miles in circumference, marked it by running a plough round, and
set up posts. Sheep and even one horse were prepared with which
to regale visitors. By the appointed day some thousands of people
had collected. On the wild steppe, covered with feather grass,
a row of tents appeared, and soon a motley crowd enlivened it.
On the conical hillocks (locally called 'cones') felt and other
carpets were spread, on which the Bashkírs sat in circles, their
legs tucked under them. In the centre of the circle, out of a large
_toursouk_ [a leather bottle made of an animal's leg] a young
Bashkír poured koumýs, handing the cup to each of the company in
turn. Their songs, and the tunes played on their pipes and reeds,
sounded somewhat dreary to a European ear. Wrestling, at which the
Bashkírs are particularly skilful, could be seen here and there.
Thirty trained horses were entered for the chief race. The riders
were boys of about ten years, who rode without saddles.
This race was for thirty-three miles, and it took exactly an hour and
forty minutes; consequently it was run at the rate of three minutes
a mile. Of the thirty horses, ten ran the whole distance, the others
giving up. The principal prizes were a horse, an ox, a gun, a clock,
and a dressing-gown. The festival lasted two days, and passed off in
perfect order and very gaily. To Tolstoy's delight no police were
present. The guests all politely thanked their host and departed highly
satisfied. 'Even in the crowd,' says Behrs, 'it seemed to me that Leo
Nikoláyevitch knew how to evoke _entrain_ combined with respect for
good order.'
Tolstoy visited the Petróvsky Fair, as was his yearly custom, and
stayed at the Bouzouloúk Monastery, where a hermit resided who was
'saving his soul' by a solitary and ascetic life. This man lived in an
underground catacomb. When he came out he walked about the garden and
showed his visitors an apple-tree he had planted forty years before,
under which it was his custom to sit when receiving pilgrims. He spoke
to Tolstoy about the Scriptures, and showed him his catacomb-home, the
coffin in which he slept, and the large crucifix before which he prayed.
Tolstoy considered that the respect paid to this man by pilgrims and
other visitors, was the outcome of genuine religious feeling, and
proved that the hermit, by giving the example of a pure, unworldly
life, supplied a real want.
Readers of Tolstoy's short stories will be aware of the use to which he
subsequently put his knowledge of the Bashkírs and of the hermit.
On 26th August, after reaching Yásnaya, he wrote to Fet:
Two days ago we arrived home safely....
We have had an average harvest, but the price of labour has been
enormous, so that finally ends only just meet. For two months I
have not soiled my hands with ink nor my heart with thoughts. Now I
am settling down again to dull, common-place _Anna Karénina_ with
the sole desire to clear a space quickly, and obtain leisure for
other occupations--only not for the educational work I love but
wish to abandon. It takes too much time.
His Samára experiences confirmed in him the feeling that not the
civilisation and progress and political struggles of the Western
world and of the small Westernised section of Russians, were really
important, but the great primitive struggle of plain people to obtain
a subsistence in healthy natural conditions; and he adds in the same
letter:
Why fate took me there [to Samára] I do not know; but I know
that I have listened to speeches in the English Parliament,
which is considered very important, and it seemed to me dull and
insignificant; but there, are flies, dirt, and Bashkír peasants,
and I, watching them with intense respect and anxiety, became
absorbed in listening to them and watching them, and felt it all to
be very important.
One must live as we lived, in a healthy out-of-the-way part of
Samára, and see the struggle going on before one's eyes of the
nomadic life (of millions of people on an immense territory) with
the primitive agricultural life, in order to realise all the
importance of that struggle.
After their return from the Government of Samára, all the children got
hooping-cough. The Countess caught it from them, and, being in the
sixth month of pregnancy, was very ill. This resulted in the premature
birth of a girl, Varvára, who lived less than two hours.
Tolstoy's eldest son, Sergius, had now reached the age of twelve.
Besides their English governess and a Swiss lady, the children had
at different times a Swiss, a Frenchman, and a German as tutors for
modern languages. Tutors and students who acted as tutors, also lodged
at Yásnaya and taught other subjects. A music master came over from
Toúla. The eldest boy had considerable musical talent, and the family
as a whole were musical. As soon as they had mastered their finger
exercises, the Count insisted on their at once being allowed to learn
serious pieces.
Every effort was made to awaken and foster the talent for drawing
and painting which some of the children, and especially the eldest
daughter, Tatiána, possessed; but lessons in these subjects were only
given to those who showed real capacity for them.
Much as Tolstoy disliked the curriculum of the Grammar Schools
('Gymnasiums,' as they are called in Russia), he did, not wish to make
it impossible for his sons to enter the University, and they followed
the usual classical course. Sergius passed his examinations each year
in Toúla Gymnasium, being carefully coached at home.
In his _Recollections_ Behrs tells us of Tolstoy's enlivening influence
in the family:
I cannot sufficiently describe the joyous and happy frame of mind
that usually reigned at Yásnaya Polyána. Its source was always Leo
Nikoláyevitch. In conversation about abstract questions, about
the education of children, about outside matters--his opinion was
always most interesting. When playing croquet, or during our walks,
he enlivened us all by his humour and his participation, taking a
real part in the game or the walk.
With me, he liked to mow, or use the rake; to do gymnastics, to
race, and occasionally to play leap-frog or _gorodkí_ [a game in
which a stick is thrown at some other shorter sticks placed in
a pattern], etc. Though far inferior to him in strength, for he
could lift 180 lbs. with one hand, I could easily match him in a
race, but seldom passed him, for I was always laughing. That mood
accompanied all our exercises. Whenever we happened to pass where
mowers were at work, he would go up to them and borrow a scythe
from the one who seemed most tired. I of course imitated his
example. He would then ask me, Why we, with well-developed muscles,
cannot mow six days on end, though a peasant does it on rye-bread,
and sleeping on damp earth? 'You just try to do it under such
conditions,' he would add in conclusion. When leaving the meadow,
he would take a handful of hay from the haycock and sniff it,
keenly enjoying its smell.
Children and grown-ups alike played croquet at Yásnaya. The game
generally began after dinner in the evening, and only finished by
candlelight. Behrs says that, having played it with Tolstoy, he
considers croquet to be a game of chance. Tolstoy's commendation of a
good shot always pleased the player and aroused the emulation of his
opponents. The kindly irony of his comments on a miss, also acted as
a spur. A simple word from him, uttered just at the right moment and
in the right tone, produced that _entrain_ which makes any occupation
interesting and infects all who come under its influence.
The sincerity of Tolstoy's nature showed itself in the frank expression
of his passing mood. If, when driving to the station, he saw that they
had missed the train, he would exclaim, 'Ach! we've missed it!' with
such intensity that every one within earshot would first feel as though
a calamity had occurred, and would then join in the hearty laughter
which his own vehement exclamation evoked in Tolstoy. It was the same
when he made a bad miss at croquet; and also if, when sitting at home,
he suddenly remembered some engagement he had forgotten to keep. If,
as sometimes happened, his exclamation alarmed his wife, he would
half-jokingly add, like a scolded child, 'I'll never do it again!'
His laughter, which began on a high note, had something wonderfully
infectious about it. His head would hang over on one side, and his
whole body would shake.
