CHAPTER IX

MARRIAGE

The Behrs visit Yásnaya. Proposal by thought-reading. The Diary.

Marriage. Ministers on magazine. The school closed and the magazine

stopped. Family happiness. Health. Fet's visit. Sergius born. Children.

_The Cossacks_ and _Polikoúshka_. Bees. Plays. _Confession._ Saving the

hay. _Decembrists._ Samára. Preparations for _War and Peace_. Collected

edition. Translations. Dislocates arm. Tatiána born. Fears of famine.

Sergius (brother) and Tánya Behrs. Nikólsky. Visits Borodinó. Tolstoy

at home and with the children. Relations with servants. Masquerade.

Moscow. Drawing school. Sculpture. Ilyá born. Pleads at court-martial.

Dr. Zahárin. _Smoke._ Fet's Literary Evening. _War and Peace._

Schopenhauer. Pénza. Death of V. P. Bótkin. The Countess and the

children's education. English nurse. Tolstoy's habits. Visitors. Fet.

Tolstoy's ardour. Property. Untidiness. Respect for sleep. Newspapers.

Characteristics. Studies the drama.

TO one who admires Tolstoy's educational work, it is somewhat

disconcerting to see how scornfully he spoke of it sixteen years later

in his _Confession_. But that is always his way: the old is useless and

worthless and bad; only the new, the unachieved, the fresh ideal, is

admirable. For it, he decries all that the past has produced--including

himself and his former work. He makes his points broadly and

powerfully, but to understand, we must discriminate, and allow for an

artistic temperament tempting him to exaggerate. Let him however speak

for himself, that the reader may judge:

On returning from abroad I settled in the country, and happened to

occupy myself with peasant schools. This work was particularly to

my taste, because in it I had not to face the falsity which had

become obvious to me and stared me in the face when I tried to

teach people by literary means. Here, also, I acted in the name

of Progress, but I already regarded Progress itself critically.

I said to myself: 'In some of its developments Progress has

proceeded wrongly; and with primitive peasant children one must

deal in a spirit of perfect freedom, letting them choose what

path of Progress they please.' In reality I was ever revolving

round one and the same insoluble problem, which was: How to teach

without knowing what? In the higher spheres of literary activity

I had realised that one could not teach without knowing what;

for I saw that people all taught differently, and by quarrelling

among themselves succeeded only in hiding their ignorance from one

another. But here, with peasant children, I thought to evade this

difficulty by letting them learn what they liked. It amuses me now,

when I remember how I shuffled in trying to fulfil my desire to

teach, while in the depth of my soul I knew very well that I could

not teach anything needful, for I did not know what was needful.

After spending a year at school work, I went abroad a second time,

to discover how to teach others while myself knowing nothing.

And it seemed to me that I had learnt this abroad, and in the year

of the peasants' Emancipation I returned to Russia armed with

all this wisdom; and having become an Arbiter, I began to teach

both the uneducated peasants in schools, and the educated classes

through a magazine I published. Things appeared to be going well,

but I felt I was not quite sound mentally, and that matters could

not long continue in that way. And I should perhaps then have come

to the state of despair at which I arrived fifteen years later, had

there not been one side of life still unexplored by me, and which

promised me happiness: that was marriage.

For a year I busied myself with Arbitration work, the schools, and

the magazine; and I became so worn-out--as a result especially of

my mental confusion--and so hard was my struggle as Arbiter, so

obscure the results of my activity in the schools, so repulsive my

shuffling in the magazine (which always amounted to one and the

same thing: a desire to teach everybody, and to hide the fact that

I did not know what to teach) that I fell ill, mentally rather than

physically, and threw up everything, and went away to the Bashkírs

in the steppes, to breathe fresh air, drink _koumýs_, and live an

animal life.

1862

Tired of and dissatisfied with his work, and thinking he detected in

himself signs of the malady that had carried off two of his brothers,

he set off in May 1862 (accompanied by his servant Alexis and two of

his pupils) to undergo a koumýs (soured and fermented mares' milk) cure

in the Samára steppes east of the Vólga.

He went first to Moscow, and his friend Raévsky has told how Tolstoy

came up to him in the Club there, and mentioned with great indignation

and vexation that his brother was playing cards and had lost Rs.

7000 in a few hours. 'How can men do such things?' said Tolstoy.

Half-an-hour later Raévsky saw Leo Tolstoy himself playing Chinese

billiards (a game something like bagatelle, played on a board with

wire impediments) and learnt that he had lost Rs. 1000 to the stranger

with whom he was playing! This was, I believe, the last occasion on

which Tolstoy played any game for stakes he found it difficult to pay.

The occurrence led to the premature publication of his novel _The

Cossacks_, which he had had in hand for several years, but to which he

still intended to add a second part. Not having Rs. 1000 (then about

£150) available, he let Katkóf, the well-known publicist, editor of

the _Moscow Gazette_ and of the monthly _Russian Messenger_, have the

story for that sum paid in advance. This 'Tale of the Year 1852,' as

the sub-title runs, is based on Tolstoy's Caucasian experiences. The

circumstances which led to its premature publication made the work

repugnant to him, and he never completed it.

Among those to whom he mentioned the occurrence were the Behrs, of whom

Miss Sophie was already so interested in him that she wept at the news.

At their home he was always a welcome and intimate guest, and as time

went on he saw more and more of that family.

From Moscow he proceeded to Tvér by rail, and thence by steamer down

the Vólga to Samára.

At Kazán he stopped to visit his relation V. I. Úshkof: and from Samára

he wrote to Aunt Tatiána:

_27 May 1862._

To-day I shall start to drive ninety miles from Samára to

Karalýk....

I have had a beautiful journey; the country pleases me very much;

my health is better, _i.e._ I cough less. Alexis and the boys are

alive and well, as you may tell their relations. Please write

me about Sergéy, or let him do so. Greet all my dear comrades

[probably the masters in the schools] for me, and request them to

write me of what goes on, and of how they are getting on....

In another letter, dated 28th June 1862, he wrote:

It is now a month since I had any news of you or from home;

please write me about everybody: first, our family; secondly,

the (University) students [who acted as masters in the schools]

etc. Alexis and I have grown fatter, he especially, but we still

cough a little, and again he especially. We are living in a

Tartar tent; the weather is beautiful. I have found my friend

Stolýpin--now Atamán in Ourálsk--and have driven over to see him;

and have brought back from there a secretary; but I dictate and

write little. Idleness overcomes one when drinking koumýs. In

two weeks' time I intend to leave here, and I expect to be home

by St. Elijah's day [20 July, old style]. I am tormented in this

out-of-the-way place by not knowing what is going on, and also by

the thought that I am horribly behind-hand with the publication of

the magazine. I kiss your hand....

Just when Tolstoy was leaving Karalýk a most unexpected event was

occurring at Yásnaya, where his sister Mary was staying with Aunt

Tatiána. Owing to the denunciation of a police spy who, among other

lies, pretended to have discovered a secret door in Tolstoy's

house, the police authorities decided to search his estate; and

one morning--to the immense astonishment of the neighbouring

peasants--police, watchmen, officials, and gendarmes, under the

command of a Colonel, appeared upon the scene! In the school-house

a photographic apparatus was found: a thing sufficiently rare in a

Russian village in those days to evoke the suspicious inquiries of

the gendarme officer, to whom one of the student-teachers chaffingly

volunteered the information that it was kept to photograph Herzen (the

celebrated exile, then living in London); but nowhere were any secret

doors found.

The floors of the stables were broken up with crowbars to see if

anything was hidden there. The pond was dragged, but nothing more

incriminating than crayfish and carp was found. All the cupboards,

drawers, boxes and desks in the house were opened and searched, and the

ladies were frightened almost to death. A police-officer from Toúla

would not even allow Tolstoy's sister to leave the library till he had

finished reading aloud in her presence and in that of two gendarmes,

Tolstoy's Diary and letters, which contained the most intimate secrets

of his life and which he had kept private since he was sixteen years

old.

Finding nothing incriminating at Yásnaya, the representatives of

law and order next betook themselves to the other schools working

in conjunction with Tolstoy, and there also they turned tables and

cupboards upside down, seized exercise-books and primers, arrested the

teachers, and spread the wildest suspicions abroad among the peasants,

to whom school education was still a novelty held somewhat in suspicion.

On receiving news of this event Tolstoy at once wrote to his aunt, the

Countess A. A. Tolstoy, asking her to speak to those who knew him well

and had influence, and on whose aid he could rely. Said he:

I cannot and will not let this affair pass. All the activity in

which I found solace and happiness, has been spoilt. Aunty is so

ill from fright that she will probably not recover. The peasants

no longer regard me as an honest man--an opinion I had earned in

the course of years--but as a criminal, an incendiary, or a coiner,

whose cunning alone has enabled him to escape punishment.

'Eh, man, you've been found out! Don't talk to us any more about

honesty and justice--you've hardly escaped handcuffs yourself!'

From the landed proprietors I need not say what a cry of rapture

went up. Please write to me as soon as possible, after consulting

Peróvsky [Count V. A. P.] and Alexéy Tolstoy [Count A. T., the

dramatist and poet] and any one else you like, as to how I am to

write to the Emperor and how best to present my letter. It is too

late to prevent the injury the thing has done, or to extricate

myself, and there is no way out except by receiving satisfaction as

public as the insult has been; and this I have firmly resolved on.

I shall not join Herzen; he has his way, I have mine. Neither will

I hide.... But I will loudly announce that I am selling my estate

and mean to leave Russia, where one cannot know from moment to

moment what awaits one....

At the end of an eight-page letter he mentions that the Colonel

of gendarmes, on leaving, threatened to renew his search till he

discovered 'if anything is hidden'; and Tolstoy adds, 'I have loaded

pistols in my room, and am waiting to see how this matter will end.'

