NEARING THE CRISIS
Fet's poem. Franco-Prussian war. Studies Greek. Effect on health.
Railways. Koumýs cure in Samára. Mouhamet-Dzhan. An expedition.
'Milk-loving Scythians.' Buys estate. Molokáns. Tourgénef's interest.
_ABC_ Book. House enlarged. On future life. Re-starts school.
Preparation of _ABC_ Book. Astronomy. _A Prisoner in the Caucasus._
_God Sees the Truth._ Ceremonial rites. Stráhof and the _ABC_ Book.
Samára. Bull kills keeper. Teachers' Congress at Yásnaya. A letter in
verse. Peter the Great. A suicide. _Anna Karénina._ Mouhamed Shah.
Samára famine. Kramskóy's portrait. Death of son, Peter. Addresses
Moscow Society of Literacy. A practical demonstration. Test schools.
_The Fatherland Journal: On the Education of the People._ Mihaylóvsky.
'A University in bark shoes.' Toúla Zémstvo Education Committee.
Tourgénef translates Tolstoy. Birth of a son. Death of Aunt Tatiána.
_ABC_ Book approved. Wife's health. _Anna Karénina._ Death of a son.
Tourgénef on Tolstoy's writings. Samára. Primitive agriculture. Fête
and horse races. Bashkír life. Education of his children. Exercises
and playfulness. Croquet. 'Numidian cavalry.' Birth and death of a
daughter. Aunt P. I. Úshkof dies. Letters to Fet. Nirvana and Sansara.
_Anna Karénina._ 'Summer condition.' Horse-breeding. Loss of Gouneba.
Music. P. I. Tschaikóvsky. At the Conservatoire. Folk-songs. Beethoven.
Tolstoy on art. Approach of war. Rupture with Katkóf. The Evangelicals.
An epitaph. Professor Boutleróf. The Deity. Óptin Monastery. A
folk-story teller. Turkish prisoners. Son, Andrew, born. Ill-health.
_The Decembrists._ 'Martha is troubled.' Reconciliation with Tourgénef.
Samára. Tourgénef at Yásnaya. Their relations still not cordial.
Pilgrims. N. Tchaykóvsky. Mihaylóvsky's forecast. V. I. Alexéyef.
1870
As he grew older Tolstoy's love of outdoor exercise tended more towards
activity serving a useful productive purpose, and one finds a hint of
this in the following letter to Fet, dated 11th May 1870:
I received your letter, dear friend, when returning perspiring home
from work, with axe and spade, and when therefore I was a thousand
miles from things artistic in general, and from our business in
particular. On opening the letter I first read the poem and felt a
sensation in my nose. On coming home to my wife I tried to read it
to her, but could not do so for tears of emotion. The poem is one
of those rare ones in which not a word could be added or subtracted
or altered: it is a live thing, and admirable....
I have just served for a week as juryman, and found it very
interesting and instructive.
The next letter refers to the fact that Tolstoy did his best literary
work in winter, when he often spent almost the whole day, and sometimes
part of the night, at it; that was the time when his 'sap flowed':
_2 Oct. 1870._
It is long since we met, and in my winter condition, which I am now
entering, I am specially glad to see you. I have been shooting; but
the sap is beginning to flow, and I am collecting it as it drips.
Whether it be good or bad sap, it is pleasant to let it flow in
these long wonderful autumn evenings.... A grief has befallen me;
the mare is ill. The veterinary says her wind has been broken, but
I cannot have broken it.
The Franco-Prussian war, which commenced at this time, interested
Tolstoy keenly. He had come into contact with the French, in the
Crimea, before the Napoleonic autocracy had long held sway; and
he had visited France in 1857 and 1860, before the effect of that
putrescent influence had become fully apparent. Neither the idea of
German national unity, nor Bismarck's and Moltke's ideal of efficient
organisation and discipline, were things that much appealed to Tolstoy.
So it happened that not only were all his sympathies on the side of
the French, but he also felt assured of their triumph. His friend
Prince Ouroúsof used to write letters to Katkóf's _Moscow Gazette_
demonstrating by analogies with games of chess, that the French were
continually drawing the German armies into more and more desperate
positions in which they must soon be quite destroyed. When, on the
contrary, the French were utterly defeated, it came to him as a
complete surprise; which all tends to illustrate the fact that men of
great intellectual power, living isolated on their country estates, may
at times go very considerably wrong in their estimate of the trend of
some of the forces that influence the world.
On 12 February 1871 a daughter was born, who was christened Mary. In
later life she, of all his children, was the one most deeply influenced
by her father's teaching. The Countess, who, as already mentioned,
made a point of nursing her own children, owing to the neglect of an
attendant, became unable to do so in this instance before the child was
many weeks old, and a wet-nurse was engaged; but as soon as the mother
saw her child at a stranger's breast she burst into a flood of jealous
tears, dismissed the nurse on the spot, and ordered the child to be fed
with a bottle. Tolstoy, when he heard what had happened, declared that
his wife had only shown the jealous affection natural to a true mother.
1870-71
During that winter Tolstoy devoted himself strenuously to the study
of Greek. On hearing of this, Fet felt so sure that Tolstoy would not
succeed, that he announced his readiness to devote his own skin for
parchment for Tolstoy's diploma of proficiency when the latter should
have qualified himself to receive it. Accordingly, in December, Tolstoy
wrote him as follows:
I received your letter a week ago, but have not answered because
from morning to night I am learning Greek. I am writing nothing,
only learning; and to judge by information reaching me through
Borísof, your skin (to be used as parchment for my diploma in
Greek) is in some danger. Improbable and astounding as it may seem,
I have read Xenophon, and can now read him at sight. For Homer,
a dictionary and some effort is still necessary. I eagerly await
a chance of showing this new trick to some one. But how glad I
am that God sent this folly upon me! In the first place I enjoy
it; and secondly, I have become convinced that of all that human
language has produced truly beautiful and simply beautiful, I knew
nothing (like all the others who know but do not understand); and
thirdly, because I have ceased to write, and never more will write,
wordy rubbish. I am guilty of having done so; but by God I won't
do it any more! Explain to me, for Heaven's sake, why no one knows
Esop's fables, or even delightful Xenophon, not to mention Plato
and Homer, whom I still have before me? In so far as I can as yet
judge, our translations, made on German models, only spoil Homer.
To use a banal but involuntary comparison: they are like boiled
and distilled water, while he is like water fresh from the spring,
striking the teeth with its sun-lit sparkle: even its specks only
making it seem still clearer and fresher.... You may triumph:
without a knowledge of Greek, there is no education. But what kind
of knowledge? How is it to be got? What is the use of it? To this I
have replies clear as daylight.
1871
S. A. Behrs tells us, 'I know for a fact that he learnt the language
and read Herodotus in three months.' While in Moscow that winter, he
visited Leóntief, then Professor of Greek at the Katkóf Lyceum, to
talk about Greek literature. Leóntief did not wish to believe in the
possibility of his having learnt Greek so rapidly, and proposed that
they should read something at sight. It happened that they differed as
to the meaning of three passages; but after a little discussion the
Professor admitted that the Count's interpretations were right.
Tolstoy felt the charm of the literary art of the ancient world, and
so keen was his power of entering into the minds of those of whom he
read, and so different to his own was the Greek outlook upon life, that
the contradiction produced in him a feeling of melancholy and apathy
profound enough to affect his health.