His good-natured irony constantly acted as a stimulant to those about
him. If, for instance, some one was in the dumps about the weather,
Tolstoy would say: 'Is your weather behaving badly?' Or when Behrs was
sitting comfortably listening to a conversation, he would say to him:
'As you are on the move, you might please bring me so-and-so.'
When he felt it wise to reject an extra cigar or a second helping of
some favourite dish, he would remark to those present: 'Wait till I am
grown up, and then I will have two helpings,' or 'two cigars,' as the
case might be.
If, says Behrs, 'he noticed any of the children making a wry or
affected face, he generally called out, "Now then, no grimacing; you'll
only spoil your phiz."'
Behrs also tells us that.
What he called 'the Numidian cavalry' evoked our noisiest applause.
He would unexpectedly spring up from his place and, raising one
arm in the air with its hand hanging quite loose from the wrist,
he would run lightly through the rooms. All the children, and
sometimes the grown-ups also, would follow his example with the
same suddenness.
Tolstoy read aloud very well, and would often read to the family or to
visitors.
His contempt for doctors and medicine is plainly indicated both in
_War and Peace_ and _Anna Karénina_. Like Rousseau he considered
that the practice of medicine should be general and not confined
to one profession; and this opinion inclined him to approve of the
folk-remedies used by the peasants. But he did not go the length of
refusing to call in a doctor when one of the family was seriously ill.
Before the year closed, Tolstoy's aunt, Pelagéya Ilýnishna Úshkof, with
whom he had lived in his young days in Kazán, also passed away. She
had been separated from her husband before his death in 1869, and had
long not even seen him, though they remained quite friendly towards
one another. She was very religious in an Orthodox Church way, and
after her husband's death retired to the Óptin nunnery. Subsequently
she moved to the Toúla nunnery, but arranged to spend much of her time
at Yásnaya; where in her eightieth year she fell ill and died. She was
in general a good-tempered though not clever woman, and all her life
long strictly observed the ceremonies of the Church and thought that
she firmly believed its teaching about redemption and resurrection;
yet she was so afraid of death that on her death-bed she was reluctant
to receive the eucharist, because it brought home to her mind the fact
that she was dying; and as a consequence of the sufferings caused by
the fear of death, she became irritable with all about her.
A servant who lived in the house at the time, tells that while at
Yásnaya she used, on the first of each month, to send for a priest.
As soon as he arrived, and began the usual ceremony of blessing
with holy water, Tolstoy would escape and hide himself. Not till
the gardener, Semyón--whom he used to send into the conservatory to
reconnoitre--brought him word that the priest had gone, would Tolstoy
reappear in the house.
About that time, however, his attitude towards Church ceremonies
altered. His man-servant Sergéy Arboúzof (who saw only the external
signs of the complex inner struggle going on in Tolstoy) tells us:
Suddenly a wonderful change came over him, of which I was a
witness. In 1875 a priest, Vasíly Ivánovitch, from the Toúla
Seminary, used to come to teach theology to Tolstoy's children. At
first, Leo Nikoláyevitch hardly ever talked to him, but it once
happened that a snow-storm obliged Vasíly Ivánovitch to stop the
night at our house. The Count began a conversation with him, and
they did not go to bed till daylight. They talked the whole night.
From that day Leo Nikoláyevitch became very thoughtful, and always
talked with Vasíly Ivánovitch. When Lent came round, the Count
got up one morning and said, 'I am going to do my devotions,
and prepare to receive communion. You can go back to bed, but
first tell the coachman not to get up. I will saddle Kalmýk (his
favourite horse at that time) myself. Forgive me, Sergéy, if I have
ever offended you!' and he went off to church.
From that day for a couple of years he always went to church,
seldom missing a Sunday. The whole village was surprised, and
asked, 'What has the priest told the Count, that has suddenly made
him so fond of church-going?'
It used to happen that the Count would come into my hut when I was
teaching my little boy religion.
'What are you teaching him?' he would ask.
And I used to say, 'To pray.'
'Ah!' said he, 'that is right. A man who does not pray to God is
not a real man.'
1876
The publication of _Anna Karénina_ was renewed in the first four
numbers of the _Russian Messenger_ for 1876.
On 1st March Tolstoy writes to Fet:
Things are still not all right with us. My wife does not get over
her last illness, coughs, gets thin, and has first fever and then
headaches. And therefore the house lacks well-being, and I lack
mental tranquillity, which I now particularly need for my work. The
end of winter and beginning of spring is always my chief time for
work, and I must finish my novel, which now wearies me.... I always
hope a tooth will come loose in your jaw, or in your thrashing
machine, and cause you to go to Moscow. Then I shall spin a cobweb
at Kozlóvka [the nearest station to Yásnaya] and catch you.
In April Fet wrote to Tolstoy to say that he had been seriously
ill, had thought he was dying, and 'wished to call you to see how I
departed.' On 29th April Tolstoy replies in a letter notable because
it gives us a glimpse of the progress he had made in the fierce
five-year inner struggle with doubt which preceded the production of
his _Confession_:
I am grateful to you for thinking of calling me to see your
departure, when you supposed it was near. I will do the same when
I get ready to go _thither_, if I am able to think. No one will
be so necessary to me at that moment as you and my brother. When
death draws near, intercourse with people who in this life look
beyond its bounds, is precious and cheering; and you and those
rare _real_ people I have met in life, always stand on the very
verge and see clearly, just because they look now at Nirvana--the
illimitable, the unknown--and now at Sansara; and that glance at
Nirvana strengthens their sight. But worldly people, however much
they may talk about God, are unpleasant to you and me, and must
be a torment when one is dying, for they do not see what we see,
namely the God who 'is more indefinite and distant, but loftier and
more indubitable,' as was said in that article.
You are ill and think of death, and I am alive and do not cease
thinking of and preparing for the same thing.... Much that I have
thought, I have tried to express in the last chapter of the April
number of the _Russian Messenger_ [_Anna Karénina_, Part I, Chap.
XX].
The passage referred to, telling of the death of Lévin's brother, is
evidently based on the death of Tolstoy's own brother Demetrius; and
it may here be mentioned that many characters in _Anna Karénina_ are
drawn more or less closely from life. For instance, Agáfya Miháylovna,
the servant, was a real person, and that was her real name. She died at
Yásnaya only a few years ago. Yásnaya Polyána itself, in many of its
details, is also described in the novel.
On 12th May Tolstoy again writes to Fet:
It is already five days since I received the horse, and every day
I prepare but never make time to write to you. Here the spring
and summer life has begun, and our house is full of guests and of
bustle. This summer life seems to me like a dream: it contains some
slight remains of my real, winter life, but consists chiefly of
visions, now pleasant and now unpleasant, from some absurd world
not ruled by sane sense. Among these visions came your beautiful
stallion. I am very much obliged to you for it. Where am I to send
the money to?...
An event which occupies me very much at present is Sergey's
examinations, which begin on the 27th.... What a terrible summer!
Here it is dreadful and mournful to look at the wood, especially at
the young trees. They have all perished.