He also remarked: 'I often say to myself, How exceedingly fortunate

it was that I was not at home at the time! Had I been there, I should

certainly now be awaiting my trial for murder!'

Soon after this, Alexander II spent some time at Petróvsky Park, near

Moscow. There Tolstoy presented a letter claiming reparation, which an

aide-de-camp undertook to give to the Emperor; and some weeks later the

Governor of Toúla transmitted to Tolstoy the Emperor's expression of

regret for what had occurred.

It is easy to imagine the effect such an outrage as this police-search

would have on a man of Tolstoy's acute self-esteem, and how it would

intensify his hatred of Government.

After his return from Samára, he saw more of the Behrs than ever. Fet,

whom he introduced to them, thus records his impressions of the family:

I found the doctor to be an amiable old gentleman of polite

manners, and his wife a handsome, majestic brunette who evidently

ruled the house. I refrain from describing the three young ladies,

of whom the youngest had an admirable contralto voice. They all,

notwithstanding the watchful supervision of their mother and their

irreproachable modesty, possessed that attractive quality which the

French designate by the words _du chien_ [lively, full of go]. The

service and the dinner were admirable.

Madame Behrs was on very friendly terms with Tolstoy's sister, the

Countess Mary; and before he went abroad Tolstoy had frequently, at the

house of the latter, played with the children of both families. In 1862

he often visited the Behrs at Pokróvskoe-Glébovo, where they lived in a

_dátcha_ (country house) they occupied every summer. He nearly always

walked the eight miles from Moscow, and often took long rambles with

the family besides. The girls had been educated at home, but Sophia

Andréyevna, the second daughter, had passed a University examination

entitling her to the diploma qualifying to teach both in private and in

State schools.

We may judge of Tolstoy's state of mind at this time by an entry in

his Diary, dated 23rd August: 'I am afraid of myself. What if this be

only a _desire_ for love and not real love? I try to notice only her

weak points, but yet I love.' And again, 'I rose in good health, with

a particularly clear head, and wrote easily, though the matter was

feeble. Then I felt more sad than I have done for a long time. I have

no friends at all. I am alone. I had friends when I served Mammon, but

have none when I serve truth.'

On 26th August he notes that Sónya (Miss Sophia Behrs) gave him a story

to read, written by herself, and her description of the hero as a man

of 'unusually unattractive appearance, and changeable convictions' hit

him hard; but he was relieved to find that it was not meant for him.

On his thirty-fourth birthday, 28th August 1862 (old style) he jotted

down in his Diary the words: 'Ugly mug! Do not think of marriage; your

calling is of another kind.'

About this time the Behrs paid a two weeks' visit to Madame Behrs'

father's estate of Ívitsa, some thirty miles from Yásnaya, and _en

route_ they stopped a couple of days at Yásnaya to visit the Countess

Mary. The day after their arrival a picnic party was arranged with some

neighbours. It was haymaking time, and there was much haystack climbing

by the picknickers. The general impression was that Tolstoy was in love

with Lisa, the eldest Miss Behrs: this opinion being fostered by the

idea, then common in Russia, that an elder daughter should be disposed

of before a younger daughter may be courted.

A few days later Tolstoy followed the Behrs to Ívitsa; and here the

scene occurred which he has utilised in _Anna Karénina_ when describing

Lévin's proposal to Kitty--a scene in which something approaching

thought-reading takes place.

Sitting at a card-table with Miss Sophia Behrs, Tolstoy wrote the

initial letters of the sentence:

'In your family a false opinion exists about me and your sister Lisa;

you and Tánitchka should destroy it.'

Miss Sophia read the letters, understood what words they stood for, and

nodded her head.

Tolstoy then wrote the initial letters of another sentence:

'Your youth and need of happiness, to-day remind me too strongly of my

age and the impossibility of happiness.'

The nature of the Russian language (with its inflections instead

of particles, and the absence of articles) somewhat diminishes the

miracle; but the test was a very severe one, and again the girl guessed

the words aright. The two understood one another, and their fate was

practically sealed.

The Behrs returned to Pokróvskoe-Glébovo in September. Tolstoy

accompanied them on the carriage-journey back to Moscow and visited

them every day, bringing music for the young ladies, playing the piano

for them, and accompanying the youngest--whom he nicknamed 'Madame

Viardot' after the famous singer.

On the 17th of that month (the name's day of Sophia) Tolstoy handed

his future wife a letter containing a proposal of marriage, which she

gladly accepted. Her father, displeased that the second daughter should

be preferred to the eldest, at first refused his assent. But Tolstoy

was strenuously insistent--I have even heard that he threatened to

shoot himself--and the doctor soon yielded to the united persuasion of

daughter and suitor.

The bridegroom's sense of honour led him to hand his future wife the

Diary, in which, mingled with hopes, prayers, self-castigations and

self-denunciations, the sins and excesses of his bachelorhood were

recorded. To the girl, who had looked upon him as a personification

of the virtues, this revelation came as a great shock; but after a

sleepless night passed in weeping bitterly over it, she returned the

Diary and forgave the past.

To get married it was necessary first to confess and receive the

eucharist. Tolstoy's own experiences in this matter are narrated in

Chapter I of Part V of _Anna Karénina_, where they are attributed to

Lévin.

The marriage took place within a week of the proposal, namely on 23rd

September 1862, in the Court church of the Krémlin, the bridegroom

being thirty-four and the bride eighteen years of age. When the

ceremony was over the couple left Moscow in a _dormeuse_ (sleeping

carriage), and drove to Yásnaya Polyána, where Tolstoy's brother Sergéy

and Aunt Tatiána were awaiting them.

[Illustration: TOLSTOY IN 1862, THE YEAR OF HIS MARRIAGE.]

Fet records the letter in which Tolstoy informed him of his marriage:

FÉTOUSHKA [an endearing diminutive of Fet] UNCLE, or simply

DEAR FRIEND AFANÁSY AFANÁSYEVITCH!--I have been married two weeks

and am happy, and am a new, quite a new man. I want to visit

you, but cannot manage it. When shall I see you? Having come to

myself, I feel that I value you very, very much. We have so many

unforgettable things in common: Nikólenka, and much besides. Do

drive over and make my acquaintance. I kiss Márya Petróvna's hand.

Farewell, dear friend. I embrace you with all my heart.

In another letter belonging to the same period he writes:

I am writing from the country, and while I write, from upstairs

where she is talking to my brother, I hear the voice of my wife,

whom I love more than the whole world. I have lived to the age of

thirty-four without knowing that it was possible to love, and to be

so happy. When I am more tranquil I will write you a long letter.

I should not say 'more tranquil,' for I am now more tranquil

and clear than I have ever been, but I should say, 'when I am

accustomed to it.' At present I have a constant feeling of having

stolen an undeserved, illicit, and not-for-me-intended happiness.

There ... she is coming! I hear her, and it is so good!... And why

do such good people as you, and, most wonderful of all, such a

being as my wife, love me?

It did not much disturb his happiness, when, before Tolstoy had been

married a fortnight, an event occurred which might easily have led to

very disagreeable consequences. On 3rd October the Minister of the

Interior called the attention of the Minister of Education to the

harmful nature of the _Yásnaya Polyána_ magazine. This is what he wrote:

A careful perusal of the educational magazine, _Yásnaya Polyána_,

edited by Count Tolstoy, leads to the conviction that that

magazine ... frequently propagates ideas which apart from their

incorrectness are by their very tendency harmful.... I consider

it necessary to direct your Excellency's attention to the general

tendency and spirit of that magazine, which often infringes the

fundamental rules of religion and morality.... I have the honour

to inform you, Sir, of this, in the expectation that you may be

inclined to consider it desirable to direct the special attention

of the Censor to this publication.

Fortunately the decision of the matter did not lie with the Minister

of the Interior, but with the Minister of Education, who on receiving

this communication had the magazine in question carefully examined,

and, on 24th October, replied that he found nothing harmful or

contrary to religion in its tendency. It contained extreme opinions on

educational matters, no doubt, but these, he said, should be criticised

in educational periodicals rather than prohibited by the Censor. 'In

general,' added the Minister:

I must say that Count Tolstoy's educational activity deserves full

respect, and the Ministry of Education is bound to assist and

co-operate with him, though it cannot share all his views, some of

which after full consideration he will himself probably reject.

Other things besides the suspicion in which he was held by the Minister

of the Interior, tended to discourage Tolstoy. His magazine had few

subscribers and attracted but little attention. The year's issue was

causing him a loss of something like Rs. 3000 (say about £450)--a

larger sum than he could well afford to throw away. So he decided to

discontinue it after the twelfth number. The month after his marriage

he also closed the school, which was too great a tax on his time and

attention.

It has often been said that the obstacles placed in his way by the

Government turned him aside from educational work, but in speaking

to me about it Tolstoy remarked that really the main factor was his

marriage, and his preoccupation with family life.

Both he and his wife were absorbed by their personal happiness, though

from time to time small quarrels and misunderstandings arose between

them. So impulsive and strenuous a nature as Tolstoy's was sure to

have its fluctuations of feeling, but on the whole the ties binding

the couple together grew stronger and closer as the months passed into

years.

The Countess's parents used to say: 'We could not have wished for

greater happiness for our daughter.' The Countess not only loved

Tolstoy dearly as a husband, but had the deepest admiration for him as

a writer. He on his side often said that he found in family life the

completest happiness, and in Sophia Andréyevna not only a loving wife

and an excellent mother for his children, but an admirable assistant

in his literary work, in which, owing to his careless and unmethodical

habits, an intelligent and devoted amanuensis was invaluable. The

Countess acquired remarkable skill in deciphering his often extremely

illegible handwriting, and was sometimes able to guess in a quite

extraordinary way the meaning of his hasty jottings and incomplete

sentences.