What clash of ideals it was that produced this result we may guess
when we consider how from his earliest years he had been attracted by
the Christian ideal of meekness, humility, and self-sacrifice, and how
little this accords with the outlook on life of the ancient Greeks. In
a book written nearly forty years later, Tolstoy tells us that 'If, as
was the case among the Greeks, religion places the meaning of life in
earthly happiness, in beauty and in strength, then art successfully
transmitting the joy and energy of life, would be considered good
art' [good, that is, in its subject-matter of feeling conveyed] but
art transmitting the opposite feelings would be bad art.[51] Again in
the same work he says that the esthetic theory he is combating, seeks
to make it appear 'that the very best that can be done by the art of
nations after 1900 years of Christian teaching, is to choose as the
ideal of life the ideal held by a small, semi-savage, slave-holding
people who lived 2000 years ago, imitated the nude human body extremely
well, and erected buildings pleasant to look at.'[52]
[51] _What is Art?_ p. 54: Constable, London, and Funk and
Wagnalls Co., New York.
[52] _Ibid._, p. 65.
To wean him from his absorption in Greek literature, his wife at first
urged him to take up some fresh literary work; and finally, becoming
seriously alarmed for his health, induced him to go eastward for a
koumýs cure. He wrote to Fet at this time:
_10 June 1871._
DEAR FRIEND,--I have long not written to you, nor been to see you,
because I was, and still am, ill. I don't myself know what is the
matter with me, but it seems like something bad or good, according
to the name we give to our exit. Loss of strength, and a feeling
that one needs nothing and wants nothing but quiet, which one has
not got. My wife is sending me to Samára or Sarátof for two months
for a koumýs cure. I leave for Moscow to-day, and shall there learn
where I am to go to.
In Moscow it was decided that he should go to the part of Samára he had
visited before.
Railways have always been an affliction to Tolstoy. Civilisation
has forced them on him without his wish, and, as he argued in his
educational articles, to the detriment of the peasant population.
Personally, he complained of disagreeable sensations he experienced
when travelling by rail, and compared these discomforts with the
pleasure of riding on horseback. He objected both to the officious
politeness of the conductors and to the way in which the passengers
suspiciously shun one another. (This latter complaint is not one a
Westerner would bring against Russians, for they appear to us the most
friendly and sociable of fellow-travellers.) He used to insist on his
wife always travelling first class. He himself went either first or
third, but seldom second. To travel third is a more serious matter in
Russia than in England; and he used purposely to choose a car in which
there were peasants, and talked to all whom he met.
On this outward journey he went third class, by rail to Nízhni
Nóvgorod and by steamer down the Vólga to the town of Samára. On the
boat he took the opportunity to study the manners and customs of his
fellow-passengers, natives of the Vólga district, and displayed his
remarkable gift of making friends with people of all kinds. Before he
had been two days on the boat he was on the friendliest terms with
everybody, including the sailors, among whom he slept each night in the
fore part of the vessel. Even when he met reserved or surly characters,
it was not long before he drew them out of their shells, and set them
chatting at their ease. One secret of this success was the unaffected
interest he took in learning about other people's lives and affairs.
From Samára Tolstoy went eastward for eighty miles on horseback,
following the banks of the river Karalýk till he reached the village
of that name. He had lived there in 1862, and was welcomed as an
old acquaintance and friend by the Bashkírs, who always spoke of
him as 'The Count.' The reader will remember that at the University
Tolstoy had studied oriental languages. His knowledge of Tartar no
doubt increased his popularity with the Bashkírs. He had with him a
man-servant, and his brother-in-law, Stepán Andréyevitch Behrs, then a
lad of about sixteen, who subsequently in his _Recollections_ gave many
particulars about this outing. They lived, not in the 'winter village'
of Karalýk, but about one-and-a-half miles away, in a _kotchévka_ on
the open steppe. A _kotchévka_ is a conical tent, made of a collapsible
wooden frame covered with large sheets of felt. It has a small painted
door, and is usually carpeted with soft feather grass. The one in
which Tolstoy's party lived, was a very large one which he hired from
the Mullah (priest). It had formerly been used as a mosque, but had
the practical disadvantage of not being rain-proof. There were four
_kotchévki_ in the neighbourhood, one of which was occupied by the
Mullah.
On first arriving at Karalýk, Tolstoy for some days felt very depressed
and unwell. He complained that he lacked capacity to feel either mental
or physical pleasure, and looked at everything 'as though he were a
corpse': a characteristic usually most foreign to him, and which in
other people always evoked his dislike. It was, however, not long
before he recovered his spirits and energy.
There were other visitors at Karalýk, who had also come to benefit
by a koumýs cure. They neither associated with the Bashkír nomads,
nor adopted their customs; but Tolstoy was extremely fond of the
Bashkírs, associated much with them, and strictly followed their diet:
avoiding all vegetable foods and restricting himself to meat and animal
products. Dinner every day consisted chiefly of mutton eaten with the
fingers out of wooden bowls.
Some of the Russian visitors lived in one of the _kotchévki_, but
most of them lodged in the 'winter village.' Tolstoy soon made friends
with them all, and thanks to his genial influence the whole place grew
gay and lively. A professor of Greek from a Seminary for the education
of priests might be seen trying a skipping-rope match with him; a
procureur's assistant discussed legal and other questions, and there
was a young Samára farmer who became his devoted follower.
Among those who specially interested Tolstoy was Mouhamet-Dzhan, the
Bashkír Elder, whom the Russian peasants called Michael Ivánovitch.
This man was very nimble and active, full of humour, fond of a joke,
and a very strong player at draughts.
Accompanied by Behrs and two of their new acquaintances, and taking
a supply of guns and presents, Tolstoy went for a four days' drive
through the neighbouring villages. The party had splendid duck-shooting
by the lakes they passed; and they were entertained and treated to
koumýs by the Bashkírs at the _kotchévkas_ in which they rested. As
opportunity presented itself, they made suitable acknowledgment for
their entertainment by giving presents to their hosts. One serious
drawback to the hospitality they enjoyed was the fact that their
hosts insisted on feeding them with mutton and fat with their own
hands, without the intermediacy of fork or spoon, and it was out of
the question to insult them by refusing such well-meant though quite
undesired attentions.
On one occasion Tolstoy happened to admire a horse that had separated
from its herd, and remarked to Behrs, 'See what a beautiful specimen
of milking mare that is.' When, an hour later, they were taking leave,
their host tied this animal to their conveyance, thus presenting it to
his visitor. Of course, on the return journey, Tolstoy had to make an
equivalent present in return.
Another incident of this stay in the Government of Samára, was a visit
to the Petróvsky Fair, which is held once a year at Bouzouloúk, a
small town some fifty miles from Karalýk. Here Russians, Bashkírs,
Oural Cossacks, and Kirghiz mingled with one another; and Tolstoy was
soon on a friendly footing with them all. He would chat and laugh with
them even when they were drunk; but when one in that condition took
it into his head to embrace the Count, Tolstoy's look was so stern
and impressive that the fellow drew back his hands and let them fall,
saying, 'No, never mind, it's all right!'
The following letter of 18th July 1871, to Fet, relates to Tolstoy's
experience of the nomadic Bashkírs:
Thank you for your letter, dear friend! It seems that my wife
gave a false alarm when she packed me off for a koumýs cure and
persuaded me that I was ill. At any rate now, after four weeks, I
seem to have quite recovered. And as is proper when one is taking
a koumýs cure, I am drunk and sweat from morn to night, and find
pleasure in it. It is very good here, and were it not for family
home-sickness, I should be quite happy. Were I to begin describing,
I should fill a hundred pages with this country and my own
occupations. I am reading Herodotus, who describes in detail and
with great accuracy these same galactophagous [gluttonous-for-milk]
Scythians among whom I am living.
