Some chapters are dry and long: for instance
all the stipulations with Dmítry Nehlúdof.... The conscription of
Semyónof will not pass the Censor.
Do not fear your reflections, they are all clever and original. But
you have an inclination to a super-refinement of analysis which may
become a great defect. You are sometimes on the point of saying
that so-and-so's thigh indicated that he wished to travel in India.
You must restrain this tendency, but do not extinguish it on any
account. All your work on your analyses should be of the same kind.
Each of your defects has its share of strength and beauty, and
almost every one of your qualities carries with it the seed of a
defect.
Your style quite accords with that conclusion: you are most
ungrammatical, sometimes with the lack of grammar of a reformer
and powerful poet reshaping a language his own way and for ever,
but sometimes with the lack of grammar of an officer sitting in a
casemate and writing to his chum. One can say with assurance that
all the pages you have written with love are admirable,--but as
soon as you grow cold, your words become entangled, and diabolical
forms of speech appear. Therefore the parts written coldly should
be revised and corrected. I tried to straighten out some bits, but
gave it up; it is a work which only you can and must do. Above
all, avoid long sentences. Cut them up into two or three; do not
be sparing of full-stops.... Do not stand on ceremony with the
particles, and strike out by dozens the words: _which_, _who_, and
_that_. When in difficulties, take a sentence and imagine that you
want to say it to some one in a most conversational way.
As a translator I may testify that Tolstoy never fully learned the
lesson Drouzhínin here set him, and that to the very last he continued
occasionally to intermingle passages of extraordinary simplicity and
force with sentences that defy analysis and abound in redundances.
Nearly fifty years later Tolstoy himself criticised the subject-matter
of _Childhood_, _Boyhood_, and _Youth_ as follows:
I have re-read them and regret that I wrote them; so ill,
artificially and insincerely are they penned. It could not be
otherwise: first, because what I aimed at was not to write my own
history but that of the friends of my youth, and this produced
an awkward mixture of the facts of their and my own childhood;
and secondly, because at the time I wrote it I was far from
being independent in my way of expressing myself, being strongly
influenced by two writers: Sterne (his _Sentimental Journey_) and
Töpffer (his _Bibliothèque de Mon Oncle_).
I am now specially dissatisfied with the two last parts. _Boyhood_
and _Youth_, in which besides an awkward mixture of truth and
invention, there is also insincerity: a desire to put forward as
good and important what I did not then consider good and important,
namely, my democratic tendency.
Before concluding this chapter it will be in place to give a list of
books Tolstoy mentions as having influenced him after he left the
University and before his marriage. They were: Goethe's _Hermann
und Dorothea_; Hugo's _Notre Dame de Paris_; Plato's _Phaedo_ and
_Symposium_ (in Cousin's French translation); and the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_ in Russian versions. All these, he says, had a 'very great'
influence on him, while the poems of his compatriots, Tútchef, Kóltsof,
and his friend Fet, had 'great' influence.
He tells us that artistic talent in literature influenced him more than
any political or social tendency; and this is quite in accord both with
his highly artistic nature and with his general apathy towards public
affairs. There was a Slavophil theory (built to justify things as they
were) which proclaimed it natural for a Slavonic people to leave the
task of governing to its rulers, while retaining its intellectual
freedom to disapprove of what was done amiss; and though Tolstoy never
joined the Slavophils, this has been very much his own attitude on the
matter.
Even in early childhood he had appreciated some of Poúshkin's poems,
such as _To the Sea_ and _To Napoleon_, and had learned them by heart
and recited them with feeling; but curiously enough it was the perusal
of Mérimée's French prose translation of Poúshkin's _Gipsies_ that,
after he was grown up, aroused Tolstoy's keen admiration of Poúshkin's
mastery of clear, simple, direct language. Later in life Tolstoy used
to say that Poúshkin's prose stories, such as _The Captain's Daughter_,
are his best works; but he never lost his appreciation of Poúshkin's
power of expression in verse. In his Diary (4th January 1857) he wrote:
I dined at Bótkin's with Panáef alone; he read me Poúshkin; I went
into Bótkin's study and wrote a letter to Tourgénef, and then I
sat down on the sofa and wept causeless but blissful tears. I am
positively happy all this time, intoxicated with the rapidity of my
moral progress.
Despite his headstrong outbursts and many vacillations, he seems to
have been always a welcome guest in almost any society he cared to
frequent, and none of his critics has spoken as harshly of him as he
speaks of himself when describing these
terrible twenty years of coarse dissipation, the service of
ambition, vanity, and above all of lust.... It is true that not
all my life was so terribly bad as this twenty-year period from
fourteen to thirty-four; and it is true that even that period of my
life was not the continuous evil that during a recent illness it
appeared to me to be. Even during those years, strivings towards
goodness awoke in me, though they did not last long, and were soon
choked by passions nothing could restrain.
In his _Confession_, written more than twenty years later, when
speaking of his religious beliefs at this time, Tolstoy tells us:
With all my soul I wished to be good; but I was young, passionate,
and alone, completely alone when I sought goodness. Every time I
tried to express my most sincere desire, namely, to be morally
good, I met with contempt and ridicule; but as soon as I yielded to
nasty passions I was praised and encouraged.
Ambition, love of power, covetousness, lasciviousness, pride, anger
and revenge--were all respected.... I cannot think of those years
without horror, loathing and heartache. I killed men in war, and
challenged men to duels in order to kill them; I lost at cards,
consumed the labour of the peasants, sentenced them to punishments,
lived loosely and deceived people. Lying, robbery, adultery of all
kinds, drunkenness, violence, murder--there was no crime I did not
commit, and people approved of my conduct, and my contemporaries
considered and consider me to be a comparatively moral man.