One drawback to their almost complete happiness lay in the fact that

though active and possessed of great physical strength, Tolstoy

seldom enjoyed any long periods of uninterrupted good health. In his

correspondence we find frequent references to indisposition. In early

manhood, he seems to have distended his stomach, and, especially after

the hardships he endured during the war of 1854-5, he was subject to

digestive troubles for the rest of his days.

Town life did not attract him. He had never felt at ease in what is

called high society; nor were his means large enough to enable him to

support a wife and family in a good position in town. Still, towards

the close of the year of his marriage, he and the Countess spent some

weeks in Moscow.

1863

They were however soon back at Yásnaya. In February Fet visited them

there, and found them overflowing with life and happiness.

On 15th May, after the Tolstoys and Fet had by some chance just missed

meeting at the house of a neighbouring proprietor, Tolstoy wrote to his

friend:

We just missed seeing you, and how sorry I am that we did! How

much I want to talk over with you. Not a day passes without our

mentioning you several times. My wife is not at all 'playing with

dolls.' Don't you insult her. She is my serious helpmate, though

now bearing a burden from which she hopes to be free early in

July. What won't she do afterwards? We are _ufanizing_[48] little

by little. I have made an important discovery, which I hasten to

impart to you. Clerks and overseers are only a hindrance to the

management of an estate. Try the experiment of dismissing them all;

then sleep ten hours a day, and be assured that everything will

get along _not worse_. I have made the experiment and am quite

satisfied with its success.

[48] This word, when first invented by Nicholas Tolstoy, meant

ploughing, but it had by now come to mean farming in general.

How, oh how, are we to see one another? If you go to Moscow with

Márya Petróvna and do not come to visit us, it will be dreadful

offensive. (My wife, who was reading this letter, prompted that

sentence.) I wanted to write much, but time lacks. I embrace you

with all my heart; my wife bows profoundly to you, and I to your

wife.

_Business_: When you are in Orél, buy me 20 poods [720 lbs.] of

various kinds of twine, reins, and shaft-traces, if they cost less

than Rs. 2.30 per pood including carriage, and send them me by a

carter. The money shall be paid at once.

Fet soon availed himself of the invitation, and after driving past

the low towers which mark the entrance to the birch alley leading to

the house, he came upon Tolstoy eagerly directing the dragging of a

lake and taking all possible care that the carp should not escape.

The Countess, in a white dress, came running down the alley, with a

huge bundle of barn-door keys hanging at her waist. After cordially

greeting the visitor, she, notwithstanding her 'exceedingly interesting

condition,' leapt over the low railing between the alley and the pond.

It will however be better to quote Fet's own account of his visit:

'Sónya, tell Nestérka to fetch a sack from the barn, and let us

go back to the house,' said Tolstoy--who had already greeted me

warmly, without losing sight of the carp-capturing operations the

while.

The Countess immediately detached a huge key from her belt and

gave it to a boy, who started at a run to fulfil the order.

'There,' remarked the Count, 'you have an example of our method. We

keep the keys ourselves; and all the estate business is carried on

by boys.'

At the animated dinner table, the carp we had seen captured made

their appearance. We all seemed equally at ease and happy....

That evening was one truly 'filled with hope.' It was a sight to

see with what pride and bright hope Tatiána Alexándrovna, the

kindest of aunts, regarded the young people she so loved; and how,

turning to me, she said frankly, 'You see, with _mon cher Léon_ of

course things could not be otherwise.'

As to the Countess, life to one who in her condition leapt over

fences, could not but be lit up with the brightest of hopes. The

Count himself, who had passed his whole life in an ardent search

for novelties, evidently at this period entered a world till then

unknown, in the mighty future of which he believed with all the

enthusiasm of a young artist. I myself, during that evening, was

carried away by the general tone of careless happiness, and did not

feel the stone of Sisyphus oppressing me.

Soon after this visit, on 28th June 1863, a son, Sergius, was born.

During the first eleven years of marriage, the Countess bore her

husband eight children, and another five during the next fifteen years:

making in all, thirteen children in twenty-six years.

But we must turn back a few months to mention the stories by Tolstoy

which appeared during this year.

In the January number of the _Russian Messenger_, Katkóf had published

_The Cossacks_, which Tolstoy had kept back to revise, and had only

delivered in December.

In the February number of the same magazine appeared _Polikoúshka_, the

story of a serf who, having lost some money belonging to his mistress,

hangs himself.

These stories are referred to in the following letter from Tolstoy to

Fet, undated, but written in 1863:

Both your letters were equally important, significant, and

agreeable to me, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch. I am living in a

world so remote from literature and its critics, that on receiving

such a letter as yours, my first feeling is one of astonishment.

Whoever was it wrote _The Cossacks_ and _Polikoúshka_? And what's

the use of talking about them? Paper endures anything, and editors

pay for and print anything. But that is merely a first impression;

afterwards one enters into the meaning of what you say, rummages

about in one's head, and finds in some corner of it, among old,

forgotten rubbish, something indefinite, labelled _Art_; and

pondering on what you say, agrees that you are right, and even

finds it pleasant to rummage about in that old rubbish, amid the

smell one once loved. One even feels a desire to write. Of course,

you are right. But then there are few readers of your sort.

_Polikoúshka_ is the chatter of a man who 'wields a pen,' on the

first theme that comes to hand; but _The Cossacks_ has some matter

in it, though poor. I am now writing the story of a pied gelding,

which I expect to print in autumn. [It did not appear till 1888!]

But how can one write now? Invisible efforts--and even visible

ones--are now going on; and, moreover, I am again up to my ears in

farming. So is Sónya. We have no steward; we have assistants for

field-work and building; but she, single-handed, attends to the

office and the cash. I have the bees, the sheep, a new orchard,

and the distillery. It all progresses, little by little, though of

course badly compared with our ideal.

What do you think of the Polish business? [the insurrection of

1863, then breaking out]. It looks bad! Shall we--you and I and

Borísof--not have to take our swords down from their rusty nails?...

The bees, which Tolstoy here places first among his out-door duties,

occupied much of his time, and he often spent hours studying the habits

of these interesting creatures.

Tourgénef, writing to Fet, commented on _The Cossacks_ as follows:

I read _The Cossacks_ and went into ecstasies over it; so did

Bótkin. Only the personality of Olénin spoils the generally

splendid impression. To contrast civilisation with fresh, primeval

Nature, there was no need again to produce that dull, unhealthy

fellow always preoccupied with himself. Why does Tolstoy not get

rid of that nightmare?

Several months later he wrote:

After you left, I read Tolstoy's _Polikoúshka_ and marvelled at the

strength of his huge talent. But he has used up too much material,

and it is a pity he drowned the son. It makes it too terrible. But

there are pages that are truly wonderful! It made a cold shudder

run down even my back, though you know my back has become thick and

coarse. He is a master, a master!

Tolstoy was now fairly launched on the life he was destined to lead for

sixteen years: a quiet, country life, occupied with family joys and

cares. These years followed one another with so little change that the

story of a decade and a half can almost be compressed into a sentence.

Children came in quick succession, two great novels and an _ABC_ Book

were produced, a large orchard was planted with apple-trees, the

Yásnaya Polyána property was improved, and new estates were purchased

east of the Vólga.

During the year 1863 Tolstoy wrote two plays, which have never been

published. One, a farcical comedy called _The Nihilist_, was privately

performed at home with great success. The second, also a comedy,

written on a topic of the day, was called _The Infected Family_. Hoping

to have it staged, Tolstoy took it to Moscow early in 1864; but the

theatrical season, which in Russia ends at the commencement of Lent,

was already too far advanced; and he never subsequently appears to have

troubled himself to have it either published or acted.

The Countess Tolstoy's brother, S. A. Behrs (who from 1866 when he

was a boy of eleven, till 1878, spent every summer with the Tolstoys)

in his book, _Recollections of Count Tolstoy_, gives much interesting

information about the life at Yásnaya. He mentions that it was a

proverb about the hard fate of penniless noblemen, that prompted

Tolstoy to take all possible care to provide for the future of his

children; and the passage in the letter quoted above, about the bees,

sheep, new orchard and distillery with which he was occupied, shows how

this care was applied.

In his _Confession_, Tolstoy says of the years now under review:

Returning from abroad I married. The new conditions of happy family

life completely diverted me from all search for the general meaning

of life. My whole life was centred at that time in my family, wife

and children, and in care to increase our means of livelihood. My

striving after self-perfection and progress, was now again replaced

by the effort simply to secure the best possible conditions for

myself and my family.

So another fifteen years passed.

In spite of the fact that I regarded authorship as of no

importance, I yet, during those fifteen years, continued to write.

I had already tasted the temptation of authorship: the temptation

of immense monetary rewards and applause for my insignificant work;

and I devoted myself to it as a means of improving my material

position, and of stifling in my soul all questions as to the

meaning of my own life, or of life in general.

Again, writing in 1903 of this middle period of his life, Tolstoy says:

Then came a third, an eighteen-year period which may be the least

interesting of all (from my marriage to my spiritual re-birth) and

which from a worldly point of view may be called moral: that is to

say, that during those eighteen years I lived a correct, honest,

family life, not indulging myself in any vices condemned by public

opinion, but with interests wholly limited to selfish cares for

my family, for the increase of our property, the acquisition of

literary success, and all kinds of pleasure.

(In the one place he speaks of 'fifteen years,' and in the other of

'eighteen years'; but that is his way, and chronological exactitude is

not the important matter here.)

After the Emancipation, in many parts of Russia the landlords had more

or less serious difficulty with the peasants, among whom stories were

rife to the effect that the Tsar intended to give them all the land,

but had been deceived by the officials into only giving half; and, for

a time, riots were not infrequent. There was no serious trouble of

this sort on Tolstoy's estate; but his sister (whom I met at Yásnaya

in 1902, long after her husband's death and when she, a nun, had been

allowed out of her convent to visit her brother, after his very serious

illness) told me that on one occasion the peasants refused to make the

hay; and to save it from being lost, Tolstoy, his wife, the members of

the family, and the masters from eleven neighbouring schools, all set

to work with a will, and by their own strenuous exertions saved the

crop before the weather changed.