I began this letter yesterday, and wrote that I was well. To-day my
side aches again. I do not myself know in how far I am ill, but it
is bad that I am obliged to think--and cannot help thinking--about
my side and my chest. This is the third day that the heat has been
terrible. In the _kibítka_ [tent] it is as hot as on the shelf of a
Russian bath, but I like it. The country here is beautiful--in its
age just emerging from virginity, in its richness, its health, and
especially in its simplicity and its unperverted population. Here
as everywhere I am looking round for an estate to buy. This affords
me an occupation, and is the best excuse for getting to know the
real condition of the district.
After a six weeks' stay Tolstoy returned to Yásnaya, travelling first
class on the return journey.
His search for an estate had been successful, and after persuading his
wife that the investment was a sound one, he purchased two thousand
acres on his return to Moscow.
The change of scene, or some other influence, weakened Tolstoy's
absorption in Greek literature; and a huge dictionary he had taken with
him, was used by his brother-in-law to press a collection of local
wildflowers.
During his wanderings on the steppe, Tolstoy met many Molokáns, members
of a kind of Bible-Christian peasant sect. They base their faith on the
Bible, reject the Greek Church with its traditions, priesthood, dogmas,
ritual, sacraments, and icons. The name Molokán, or Milk-Drinker,
probably arose from the fact that, not observing the Russian fasts,
these people do not scruple to drink milk in Lent. They are said to be
distinguished by an honesty and industry not found among their Orthodox
neighbours; and they abstain from all intoxicants.
It interested Tolstoy to mix with these people, and he liked to discuss
their beliefs, especially with a venerable leader of theirs, named
Aggéy. It so happened that in the neighbouring village of Pátrovka
there was a very worthy young Russian priest, who was eager to convert
the Molokáns, and occasionally arranged debates with them on religious
subjects. Tolstoy sometimes attended these debates: his object being
not so much to convert the Molokáns, as to understand the points on
which they differed from the Russo-Greek Church. He also took an
interest in the Mohammedan faith of his Bashkír friends, and on his
return to Yásnaya read through a French translation of the Koran.
A few years later Tolstoy associated much with the representatives of
various sects and faiths, being then profoundly interested in their
beliefs; but at this time, his interest in such matters was only
beginning to make itself felt.
A letter of Tourgénef's written at this period, indicates how little he
allowed his quarrel with Tolstoy the man, to warp his appreciation of
Tolstoy the artist. Writing to Fet on 2nd July 1871, he says:
Your letter again grieves me--I refer to what you write about
L. Tolstoy. I have great fears on his account, for two of his
brothers died of consumption, and I am very glad he is taking a
koumýs cure, in the reality and efficacy of which I have faith. L.
Tolstoy is the only hope of our orphaned literature; he cannot and
must not vanish from the face of the earth as prematurely as his
predecessors: Poúshkin, Lérmontof and Gógol.
Again in November, writing from Paris, he says:
I am very glad that Tolstoy's health is now satisfactory and that
he is at work. Whatever he does will be good, if only he does not
himself mutilate his own handiwork. Philosophy, which he hates, has
revenged herself on him in a strange way: she has infected him,
and the enemy of rationalising has plunged head over ears into
rationalisation! But perhaps all _that_ has fallen away from him by
now, and left only the pure and powerful artist.
On returning home from Samára improved in health, Tolstoy turned his
thoughts once more to matters educational: especially to the crying
want of good primers for those beginning to read. We have seen how
strongly, in 1862, he had felt the need of well-written books simple
enough for beginners and peasant readers, and how he resented the
monopolisation of knowledge by the cultured classes entrenched behind
barriers of pedantry. We have seen, too, how under the influence of
Homer he swore he would no more write 'wordy rubbish'; and the time had
now come for this feeling to bear fruit. The task to which he devoted
his powers at their zenith, was the production of an _ABC_ Book for
beginners, which was to be as simple, sincere and perfect in form and
in subject-matter as possible.
We know from the writings of the American Consul, Mr. Eugene Schuyler,
who visited Tolstoy in 1868, and at his request obtained for him a
collection of American school primers, that Tolstoy was even then
meditating a work of the kind to which he now devoted himself ardently
for a whole year. By September he was hard at work, the Countess as
usual acting as his amanuensis.
Of her we hear that in an impulsive, kind-hearted way, she often
rendered assistance to the poor, not merely among the Yásnaya Polyána
peasants, but to others from a distance as well; and that the
neighbouring peasants thought well of her.
The increase in the Tolstoy family was met this year by a considerable
enlargement of their domicile. By way of a house-warming to celebrate
the completion of the building, a masquerade was arranged at Christmas,
at which Tolstoy evoked great enthusiasm by appearing as a goat.
About this time, at the age of sixteen, Behrs and a school friend of
his became sorely troubled as to the state of their souls, and thought
of entering a monastery. This is what he tells us of Tolstoy's relation
to the matter:
His attitude towards my inclination was a most cautious one. I
often went to him with my doubts and questions, but he always
managed to avoid expressing his opinion, knowing how very great
an influence it would have with me. He left it to me to work out
my own convictions. Once, however, he spoke out with sufficient
plainness. We were riding past the village church where his parents
lie buried. Two horses were grazing in the churchyard. We had been
talking over the only subject that then interested me.
'How can a man live in peace,' I asked, 'so long as he has not
solved the question of a future life?'
'You see those two horses grazing there,' he answered; 'are they
not laying up for a future life?'
'But I am speaking of our spiritual, not our earthly life.'
'Indeed? Well, about that, I neither know nor can know anything.'
1872
Immediately after New Year he re-started his school; and the children
(who often numbered thirty to thirty-five) met, not as formerly in
another building, but in the hall of the Tolstoys' enlarged house. In
the mornings the Countess taught her own children, and in the afternoon
she, her husband, and even seven-year-old Tánya and eight-year-old
Sergius, taught the peasant children, who came only then, but yet made
satisfactory progress, being stimulated by the personal interest the
Tolstoys took in them, by the pedagogic genius of the Count, and by a
perception that education is a rare and valuable luxury, which seldom
comes within the reach of Russian peasants.
In the _ABC_ Book Tolstoy gives several autobiographical stories of how
he learned to ride, and of his dogs Milton and Boúlka. Easy as these
are, they are admirably written, and combine brevity and simplicity
with sincerity; though their sincerity lies not in telling the facts
just as they occurred, but in the truth of the feeling conveyed to the
reader. Besides these and other stories, popular historical sketches,
and a number of translations and adaptations from _Esop's Fables_ and
from Indian, Hebrew and Arabic sources, the work contains some popular
ballads or folk-stories in verse. To get these poems as perfect as
possible, he studied and collated all the versions of them he could
collect.
The section on Arithmetic gave him an immense amount of work, for he
would not content himself with the usual explanations of the various
operations, but devised explanations of his own.
The book contains some elementary natural science, and for the
preparation of this, Tolstoy, besides examining all sorts of
text-books, consulted specialists on the various subjects, and himself
carefully performed most of the experiments he described.
To select the readings in the Church-Slavonic language, he perused the
monkish chronicles and the Lives of the Saints.
Intending to include some readings on astronomy, he took up that study
himself, and became so interested in it that he sometimes sat up all
night examining the stars.
When the news spread that Tolstoy was writing stories for his _ABC_
Book, the magazine editors besieged him with demands, and the first
bits of the book to see the light were _A Prisoner in the Caucasus_,
which appeared in one of the monthlies in February, and _God Sees the
Truth_, which came out in another monthly in March.