So I lived for ten years.
During that time I began to write from vanity, covetousness and
pride. In my writings I did the same as in my life. To get fame and
money, for the sake of which I wrote, it was necessary to hide the
good and to show the evil. And I did so. How often in my writings
did I contrive to hide under the guise of indifference or even
of banter, those strivings of mine towards goodness, which gave
meaning to my life! And I succeeded in this, and was praised.
At twenty-six years of age[33] I returned to Petersburg after the
war, and met the writers. They received me as one of themselves and
flattered me. And before I had time to look round I had adopted
the class views on life of the authors I had come among, and these
views completely obliterated all my former strivings to improve.
Those views furnished a theory which justified the dissoluteness
of my life. The view of life of these people, my comrades in
authorship, consisted in this: that life in general goes on
developing, and in this development we--men of thought--have
the chief part; and among men of thought it is we--artists and
poets--who have the chief influence. Our vocation is to teach
mankind. And lest the simple question should suggest itself: What
do I know, and what can I teach? it is explained in this theory
that this need not be known, and that the artist and poet teach
unconsciously. I was considered an admirable artist and poet, and
therefore it was very natural for me to adopt this theory. I,
artist and poet, wrote and taught, without myself knowing what. For
this I was paid money; I had excellent food, lodging, women and
society; and I had fame, which showed that what I taught was very
good.
[33] Tolstoy makes a slip here: he was over twenty-seven.
This faith in the meaning of poetry and in the development of life,
was a religion, and I was one of its priests. To be its priest was
very pleasant and profitable. And I lived a considerable time in
this faith without doubting its validity. But in the second, and
especially in the third year of this life, I began to doubt the
infallibility of this religion and to examine it. My first cause of
doubt was that I began to notice that the priests of this religion
were not all in accord among themselves. Some said: We are the best
and most useful teachers; we teach what is wanted, but the others
teach wrongly. Others said: No! we are the real teachers, and you
teach wrongly. And they disputed, quarrelled, abused one another,
cheated, and tricked one another. There were also many among them
who did not care who was right and who was wrong, but were simply
bent on attaining their covetous aims by means of this activity of
ours. All this obliged me to doubt the validity of our creed.
Moreover, having begun to doubt the truth of the authors' creed
itself, I also began to observe its priests more attentively, and
I became convinced that almost all the priests of that religion,
the writers, were immoral, and for the most part men of bad,
worthless character, much inferior to those whom I had met in my
former dissipated and military life; but they were self-confident
and self-assured as only those can be who are quite holy or who do
not know what holiness is. These people revolted me, and I became
revolting to myself, and I realised that that faith is a fraud.
But strange to say, though I understood this fraud and renounced
it, yet I did not renounce the rank these people gave me: the rank
of artist, poet, and teacher. I naïvely imagined that I was a poet
and artist and could teach everybody without myself knowing what I
was teaching, and I acted on that assumption.
From my intimacy with these men I acquired a new vice: abnormally
developed pride, and an insane assurance that it was my vocation to
teach men, without knowing what.
To remember that time, and my own state of mind and that of
those men (though there are thousands like them to-day) is sad
and terrible and ludicrous, and arouses exactly the feeling one
experiences in a lunatic asylum.
We were all then convinced that it was necessary for us to speak,
write, and print as quickly as possible and as much as possible,
and that it was all wanted for the good of humanity. And thousands
of us, contradicting and abusing one another, all printed and
wrote--teaching others. And without remarking that we knew nothing,
and that to the simplest of life's questions: What is good and what
is evil? we did not know how to reply, we all, not listening to one
another, talked at the same time, sometimes backing and praising
one another in order to be backed and praised in turn, sometimes
getting angry with one another--just as in a lunatic asylum.
Thousands of workmen laboured to the extreme limit of their
strength day and night setting the type and printing millions of
words which the post carried all over Russia, and we still went on
teaching and could nohow find time to teach enough, and were always
angry that sufficient attention was not paid to us.
It was terribly strange, but is now quite comprehensible. Our
real innermost consideration was, that we wanted to get as much
money and praise as possible. To gain this end we could do nothing
except write books and papers. So we did that. But in order to do
such useless work and feel assured that we were very important
people, we required a theory justifying our activity. And so among
us this theory was devised: 'All that exists develops. And it
all develops by means of Culture. And Culture is measured by the
circulation of books and newspapers. And we are paid money and are
respected because we write books and newspapers, and therefore we
are the most useful and the best of men.' This theory would have
been all very well if we had been unanimous, but as every thought
expressed by one of us was always met by a diametrically opposed
thought expressed by some one else, we ought to have been driven to
reflection. But we ignored this; people paid us money, and those on
our side praised us; so each one of us considered himself justified.
CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER V
Birukof.
Behrs.
A. Fet (Shenshin): _Moi Vospominaniya_, Moscow, 1890. These
_Recollections_ contain much authentic information about Tolstoy, as
well as a large number of his letters to Fet, which I have quoted in
subsequent chapters.
Bitovt.
Golovatcheva-Panaeva, _Rousskie Pisateli i Artisty_: Petersburg, 1890.
D. V. Grigorovitch, _Literatourniya Vospominaniya_: vol. xii. p. 326.
G. P. Danilevsky, _Istoritcheskii Vestnik_: March 1886.
P. A. Sergeyenko, _Tourgenef i Tolstoy_: _Niva_, No. 6, 1906.
Tolstoy's _Confession_.
See also, in Tolstoy's works. _The Decembrists_, chap. i.