On settling down to married life, Tolstoy formed the plan of writing a

great novel, and the epoch he at first intended to deal with was that

of the Constitutional conspiracy which came to a head on the accession

of Nicholas I to the throne in December 1825. That quite premature

military plot was quickly snuffed out. So little were things ripe for

it, that many even of the soldiers who shouted for a 'Constitution'

(_Konstitútsia_) thought they were demanding allegiance to Nicholas's

elder brother Constantine, who having married a Polish lady of the

Roman Catholic faith had renounced his right to the throne. While

considering the plan of his work, Tolstoy found himself carried back

to the scenes amid which his characters had grown up: to the time

of the Napoleonic wars and the invasion of Russia by the French in

1812. Here was a splendid background for a novel, and putting aside

_The Decembrists_ he commenced _War and Peace_, a work conceived on a

gigantic scale, and that resulted in a splendid success.

1864

His attention, as we have already seen, was however not wholly absorbed

by literature, but was divided between that and the management of his

property. He had during his stay among the Kirghiz in the Province

of Samára, noticed how extremely cheap and how fertile was the land

in those parts. He therefore wished to purchase an estate there, and

visited the district in the autumn of 1864, probably with that end in

view. How long he stayed there I do not know, but from a letter he

wrote to Fet on 7th October, saying, 'We start for home to-day and do

not know how we shall make our way to happy Yásnaya,' we know when

he returned. In November he again wrote to Fet, and mentioned the

laborious preparations he was at that time making for _War and Peace_:

I am in the dumps and am writing nothing, but work painfully. You

cannot imagine how hard I find the preliminary work of ploughing

deep the field in which I must sow. To consider and reconsider all

that may happen to all the future characters in the very large work

I am preparing, and to weigh millions of possible combinations

in order to select from among them a millionth part, is terribly

difficult. And that is what I am doing....

Late in that month he wrote again to Fet:

This autumn I have written a good deal of my novel. _Ars longa,

vita brevis_ comes to my mind every day. If one could but make time

to accomplish a hundredth part of what one understands--but only

a thousandth part gets done! Nevertheless the consciousness that

_I can_ is what brings happiness to men of our sort. You know that

feeling, and I experience it with particular force this year.

The year 1864 saw the publication of the first collected edition of

Tolstoy's works, and though they have been already mentioned, it may

be as well to give a complete list of those twenty 'trials of the pen'

which preceded the appearance of _War and Peace_, and had already

sufficed to place Tolstoy in the front rank of Russian writers. The

following are their titles, with the years in which they were first

published. They suffice to fill four very substantial volumes.

1852 _Childhood._

1853 _The Raid: A Volunteer's Story._

1854 _Boyhood._

1855 _Memoirs of a Billiard-Marker._

1855 *_Sevastopol in December._

" *_Sevastopol in May._

" *_The Wood-Felling._

1856 *_Sevastopol in August._

" _The Snow Storm._

" *_Two Hussars._

" *_Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance in the Detachment._

" _A Squire's Morning._

1857 _Youth._

" _Lucerne._

1858 _Albert._

1859 _Three Deaths._

" _Family Happiness._

1862 Educational articles in _Yásnaya Polyána_.

1863 _The Cossacks._

" _Polikoúshka._

As I am sometimes asked where satisfactory versions of these stories

can be found, I may say that I think the best version of _Childhood_,

_Boyhood_ and _Youth_[49] is Miss Isabel Hapgood's, and I make no

apology for quoting a letter Tolstoy wrote me on 23rd December 1901,

concerning the volume, _Sevastopol_,[50] translated by my wife and

myself, and containing the six stories marked * in the above list. I do

this with less hesitation, because his letter illustrates the cordial

way in which he encourages those who do any work he can approve of, in

connection with his own activity:

[49] Published by Walter Scott, Ltd., London, and by T. Y.

Crowell and Co., New York.

[50] Published by Messrs. A. Constable and Co., London, and

Funk and Wagnalls Co., New York.

I think I already wrote you how unusually the volume pleases me.

All in it is excellent: the edition and the footnotes, and chiefly

the translation, and yet more the conscientiousness with which

all this has been done. I happened to open it at _Two Hussars_ and

read on to the end just as if it were something new that had been

written in English.

One day in October Tolstoy went out for a ride on his favourite horse,

an English thoroughbred named Máshka. His borzoi dogs Lúbka and Krylát

accompanied him. After he had ridden some way, a hare suddenly started

up and the dogs rushed after it. Tolstoy had not come out with the

idea of hunting, but on seeing the dogs chasing the hare he could

not restrain himself, and galloped after them, uttering the hunting

cry, 'Atoú!' The weather was bad, the ground slippery, and the horse

stumbled at a narrow ravine and fell, dislocating and breaking its

rider's arm. The horse ran away, and Tolstoy, who was quite alone and

several miles from home, fainted. When he came to, he managed to drag

himself a distance of more than half a mile to the highroad, where he

lay in great pain. Some peasant carts passed by, but at first he could

not attract any one's attention. When at last he was noticed, in order

not to alarm his wife, he asked to be taken to the hut of an old wife,

Akoulína, famed as a bone-setter. In spite of all that she and her son

Iván could do--soaping, pulling, twisting and bandaging the arm--they

could not set it, and Tolstoy continued to suffer the greatest pain.

The Countess, who had meanwhile heard of the accident, reached the hut

late at night. She at once arranged to have her husband taken home, and

sent to Toúla for a doctor. The latter arrived about 3 A.M., and after

administering chloroform, succeeded, with the aid of two labourers who

were called in to assist, in setting the arm. On coming to, Tolstoy's

profound disbelief in the efficiency of doctors, prompted him to send

for another surgeon. After a consultation the two physicians decided

that everything had been done properly, and that Tolstoy must lie up

for six weeks to allow the arm to recover. When that time was up,

Tolstoy asked for his gun and fired it off to test his arm. No sooner

had he done so than he again felt great pain. He thereupon wrote to his

father-in-law, Dr. Behrs, and on his advice went to Moscow to consult

the specialists. These differed among themselves, but after a week's

hesitation a fresh operation was decided upon, and was carried out by

two competent surgeons. This time it was quite successful, and in due

course the patient completely recovered the use of his arm.

Meanwhile the Countess (now nursing her second child, a daughter named

Tatiána, who had been born on 4th October) remained at Yásnaya, where

her eldest child, Sergius, was taken dangerously ill with smallpox and

diarrhoea. This was the first occasion on which Tolstoy and his wife

had been separated.

While in Moscow he concluded an arrangement with Katkóf by which he

received Rs. 500 (£75) per printed sheet of sixteen pages for the

serial rights in _War and Peace_, which appeared in the _Russian

Messenger_. This was just ten times the amount which, when he wrote his

first stories, Nekrásof had mentioned as the highest rate paid to any

one for the magazine rights in a story.

1865

On 23rd January 1865, when Tolstoy had got over his accident, he wrote

Fet another of those jocular letters which sometimes contain more of

the real truth than will bear saying seriously:

Shall I tell you something surprising about myself? When the horse

threw me and broke my arm, and when I came to after fainting,

I said to myself: 'I am an author.' And I am an author, but a

solitary, on-the-quiet kind of author.... In a few days the first

part of 'The Year 1805' [so the first part of _War and Peace_ was

originally called] will appear. Please write me your opinion of it

in detail. I value your opinion and that of a man whom I dislike

the more, the more I grow up--Tourgénef. He will understand. All

I have printed hitherto I consider but a trial of my pen; what I

am now printing, though it pleases me better than my former work,

still seems weak--as an Introduction must be. But what follows

will be--tremendous!!!... Write what is said about it in the

different places you know, and especially how it goes with the

general public. No doubt it will pass unnoticed. I expect and wish

it to do so; if only they don't abuse me, for abuse upsets one....

I am glad you like my wife; though I love her less than my novel,

still, you know, she is my wife. Be sure you come to visit us; for

if you and Márya Petróvna do not stay here on your return from

Moscow it will really, without a joke, be too stupid!

In May 1865 one sees by a letter of Tolstoy's to Fet that one of the

children had been ill and he himself had been in bed for three days and

barely escaped a fever. His wife's younger sister, Tánya, she of the

contralto voice who (with some admixture of his wife) served Tolstoy

as model for Natásha in _War and Peace_, was spending the summer at

Yásnaya, as she had done each year since her sister's marriage. The

Countess Mary and her children were also there. The children, he says,

were well, and out all day in the open air. He adds:

I continue to write little by little, and am content with my work.

The woodcock still attract me, and every evening I shoot _at them_,

that is, generally, past them. My farming goes on well, that is to

say, it does not disturb me much--which is all I demand of it....

In reply to a suggestion from Fet, he goes on to say that he will

not write more about the Yásno-Polyána school, but hopes some day to

express the conclusions to which his three years' ardent passion for

that work had brought him. Then comes a reference to the state of

agricultural affairs after the Emancipation, and a passing allusion to

the question of famine--a subject destined to make great demands on

Tolstoy's attention in later years:

Our affairs as agriculturists are now like those of a share-holder

whose shares have lost value and are unsaleable on 'Change. The

case is a bad one. Personally I only ask that it should not

demand of me so much attention and participation as to deprive me

of my tranquillity. Latterly I have been content with my private

affairs; but the general trend--with the impending misery of

famine--torments me more and more every day. It is so strange, and

even good and terrible. We have rosy radishes on our table, and

yellow butter, and well-baked, soft bread on a clean tablecloth;

the garden is green, and our young ladies in muslin dresses are

glad it is hot and shady; while _there_ that evil hunger-devil is

already at work, covering the fields with goose-weed, chafing the

hard heels of the peasants and their wives, and cracking the hoofs

of the cattle. Our weather, the corn, and the meadows, are really

terrible. How are they with you?