Owing to some mismanagement, Tolstoy received nothing for the
periodical rights of either of these stories, which in _What is Art?_
he names as the best of all his works. They (as well as _The Bear
Hunt_, also from the _ABC_ Book) are given in English in _Twenty-three
Tales_, previously referred to. In rendering them, I did my best to
retain the brief simplicity of the originals; but where Russian customs
were alluded to, some of that simplicity was inevitably lost.
With what pleasure Tolstoy looks back to this part of his life's work,
was indicated by a remark he made to me in 1902. Speaking of the
popularity of _A Prisoner in the Caucasus_ for public readings to the
peasants, he added with evident satisfaction, that when _A Prisoner in
the Caucasus_ is now mentioned, it is always taken for granted that it
is his little story, and not Poúshkin's famous poem of the same name,
that is referred to.
Since their first appearance, these two stories have sold by hundreds
of thousands in separate editions at three to ten copecks (about a
penny or twopence) each, besides appearing in the _Readers_ and among
Tolstoy's collected works.
In the following letter to Fet we get a vivid glimpse of the thoughts
on life's deepest problems, which were before long to fill Tolstoy's
mind completely.
_30 Jan. 1872._
It is some days since I received your kind but sad letter, and not
till to-day do I settle down to answer it.
It is a sad letter, for you write that Tútchef is dying, and that
there is a rumour that Tourgénef is dead; and about yourself you
say the machine is wearing out and you want quietly to think of
Nirvana. Please let me know quickly whether this is a false alarm.
I hope it is, and that, in the absence of Márya Petróvna, you have
taken slight symptoms for a return of your terrible illness.
In Nirvana there is nothing to laugh at; still less is there
cause for anger. We all (I, at least) feel that it is much more
interesting than life; but I agree that however much I may
think about it, I can think of nothing else than that Nirvana
is nothingness. I only stand up for one thing: religious
reverence--awe of that Nirvana.
There is, at any rate, nothing more important than it.
What do I mean by religious reverence? I mean this: I lately
went to see my brother, and a child of his had died and was
being buried. The priests were there, and a small pink coffin,
and everything as it should be. My brother and I involuntarily
confessed to one another that we felt something like repulsion
towards ceremonial rites. But afterwards I thought, 'Well, but what
should my brother do to remove the putrefying body of the child
from the house? How is one to finish the matter decently?' There is
no better way (at least, I could devise none) than to do it with
a requiem and incense. How is it to be when we grow weak and die?
Is nature to take her course, are we to ... and nothing else? That
would not be well. One wishes fully to express the gravity and
importance, the solemnity and religious awe of that occurrence, the
most important in every man's life. And I also can devise nothing
more seemly for people of all ages and all degrees of development,
than a religious observance. For me at least those Slavonic words
evoke quite the same metaphysical ecstasy as one experiences when
one thinks of Nirvana. Religion is wonderful, in that she has for
so many ages rendered to so many millions of people these same
services--the greatest anything human can render in this matter.
With such a task, how can she be logical? Yes--there is something
in her. Only to you do I allow myself to write such letters; but
I wished to write, and I feel sad, especially after your letter.
Please write soon about your health.--Your
LEO TOLSTOY.
I am terribly dispirited. The work I have begun is fearfully hard,
there is no end to the preparatory study necessary. The plan of the
work is ever increasing, and my strength, I feel, grows less and
less. One day I am well, and three days I am ill.
The work here referred to as 'fearfully hard' was a study of the reign
of Peter the Great, in preparation for a novel treating of that period.
On 20th February he again wrote to Fet:
I may not correspond with my friends for years at a time, but when
my friend is in trouble, it is terribly shameful and painful not
to know of it.... Now, being in Moscow, I wished to call on the
Bótkins to hear about you, but I fell ill myself, took to my bed,
and it was all I could do to get home. Now I am better. At home all
is well; but you will not recognise our house: we have been using
the new extension all winter. Another novelty is that I have again
started a school. My wife and children and I all teach and are all
contented. I have finished my _ABC_ Book and am printing it....
The next letter shows that his hope that he had finished the _ABC_ Book
was premature:
_16 March 1872._
How I wish to see you; but I cannot come, I am still ill.... My
_ABC_ Book gives me no peace for any other occupation. The printing
advances on the feet of a tortoise, and the deuce knows when it
will be finished, and I am still adding and omitting and altering.
What will come of it I know not; but I have put my whole soul into
it.
In May 1872 the Countess gave birth to another boy, who was christened
Peter.
The Moscow firm who were printing the book for Tolstoy were not able to
give him satisfaction. Not only was the printing a matter of difficulty
owing to the variety of type required for a school-book of this kind,
but Tolstoy, in accord with his invariable practice, revised the work
time after time while it was going through the press. At last, in May,
he wrote to his trusty friend and admirer, N. Stráhof, saying that
after four months' labour the printing was 'not only not finished, but
had not even begun,' and begging Stráhof to have the book printed in
Petersburg, and to take on himself for ample payment the whole task of
revising the proofs. After some correspondence matters were arranged,
though Stráhof declined to accept any payment for the help he rendered.
Tolstoy explained to his friend that he wanted to make a profit on the
book if possible. As a rule, all Tolstoy's later teaching seems to grow
out of his experience of life; but it would be hard for any one to work
more conscientiously than Tolstoy laboured over this book, and yet in
later life he speaks as though any admixture of mercenary motives is
sure to be fatal to good literary work. We here seem, therefore, to
come upon an exception to that rule.
Stráhof's assistance enabled Tolstoy (though he continued to give
most careful instructions with regard to the treatment of the various
sections of the book) to get a much needed change; and after having
as usual worked during the winter and spring up to the very limit of
his strength, he went for a short visit to his Samára estate, where
he arranged about building, and about breaking up the virgin soil. A
peasant from Yásnaya village was appointed steward of the new estate,
and was instructed to see to the building of the house there. Being
far away from home Tolstoy was anxious about his _ABC_ Book; so he
cut short his stay, and returned to Yásnaya before the end of July.
There he learned that a fine young bull of his had gored its keeper
to death. The unpleasantness of such an occurrence and of the legal
investigation consequent on the man's death, was greatly increased by
the fact that the Investigating Magistrate, an incompetent and arrogant
young official, wrongly held Tolstoy responsible for 'careless holding
of cattle,' and, besides commencing criminal proceedings against
him, obliged him to give a written undertaking not to leave Yásnaya.
Prince D. D. Obolénsky tells how Tolstoy arrived one day at a meet at
the Prince's estate of Schahovskóy (some thirty miles from Yásnaya)
late and much upset, and told of an examination he had that morning
undergone at the hands of the Investigating Magistrate, whose duties
included those of Coroner. 'Being an excitable man,' says Obolénsky,
'Tolstoy was extremely indignant at the Magistrate's conduct, and
told how the latter had kept a Yásno-Polyána peasant in prison for
a year-and-a-half on suspicion of having stolen a cow, which then
turned out to have been stolen by some one else. "He will confine
me for a year," added Tolstoy. "It is absurd, and shows how utterly
arbitrary these gentlemen are. I shall sell all I have in Russia and
go to England, where every man's person is respected. Here every
police-officer, if one does not grovel at his feet, can play one the
dirtiest tricks!"'
P. F. Samárin, who had also come to the hunt, opposed Tolstoy with
animation, arguing that the death or even the mutilation of a man,
was so serious a matter that it could not be left without judicial
investigation. After long argument Samárin more or less convinced
Tolstoy, and the latter before retiring to rest remarked to Obolénsky,
'What a wonderful power of calming people Samárin has!'