On 18th May he wrote again:
I have been slow in answering your long and cordial letter because
I have been unwell and dispirited, as I still am, but I will
write at least a few lines. Our house is full of people: my niece
Nagórnaya with two children, the Kouzmínskys with four children;
and Sónya [the Countess] is still poorly, and I dejected and
dull-minded. Our one hope was for good weather, and that we have
not got. As you and I resemble one another, you must know the
condition in which one feels oneself to be, now a God from whom
nothing is hid, and now stupider than a horse. In that state I am
at present. So do not be exacting. Till next letter, yours,
L. TOLSTOY.
The Kouzmínskys referred to above were Tánya, her husband, and their
family. They spent every summer at Yásnaya, in the 'wing' house. When
discussing any excursion or other undertaking with Mr. Kouzmínsky,
Tolstoy would often say, 'But we must hear what the Authorities have
to say about it,' the Authorities being their wives.
Passing into his 'summer condition,' Tolstoy's attention to
_Anna Karénina_ slackened; but before the end of the year he set
energetically to work to finish it. The interest aroused by the book
was extreme, and the story goes that Moscow ladies used to send to the
establishment where the novel was being printed, to try to find out
what the continuation would be.
On 21st July Tolstoy writes inviting Fet's brother, Peter
Afánasyevitch, a great lover of horses, to accompany him to Samára; and
in the same letter he makes an allusion to the troubles of the Slavs in
Turkey, where fighting had already been going on for a twelvemonth with
the Herzegovinians. Peter Afanásyevitch had gone as a volunteer, and
had returned after the failure of the insurrection.
_21 July 1876._
I am very much to blame, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch, for having
been so slow in writing to you. I prepare to write every day, but
cannot find time because I am doing nothing.... Stráhof was here a
week ago, and we philosophised to the point of weariness....
I press the hand of Peter Afanásyevitch. I should like to hear
his stories about Herzegovina, in the existence of which I do not
believe!
I am arranging to go to Samára in September. If Peter Afanásyevitch
has no plans for September, will not he go with me to see the
Kirghiz and their horses? How jolly it would be!
Mention has already been made of the fact that Tolstoy, who understood
horses very well, was at this time interested in horse-breeding as
a source of revenue. To buy them he visited Orenbourg, where he met
General Kryzhanóvsky, a friend who had been one of his superior
officers in Sevastopol and was now Governor-General of this northern
Province. They spent the time together very pleasantly recalling their
past experiences.
To his wife, who had found it hard to consent to his absence, he wrote
in September:
I know that it is hard for you, and that you are afraid; but I saw
the effort you made to control yourself and not to hinder me and,
were it possible, I loved you yet more on that account. If only God
grants you to spend the time well, healthily, energetically and
usefully!... Lord have mercy on me and on thee!
In a letter of 13th November Tolstoy writes to Fet:
Pity me for two things: (1) a good-for-nothing coachman took the
stallions to Samára and, wishing to take a short cut, drowned
Gouneba in a bog within ten miles of the estate; (2) I sleep and
cannot write; I despise myself for laziness and do not allow myself
to take up any other work.
Twenty-eight years after the loss of Gouneba, the Countess, in speaking
to me of her husband's qualities as a man of affairs, remarked that
his schemes were very good, but that he generally spoilt them by
lack of care in details. 'For instance,' she remarked, 'it was quite
a good idea of his to send a very fine stallion which cost Rs. 2000
[about £260] to our estate in Samára. There were no such horses in the
district; but he must needs entrust it to a drunken Tartar who made
away with it and said he had lost it.'
On 7th December 1876 Tolstoy wrote to Fet acknowledging a poem, 'Among
the Stars,' which the latter had sent him:
That poem is not only worthy of you, but is specially, specially
good, with that philosophic-poetic character which I expect from
you. It is excellent that it is said by the stars.... It is also
good, as my wife remarked, that on the same sheet on which the poem
is written, you pour out your grief that the price of kerosene has
risen to 12 copecks. That is an indirect but sure sign of a poet.
The reader is by this time well aware of Tolstoy's devotion to music.
Though it was at times crowded out of his life by other interests, he
always returned to it with ardour when opportunity offered. Behrs tells
us that Tolstoy generally, when playing, chose serious music.
He often sat down to the piano before beginning to work.... He
always accompanied my youngest sister [Tánya] and enjoyed her
singing very much. I noticed that the sensation music evoked in
him expressed itself by a slight pallor and a scarcely perceptible
grimace, suggestive of something like terror. Hardly a day passed
in summer without my sister singing and without the piano being
played. Occasionally we all sang together, and he always played the
accompaniments.
As Tolstoy's spiritual crisis approached, the attraction of music
for him seemed to increase, and it was about this period, that is to
say in December 1876, that he made acquaintance with the composer
P. I. Tschaikóvsky, who had held the post of Director of the Moscow
Conservatoire, the first seeds of which Tolstoy had helped to plant
nearly twenty years before.
Tschaikóvsky had from his youth up been a devoted admirer of Tolstoy,
whose skill in reading the human heart appeared to him almost
superhuman. He was therefore highly gratified when Tolstoy of his own
accord sought his acquaintance. At first their personal intercourse did
not appear to lessen the composer's reverence for the author, for on
23rd December 1876 he wrote to a friend:
Count L. N. Tolstoy spent some time here recently. He visited
me several times and spent two whole evenings with me. I am
tremendously flattered, and proud of the interest I have inspired
in him, and for my part am completely enchanted by his ideal
personality.
Tschaikóvsky induced Nicholas Rubinstein, then Director of the Moscow
Conservatoire, to arrange a musical evening solely for Tolstoy, and
at this concert, Rubinstein, Fitzenhagen, and Adolph Bródsky, who is
now Principal of the Manchester College of Music, were among the chief
performers.
One of the pieces performed by a quartet was Tschaikóvsky's 'Andante
in D Major,' which so affected Tolstoy that he wept. 'Never, perhaps,
in my life,' says Tschaikóvsky, 'was I so flattered, or my vanity as a
composer so touched, as when Leo Nikoláyevitch, sitting next to me and
listening to the quartet performing my Andante, burst into tears.'
After Tolstoy had returned to Yásnaya he wrote to Tschaikóvsky, sending
him a collection of folk-songs, and saying:
I send you the songs, dear Peter Ilyítch. I have again looked them
through. They will be a wonderful treasure in your hands. But for
God's sake work them up and use them in a Mozart-Haydn style, and
not in a Beethoven-Schumann-Berlioz, artificial way, seeking the
unexpected. How much I left unsaid to you. I really said nothing
of what I wanted to say. There was no time. I was enjoying myself.
This last stay of mine in Moscow will remain one of the best of my
reminiscences. Never have I received so precious a reward for my
literary labours as on that wonderful evening.
Tschaikóvsky replied:
Count, I am sincerely grateful to you for sending the songs. I must
tell you candidly that they have been taken down by an unskilful
hand, and bear only traces of their pristine beauty. The chief
defect is that they have been artificially squeezed and forced into
a regular, measured form. Only Russian dance music has a rhythm and
a regular and equally accentuated beat; but folk-ballads have of
course nothing in common with dance songs. Moreover, most of these
songs are, arbitrarily it seems, written in a solemn D Major, which
again does not suit a real Russian song, which almost always has an
indefinite tonality approximating nearest of all to ancient Church
music. In general, the songs you have sent me cannot be worked up
in a regular and systematic way: that is to say, one cannot make a
collection of them, because for that they would have to be taken
down as nearly as possible in the way in which the people perform
them. That is an extremely difficult matter, demanding fine musical
feeling and great historico-musical erudition. Except Balakíref,
and to some extent Prokoúnin, I do not know any one competent for
the task. But as material for symphonic treatment, your songs can
be of use, and are even very good material, which I certainly will
avail myself of in one way or other.