The letter closes with advice to Fet to transfer his chief attention

from the land to literature, and a statement that Tolstoy himself has

done so, and is finding life less difficult.

When Tolstoy went out hunting hares and foxes with borzoi dogs, Miss

Tatiána Behrs (the Tánya alluded to above) used often to accompany him.

Between this lady and Count Sergius Tolstoy (Leo's elder brother) an

attachment had grown up which caused great distress to them both, for,

besides being twenty-two years older than the lady, Sergius was living

with, and had a family by, the gipsy mentioned in a previous chapter,

though he was not legally married. His affection for his family

prevented his yielding completely to his love for Tánya and asking her

to be his wife. The Behrs were quite willing that he should do so, and

the young lady would have accepted him, and was much pained by the

vacillation that resulted from the battle between his love for her and

his affection for his family. Ultimately he resolved to be faithful to

the union he had formed, and, in order to legitimise his children, went

through the form of marriage with their mother in 1867. Almost at the

same time, Tánya, having recovered from her disappointment, married a

Mr. Kouzmínsky.

Here again one gets a slight glimpse of the experience of life which

has led Tolstoy, contrary to the opinion general among the Russian

'intelligents,' to advocate faithfulness at all costs to the woman with

whom one has once formed a union.

A knowledge of Tánya's story adds to the interest with which, in

Tolstoy's great novel, one reads of Natásha Róstof's troubles and

ultimate happiness.

Towards the end of May, Tolstoy visited the estate of Nikólsky (which

after the death of his brother Nicholas had become his), and had the

house there repaired. In June the whole family moved to Nikólsky,

where they lived very quietly; Tolstoy continuing to write _War and

Peace_. His friend D. A. Dyákof's estate was only ten miles away, and

Tolstoy saw much of him at this time, besides having him at other

times as a frequent visitor at Yásnaya. Dyákof was his chief adviser

in agricultural matters, as well as in his efforts to improve the

stock of his cattle, pigs and poultry. Almost the only other visitors

at Nikólsky were the Fets; and the poet records meeting there the

Countess's 'charming sister,' Tánya, and experiencing violent antipathy

for the sour koumýs, about which Tolstoy was enthusiastic, and a large

tub of which stood near the front door.

While living at Nikólsky Tolstoy was invited for a fortnight by a

neighbouring landlord, Kiréyevsky, to a grand hunt, in which the

huntsmen wore special costumes, and luxurious dinners were served in

the woods. What interested Tolstoy most in all this was not the hunt,

but the opportunity it afforded him of studying types of the old and

new aristocracy.

At this period of his life one hears of his playing the guitar and

singing passionate love-songs.

During the autumn of 1865 Tolstoy, accompanied by his eleven-year-old

brother-in-law, visited the battlefield of Borodinó. They left Moscow

in Dr. Behrs' carriage, with post-horses. When the time came for them

to have something to eat, they found that the lunch basket had been

left behind, and they had only a small basket of grapes. Thereupon

Tolstoy remarked to his companion, 'I am sorry, not that we have left

the basket of food behind, but because your father will be upset

and will be angry with his man.' The journey took only one day, and

they stayed at the monastery erected in memory of those who fell in

the great fight. For two days Tolstoy investigated the scene of the

conflict which he was about to describe in his novel, and he then drew

the plan of the fight which appears in that work. Even in 1865 there

were but few survivors of the campaign of 1812 to be found in the

neighbourhood.

Tolstoy used at this time to spend whole days in the Roumyántsef Museum

in Moscow, studying books and manuscripts relating to the times of

Alexander I, and especially to the reformatory and Masonic movements

which then sprang up in Russia, but were subsequently suppressed on

political grounds.

S. A. Behrs tells us that Tolstoy

was always fond of children, and liked to have them about him. He

easily won their confidence, and seemed to have found the key to

their hearts. He appeared to have no difficulty in suiting himself

to a strange child, and with a single question set it completely at

ease, so that it began at once to chat away with perfect freedom.

Independently of this, he could divine a child's thought with

the skill of a trained educationalist. I remember his children

sometimes running up to him, and telling him they had a great

secret; and when they persisted in refusing to divulge it, he would

quietly whisper in their ears what it was. 'Ah, what a papa ours

is! How did he find it out?' they would cry, in astonishment.

He also says:

Gifted by nature with rare tact and delicacy, he is extremely

gentle in his bearing and conduct to others. I never heard him

scold a servant. Yet they all had the greatest respect for him,

were fond of him, and seemed even to fear him. Nor, with all his

zeal for sport, have I ever seen him whip a dog or beat his horse.

A servant who lived with him more than twenty years has said: 'Living

in the Count's house from my childhood, I loved Leo Nikoláyevitch as

though he were my father'; and in another place he remarks:

The Count had a stern appearance, but treated the servants

excellently, and made things easy for all strangers whom he met. He

has a very good heart, and when he was cross with me for anything,

I, knowing his character, used at once to leave the room, and when

next he called me, it was as though nothing unpleasant had happened.

Speaking of Tolstoy's later years the same servant says:

Leo Nikoláyevitch has now become quite a different man. From 1865

to 1870 he was active in managing the estate, and was fond of cows,

bred sheep, looked after the property, and, in a word, attended

to everything. At that time he was hot-tempered and impulsive. He

would order the trap to be brought when he wanted to go hunting.

His man, Alexis, would bring him his hunting-boots, and the Count

would shout at him, 'Why have you not dried them? You are not

worth your salt!' Alexis, knowing the Count's character, would

take the boots away, and bring them back almost directly. 'There!

now they're all right,' the Count would say, and would brighten up

instantly.

His love of the country and his dislike of towns sprang partly from his

keen appreciation of the charm and loveliness of Nature. He saw fresh

beauty every day, and often exclaimed: 'What wealth God has! He gives

each day something to distinguish it from all the rest.'

Sportsman and agriculturist himself, he maintains that sportsmen and

agriculturists alone know Nature. To quote Behrs again:

No bad weather was allowed to interfere with his daily walk. He

could put up with loss of appetite, from which he occasionally

suffered, but he could never go a day without a sharp walk in the

open air. In general, he was fond of active movement, riding,

gymnastics, but particularly walking. If his literary work chanced

to go badly, or if he wished to throw off the effects of any

unpleasantness, a long walk was his sovereign remedy. He could

walk the whole day without fatigue; and we have frequently ridden

together for ten or twelve hours. In his study he kept a pair of

dumb-bells, and sometimes had gymnastic apparatus erected there.

All luxury was distasteful to him; and much that ordinary people regard

as common comforts, seemed to him harmful indulgences, bad for the

souls and bodies of men. Nothing could well be more simple than the

arrangement of his house at Yásnaya, substantial and solidly built as

it was, with its double windows, and the Dutch stoves so necessary to

warm a Russian house.

He was not at all particular about what he ate, but objected to a

soft bed or spring mattress, and at one time he used to sleep on a

leather-covered sofa.

He dressed very simply, and when at home never wore starched shirts or

tailor-made clothes, but adapted to his own requirements the ordinary

Russian blouse, having it made of woollen stuff for winter, and of

linen for summer. His out-door winter dress was also an adaptation of

the sheepskin _shoúba_ and peasants' _caftán_, made of the plainest

material; and these afforded such good protection from the weather that

they were often borrowed by members of the household as well as by

visitors.

During the writing of _War and Peace_ Tolstoy generally enjoyed good

spirits, and on days when his work had gone well, he would gleefully

announce that he had left 'a bit of my life in the inkstand.' One of

his chief recreations was to go out hare-hunting with borzoi dogs, and

this he often did in company with a neighbouring landed proprietor,

Bíbikof.

From October 1865 he ceased to keep his Diary, and did not renew it

during the period covered by this volume.

1866

On Twelfth Night a grand masquerade was held at Yásnaya, and the

festivities were kept up till past two in the morning, and were

followed by a troika drive next day.

That same January the family moved to Moscow, where they hired a

six-roomed apartment for Rs. 155 a month (say about £23); and there

they remained for six weeks while the second part of _War and Peace_

was being printed for the _Russian Messenger_.

Among the friends Tolstoy saw most of at this time were Aksákof and

Prince Obolénsky. He also attended the Moscow drawing school, and he

tried his hand at sculpture--modelling a bust of his wife. It does not

appear, however, that he continued this occupation long.

In May 1866 a second son, Ilyá, was born, and an English nurse

introduced into the family.

During this summer an infantry regiment was stationed near Yásnaya,

in which a young Sub-Lieutenant named Kolokóltsef was serving, whom

the Countess Tolstoy had known in Moscow. He visited the Tolstoys,

and introduced to them his Colonel Únosha, and his fellow-officer

Ensign Stasulévitch (brother of the Liberal editor of the monthly

magazine, _The Messenger of Europe_), who had been degraded to the

ranks because, while he was on prison-duty, a prisoner had escaped.

Ensign Stasulévitch was middle-aged, but he had only recently regained

his rank as officer and joined the regiment commanded by his former

comrade, Colonel Únosha.

One day Stasulévitch and Kolokóltsef called on Tolstoy and told him

that a soldier, serving as secretary in one of the companies of the

regiment, had struck his Company Commander, and was to be tried by

court-martial. They asked Tolstoy to undertake the man's defence, and

he, having always regarded capital punishment with abhorrence, readily

agreed to do so.

The circumstances of the case were these. The soldier, Shiboúnin, was

a man of very limited intelligence, whose chief occupation was writing

out reports. When he had any money he spent it on solitary drinking.

The Captain in command of his company, a Pole, apparently disliked him,

and frequently found fault with his reports and made him rewrite them.