The judicial proceedings dragged on for more than a month, and it
was not till late in September that Tolstoy was again free to take a
journey to Moscow. The proceedings, first against him and then against
his steward, were abandoned; but not before the newspapers had taken
the matter up and made a fuss about it.
At last, in November, the _ABC_ Book was published. It sold slowly,
and was attacked by some of the papers. Tolstoy however was not
discouraged, but held to his belief that (as he expressed it to
Stráhof) he had 'erected a monument'--a conviction amply justified by
the ultimate success of the work. He had indeed produced a reading-book
far superior to anything that had previously existed in Russia, and
that is probably unmatched in any language. With certain modifications
to be mentioned later on, it continues to circulate throughout Russia
to the present day.
In connection with his other efforts to popularise his system of
instruction, Tolstoy, in October 1872, invited a dozen teachers from
neighbouring schools to visit him for a week at Yásnaya. They were
accommodated in his second house (called, as is customary in Russian
when speaking of a subsidiary residence, 'the wing'); and a number
of illiterate boys were collected from villages within reach, to be
taught on Tolstoy's lines. He also formed a project of establishing a
'University in bark shoes' [the country peasants wear bark shoes] or in
other words, a training college in which peasants could become teachers
without ceasing to be peasants. This plan occupied his attention, off
and on, for some years; but (owing to causes which will be related
later) never came to fruition.
In December Tourgénef writes from Paris, to Fet:
I got a copy of L. Tolstoy's ABC, but except the beautiful story,
_A Prisoner in the Caucasus_, I did not find anything interesting
in it. And the price is absurdly dear for a work of that kind.
The price of the first edition of 3000 copies of the _ABC_ was Rs. 2
(about 5s. 6d.). Tourgénef probably had no idea of the immense labour,
or of the typographical difficulties, involved in its production. The
subsequent editions were much cheaper.
About this time Fet sent Tolstoy a letter in rhyme, to which the latter
replied as follows:
_12 November 1872._
The causeless shame felt by the onion
Before the sweetly-scented rose,
My dearest Fet, I should be feeling,
Were I to answer you in prose.
And yet in maiden verse replying,
By sad misgivings I'm beset:
The when and where, yourself please settle--
But come and visit us, dear Fet.
Tho' drought may parch the rye and barley.
Yet still I shall not feel upset
If I but spend a day enjoying
Your conversation, dearest Fet!
Too apt we often are to worry;
O'er future ills let us not fret:
Sufficient for the day, its evil--
It's best to think so, dearest Fet!
Joking apart, write quickly and let me know when to send horses to
the station to meet you. I want to see you terribly.
Having at last got his _ABC_ off his hands, Tolstoy resumed his
preliminary labours for a large novel, which was to deal with the
period of Peter the Great. On 19th November 1872 the Countess wrote to
her brother:
Our life just now is very, very serious. All day we are occupied.
Leo sits surrounded by a pile of portraits, pictures and books,
engrossed in reading, marking passages and taking notes. In the
evening, when the children have gone to bed, he tells me his plans,
and what he means to write. At times he is quite discouraged, falls
into despair, and thinks nothing will ever come of it. At other
times he is on the point of setting ardently to work; but as yet I
cannot say he has actually written anything, he is still preparing.
A month later she wrote:
As usual we are all of us very busy. The winter is the working time
for us proprietors, just as much as summer is for the peasants. Leo
is still reading historical books of the time of Peter the Great,
and is much interested in them. He notes down the characters of
various people, their traits, as well as the way of life of the
boyars and the peasants, and Peter's activity. He does not yet know
what will come of it all, but it seems to me we shall have another
prose poem like _War and Peace_; but of the time of Peter the Great.
1873
A few months later he definitely abandoned the project. His opinion of
Peter the Great ran directly counter to the popular one, and he felt
out of sympathy with the whole epoch. He declared there was nothing
great about the personality or activity of Peter, whose qualities were
all bad. His so-called reforms, far from aiming at the welfare of
the people, aimed simply at his own personal advantage. He founded
Petersburg because the boyars, who were influential and consequently
dangerous to him, disapproved of the changes he made, and because he
wished to be free to follow an immoral mode of life. The changes and
reforms he introduced were borrowed from Saxony, where the laws were
most cruel, and the morals most dissolute--all of which particularly
pleased him. This, Tolstoy holds, explains Peter's friendship with the
Elector of Saxony, who was among the most immoral of rulers. He also
considers that Peter's intimacy with the pieman Ménshikof and with the
Swiss deserter Lefort, is explained by the contempt in which Peter
was held by all the boyars, among whom he could not find men willing
to share his dissolute life. Most of all, Tolstoy was revolted by the
murder of Peter's son Alexis, in which crime Tolstoy's own ancestor had
played a very prominent part.
Almost simultaneously with the abandonment of the project to which he
had devoted so much time and attention, Tolstoy, without any special
preparation, began to write his second great novel, _Anna Karénina_.
The year before, a lady named Anna who lived with Bíbikof, a
neighbouring squire mentioned on a previous page, had committed suicide
by throwing herself under a train, out of jealousy of Bíbikof's
attentions to their governess. Tolstoy knew all the details of the
affair, and had been present at the post-mortem. This supplied him
with a theme; but it was not till March 1873, and then as it were by
accident, that he actually began to write the book. One day a volume of
Poúshkin happened to be lying open at the commencement of _A Fragment_,
which begins with the words, 'The guests had arrived at the country
house.' Tolstoy, noticing this, remarked to those present that these
words, plunging at once into the midst of things, are a model of how
a story should begin. Some one then laughingly suggested that he
should begin a novel in that way; and Tolstoy at once started on _Anna
Karénina_, the second sentence, and first narrative sentence, of which
is, 'All was in confusion in the Oblónskys' house.'
In May Tolstoy and his whole family went for a three months' visit to
Samára, where he had recently purchased some more land.
This summer he hired a Bashkír named Mouhamed Shah, who owned and
brought with him a herd of milking mares. This Mouhamed Shah, or
Románovitch as he was called in Russian, was polite, punctual, and
dignified. He had a workman to drive the herd, and a wife (who retired
behind a curtain in his _kotchévka_ when visitors came to see him) to
wait upon him. In subsequent years this worthy man repeatedly resumed
his engagement with the Tolstoys.
This was the first year the whole estate had been ploughed up and sown.
It was fortunate for the district that some one who had the ear of the
public, happened to be there; for the crops in the whole neighbourhood
failed utterly, and a famine ensued. So out-of-the-world were the
people and so cut off from civilisation, that they might have suffered
and died without the rest of Russia hearing anything about it, had not
Tolstoy been at hand to make their plight known in good time by an
appeal for help, which the Countess prompted him to draw up, and which
appeared on 17th August, in Katkóf's paper, the _Moscow Gazette_.
In this article on the Samára Famine, Tolstoy describes how the
complete failure of the harvest, following as it did on two previous
poor harvests, had brought nearly nine-tenths of the population to
destitution and hunger.
To ascertain the real state of things Tolstoy took an inventory at
every tenth house in the village of Gavrílovka--the one nearest his
estate; and of the twenty-three families so examined, all but one
were found to be in debt, and none of them knew how they were to get
through the winter. Most of the men had left home to look for work, but
the harvest being bad everywhere, and so many people being in search
of work, the price of labour had fallen to one-eighth of what it had
previously been.