It is rather disappointing to find that the intercourse between these
two men, each so great in his own way, and each such an admirer of the
other's genius, was not continued.
Tschaikóvsky's expectations had been pitched too high, and he felt a
certain disappointment that his 'demigod' was, after all, but human. He
had dreaded to meet the novelist lest the latter should penetrate the
secret recesses of his soul; but, says Tschaikóvsky:
He who in his writings was the deepest of heart-seers, proved in
personal contact to be a man of simple, whole, and frank nature,
showing very little of the omniscience I had feared.... It was
plain he did not at all regard me as a subject for his observation,
but simply wanted to chat about music, in which he was then
interested. He took a pleasure in denying Beethoven, and plainly
expressed doubts of his genius. This was a trait not at all worthy
of a great man. To pull down a universally acknowledged genius to
the level of one's own intelligence, is characteristic of small
people.
Feeling thus, Tschaikóvsky purposely avoided meeting Tolstoy again, and
even took a temporary aversion to _Anna Karénina_, though eventually he
returned to his former admiration of Tolstoy's novels.
Tschaikóvsky was not aware of the reasons Tolstoy had for the
unorthodox position he held on art generally and music in particular:
reasons which it will be more in place to deal with later on, and which
I have in fact already treated of at some length in a previous work,
_Tolstoy and his Problems_. Here let it suffice to say that there
is plenty of evidence to show that Tolstoy can enjoy Beethoven, and
enjoy even the works of Beethoven's last period, which are the ones he
criticises. There is, for instance, the episode with Mlle. Oberlender,
which will be recounted later on, and we have his own statement in
_What is Art?_:
I should mention that whatever other people understand of the
productions of Beethoven's later period, I, being very susceptible
to music, equally understand. For a long time I used to attune
myself so as to delight in those shapeless improvisations which
form the subject-matter of the works of Beethoven's later period;
but I had only to consider the question of art seriously, and to
compare the impression I received from Beethoven's later works with
those pleasant, clear, and strong musical impressions which are
transmitted, for instance, by the melodies of Bach (his arias),
Haydn, Mozart, Chopin (when his melodies are not overloaded with
complications and ornamentation), and of Beethoven himself in his
earlier period, and above all, with the impressions produced by
folk-songs,--Italian, Norwegian, or Russian,--by the Hungarian
_tzardas_, and other such simple, clear, and powerful music, and
the obscure, almost unhealthy excitement from Beethoven's later
pieces that I had artificially evoked in myself was destroyed.
His work among peasant children has convinced him that the normal human
being possesses capacities for the enjoyment of art; and that in most
unexpected places the capacity to produce admirable art is now lying
latent. That is why he sets up Brevity, Simplicity, and Sincerity
as the criterions of art, and why he believes that folk-tales and
folk-songs and folk-dances, the Gospel parables, such Old Testament
stories as the history of Joseph, the Arabian Nights and the Christmas
Carol; and music such as the _tzardas_, the _Swanee River_, the _Old
Hundredth_, and Bach's arias, are infinitely more important to the life
and well-being of humanity than _King Lear_ or the _Ninth Symphony_.
Tolstoy--who had boasted of not reading newspapers, and who had lived
so detached from politics and the events of contemporary history--began
at this time to feel keenly interested in a question closely connected
with Russia's foreign policy.
Following the insurrection in Herzegovina, another had broken
out in Bulgaria in May 1876, but had been quickly suppressed by
the Turks, who burnt some sixty-five villages; the Bashi-Bazouks
committing unspeakable atrocities on the defenceless inhabitants. At
the commencement of July, Servia and Montenegro declared war against
Turkey; but, in spite of help rendered by numerous Russian volunteers,
they were soon crushed by the Turks, and would have been completely
at their mercy had not Russia, on 31st October, issued an ultimatum
demanding an armistice, which Turkey conceded. On 10th November
Alexander II made a speech in the Moscow Krémlin, in which he declared
that he would act independently of the other powers unless satisfactory
guarantees of reform were obtained forthwith from the Sultan. These
events gradually led to the war which broke out between Russia and
Turkey in April 1877.
Before this, however, in the letter of 13th November 1876, already
quoted, Tolstoy wrote to Fet:
I went to Moscow to hear about the war. This whole affair agitates
me greatly. It is well for those to whom it is clear; but I am
frightened when I begin to reflect on all the complexity of the
conditions amid which history is made, and how some Madame A.--with
her vanity--becomes an indispensable cog in the whole machine!
The Russo-Turkish imbroglio led, early in 1877, to a split between
Tolstoy and Katkóf. Tolstoy, at bottom and in his own original way,
was certainly a reformer; and his alliance with Katkóf, who was quite
reactionary, had always been rather like the yoking of an ox with an
ass. At this time Katkóf was ardent for the liberation of the Slavs
from Turkish tyranny, laudatory of those who volunteered for the war,
and eager for the aggrandisement of Russia. Tolstoy, with his knowledge
of the realities of war and his insight into the motives that actuate
the men who fight, had his doubts about the heroic and self-sacrificing
character of the volunteers and the purity of the patriotism of the
press; and he expressed these doubts very plainly in some of the
concluding chapters of _Anna Karénina_: as, for instance, where he
makes Lévin say of 'the unanimity of the press':
'That's been explained to me: as soon as there's a war their
incomes are doubled. So how can they help believing in the
destinies of the people and the Slavonic races ... and all the rest
of it?'
The result was that when the final chapters of the novel were appearing
in the _Russian Messenger_ during the first months of 1877, Katkóf
returned some of the MS. to Tolstoy with numerous corrections and a
letter saying that he could not print it unless his corrections were
accepted.
Tolstoy was furious that a journalist should dare to alter a single
word in his book, and in reply sent a sharp letter to Katkóf, which
resulted in a rupture. Tolstoy issued the last part of _Anna Karénina_
separately in book form and not in the magazine, besides, of course,
issuing the whole work in book form, as usual; and, in the May number
of his _Russian Messenger_, Katkóf had to wind up the story as best he
could, by giving a brief summary of the concluding part.
These events throw light on the following letter to Fet:
_23 March 1877._
You can't imagine how glad I am to have your approval of my
writings, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch, and in general to receive
your letter. You write that the _Russian Messenger_ has printed
some one else's poem, while your _Temptation_ lies waiting. It is
the dullest and deadest editorial office in existence. They have
become terribly repulsive to me, not on my own account, but for the
sake of others....
My head is now better, but as it gets better it has to work that
much harder. March and the beginning of April are the months when I
work most, and I still continue to be under the delusion that what
I am writing is very important, though I know that in a month's
time I shall be ashamed to remember that I thought so. Have you
noticed that a new line has now been started, and that everybody is
writing poetry: very bad poetry, but they all do it. Some five new
poets have introduced themselves to me lately.
The dislike Tolstoy felt of the artificially stimulated war fever
(though, to do Katkóf and his friends justice, one must admit that no
European Power during the last fifty years has had more justification
for war than Russia had for intervening in defence of the Slav
population of Turkey) was connected with the religious impulse that was
beginning to reshape his whole life; but it does not appear that he
actually disapproved of the war after Russia had officially commenced
it. What he primarily objected to was, that private individuals should
push the Government into a war.