This treatment Shiboúnin bitterly resented; and one day, when he had

been drinking, on being told to rewrite a document he had prepared,

he insulted and struck the Captain. By law the penalty for a private

who strikes his officer is death. Tolstoy nevertheless hoped to save

the man's life, and obtained permission to plead on his behalf. The

trial took place on 6th June, and the members of the court-martial were

Colonel Únosha, Stasulévitch, and Kolokóltsef; the latter being merely

a light-headed youngster.

Tolstoy, when telling me of the incident, remarked that of the four

occasions on which he has spoken in public, this was the time that

he did so with most assurance and satisfaction to himself. He had

written out his speech; the main point of which was that Shiboúnin was

not responsible for his actions, being abnormal, and having from the

combined effect of intemperance and the monotony of his occupation,

become idiotic and obsessed by an idea that his Company Commander did

not understand report writing, and unfairly rejected work faultlessly

done. The law decrees a mitigation of sentence for crimes committed by

those who are not in the full possession of their senses; and as this

contradicts the paragraph allotting death as the sole punishment for a

soldier who strikes his officer, Tolstoy argued that mercy should be

extended to the prisoner.

The Court adjourned to consider its verdict, and (as Tolstoy

subsequently learnt) Stasulévitch was in favour of mercy. The Colonel,

who was more of a military machine than a human being, demanded the

death sentence, and the decision therefore rested with the boyish

Sub-Lieutenant, who (submitting to his Colonel) voted for death.

Tolstoy wished to appeal (through his aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy)

to Alexander II for a pardon; but with characteristic disregard of

details, he omitted to mention the name of the regiment in which the

affair had occurred, and this enabled the Minister of War, Milútin,

to delay the presentation of the petition until Shiboúnin had been

shot; which occurred on 9th August. Tolstoy's appeal never, therefore,

reached the Emperor.

In contrast with the action of the Colonel and the Minister, was

that of the peasants of the district, who flocked in crowds to see

the prisoner; bringing him milk, eggs, home-made linen and all the

gifts their poverty could afford. When the day of execution arrived,

Shiboúnin went quite impassively to his death; to all appearance

incapable of understanding what was happening. The people thronged

around the post to which he was to be tied--the women weeping and

some of them fainting. They fetched a priest to perform Masses at

his grave, and paid for the service to be repeated all day. At night

contributions of copper money, linen, and candles such as are burnt in

Russian churches, were laid upon his grave. Next day the Masses were

recommenced, and were continued until the local police forbade any more

religious services, and levelled the grave that the people might not

continue to visit it.

The knowledge of such a difference between the spirit of the governors

and the governed, helps us once again to understand Tolstoy's

ultimate conviction that Government and the administration of law are

essentially evil things, always tending to make the world worse and not

better. In later life we may be sure he would not have been content to

base his plea for mercy on merely legal grounds.

From time to time he continued to be troubled with ill-health; for

instance, in July 1866 he writes that he is confined to the house with

pains in the stomach which make it impossible for him to turn quickly.

In November--contrary to what he had often said in the past and was to

return to in later life--he expresses his sense of the importance of

authorship. Fet, criticising something in _War and Peace_, had quoted

the words, _irritabilis poetarum gens_, and Tolstoy, replying 'Not I,'

welcomes the criticism, begs for more, and goes on to say:

What have you been doing? Not on the Zémstvo [County Council]

or in farming (all that is compulsory activity such as we do

elementally and with as little will of our own as the ants who make

an ant-hill; in that sphere there is nothing good or bad), but

what are you doing in thought, with the mainspring of your being,

which alone has been, and is, and will endure in the world? Is that

spring still alive? Does it wish to manifest itself? How does it

express its wish? Or has it forgotten how to express itself? That

is the chief thing.

By the autumn of this year the railway southwards from Moscow to Koursk

had been constructed as far as Toúla, making it easier to get from

Yásnaya to Moscow, and to the rest of Europe. Yet Tolstoy comparatively

seldom felt tempted to leave his much-loved, tranquil, busy, country

life, in which alone he found himself able to work with the maximum of

efficiency.

About this time he undertook the planting of a birch wood, which has

since grown up and become valuable.

1867

During the summer of 1867 Tolstoy, despite the dislike and distrust

of doctors--which he shares with Rousseau, and which he has again and

again expressed in his works--was induced by the state of his health

and by his wife's persuasion, to consult the most famous Moscow doctor

of the time, Professor Zahárin, on whose advice he drank mineral water

during several weeks.

Writing to Fet he says:

If I wrote to you, dear friend, every time I think of you, you

would receive two letters a day from me. But one cannot get

everything said, and sometimes one is lazy and sometimes too busy,

as is the case at present. I have recently returned from Moscow

and have begun a strict cure under the direction of Zahárin; and

most important of all, I am printing my novel at Ris's, and have

to prepare and send off MSS. and proofs every day under threat of

a fine and of delayed publication. That is both pleasant and also

hard, as you know.

He goes on to criticise Tourgénef's novel, _Dym_ (_Smoke_), which had

appeared that year:

About _Smoke_ I meant to write long ago, and, of course, just what

you have now written. That is why we love one another--because we

think alike with the 'wisdom of the heart' as you call it. (Thank

you very much for that letter also: 'the wisdom of the heart' and

'the wisdom of the mind' explain much to me.) About _Smoke_, I

think that the strength of poetry lies in love; and the direction

of that strength depends on character. Without strength of love

there is no poetry; but strength falsely directed--the result of

the poet's having an unpleasant, weak character--creates dislike.

In _Smoke_ there is hardly any love of anything, and very little

poetry. There is only love of light and playful adultery, and

therefore the poetry of that novel is repulsive. That, as you

see, is just what you write about it. Only I fear to express

this opinion because I cannot look soberly at the author, whose

personality I do not like; but I fancy my impression is the general

one. One more writer played out!

In November 1867 we find the whole family again established for a while

in a lodging in Moscow, where they seem to have remained for a large

part of the winter.

Here Fet visited Tolstoy and announced to him that he had decided to

arrange a Literary Evening for the benefit of the famine-stricken

peasants of Mtsensk, the district in which Fet's estate lay. Tolstoy

met the suggestion with irony, maintaining that Fet had invented the

famine; and in reply to a request that he would ensure the success of

the evening by reading something, flatly refused to do so, declaring

that he never had and never could do such a thing as read in public.

Still, he lent Fet the chapter of _War and Peace_ containing the

wonderful description of the retreat of the Russian army from Smolénsk

in fearful drought. This as yet existed only in proof, not having been

published. (It forms Chapter V of Part X of Volume II in Mrs. Constance

Garnett's version: the best English rendering of that novel.) Read

by Prince Kougoúshef, the poet and dramatist, it evoked thunders of

applause.

1868

On 12th April 1868 Tourgénef, writing to Fet, said:

I have just finished the fourth volume of _War and Peace_.

There are things in it that are unbearable, and things that are

wonderful; and the wonderful things (they predominate) are so

magnificently good that we have never had anything better written

by anybody; and it is doubtful whether anything as good has been

written.

About the same time V. P. Bótkin wrote from Petersburg: 'Tolstoy's

novel is having a really remarkable success; every one here is reading

it, and they not merely read it but become enthusiastic about it.'

1869

The Epilogue was not completed till late in 1869. On 30th August

Tolstoy writes: 'Part VI [_i.e._ Part II of the Epilogue] which I

expected to have finished a month ago, is not ready'; and then in the

next sentence, he goes into ecstasies over Schopenhauer:

Do you know what this summer has been for me? An unceasing ecstasy

over Schopenhauer, and a series of mental enjoyments such as I

never experienced before. I have bought all his works, and have

read and am reading them (as well as Kant's). And assuredly no

student in his course has learnt so much and discovered so much

as I have during this summer. I do not know whether I shall ever

change my opinion, but at present I am confident that Schopenhauer

is the greatest genius among men. You said he had written something

or other on philosophic subjects. What do you mean by 'something

or other'? It is the whole world in an extraordinarily vivid and

beautiful reflection. I have begun translating him. Won't you

take up that work? We would publish it together. After reading

him I cannot conceive how his name can remain unknown. The only

explanation is the one he so often repeats, that except idiots

there is scarcely any one else in the world....

He goes on to say that he was starting next day for the Government of

Pénza to look at an estate he meant to buy 'in those out-of-the-way

parts.' The servant who accompanied Tolstoy has told how they travelled

third class from Moscow to Nízhni, and how Tolstoy chatted with his

fellow-travellers, so that many of them took him 'for a common man.'

The idea of buying the estate in Pénza was ultimately abandoned.

He had by then completed the last part of _War and Peace_, which was

to appear complete in book form in November. Two volumes had been

published in 1866, three more in 1868, and the sixth was not ready till

this year, 1869. (In subsequent editions the book was rearranged, first

into five and then into four volumes.)

Though he had so completely conquered the laziness of which he accused

himself in early manhood as to have become a regular, indefatigable and

extremely hard worker, yet after the completion of so gigantic a task

he felt the need of recuperation and in summer wrote to Fet: 'It is now

my deadest time: I neither write nor think, but feel happily stupid,'

and he adds that he goes out shooting woodcock and has killed eight at

an outing.

That at this time he already felt something of the strong repugnance

he so strenuously expressed in later years for luxury and profuse

expenditure, is indicated by his comment on the death of his

acquaintance, the author V. P. Bótkin, which took place in 1869. The

latter, a member of a wealthy family of tea-merchants, having lived

with economy till he knew his death was approaching, then hired a

splendid lodging in Petersburg, fitted it up with all possible comfort

and luxury, engaged a _chef_ from the kitchen of the Tsarévitch, paid

daily attention to the dinner _menu_, and engaged famous musicians to

perform quartets at his lodgings. To the magnificent feasts he gave

every day (at which, owing to the state of his health, he himself

participated chiefly as a spectator) he gathered a select circle of

those friends whose conversation interested him. He told his brother

that these arrangements for the close of his life gave him the keenest

pleasure, and that 'birds of Paradise are singing in my soul.' On 4th

October a quartet and a banquet had been arranged as usual, and many

guests were expected--but V. P. Bótkin lay dead in his bed.

Tolstoy, hearing of this, wrote to Fet:

I was terribly shocked by the character of V. P. Bótkin's death. If

what is told of it is true, it is terrible. How is it that among

his friends not one was found to give to that supreme moment of

life the character suitable to it?

Before _War and Peace_ was finished, the Countess had borne four

children, the fourth being a boy, born on 20th May 1869, and christened

Leo--nursing them all herself, as she did her subsequent children,

with two exceptions mentioned later on. Her willingness to do her duty

in this respect was exceptional among women of her class, for the

employment of wet-nurses was extremely common in Russia.

Up to the age of ten, the children were taught Russian and music by

the Countess, and she even found time to make their clothes herself

till they reached that age. Besides managing the household, her brother

tells us that during the composition of _War and Peace_ she found time

to copy it out no less than seven times, a statement not to be taken

literally: for greatly as Tolstoy believes in the proverb that 'Gold

is got by sifting,' and indefatigably as he revises his work, not all

the chapters of _War and Peace_ will have been altered that number of

times. With Tolstoy the children learnt arithmetic; and they learnt to

read French out of illustrated volumes of Jules Verne.

In all that concerned the education of the children, his wife at this

time willingly constituted herself the executant of her husband's

decisions, which were based largely on J. J. Rousseau's _Émile_, and

were relaxed only in so far as the Countess was unable to carry them

out, and as Tolstoy found himself too much occupied with other affairs

to attempt to do so. Later on there was less accord between the parents.

With the first child they tried to do without a nurse, but the attempt

was unsuccessful, and subsequently Russian nurses and foreign _bonnes_

were employed.

Toys were not allowed in the nursery, but much liberty was given to

the children. No violent or severe punishments were inflicted on them,

and none but their parents might award the punishments that were

administered. They aimed at gaining their children's confidence by

timely petting and kindly treatment.

If one of the children told a falsehood, this was treated as a serious

matter, and the punishment usually consisted in the parents treating

the child coldly. As soon, however, as it showed that it was really

sorry, the punishment ceased; but a child was never persuaded to say it

was sorry or to promise not to repeat its fault.

All the grown-up people in the house were expected to remember that

children are apt to copy and imitate all that they see and hear; and

the children were not kept away from the adults, except at lesson time.

Consequently when eight o'clock came and the children went to bed,

Tolstoy would often remark: 'Now, we are freer!'

Partly that they might learn English, partly because Tolstoy believed

that education was freer in England than elsewhere, young English

governesses were engaged to take charge of his children from the age

of three to nine. He was extremely fortunate in his first choice, for

the young lady remained with the Tolstoys for six years, and after her

marriage continued in most friendly relations with the whole family.

He aimed at acquainting the children with Nature, and developing their

love of it, of animals, and of insects. He liked to let them realise

their impotence and their complete dependence on their elders, but he

always did this with kindly consideration.

The children were not allowed to order the servants about, but had to

_ask_ them for anything they wanted; and that a good example might be

set, every one in the house was expected to do the same. This was the

more important, because the peasant servants in Russia, even after the

Emancipation, were scarcely regarded as belonging to the same race

of human beings as their masters, and a famous Russian author could

say without any exaggeration, 'The balcony was rotten. Only servants

went there; the family did not go there.' But, to avoid giving a wrong

impression, I must here make a reservation. Just because there was no

idea of the two classes overlapping, and because so wide a gap existed

between them that they dressed quite differently (the peasants having

their own costume and style of garments) very cordial and sincere good

feeling often grew up between master and man, or between proprietress

and servant, and real human interest, such as is shown in Tolstoy's

descriptions of the servants in _Childhood_, and in his other stories.

It was, and is, not at all unusual for Russian servants to intervene

in the conversation of the family or visitors; and the whole relation

between employers and employed was quite different to what it is in

England, where on Sundays the maid might be mistaken for her mistress,

except that she often looks more attractive than the latter.

The plan adopted in the Yásno-Polyána school, where no child was

obliged to learn anything it did not care to learn, had to be abandoned

in the family; but some scope was allowed to the children to reject

what they had no capacity for, and they were never punished for

neglecting to prepare lessons, though they were rewarded when they

learnt well.

To illustrate Tolstoy's way of developing the minds of those about him,

Behrs tells of his own case when, as a youth, he stayed at Yásnaya:

Regardless of my youth at the time, I remember that Tolstoy

discussed quite seriously with me all the scientific and

philosophic questions it came into my head to put to him. He always

answered simply and clearly, and never hesitated to admit the fact

if he himself did not understand this or that matter. Often my talk

with him took the form of a dispute, on which I embarked in spite

of my consciousness of his immense superiority.

The children were always eager to go for walks with their father, to

answer his call to practise Swedish gymnastics, and to be on his side

in any game he taught them. In winter they skated a good deal; but

clearing the snow off the pond under his leadership was an even greater

pleasure than the skating itself.

Before breakfast he would go for a walk with his brother-in-law, or

they would ride down to bathe in the river that flows by one side of

the estate. At morning coffee the whole family assembled, and it was

generally a very merry meal, Tolstoy being up to all sorts of jokes,

till he rose with the words, 'One must get to work,' and went off

to his study, taking with him a tumbler full of tea. While at work

in his room not even his wife was allowed to disturb him; though at

one time his second child and eldest daughter, Tatiána, while still

quite a little girl, was privileged to break this rule. The rare

days (generally in summer) when he relaxed, were very welcome to the

children, for their father's presence always brought life and animation

with it. Generally after dinner, before resuming work, he would read a

book not directly connected with the task he had in hand. It was often

an English novel; and we hear of his reading Anthony Trollope with

approval, Mrs. Henry Wood, who, he says, made a great impression on

him, and Miss Braddon. His dislike of George Sand remained unshaken,

and he considered _Consuelo_ to be a mixture of the pretentious and the

spurious. Goethe (especially _Faust_) he admired; while Molière's plays

and Hugo's _Les Misérables_ appealed to him very strongly indeed. In

the evening he was fond of playing duets with his sister. He used to

find it hard to keep up with her in playing long pieces with which he

was not quite familiar, and when in difficulties he would say something

to make her laugh, and cause her to play slower. If he did not succeed

by means of this ruse, he would sometimes stop and solemnly take off

one of his boots, as though that must infallibly help him out of the

difficulty; and he would then recommence, with the remark, 'Now, it

will go all right!'

During the early years of his married life few visitors came to

Yásnaya, except the numerous members of the Tolstoy-Behrs families,

who stayed there chiefly in summer. The poet A. A. Fet, D. A. Dyákof,

whom he had known from boyhood and had described in _Youth_, N. N.

Stráhof, the philosopher and critic, for whose judgment he had great

respect and whom he frequently consulted throughout his literary

career, and Prince L. D. Ouroúsof, a cousin of the Prince Ouroúsof he

had known during the siege of Sevastopol, seem to have been almost the

only friends who visited him in the years first following his marriage;

and this suited Tolstoy very well, for to entertain many visitors

would have seriously interrupted the absorbing work in which he was

continually engaged.

Fet has so often been mentioned in this volume that it is time to

devote a few lines to describing a man who has come in for much abuse

on account of the anti-Emancipationist sympathies expressed in some of

his writings. Like Tolstoy, he had grown up with no idea that it is

incumbent on men of education and capacity to organise the society of

which they are members, or by political action to remedy such abuses

as inevitably arise among human beings who do not keep the task of

systematic social organisation constantly in view. Of the impression

Fet's political opinions made on the Liberals, one may judge by a

remark Tourgénef addressed to him in a letter written in 1874: 'Twenty

years ago, at the height of Nicholas I's _régime_, you dumbfounded me

by announcing your opinion that the mind of man could devise nothing

superior to the position of the Russian aristocracy of that day, nor

anything nobler or more admirable.' The Liberals saw in Fet a political

reactionary--and so he was; but any one who reads his _Recollections_

may also see how large a measure of personal worth can be combined with

political indifferentism--a quality many Russians of his generation

were brought up to regard as a virtue. In private life he was a really

worthy man, and Tolstoy once very truly remarked to him:

There are some people whose talk is far above their actual

morality; but there are also some whose talk is below that

level. You are one who is so afraid of his sermon being above

his practice, that you intentionally talk far below your actual

practice.

While still a young cavalry officer Fet began to write poetry, for

which he had real talent; and after leaving the army he continued

his literary career as an Art-for-Art's-sake-ist, producing verse

translations of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Catullus, Tibullus,

Propertius, and Persius, besides original works of his own in prose and

verse, and (after Tolstoy's suggestion, already recorded) translations

from the German of Schopenhauer's _The World as Will and Idea_, and

Goethe's _Faust_.

In his dislike, or perhaps one should say ignorance, of politics,

commerce, and that great industrial revolution of the Western world

that has been the most conspicuous achievement of the last one hundred

and fifty years, as well as in his love of pure art, chiefly literary,

he had much in common with Tolstoy. They could talk with profound

sympathy of all that related to art, and they were alike in their love

of country life and in their relation to agriculture, as well as in the

fact that the great problems of life centred for them round their own

personality rather than around the community to which they belonged.

Patriotic by instinct, it was no part of their philosophy to be so;

at least they never dreamed of that newer patriotism which seeks to

manage the production and distribution of the national wealth so that

every member of the community may have an opportunity to live in decent

conditions. They had therefore at this period much in common; and

one sees by Tolstoy's letters how greatly they enjoyed each other's

society, though a time was coming when their friendship would wane.