Tolstoy visited several villages and found a similar state of things
everywhere. Together with his article, he sent Rs. 100 (then equal to
about £14) as a first subscription to a Famine Fund. This was only a
small part of what he spent in relief of the impoverished peasants, for
when Prougávin (well known for his valuable descriptions of Russian
sects) visited the district in 1881, many of the inhabitants spoke to
him of Tolstoy's personal kindness to the afflicted, and of his gifts
of corn and money during the famine.
The subscription proved a success. Tolstoy's aunt, the Countess A.
A. Tolstoy (who had charge of the education of Marie Alexándrovna,
subsequently Duchess of Edinburgh), mentioned the matter to the
Empress, who was one of the first to contribute. Her example was
largely followed, and altogether, in money and in kind, something
like Rs. 2,000,000, or about £270,000, was contributed during 1873-4.
Within a year or two, good harvests again completely changed the whole
appearance of the district.
This was the first, but neither the last nor the worst, of the famines
in which Tolstoy rendered help.
Before the end of August 1873 he was back at Yásnaya, and wrote to Fet:
On the 22nd we arrived safely from Samára.... In spite of the
drought, the losses and the inconvenience, we all, even my wife,
are satisfied with our visit, and yet more satisfied to be back in
the old frame of our life; and we are now taking up our respective
labours....
A month later he writes again, referring to Kramskóy's portrait of
himself, a photogravure of which forms the frontispiece of this volume,
and shows the blouse which even in those days, before his Conversion,
he wore when at home, instead of a tailor-made coat:
_25 September 1873._
I am beginning to write.... The children are learning; my wife is
busy and teaches. Every day for a week Kramskóy has been painting
my portrait for Tretyakóf's Gallery, and I sit and chat with him,
and try to convert him from the Petersburg faith to the faith of
the baptized. I agreed to this, because Kramskóy came personally,
and offered to paint a second portrait for us very cheaply, and
because my wife persuaded me.
Up to this time Tolstoy, sensitive about his personal appearance, and
instinctively disliking any personal advertisement, had always had
an objection to having his portrait painted; and if he ever allowed
himself to be photographed, was careful to have the negative destroyed
that copies might not be multiplied. This prejudice he abandoned in
later life; and after Kramskóy had broken the ice, portraits and
photographs of Tolstoy became more and more common.
Kramskóy's acquaintance with the Tolstoys came about in this way. He
was commissioned to paint a portrait of the great novelist, for the
collection of famous Russians in Tretyakóf's picture gallery in Moscow;
but sought in vain in that town for his photograph, and was too modest
to ask Tolstoy (who, he knew, was living a secluded life at Yásnaya) to
give him sittings. He therefore hired a _dátcha_, some three miles from
Yásnaya, with the intention of painting Tolstoy, who often rode past
on horseback. His intention, however, became known, and the Tolstoys
at once sent him a friendly invitation to visit them. Of the two very
similar portraits of Tolstoy which Kramskóy painted, one has remained
at Yásnaya.
Before Tolstoy's next letter to Fet, the angel of death had crossed the
threshold of his house for the first time in his married life. On 11th
November he wrote:
We are in trouble: Peter, our youngest, fell ill with croup and
died in two days. It is the first death in our family in eleven
years, and my wife feels it very deeply. One may console oneself
by saying that if one had to choose one of our eight, this loss is
lighter than any other would have been; but the heart, especially
the mother's heart--that wonderful and highest manifestation of
Divinity on earth--does not reason, and my wife grieves.
1874
During the whole of 1874 Tolstoy made strenuous efforts to get his
system of education more generally adopted. On 15th January, overcoming
his dislike of speaking in public, he addressed the Moscow Society of
Literacy on the subject of the best way to teach children to read. The
details of his argument need not here detain us, as it will fall to the
lot of few of my readers to teach Russian children to read Russian;
but briefly, the German _Lautiermethode_ had been adopted by Russian
pedagogues in a way that Tolstoy considered arbitrary and pedantic,
and his appeal, which in the main has not carried conviction to the
educationalists, was against that method.
The large hall in which the meeting took place was crowded. The
President of the Society, Mr. Shatílof, invited Tolstoy to open
the debate, but Tolstoy preferred to reply to what questions and
remarks the other speakers might put. In the course of the animated
proceedings, in which several men well known in the Russian educational
world took part, the discussion widened out till it covered the
question of the whole direction of elementary education; and Tolstoy,
from the standpoint of his belief that it is harmful to force upon
the people a culture they do not demand and are not prepared for--and
much of which, though considered by us to be science, may yet turn
out to be no better than the alchemy and astrology of the Middle
Ages--denounced the education forced upon the children in elementary
schools, and declared that this should be confined in the first place
to teaching the Russian language and arithmetic, leaving natural
science and history alone. To prove the advantage of his way of
teaching reading, Tolstoy offered to give a practical demonstration in
one of the schools attached to some of the Moscow mills. Accordingly
it was arranged that this should take place the next day and the day
after, at the mills owned by Mr. Ganéshin, on the Devítche Pólye just
outside Moscow. On the morrow Tolstoy was unwell, and did not appear;
but he gave his demonstration on the evening of the following day,
with the result that, on the suggestion of Mr. Shatílof, the Society
of Literacy decided to start two temporary schools for the express
purpose of testing the rival methods during a period of seven weeks.
The one school was taught by Mr. M. E. Protopópof, an expert in the
_Lautiermethode_, while in the other school Tolstoy's method was taught
by Mr. P. V. Morózof. After seven weeks the children were examined by
a Committee, which had to report to the Society at a meeting held on
13th April. The members of the Committee however could not agree, and
handed in separate and contradictory reports. At the meeting of the
Society there was again a great divergence of opinion; and Tolstoy,
who considered that the test had not been made under proper conditions
(most of the pupils being too young, and the continual presence of
visitors preventing the teacher from holding the children's attention),
but that nevertheless his method had shown its superiority, decided to
appeal to a wider public, and did so in the form of a letter addressed
to Mr. Shatílof.
A full account of what happened from the time the dispute passed
into the press, has been given by that powerful and popular critic
and essayest, N. K. Mihaylóvsky, who was at this time a colleague
of Nekrásof. In 1866 the _Contemporary_ had been prohibited, as a
punishment for its too Liberal tendencies. In 1868 Nekrásof and
Saltykóf (Stchedrín) had taken over the management of the _Fatherland
Journal_. Tolstoy, who had long dropped out of touch with Nekrásof, now
addressed to him a request that the _Fatherland Journal_ should take a
hand in his fight with the pedagogic specialists, and should interest a
wider public in his educational reforms. As an inducement, he held out
a prospect (never fulfilled) that he would contribute some of his works
of fiction to their magazine. The outcome of his correspondence with
Nekrásof was, that though the whole question of elementary education
was somewhat foreign to a literary magazine such as the _Fatherland
Journal_, a long article by Tolstoy (his letter to Shatílof) appeared
in the September number, under the title of _On the Education of the
People_.
Tolstoy's educational articles in 1862, when he issued them in his own
magazine, had fallen quite flat and attracted no attention, but this
article, by the author of _War and Peace_, in a leading Petersburg
magazine, though expressing very similar views, received very much
attention, and was criticised, favourably or adversely, in a large
number of other publications. Though his views were only adopted to
a small extent, yet the severe shock which he administered to the
professional pedagogues who looked on school-children as 'a flock
existing for the sake of its shepherds,' had a most healthy influence,
and that it did not pass without some immediate practical effect is
indicated by the rejection from the Moscow Teachers' Seminary of one of
the text-books Tolstoy attacked most fiercely.