An influence which has left its traces in the latter part of _Anna
Karénina_ (particularly Part VII, Chap. 21) was Tolstoy's intercourse,
about this time, with some of the most prominent followers of Lord
Radstock, who frequently visited Russia and obtained considerable
influence with a number of people in certain aristocratic Petersburg
circles. One of these people, Count A. P. Bóbrinsky, who had been
Minister of Ways of Communication, made Tolstoy's acquaintance and had
animated religious discussions with him. Both Bóbrinsky and Colonel
Páshkof (another very prominent Radstockite) for a while cherished
hopes of winning Tolstoy over to Evangelical Christianity, and making
him the spokesman of their cause. Tolstoy, as the event proved, was
quite capable of throwing himself whole-heartedly into a religious
movement; but he needed a faith much more clear-cut than the scheme
of Redemption by the blood of Jesus: one that faced the facts of
life, dealt explicitly with the bread-and-butter problem, and told
men how to regard the fact that some people have to overtax their
strength without ever reaching an assured maintenance, while others
have a superabundance provided for them from their birth without ever
needing to do a stroke of work. His profound contempt for Evangelical
doctrines flashed out twenty years later, in the 17th Chapter of Book
II of _Resurrection_.
It was a little before this that Fet told Tolstoy the following story.
Sauntering in a churchyard, he had come upon an inscription which
touched him more than any epitaph he had ever read. The tombstone was
in the form of an obelisk of plain grey sandstone. On one of its four
sides were deeply cut the words:
_Here is buried the body of the peasant girl Mary_;
on another side:
_Here also is buried an infant of the female sex_.
On the side opposite the name of the deceased stood these words
ill-spelt:
_This, my dear, is the last adornment I can give thee_;
and below stood the name of
_Retired non-commissioned officer So-and-so_.
In his next letter Tolstoy writes:
_18 October 1876._
_This, my dear, is the last adornment I can give thee_ is charming!
I have told it twice, and each time my voice has broken with tears.
1877
In Tolstoy's next letter to Fet, dated 11th January, we get a glimpse
of one of the reasons that led this strenuous worker to prefer a
country life:
DEAR AFANÁSY AFANÁSYEVITCH,--One does not strike or cut off
the head that owns its fault! I confess that I am quite at
fault towards you. But truly, in Moscow I am in a condition of
irresponsibility; my nerves are out of order, the hours turn to
minutes, and as though on purpose, the people I do not want turn up
and prevent my seeing those whom I do want.
Among the people whom in his search for truth Tolstoy did want to know,
were some of the leading scientists of that day--a day when many men
thought that Darwin had opened the gateway to a knowledge which would
gradually solve the mysteries of life and death, the here and the
hereafter. The great literary fame Tolstoy now enjoyed made it an easy
matter to make such acquaintances.
One of the scientists he got to know, was a celebrated professor of
Chemistry, A. M. Boutleróf, whom to his amazement he found to be much
concerned with table-turning and spiritualism; occupations Tolstoy held
in contempt.
A letter to Fet, dated 14th April, gives some inkling of what was going
on in Tolstoy's mind at this time:
I value every letter of yours, especially such as this last! You
would hardly believe how pleased I am at what you write 'On the
existence of the Deity.' I agree with it all, and should like to
say much about it, but cannot in a letter, and am too busy. It is
the first time you have spoken to me about the Deity--God. And I
have long been thinking unceasingly about that chief problem. Do
not say that one cannot think about it! One not only can, but must!
In all ages the best, the real people, have thought about it. And
if we cannot think of it as they did, we must find out _how_. Have
you read _Pensées de Pascal_--_i.e._ have you read it recently with
a mature head-piece? When (which God grant) you come to see me, we
will talk of many things, and I will give you that book. Were I
free from my novel--of which the end is already in type and I am
correcting the proofs--I would at once on receipt of your letter
have come to you.
In the middle of this summer Tolstoy, bringing with him N. Stráhof,
paid Fet an unexpected visit. The latter had at this time engaged
as governess a Mlle. Oberlender, an excellent pianist, and in his
_Recollections_ he tells us that on this visit:
The Count, a sensitive esthete by nature, was greatly taken by the
piano playing of Mlle. Oberlender. He sat down to play duets with
her, and they played through almost the whole of Beethoven.
Fet quotes Tolstoy's comment on the lady's performance:
'When we were young, such pianists travelled across Europe giving
concerts. She reads any piece of music as you read poetry, finding
just the suitable expression for each note.'
Towards the end of July, Tolstoy, accompanied by N. Stráhof, visited
for the first time the Monastery of Óptin, which is situated in
the Kaloúga Government, and is about 135 miles to the west of
Yásnaya. A very prominent figure in the monastic world at that time
was the _Staretz_ Father Ambrose, with whom Tolstoy had some long
conversations. Among others whose acquaintance Tolstoy made there,
was a monk who had formerly been an officer in the Horse Guards. One
of the most important of the works Tolstoy left for publication after
his death, is a remarkable novel called _Father Sergius_, the hero of
which is a man of the world who becomes a monk, acquires a reputation
for sanctity, and then yields to temptation and ends as an outcast.
His visits to the Óptin Monastery, which were repeated three times,
supplied Tolstoy with material which many years later he utilised in
that work.
At Óptin, Tolstoy had met his friend Prince Obolénsky, to whom on his
return journey he paid a visit at the latter's estate of Beryósino.
Here he renewed acquaintance with N. Rubinstein, who was staying with
Obolénsky, and whose pianoforte playing he enjoyed intensely.
A visit which much interested Tolstoy was paid him about this time by
an itinerant story-teller, expert in folk-lore, wielding beautifully
the simple language of the people, such as Tolstoy loves and has
utilised in his stories. He took down in writing some of this
traveller's tales, and from them subsequently worked up into literary
form _What Men Live By_, _The Three Hermits_ (included in _Twenty-three
Tales_), and some others. The root idea of _What Men Live By_ is that
of an angel sent by God to do penance on earth for a well-intentioned
act of disobedience. It seems that it is one of the most widely
disseminated of the world's legends, appearing and reappearing in the
literature of many countries through many centuries.
In the latter part of 1877 a number of Turkish prisoners of war were
located in an abandoned sugar-factory between Toúla and Yásnaya.
Tolstoy visited them there, and found that they were fairly well
treated. Being himself greatly concerned about religion, he naturally
talked to them on that subject, and was much impressed when he found
that each of them had a copy of the Koran in his kit.
On 6th December another son, Andrew (Andréy), was born.
All through this year, amid bustle and activity of various kinds,
spiritual problems continued to torment Tolstoy, and his physical
health began to show signs of the strain. Here is a note to Fet, dated
2nd September:
Just now I am constantly out hunting and am busy arranging how to
place our educational staff for the winter. I have been to Moscow
looking for a teacher and a tutor. To-day I feel quite ill.
1878
Nor did matters improve as the months went on, for on 27th January he
again writes:
Most unfortunately your suppositions, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch,
are wrong. Not only am I not at work, but the reason I failed to
answer you was because I have been ill all this time. Lately I have
even been in bed for some days. A chill in various forms: teeth and
side, and the result is that time goes by--my best time--and I do
no work.
Then follows a touch showing how, in many matters, his wife's mind was
still attuned to his own, though she was not sharing his spiritual
struggles, and in the matter of the education of the children there was
already some disagreement between them:
On reading it I said to my wife, 'Fet's poem is charming, but there
is one word that is wrong.' She was nursing and bustling about at
the time; but at tea, having quieted down, she took up the poem
to read, and at once pointed out the words 'as the Gods'--which I
considered bad.
On 25th March 1878 he writes to Fet:
Last week, after seventeen years' absence, I went to Petersburg to
purchase some land in Samára from General B....
There I met a pair of Orlóf Generals who made me shudder: it was
just as though one were standing between two sets of rails with
goods trains passing. To enter into the minds of these Generals, I
had to recall the rare days of drunkenness I have experienced, or
the days of my very earliest childhood.
After completing _Anna Karénina_ Tolstoy again took up _The
Decembrists_, which he had put aside in favour of _War and Peace_
fourteen years before. As already mentioned, a second cousin of
Tolstoy's mother, Prince S. G. Volkónsky, had been a prominent
Decembrist; and Tolstoy had at his disposal a number of family diaries
and journals throwing much light on the subject of that conspiracy.
While in Petersburg he made personal acquaintance with some of the
survivors of the movement, and also applied to the Commandant of the
Petropávlof Fortress--who happened to be an officer under whom he had
served in the Crimea--for permission to see the Alexis dungeons, in
which the Decembrists had been confined. The Commandant received him
very politely, allowed him to see over other parts of the fortress,
but told him that, though any one could enter the dungeons, only three
persons in the whole Empire--the Emperor, the Commandant, and the Chief
of the Gendarmes--having once entered them, could again leave them.
Finally, after writing three fragments of it, Tolstoy abandoned this
novel, to which he had devoted much time. The subject was one he could
hardly have dealt with frankly without getting into trouble with the
Censor; and he had been refused permission to study the State Archives;
but in the following passage Behrs gives another, and a curiously
characteristic, reason for Tolstoy's decision:
He affirmed that the Decembrist insurrection was a result of the
influence of French nobles, a large number of whom had emigrated
to Russia after the French Revolution. As tutors in aristocratic
families, they educated the whole Russian nobility, which explains
the fact that many of the Decembrists were Catholics. The belief
that the movement was due to foreign influence, and was not a
purely national one, sufficed to prevent Tolstoy from sympathising
with it.
Another letter to Fet again shows the direction in which Tolstoy's mind
was working:
_6 April 1878._
I have received your delightful and long letter, dear Afanásy
Afanásyevitch. Do not praise me. Really you see in me too much
good, and in others too much bad. One thing in me is good: that
I understand you and therefore love you. But though I love you
as you are, I am always angry with you for this, that 'Martha is
anxious about many things; but one thing is needful.' And in you
that one thing is very strong, but somehow you disdain it and are
more concerned about arranging a billiard room. Don't suppose
that I refer to poems: though I expect them to come too! But it
is not of them I speak; they will come in spite of the billiards;
I am speaking of a conception of the world which would make it
unnecessary to be angry at the stupidity of mortals. Were you and
I to be pounded together in a mortar and moulded into two people,
we should make a capital pair. But at present you are so attached
to the things of this life, that should they some day fail you, it
will go hard with you; while I am so indifferent to them, that life
becomes uninteresting, and I depress others by an eternal pouring
'from void into vacuum'! Do not suppose that I have gone mad; I am
merely out of sorts, but hope you will love me though I be black.
The prolonged mental struggle through which Tolstoy passed with great
suffering during the years 1874-78, was quite evident to those about
him, at least from 1876 onward. Not merely did he go regularly to
church, and shut himself up in his study morning and evening to pray,
but his former high spirits subsided, and his desire to become meek and
humble was plainly noticeable. One result of his altered attitude was,
that he felt keenly that it was wrong to have an enemy. Accordingly he
wrote Tourgénef to that effect, and held out to him the right hand of
friendship.
To this Tourgénef replied:
PARIS, _8 May 1878_.
DEAR LEO NIKOLÁYEVITCH,--I only to-day received your letter,
addressed _poste-restante_. It gladdened and touched me very much.
With the greatest readiness will I renew our former friendship, and
I warmly press the hand you hold out to me. You are quite right in
supposing me to have no hostile feelings towards you. If ever they
existed they have long since disappeared, and the recollection of
you only remains as of a man to whom I am sincerely attached, and
of a writer whose first steps it was my good fortune to be the
first to hail, and each new work from whom has always aroused in me
the liveliest interest. I am heartily glad of the cessation of the
misunderstandings that arose between us.
I hope this summer to be in the Government of Orlóf, and in that
case we shall of course see one another. Till then, I wish you all
that is good, and once more press your hand in friendship.
On 13th June, on the point of starting for Samára with the elder
children and their tutor, Tolstoy writes to Fet:
I have seldom so enjoyed a summer as this year, but a week ago I
caught cold and fell ill, and only to-day have I come to life again.
Somewhat later in the summer the Countess, with the younger children,
joined her husband in Samára.
Hardly were the Tolstoys back from Samára before Tourgénef wrote from
Moscow that he would be in Toúla on the following Monday, 7th August.
Tolstoy, accompanied by his brother-in-law, drove thither to meet him,
and brought him to Yásnaya, where he passed a couple of days. Both
writers were delighted to feel that their seventeen-year disagreement
was ended; and the Countess, who when a girl had known Tourgénef well,
was equally pleased to welcome him to the house.
A lady who was there at the time, tells us that the two writers spent
much of their time in philosophic and religious conversation in
Tolstoy's study, but:
When they came out into the sitting-room their conversation became
general and took a different turn. Tourgénef told with pleasure
of the villa Bougival which he had just bought near Paris, and of
its comfort and arrangements, saying, 'We have built a charming
conservatory, costing ten thousand francs,' and 'we' did so-and-so
and so-and-so, meaning by 'we,' the Viardot family and himself.
'Of an evening we often play _vint_ [a game similar to bridge]--do
you?' he asked Tolstoy.
'No, we never play cards,' replied the Count, and turned the
conversation to another topic.
Knowing that he was fond of chess, the Countess Tolstoy asked him
to play a game with her eldest son, a lad of fifteen, saying, 'He
will all his life remember having played with Tourgénef.'
Tourgénef condescendingly agreed, and began a game, while
continuing to talk to us.
'In Paris I often used to play chess and was considered a good
player. They called me _le chevalier de pion_. I am fond of
pawns.... Do you know the new phrase now in fashion among the
French--_vieux jeu_? Whatever you say, a Frenchman replies, "_Vieux
jeu!_"'
'Eh! but one must not joke with you,' he exclaimed suddenly,
turning to his youthful opponent. 'You have all but done for me.'
And he began to play carefully, and only won the game with
difficulty, for young Tolstoy really played chess excellently.
At evening tea Tourgénef told how he had played the part of a
satyr at M^{me} Viardot's private theatricals, and how some of
the audience had gazed at him with amazement. We knew that he
had himself written the piece (a sort of operetta) for those
theatricals, and knew also that Russians, both abroad and at home,
disapproved of his playing the fool for M^{me} Viardot's amusement;
and we all felt uncomfortable. In telling it he seemed to be trying
to justify himself, but he soon passed on to another theme, and we
breathed more freely.
He had the gift of words and spoke readily and smoothly, but seemed
to prefer narrating to conversing. He told us of his confinement in
the Hauptwerk of the Spássky Police-station in Petersburg, for his
article on the death of Gógol, and he described how dull it was....
Tolstoy also narrated, and I liked his stories better: they were
more strongly sketched, often humorous, and always original. In
them much was simple, unexpected and touching.... I. S. Aksákof
used to say, with reference to Tolstoy's gigantic power, that he
had 'a bear-like talent,' but I will add that his soul is as meek
'as a dove,' and as enthusiastic as a youth; and that the union of
those two qualities explains the new direction he has since taken,
a direction which so distressed Tourgénef.
An hour before midnight Tourgénef rose.
'It is time for me to go to the station,' said he.
We all rose. The railway station was one-and-a-half miles away, and
Count Leo Nikoláyevitch drove with him, to see him off.
Behrs also writes of the same visit:
At dinner Tourgénef told many stories, and to the delight of the
younger folk mimicked not only persons, but animals also. Thus,
placing one hand under the other, he depicted a fowl waddling in
the soup, and then imitated a hunting dog at a loss. As I listened
to him and watched his tricks I couldn't help thinking that he
evidently inherited something of the talent for which one of his
ancestors under Peter the Great enjoyed no little fame.
This was the last summer Behrs, now a young man of twenty-three, passed
with Tolstoy before taking up official work in the Caucasus. His
evidence fully supports that of others who have seen Tolstoy in contact
with children, peasants or native races: to all of these Tolstoy
extends his charm of comprehension, consideration, and sympathy.
Whenever Tolstoy went out with his gun and his dogs, Behrs used to
accompany him; and together they would ride twenty-four miles from
Yásnaya to visit Count Sergius Tolstoy at Pirogóvo. Leo Tolstoy took
his brother-in-law on these visits, Behrs says, 'for my sake, if not
for his own, since he knew what pleasure it gave me to be with him.'
The remark he made when he heard that Behrs had obtained an official
appointment in the Caucasus is characteristic: 'You are too late
for the Caucasus. The whole country already stinks of officials.'
Characteristic too of the feeling Tolstoy inspires among those who know
him most intimately, is Behrs's concluding remark: 'I at least am aware
of nothing in his life that needs to be concealed.'
At the beginning of September Tourgénef, on his return from his estate,
again visited Yásnaya, but he arrived at an unfortunate time, when
there was illness in the house, and he paid but a short visit.
One sees by a letter to Fet on 5th September that Tolstoy still found
himself unable to be quite intimate with his fellow novelist:
Tourgénef on his return journey came to see us and was glad to
receive your letter. He is still the same, and we know the degree
of nearness possible between us.
I have a terrible desire to write something, but feel a depressing
doubt whether this is a false or a true appetite.
The last sentence must refer to the _Confession_, most of which was not
written till the next year.
In October he again wrote to Fet:
I do not know how or in what spirit to begin to write to you, dear
Afanásy Afanásyevitch; any way, there are no words for it but,
'I am to blame, I am to blame, and I am altogether to blame!'
Though it is always superfluous for apologisers to explain their
reasons, I will yet write mine because they are true and explain
my condition. For a month past, if not more, I have been living
amid the fumes not of external occurrences (on the contrary we
are by ourselves, living quietly) but of what is going on inside:
something I know not how to name. I go out shooting, read, reply to
questions put to me, eat, and sleep, but can do nothing, not even
write a letter, a score of which have collected.
Apparently while in bad spirits, he wrote to Tourgénef asking him not
to refer to his (Tolstoy's) writings--for the latter replies on 15th
October, saying: 'I am glad you are all physically well, and hope the
"mental sickness" of which you write has now passed.' He then continues:
Although you ask me not to speak of your writings, I must still
remark that it has never happened to me to laugh at you 'even a
little.' Some of your things pleased me very much; others did
not please me at all; while others again, such as _The Cossacks_
for instance, afforded me great pleasure and excited my wonder.
But what ground was there for laughter? I thought you had long
since got rid of such 'reflexive' feelings. Why are they current
only among authors, and not among musicians, painters, and other
artists? Probably because in literary work more of that part of the
soul is exposed, which it is not quite convenient to show. But at
our (already mature) age as authors, it is time we were accustomed
to it.
This displeased Tolstoy, who in his next letter to Fet expressed his
vexation with Tourgénef who, I imagine, had not intended to give
offence:
_22 November 1878._
DEAR AFANÁSY AFANÁSYEVITCH,--I will go to Moscow and have 'I am to
blame' printed on my notepaper. But I don't think I am to blame for
not replying to the letter in which you promised to come and see
us. I remember my joy at that news, and that I replied immediately.
If not, still please don't punish me, but come....
Yesterday I received a letter from Tourgénef; and do you know, I
have decided that it will be better to 'keep further away from him
and from sin' [A common Russian saying]. He is an unpleasant sort
of quarrel-maker.
My congratulations to you on your birthday. I will not in future
omit to congratulate you on the 23rd, and hope not to forget it for
the next dozen times. That will be enough for either of us. _Au
revoir!_
Fet was destined to live four years beyond the span Tolstoy allotted
him, and Tolstoy himself is still with us, though more than thirty
years have passed since that letter was written; and what strenuous
years they have been! How he has wrestled with life's greatest
problems one after another, and how he has flung down before the world
his opinions (right, wrong, or motley) on dogmatic theology, Christ's
Christianity, religion in general, economic and social problems,
famine, the employment of violence, war, conscription, Government,
patriotism, the sex problem, art, science, food-reform and the use
of stimulants and narcotics, besides producing a series of simple
stories for the people, as well as more complex ones for the rest of
society, three plays, one great novel, and a stream of weighty and
interesting essays and letters which have poured forth from Yásnaya in
an increasing stream as the years went by; not to mention works kept
back for posthumous publication, at the mention of which the literary
world pricks up its ears!
On 1st October 1878 Tourgénef wrote to Fet from Bougival, again saying
that he intended to translate _The Cossacks_ into French, and adding,
'It will give me great pleasure to assist in acquainting the French
public with the best story that has been written in our language.'
In another letter from Bougival in December, he remarked:
I was very glad to come together with Tolstoy, and I spent three
pleasant days with him; his whole family are very sympathetic, and
his wife is charming. He has grown very quiet and has matured. His
name begins to gain European celebrity: we Russians have long known
that he has no rivals.
The course of the story has swept me a little past Tolstoy's fiftieth
birthday--the point at which I intended to close this first part of
my work. Besides giving some brief survey of his writings during his
first twenty-five years of authorship, all that now remains is to give
a summary of that remarkable work, his _Confession_, which shows us
vividly, though with some amount of involuntary artistic heightening,
what had been going on in his mind and soul from 1874 to 1879, the year
in which it was written.
By way of brief preface to his _Confession_, it will be in place to
say a few words about two different tendencies which, each in its own
way, influenced Tolstoy. On the one hand there was the religious life
of the people, with all its Medieval traditions. Tolstoy had only to go
a short walk from his house to reach the highroad, on which pilgrims
going afoot to the shrines of the Saints could always be met; and he
had many a conversation with these pilgrims at the rest-house they
frequented. Among them there were many to whom the things of this world
were certainly less precious than obedience to the will of God as they
understood it; and Tolstoy's stories show us how closely he observed
these people, and how near some of them came to his soul. On the other
hand he was influenced by the quite modern and very remarkable movement
that was at this time beginning to make itself felt in Russia; a
movement having its roots in conditions of life which greatly disturbed
Tolstoy's own mind, and which took as one of its watchwords the motto
'Towards the People'--a sentiment quite in harmony with his own
attitude.
In 1875 public attention was aroused by the trial of the Dolgoúshin
group of propagandists; and the trial of 'The Moscow 50,' in March
1877, revealed the fact that a number of girls of wealthy families were
voluntarily leading the life of factory hands working fourteen hours
a day in over-crowded factories, that they might come into touch with
working people, to teach them, and to carry on a social and political
propaganda among them. Then followed the historic trial of 'The 193' in
1878.
These and many other indications showed that in spite of the repressive
measures of the Government, a steadily increasing number of Russians
felt (what Tolstoy also felt strongly) that the existing order of
society results in the mass of the people having to live in conditions
of blighting ignorance and grinding poverty; while the parasitic
minority who live in plenty and sometimes in extravagant superfluity,
render no service at all equivalent to the cost of their maintenance.
The mere statement that those who had received an education thanks to
the work of the masses, owe service to the masses in return, sufficed
to rouse to action some of the young men and women of that day. They
left their wealthy homes, lived the simplest lives, ran fearful risks,
and according to their lights--sometimes not very clear ones--devoted
themselves to the service of the people.
While this was going on around him, a man with such a temperament as
Tolstoy's, could not be at rest.
Already in 1875 Mihaylóvsky had published a remarkable series of
articles on _The Right and Left Hand of Count Tolstoy_, in which he
pointed out that that author's works reveal the clash of contrary
ideals and tendencies in the writer's soul, and that especially his
educational articles contain ideas quite in conflict with certain
tendencies noticeable in _War and Peace_. With remarkable prevision
Mihaylóvsky predicted an inevitable crisis in Tolstoy's life, and added:
One asks oneself what such a man is to do, and how he is to
live?... I think an ordinary man in such a position would end by
suicide or drunkenness; but a man of worth will seek for other
issues--and of these there are several.
One of these he suggested would be, to write for the people (Tolstoy's
_Readers_ had already been published) or to write so as to remind
'Society' that its pleasures and amusements are not those of the mass
of mankind, and thus to arouse the latent feelings of justice in some
who now forget the debt they owe to their fellows.
In fact, the trial of 'The 193' or the movement from which it arose,
had a vital, though indirect, influence on Tolstoy, who at this time
had engaged V. I. Alexéyef, a graduate of Petersburg University,
as mathematical master for his son. Alexéyef had been a member of
the Tchaykóvsky group which carried on an educational propaganda in
elementary Socialism in the early '70's. The activities of this group
were so restricted, and they were so hampered by the police, that some
of its members, feeling a need of freer activity, migrated to Kansas,
where for two years they carried on an agricultural colony. Dissensions
arose among them, and their experiment failed. Alexéyef returned to
Russia; Tchaykóvsky settled in England, where he spent many years, and
only returned to Russia after the amnesty of 1905, to be again arrested
and to spend more than a year in prison awaiting a trial which ended in
his acquittal. Tolstoy noticed that Alexéyef was a man who shaped his
life in accord with his beliefs, and he respected him accordingly, and
through him made acquaintance with some of the best representatives of
the immature Socialist movement then brewing in Russia. We have here a
remarkable example of the indirect way in which thoughts influence the
world. Auguste Comte wrote a philosophy. Having filtered through the
minds of G. H. Lewes and J. S. Mill, it reached Nicholas Tchaykóvsky
when he was a schoolboy of fourteen in the Seventh Gymnasium in
Petersburg. 'It fascinated me to such an extent,' says he in the
reminiscences contributed to G. H. Perris's interesting book, _Russia
in Revolution_, 'that, while sitting in school, I longed to get back to
our lodgings and to my chosen reading. The more I progressed, the more
I was absorbed. This study powerfully affected my mind and systematised
my ideas.' A few years later Tchaykóvsky, having read much meanwhile,
formed his group, which sowed the seeds of changes yet to come.
Progress, however, was very slow, and he felt 'the ineffectiveness of
ordinary political and socialistic propaganda among a deeply religious
peasantry, still hopeful of benefits from above.' This forced him to
reconsider the whole situation. 'I met,' adds he, 'some friends with
whom I began to work upon the rather Utopian idea of formulating a new
religion, and, for the sake of more effective experiment, we were soon
compelled to transfer ourselves with this stupendous mission, to the
steppes of Kansas.'
Wishing to transform society, Tchaykóvsky had seen the need of some
systematic outlook on life--'a new religion,' in fact. Dissatisfied
with his own outlook on life, Tolstoy was seeking a new religion, and
when he found it, it led him to demand great changes in society. The
mature novelist and the young propagandist, who have never met in the
flesh, had therefore much in common; though Tolstoy dislikes the works
of Comte and Mill, which had done so much for Tchaykóvsky, and can
hardly speak of them with tolerance (except Mill's _Autobiography_,
which interests him). Detesting the methods of violence to which those
who succeeded Tchaykóvsky felt themselves driven, Tolstoy could still
not doubt the sincerity of the faith that actuated most of them; for
they had all to lose and nothing to gain by joining the revolutionary
movement. Sophie Peróvsky, one of 'the 193' (subsequently hanged in
Petersburg for taking part in the assassination of Alexander II), was
the daughter of the Governor-General of that city, and was a niece of
the Minister of Education. Demetrius Lisogoúb, a landowner, devoted
his whole fortune of some £40,000 to the movement; and was hanged
in Odessa. Prince Peter Kropótkin risked his all to give lessons to
workmen; and escaped abroad, having lost position, fortune, and the
right to live in his native land. Tolstoy, an older man, with a strong
character and definite views of his own on many points, could not join
the Socialist movement, but that he was influenced by it is beyond
doubt.
The state of Russian life was indeed such that men of sensitive
consciences could not be at rest (as, indeed, when and where in the
wide world can they?), and the work Tolstoy had already done, marked
him out as one in whose soul the struggle which was moving others,
would assuredly be fought out strenuously. No one however, and
certainly not he himself, as yet knew what effect that crisis would
have upon him, or what his course of life would be in the years that
were to come.
CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER X
Besides books mentioned in last chapter, information relating to this
period is contained in a number of magazines and newspaper articles, of
which the following are the most important.
On the Education dispute see:
_Moskov. Eparhial. Ved._, October 1874.
_Rousskiya Vedomosti_, 1894, No. 31.
N. K. Mihaylovsky's _Zapiski Profana_, and E. Schuyler in _Rousskaya
Starina_, October 1870, and in _Scribner's Magazine_, May and June,
1889.
About Samara Famine, etc., see: A. S. Prougavin in _Obrazovaniye_, Nov.
1902.
On Tourgenef's visit to Yasnaya see: _Tobolskiya Goubern. Vedomosti_,
1893, No. 26.
The _Rousskoye Obozreniye_, 1896, contains a letter from Tolstoy to Fet.
The _Vestnik Evropy_, June 1904, contains M. Zaharina's _Vospominaniya
gr. A. A. Tolstaya_.
_Zhisn P. I. Tschaikovskavo._
_Pervoe Sobranie pisem Tourgeneva, 1840-1883_; Petersburg, 1884.
P. A. Sergeyenko in _Niva_, No. 8, 1906.