Tolstoy had a strong dislike of leaving home even for a few days. When

it was absolutely necessary for him to go to Moscow he would grumble

at his hard fate, and Behrs, when he accompanied him, noticed how town

life depressed Tolstoy, making him fidgety and even irritable. When

returning from a journey, or a hunting expedition, he would express his

anxiety by exclaiming, 'If only all's well at home!' After he had been

away from Yásnaya, Tolstoy never failed to give the home party full and

amusing accounts of what he had seen and heard.

A distinguishing feature of Tolstoy, already remarked upon, but so

strongly marked that it can hardly be insisted on too much, was the

ardent and whole-hearted way in which he threw himself into whatever

occupation he took up. On this point Prince D. D. Obolénsky says:

'I have seen Count L. N. Tolstoy in all phases of his creative

activity.... Whatever his occupation, he did it with conviction, firmly

believing in the value of what he was doing, and always fully absorbed

by it. I remember him as a man of the world, and have met him at balls,

and I remember a remark he once made, "See what poetry there is in

women's ball-dresses, what elegance, how much thought, how much charm

even in the flowers pinned to the dresses!" I remember him as an ardent

sportsman, as a beekeeper, as a gardener; I remember his enthusiasm for

farming, for tree planting, fruit culture, horse breeding, and much

else.'

A housekeeper who was with him for nine years, said of him:

The Count himself looked after everything, and demanded extreme

cleanliness in the cowhouse and in the pig-styes and in the

sheep-cot. In particular he delighted in his pigs, of which he had

as many as 300, paired off in separate styes.... There the Count

would not allow the least dirt. Every day I and my assistants had

to wash them all, and wipe the floor and walls of the styes; then

the Count, on passing through the piggery of a morning, would be

very pleased, and would remark aloud: 'What management!... What

good management!' But God have mercy on us if he noticed the

least dirt! That at once made him shout out angrily.... The Count

was very hasty, and a doctor who used to come to Yásnaya said to

him more than once in my presence: 'You must not get so angry,

Count, it is very bad for your health....' 'I can't help it,' he

would reply. 'I want to restrain myself, but can't do it. That,

it seems, is the way I am made!'... His farming gave the Count a

good revenue in those days. Besides the pigs and their litters, he

had 80 cows, 500 good sheep, and very many fowls. We used to make

excellent butter, which we sold in Moscow at 60 copecks [about 19

pence] a lb.

His management of property was characteristically personal. He never

took shares in any joint-stock company, but he bought land, bred cattle

and horses of good quality, planted a large apple-orchard, as well

as a quantity of other trees, and in general he acquired property he

could manage himself, or (for he entrusted the management of his Samára

estates to stewards) over which he had full control. He has always

been more alive to the dangers and evils of commercial companies and

large engineering and industrial undertakings, than to the good they

have achieved by irrigating arid lands, uniting distant realms, and

lightening man's toil by making iron bear some of his burdens for him.

Tolstoy furnishes an example of the well-known fact that men of

artistic temperament are often untidy. Though he acknowledges the

advantages of neatness in general, he often remarked that it is a

quality most frequently found in shallow natures. He himself simply

could not, and therefore did not try to, keep his things in order. When

he undressed he let his clothes or boots drop where he stood; and if he

happened to be moving from place to place, his garments remained strewn

about the room, and sometimes on the floor. Behrs remarks.

I noticed that to pack his things for a journey cost him great

effort, and when I accompanied him I used very willingly to do

it for him, and thereby pleased him very much. I remember that

once, for some reason, I did not at all wish to pack for him. He

noticed this, and with characteristic delicacy did not ask me to,

but put his things into his portmanteau himself; and I can assert

positively that no one else, were they to try, could have got them

into such fearful disorder as they were in, in that portmanteau.

It was a peculiarity of Tolstoy's that he not only liked to have his

own sleep out without being disturbed, but that he never could or would

wake any one from sleep, and in cases of absolute necessity would ask

some one else to relieve him of that disagreeable task.

Behrs recounts that when they sat up late, the man-servant sometimes

fell asleep in his chair and omitted to serve up the cold supper.

Tolstoy would never allow him to be disturbed on these occasions, but

would himself go to the pantry to fetch the supper, and would do this

stealthily, and with the greatest caution, so that it became a kind

of amusing game. He would get quite cross with Behrs if the latter

accidentally let the plates clatter or made any other noise.

Many years later, alluding in my presence to this peculiarity of his,

Tolstoy remarked, 'While a man is asleep he is at any rate not sinning.'

1870

On 4th February 1870 Tolstoy wrote to Fet:

I received your letter, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch, on 1st

February, but even had I received it somewhat sooner I could not

have come. You write, 'I am _alone, alone_!' And when I read it

I thought, What a lucky fellow--_alone_! I have a wife, three

children, and a fourth at the breast, two old aunts, a nurse,

and two housemaids. And they are all ill together: fever, high

temperature, weakness, headaches, and coughs. In that state your

letter found me. They are now beginning to get better, but out of

ten people, I and my old aunt alone turn up at the dinner table.

And since yesterday I myself am ill with my chest and side. There

is much, very much, I want to tell you about. I have been reading a

lot of Shakespear, Goethe, Poúshkin, Gógol, and Molière, and about

all of them there is much I want to say to you. I do not take in

a single magazine or newspaper this year, and I consider it very

useful not to.

S. A. Behrs tells us that Tolstoy 'never read newspapers, and

considered them useless, and when they contain false news, even

harmful. In his humorous way he would sometimes parody a newspaper

style when speaking of domestic affairs.' His attitude towards

journalists and critics (except his friend Stráhof) was rather

scornful, and he was indignant when any one classed them even

with third-rate authors. He considered that it is a misuse of the

printing-press to publish so much that is unnecessary, uninteresting,

and worst of all, inartistic. He seldom read criticisms of his own

work. 'His feeling towards periodicals in general had its source in his

intense dislike of the exploitation of works of art. He would smile

contemptuously at hearing it suggested that a real artist produces his

works for the sake of money.'

Having said this much about his characteristics and peculiarities,

let us note the extent to which his life and mode of thought at this

time approximated to his later teaching. His humane relations towards

the peasants, his condemnation of many of the manifestations of

modern civilisation, his simplicity in household matters and dress,

his exemplary family life, humane educational ideals, deep love of

sincerity and of industry (including physical labour), his ardent

search for truth and for self-improvement, his gradually increasing

accessibility to and regard for others, his undoubted love of family

and his hatred of violence--indicate that the ideals of his later

life were not very far from him, even before the commencement of the

conversion told of in his _Confession_.

On 17th February Tolstoy writes to Fet:

I hoped to visit you the night of the 14th, but could not do so.

As I wrote you, we were all ill,--I last. I went out yesterday for

the first time. What stopped me was pain in the eyes, which is

increased by wind and sleeplessness. I now, to my great regret,

have to postpone my visit to you till Lent. I must go to Moscow to

take my aunt to my sister's, and to see an oculist about my eyes.

It is a pity that one can only get to your place after passing

a sleepless, cigarette-smoky, stuffy, railway-carriage,

conversational night. You want to read me a story of cavalry

life.... And I don't want to read you anything, because I am not

writing anything; but I very much want to talk about Shakespear and

Goethe and the drama in general. This whole winter I am occupied

only with the drama; and it happens to me, as it usually happens

to people who till they are forty have not thought of a certain

subject or formed any conception of it, and then suddenly with

forty-year-old clearness turn their attention to this new untasted

subject--it seems to them that they discern in it much that is new.

All winter I have enjoyed myself lying down, drowsing, playing

bézique, going on snowshoes, skating, and most of all lying in bed

(ill) while characters from a drama or comedy have performed for

me. And they perform very well. It is about that I want to talk to

you. In that, as in everything, you are a classic, and understand

the essence of the matter very deeply. I should like also to read

Sophocles and Euripides.

There we see Tolstoy, as always, ardently devoting his attention to

some great subject--which happens, this time, to be dramatic art. So

keen is he, that his mind is full of it whatever else he may be doing;

and so vivid is his imagination that the characters of the plays

perform for him whether he is standing up or lying down. How real a

grip he obtained of the subject with very little theatre-going, was

shown seventeen years later, when he wrote one of the most powerful

dramas ever produced, and followed it up by an excellent comedy: both

pieces being so good that they are constantly revived in Russian

theatres, besides having achieved success in other countries.

At the point we have reached there was no break in the manner of

Tolstoy's life. He continued to live quietly at Yásnaya, and to concern

himself chiefly with literature, and also with the management of his

estates and the welfare of his family. Children continued to be born

in rapid succession, and with the increasing family his means also

increased. But we have come to the middle of that tranquil period

of sixteen years which succeeded his marriage, and here, while--as

one would say of another man--he was indefatigably studying the

drama; or while--as one is inclined to say of him--he was resting and

recuperating before undertaking his next great work, it is convenient

to close this chapter.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER IX

Birukof.

Fet.

Behrs.

Bitovt.

_Yasnaya Polyana_, P. A. Sergeyenko: _Niva_, No. 34, 1908.

_L. N. Tolstoy_; _Monografiya Andreevitcha_: Petersburg, 1905.

For much information in this chapter as well as elsewhere I am indebted

to Tolstoy himself, to the Countess S. A. Tolstoy, to his sister, and

particularly to his daughter, Mary Lvovna, Princess Obolensky.

Information concerning the execution of the soldier is given in _Pravo_

for 1903.

Prince D. D. Obolensky's _Vospominaniya_ appeared in _Roussky Arhiv_,

1896.

See also, _Graf L. N. Tolstoy_, _Vospominaniya S. P. Arbouzova_:

Moscow, 1908.

Arbouzof was in Tolstoy's service twenty-two years. He gives his master

an excellent character; and though very inaccurate, his naive chatter

is readable, and throws light on Tolstoy's character.