Following on the storm raised in the press by Tolstoy's article,
Mihaylóvsky, in the _Fatherland Journal_ for January 1875, published a
long article entitled _An Outsider's Notes_, in which he took Tolstoy's
part against the pedagogues, and said: 'Though I am one of the profane
in philosophy and pedagogics, and am writing simply a _feuilleton_, I
nevertheless advise my readers to peruse this _feuilleton_ with great
attention, not for my sake, but for Tolstoy's, and for the sake of
those fine shades of thought on which I do but comment.'
Before this, however, Tolstoy had made another attempt to improve the
state of elementary education, by promoting the establishment of that
'University in bark shoes' to which I have already alluded.
He had found some of the boys in the Yásno-Polyána school anxious
to continue their studies after finishing the school course; and an
experiment in teaching these lads algebra had been highly successful.
In his last article on Education, Tolstoy had pointed out that a great
obstacle to the spread of efficient elementary instruction lay in the
fact that the peasants could not afford the salaries (extremely modest
as these sound to Western ears) demanded by Russian teachers of the
non-peasant classes. It was therefore quite natural that he should
now devise a scheme for preparing teachers from among the peasants
themselves; and he drew up a project for a training college to be
established at Yásnaya, under his own direction and control.
In the summer of this year Tolstoy paid a brief visit to his Samára
estate to look after its management; and he took his son Sergius with
him.
On 20th November 1874 the Countess wrote to her brother:
Our usual serious winter work is now in full swing. Leo is quite
taken up with popular education, schools, and colleges for
teachers, where teachers for the peasants' schools are to be
trained. All this keeps him busy from morning till night. I have my
doubts about all this. I am sorry his strength should be spent on
these things instead of on writing a novel; and I don't know in how
far it will be of use, since all this activity will extend only to
one small corner of Russia.
P. F. Samárin, the Marshal of the Nobility of Toúla Government, backed
Tolstoy cordially, and pointed out that the Zémstvo (County Council)
had a sum of Rs. 30,000 available for educational purposes, and that
this might be devoted to starting a teachers' Training College. To
attain this end Tolstoy, who heretofore had always refused to stand for
election, consented to enter the Zémstvo, and after being returned to
that body, was unanimously chosen to serve on its Education Committee.
He presented a report in the sense indicated above, which was at first
favourably discussed; but unfortunately one of the oldest members
rose, and alluding to the fact that a collection was being made all
over Russia for a monument to Catherine the Great, and that it was the
centenary of the decree by which she had created the Government of
Toúla, proposed that the money should be devoted to the monument of
their Benefactress. This loyal sentiment met with approval, and though
Tolstoy did not at once abandon his plan, the means to carry it out
were never forthcoming, and we do not hear much more of it.
If one did not know how stupidly reactionary the governing classes
of Russia were at this period, it would seem extraordinary that the
central and the local authorities alike should have so constantly
balked and hindered Tolstoy's disinterested projects: forbidding the
publication of his newspaper for soldiers, mutilating his stories,
sending gendarmes to search his schools, looking askance at his school
magazine, and defeating his project for a Training College. Can it be
wondered at, that he came more and more to identify Government with
all that is most opposed to enlightenment? We know that similar causes
were, at that very time, driving men and women of a younger generation
to undertake dangerous propaganda work, in more or less definite
opposition to the existing order of society, among factory workmen and
country peasants.
His devotion to educational matters did not entirely supersede, though
no doubt it delayed, his activity as a novelist. In the spring of 1874
he had taken the commencement of _Anna Karénina_ to Moscow, but for
some reason none of it appeared that year.
Tourgénef, in collaboration with Madame Viardot, was at this time
translating some of Tolstoy's best stories into French. Writing to Fet
in March 1874, he says:
The season is now almost over, but all the same I will try to place
his [Tolstoy's] _Three Deaths_ in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ or
in the _Temps_, and in autumn I will without fail get out _The
Cossacks_. The more often I read that story, the more convinced I
am that it is the _chef d'oeuvre_ of Tolstoy and of all Russian
narrative literature.
Meanwhile life and death pursued their course. In April a son was born
and christened Nicholas; and before long, death, having a few months
previously taken the youngest, returned to claim the oldest members
of the household. The first of them to go was his dearly-loved Aunty
Tatiána Alexándrovna, to whose good influence through life he owed so
much. She died on 20th June, and next year his other aunt followed her.
Tolstoy never refers to his aunt Tatiána without letting us see how he
cherishes her memory. Here for instance are one or two of his notes
relating to her:
When already beginning to grow feeble, having waited her
opportunity, one day when I was in her room she said to us, turning
away (I saw that she was ready to cry), 'Look here, _mes chers
amis_, my room is a good one and you will want it. If I die in
it,' and her voice trembled, 'the recollection will be unpleasant
to you; so move me somewhere else, that I may not die here.' Such
she always was, from my earliest childhood, before I was able to
understand her goodness.
Again referring to her death, and to the love for his father which had
played so large a part in her life, he adds:
She died peacefully, gradually falling asleep; and died as she
desired, not in the room that had been hers, lest it should be
spoilt for us.
She died recognising hardly any one. But me she always recognised,
smiling and brightening up as an electric lamp does when one
touches the knob, and sometimes she moved her lips trying to
pronounce the name Nicholas: thus in death completely and
inseparably uniting me with him she had loved all her life.
The opinion the peasants had of her, was shown by the fact that when
her coffin was carried through the village, there was not one hut out
of the sixty in Yásnaya Polyána, from which the people did not come out
asking to have the procession stopped and a requiem sung for her soul.
'She was a kind lady and did nobody any harm,' said they. Tolstoy adds:
On that account they loved her, and loved her very much. Lao-Tsze
says things are valuable for what is not in them. So it is with a
life. It is most valuable if there is nothing bad in it; and in the
life of Tatiána Alexándrovna there was nothing bad.
Except in the case of his brother Nicholas, Tolstoy has usually not
been greatly upset even by the deaths of those near and dear to him.
The following letter to Fet shows how he took Tatiána's death:
_24 June 1874._
Two days ago we buried Aunt Tatiána Alexándrovna. She died slowly
and gradually, and I had grown accustomed to the process; yet her
death was, as the death of a near and dear one always is, a quite
new, isolated and unexpectedly-stirring event. The others are
well, and our house is full. The delightful heat, the bathing and
the fruit have brought me to the state of mental laziness I love,
with only enough mental life remaining to enable me to remember my
friends and think of them.
The next letter, dated the 22nd October, tells its own tale:
DEAR AFANÁSY AFANÁSYEVITCH,--I have planned to buy, and must buy,
some land at Nikólsky, and for that purpose must borrow Rs. 10,000
for one year on mortgage. It may be that you have money you want to
place. If so, write to Iván Ivánovitch Orlóf, Nikólsky village, and
he will arrange the affair with you independently of our relations
to one another.... How gladly would I come to see you, were I not
so overwhelmed with the school, family and estate business, that I
have not even time to go out shooting.... I hope to be free when
winter comes.
1875
A small second edition of Tolstoy's _ABC_ Book, in twelve paper-bound
parts, was printed this year; but he did not yet feel quite satisfied
with that work, and towards the close of the year he revised it,
abbreviating, omitting the arithmetic, and introducing graduated
reading exercises. As soon as the pupil has mastered a few of the
most necessary letters and can put these together, Tolstoy contrives
out of the very simplest syllables to construct sentences that have
a meaning and an interest. The _New ABC_ Book, apart from the more
advanced _Readers_, and consisting of ninety-two pages of elementary
matter, was issued in 1875, at the low price of 14 copecks (about 4d.).
Since Tolstoy's efforts have seldom been favoured by the Government,
it is worth noting that this edition was 'Approved and recommended by
the Scholarly Committee of the Ministry of Popular Education.' Between
one and two million copies of it have since been sold. The reading
matter from his first _ABC_ Book was subsequently graded into four
cheap _Readers_ costing 3d. to 4d. each, and though not honoured by
the Ministry of Education, they have from that time to this circulated
in increasing quantities, being printed of late years in edition after
edition of 50,000 at a time.
The Countess has in general enjoyed good health and worn her years and
the cares of her large family very lightly; but during the winter of
1874-5 her condition gave her husband much concern. In January he was
able to write to Fet: 'I have ceased to fear for my wife's health'; but
in fact for some time longer she continued to be ailing.
The commencement of _Anna Karénina_, appeared in the first four monthly
numbers of the _Russian Messenger_ for 1875.
By far the best English version of that novel (as also of _War
and Peace_) is Mrs. Constance Garnett's, though I do not like her
alteration of the title of the book to _Anna Karénin_, nor am I quite
satisfied with her treatment of some of the conversations in it; but
unquestionably we have much to thank her for.
In February the baby, Nicholas, died of inflammation of the brain, and
on 4th March 1875[53] Tolstoy wrote to Fet:
[53] This letter evidently relates to the year 1875, though in
Fet's _Vospominániya_ it is given as belonging to 1874.
We have one grief after another; you and Márya Petróvna will
certainly be sorry for us, especially for Sónya. Our youngest son,
ten months old, fell ill three weeks ago with the dreadful illness
called 'water on the brain,' and after three weeks' terrible
torture died three days ago, and we have buried him to-day. I feel
it hard through my wife; but for her, who was nursing him herself,
it is very hard.
In the same letter he mentions _Anna Karénina_, and immediately
afterwards he makes an allusion to the first idea of his _Confession_,
which was not actually written till 1879:
It pleases me very much that you praise _Karénina_ and I hear that
she gets praised; but assuredly never was writer so indifferent to
his success as I am!
On the one hand what preoccupies me are the school affairs, and on
the other, strange to say, the subject of a new work, which took
possession of me just at the worst time of the boy's illness,--and
that illness itself and death....
From Tourgénef I have received the translation, printed in the
_Temps_, of my _Two Hussars_, and a letter written in the third
person asking to be informed that I have received it, and saying
that other stories are being translated by Madame Viardot and
Tourgénef,--both of which were unnecessary. [Tolstoy means that
they need neither have sent him the translation, nor informed him
of what they were doing.]
The commencement of _Anna Karénina_ did not find favour with Tourgénef,
who on 14th March wrote from Paris to A. S. Souvórin, the novelist and
proprietor of the _Nóvoye Vrémya_ (_New Times_):
His [Tolstoy's] talent is quite extraordinary, but in _Anna
Karénina_ he, as one says here, _a fait fausse route_; one feels
the influence of Moscow, Slavophil nobility, Orthodox old maids,
his own isolation, and the absence of real artistic freedom. Part
II is simply dull and shallow--that's what's the matter.
And writing in similar strains to Polónsky the poet, Tourgénef said:
_Anna Karénina_ does not please me, though there are some truly
splendid pages (the steeplechase, the mowing, and the hunt). But
it is all sour: smells of Moscow, holy oil, old maidishness,
Slavophilism, and the aristocracy, etc.
The cordiality of Tourgénef's appreciation of Tolstoy's writings in
general, is sufficient guarantee that it was no personal prejudice
that led him to speak in this way of a book which is one of Tolstoy's
three most important novels, and which many people hold to be the best
of them all. What really caused his harsh judgment, is a matter I will
deal with later on.
This summer the whole Tolstoy family went to the Samára estates, which
had already been considerably increased by the last purchase, and which
ultimately exceeded 16,000 acres. Mouhamed Shah with his herd of mares
and his _kotchévka_--which Tolstoy called 'our saloon'--again appeared
on the scene. A second _kotchévka_ was set up for the use of the
Tolstoys themselves, and was so much in favour that all the members of
the family were eager to occupy it.
The novelty and the peculiarities of steppe farming interested Tolstoy,
and he, as well as other members of his household, took an active part
in harvesting and winnowing. How primitive were the Samára methods of
agriculture may be shown by mentioning their manner of threshing. A
ring of horses was formed, tied head to tail. In the centre of the ring
stood a driver with a long lash, and the horses were set trotting round
a corresponding circle of sheaves, out of which they trod the grain.
The virgin soil was ploughed up by five or even six pair of oxen,
wearing round their necks deep-toned bells, sounding in a minor key.
These things, together with the pipes of the boys who watched the
herds, the sultry days, and the marvellously clear moonlit nights, had
a wonderful charm for the whole party, and this charm was increased
by Tolstoy's capacity to notice and direct attention to whatever was
interesting or beautiful.
The whole family became interested, Behrs tells us, in their new
farming, and some of them went with Tolstoy as far afield as Orenbourg
to purchase cattle and horses.
He bought about a hundred Bashkír mares and crossed them with an
English trotter and with horses of other breeds, hoping to obtain a
good new type.
One evening his whole herd, and Mouhamed Shah's as well, were very
nearly driven off by some Kirghiz nomads who were passing. The invaders
were, however, pursued and driven off by two mounted Bashkír labourers.
Tolstoy declared farming in Samára to be a game of chance. It cost
nearly three times as much to plough up the land, sow it, and gather
in a harvest, as it did to purchase the freehold of the estate; and
if during May and June there was not at least one good fall of rain,
everything perished; whereas if it rained several times, the harvest
yielded thirty to forty-fold.
One day, at harvest time, a poor wandering Tartar, drawing two little
children in a tiny cart, came up to the balcony on which the Tolstoys
were sitting, and asked to be hired as a labourer. He was allowed to
set up his wigwam in a field close by, and the Tolstoy children used to
go there every day to feed the little Tartars.
In the neighbouring village lived several well-to-do Russian peasants
with whom Tolstoy was on very good terms. Either because they were
economically independent and lived in a province where serfdom had
not prevailed, or as a result of Tolstoy's tact and ability to set
people at their ease, these peasants always behaved with dignity and
self-respect. They shook hands when they said 'How do you do?' and
seemed quite at home with the Count.
He used to notice with pleasure the good relations and complete
religious toleration that existed in those parts between the Orthodox
peasants and their Mohammedan neighbours; and he was also delighted
that the priest at Pátrovka was on friendly terms with the Molokáns he
was trying to convert.
One rainy night, after staying late at this priest's house, Tolstoy
and his brother-in-law completely lost their way. It was so dark
that they could not see their horses' heads. Behrs was riding an old
working horse, which kept pulling to the left. Tolstoy, on hearing
this, told him to let the horse follow its bent. Behrs therefore tied
his reins so that they hung loose, and wrapping himself in his cloak
from the drenching rain, allowed the horse to go where it liked.
Carefully avoiding the ploughed land, it soon brought them out on to
the road, and, curiously enough, to just the one part of it which was
distinguishable from the extraordinary sameness of the rest, so that
the riders knew just where they were.
The most striking event of this year's stay in Samára was a horse race,
arranged by Tolstoy. Mouhamed Shah was authorised to announce to the
peasants and neighbours that races would be held on the Count's estate;
and invitations were sent to all likely to take part. Bashkírs and
Kirghiz assembled, bringing with them tents, portable copper boilers,
plenty of koumýs, and even sheep. Oural Cossacks and Russian peasants
also came from the whole surrounding neighbourhood. In preparation for
the race, says Behrs: