THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TOLSTOY'S GOING AWAY AND OF THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL
ACHIEVEMENT OF HIS LIFE
In an indirect way Leo Nikolaevitch's going away performed a great
service in a social sense by manifesting clearly that his living
beforehand for so long with his family was not due to the comforts of
a rich man's life, nor to his weakness and lack of will where his
wife was concerned. If circumstances had so fallen out that he had
not left his family up to the day of his death, the value of the
great example of his life would not, of course, have been one jot
less in reality. But it would have been hard for many to believe that
there was not a considerable share of egoism or weakness of character
in his living with his wife in the surroundings in which his family
lived. His departure from it revealed openly to contemporary and
future generations that his life in Yasnaya Polyana really was
surrounded by the most painful conditions. This event at once threw
the true light on all that he must have suffered before that in his
home surroundings, which many had been disposed to regard as peaceful
and agreeable for him. Now it had become evident to all that Leo
Nikolaevitch had remained with his family at Yasnaya Polyana for
nearly thirty years after the whole manner of life had become
distasteful and oppressive in the extreme for him,--and that he
remained not at all because he wanted to enjoy the comfort of a
wealthy landowner's life, nor because he was weak and wanting in will
where his wife was concerned. Now it is easy to understand that
during the whole of that time he was consciously sacrificing his
preferences and inclinations for the sake of doing what he regarded
as his duty to God and his family. And such an example of
self-sacrifice and consistency on the part of such a man as Tolstoy
doubtless has a conspicuous social value.
Many of the most various opinions have been expressed as to whether
Tolstoy was right in leaving his family. To the friends of Leo
Nikolaevitch who respected his soul and recognise the freedom of
conscience and independence of human personality in all, the question
in regard to Leo Nikolaevitch's going away is not whether he was
right or wrong in taking that step. A man is really answerable not
to the conscience of another, but only to his own. It is enough for
us that it was not with a light heart that Leo Nikolaevitch came to
his final decision to leave his wife. Once more I repeat that since
he restrained himself for thirty years from going away, during the
whole of that period patiently bearing the most poignant spiritual
sufferings which often brought him to the verge of the grave,--and in
the end he did die indeed from not having gone away sooner,--then
surely we might do homage to the undoubted purity of his motives, and
recognise that he had the right to decide the question in the end not
in accordance with our views, but in accordance with his own
judgment.
I at least for my part--carefully calling up before my imagination
all that I heard with my own ears from Leo Nikolaevitch himself, and
what I saw with my own eyes, amplifying this with what he wrote in
his diary and said in various writings and intimate letters, and
finally collating all this with contemporary communications, diaries
and notes of most intimate friends who were, just as I was, witnesses
of the great drama of the last months of his life--I do not see the
possibility even from the most critical standpoint of seeing the
slightest inconsistency in the fact that Leo Nikolaevitch remained so
long with his wife and then thought it necessary to leave her. In
this as in all else one can follow the inevitable, fully consistent
and independent reaction of his inner life to external circumstances
as they gradually opened out before him and suddenly took definite
shape towards the end.
In all Leo Nikolaevitch's impulses and actions after the religious
revolution which took place in him in the 'eighties, the same
fundamental and guiding principle is all the time conspicuous; that
is, the perpetual effort which persisted to the day of his death, to
do not his own will nor the will of those surrounding him, but the
will of God as he interpreted it according to his best understanding.
What more can we expect of a man?
If some or other of Leo Nikolaevitch's actions during the last months
of his life were not to the taste of some of his family, such, for
instance, as his depriving them of the inheritance of his literary
rights, his making a will without their knowledge and participation,
his leaving his manuscripts and diaries to other people, and lastly
his departing from amongst them; and if the material loss or their
wounded vanity leads them mistakenly to ascribe all this to the
supposed mental enfeeblement, the weakness of old age, and the fatal
influence on him of the circle of his "followers," at least there is
no necessity for people who are in no way personally affected to
follow the example of those of Leo Nikolaevitch's family who consider
themselves injured and repeat their unfair charges, which come in
reality to this, that Leo Nikolaevitch at the end of his life was in
his dotage and did a whole series of bad and stupid things. Some of
Leo Nikolaevitch's family wrongly imagined that since he had remained
with his family so long he had lost all freedom of choice, and ought
not to have moved from the spot until his death, like a thing laid on
a shelf which cannot move of its own initiative. Leo Nikolaevitch was
not only a living man, but a man of exceptionally strong and active
inner life, which was continually growing and developing and spurring
him on to new external manifestations which were often a surprise to
those who watched him. On all the important occasions of his life he
always acted without following any programme imposed on him from
outside, or being affected by any personal influence; he was
independently guided only by the prompting of his inner consciousness
and entirely free from pose or any striving after effect. But at the
same time he never drew back before the most extreme decisions when
it was a question of obeying the dictates of his conscience. And so
he had continually to do what was not foreseen or understood by
others, and often not approved even by the majority of those about
him.
At one time people were enthusiastic over Tolstoy's creative genius,
and thought that he would do nothing all his life but write novels
for them. He brooded over the meaning of life, devoted himself to the
service of God, and began to point out to men how godlessly they
lived. Then they, struck by his inspired indictment of social life,
expected that he would abandon his family and go about the world
preaching like a prophet. But, manifesting love first of all to those
nearest to him, and despising the censure of men, he remained almost
thirty years with his wife and children under conditions most
distressing for himself, hoping to be at least some little help in
bringing them to a reasonable life. People became accustomed to the
thought that old Tolstoy, physically weakened and professing the
doctrine of non-resistance, would end his life at Yasnaya Polyana.
But becoming convinced that being by his wife's side had in the end
only become a stumbling-block to her and a restriction on his own
spiritual life, to the surprise of all he left Yasnaya Polyana, at
eighty-two, with shattered health, in order to live amidst poor
surroundings, near to the working people so dear to his heart.
With Tolstoy everything was original and unexpected. The setting of
his end was bound to be the same. Under the circumstances in which he
was placed, and with the marvellously delicate sensitiveness and
responsiveness to impressions which distinguished his exceptional
nature, nothing else could or should have happened than just what did
happen. There happened just what was in harmony with the external
circumstances and the inner spiritual characteristics of Leo
Nikolaevitch Tolstoy and no other. Any other solution of his domestic
relations, any other surroundings of his death, even though in
harmony with a certain traditional pattern, would have been false and
artificial. Leo Nikolaevitch went away and died without affected
sentimentality and emotional phrases, without loud words and
eloquent gestures; he went away and died as he had lived,
truthfully, sincerely and simply; and a better, truthful, more
befitting end to his life could not be imagined, for just that end
was the natural and inevitable one.
As time erases all the personal element which has hitherto played so
great a part in the criticisms of Leo Nikolaevitch, all the purity of
his impulses and deep wisdom of his decisions in the most complicated
and difficult circumstances which could fall to the lot of man will
stand out before the eyes of men in all their force. And then his
life, especially its second period, from his spiritual awakening to
his death, will serve as a bright and an increasing example of how we
ought and can, guided by the voice of God in our souls, combine in
our actions the greatest warmth of heart and gentleness toward those
who injure us with an unalterable firmness where fidelity to that
higher principle which one serves is concerned.
_Telyatniki,
May 15th, 1913._
_Moscow, 1920._
PART III
TOLSTOY'S ATTITUDE TO HIS SUFFERINGS
I think that to complete what has been said here about Tolstoy's
"going away" it would be desirable to look rather more attentively at
the growth of Leo Nikolaevitch's inner consciousness in the course of
the last decades of his life, and at that side of the development of
his spiritual life which is connected with his attitude to suffering,
in particular to his own sufferings arising from the conditions of
his family life which have been examined in the present book.
Let us listen first of all to Leo Nikolaevitch's own words in regard
to the thoughts and feelings he had to pass through in this
connection. For this purpose we make use of his diary and private
letters. Much precious material on this subject is contained in his
diary for 1884, which he personally handed to me to take care of
immediately after it was finished, and from which I will make the
following extracts. This diary was kept by Leo Nikolaevitch just at
that time when the great drama of his family life, which in the end
brought him to the tomb, was taking shape. I venture to give
publicity to the lines quoted below, written by Leo Nikolaevitch in
the most difficult moments of his life, solely for the sake of
removing those misunderstandings and false deductions which, as I
have indicated before, have accumulated in such numbers since his
death around the question of his "going away." I hope that the reader
will understand my motives and will approach these private notes of
Leo Nikolaevitch with the same feeling of reverence with which I
reproduce them here.
From the Diary of L. N. Tolstoy of 1884.
_April 16._--It is very painful at home, painful that I cannot
sympathise with them. All their joys, examinations, successes in
society, music, furniture, shopping, I look upon all of it as a
misfortune and evil for them and cannot say that to them. I can and I
do say it, but my words do not take hold of anyone. It seems as
though they know not the meaning of my words, but that I have a bad
habit of saying them. At weak moments--this is one now--I wonder at
their heartlessness. How is it they do not see that, not to speak of
suffering, I have had no life at all for these three years? I am
given the part of a peevish old man and I cannot get out of it in
their eyes. If I take part in their life I am false to the truth, and
they will be the first to throw that in my face. If I look mournfully
now upon their madness, I am a peevish old man like all old men.
_April 23._--Shameful, disgusting. Terrible depression. I am all
filled with weakness. I must as in a dream be on my guard so as not
to spoil in the dream that which is needed for real life. I am drawn
and drawn into the mire, and useless are my shudders. If only I am
not drawn in without a protest! There has been no spite, little
vanity, or none at all, but of weakness, mortal weakness, these days
are full. Longing for real death. There is no despair. But I would
like to live and not to be on guard on one's life.
_April 24._--The same weakness and the same victorious mire sucking
one in, drawing one down.
_April 26._--Must be happy in an unhappy life, must ... make this the
object of my life. And I can do it when I am strong in the spirit.
_May 15._--I am miserable. I am an insignificant, useless creature,
and am absorbed in myself besides. The one good thing is that I want
to die.
_May 16._--O Lord, save me from the hateful life which is crushing
and destroying me. The one good thing is, I long to die. Better to
die than live like this.
_May 17._--I dreamed that my wife loved me. How light my heart was,
everything grew bright. Nothing like it in reality. And that is
destroying my life.... At home still the same general death. Only the
little children are alive. A wearisome conversation at tea again. All
one's life in terror.
_May 26._--I am as in a dream ... when I know that a tiger is coming,
and in a minute....
_June 1._--Dullness, deadness of soul--that one could bear, but with
it insolence, self-confidence ... one must know how to bear that too,
if not with love, with pity. I am irritable, gloomy all day. I am
bad.... How to live here, how to break through pouring sand. I will
try.
_June 2._--Conversation at tea with my wife. Angry again. Tried to
write, it wouldn't go.... How be a shining light when I am still
full of weakness which I have not the strength to overcome?
_June 4._--Thought a great deal about my wife. I must love her and
not be angry with her, must make her love me; so I will do.
_June 6._--After dinner misery ... in the evening revived a little.
Could not be loving as I would. I am very bad.
_June 7._--I am trying to be bright and happy, but it is very, very
hard. Everything I do is wrong, and I suffer horribly from this
wrongness. It is as though I alone were not mad in the house of the
mad managed by the mad.
_June 9._--Agonising struggle, and I do not control myself. I look
for the reasons--tobacco, incontinence, absence of imaginative work.
It is all nonsense. The only cause is the absence of a loved and
loving wife. It began from that time fourteen years ago when the cord
snapped and I realised my loneliness.[26] All that is not a reason.
I must find a wife in her. I ought, and I can and I will: Lord, help
me.
_June 10._--It is awful that the luxury, the corruption of life in
which I live I have myself created, and I am myself corrupted and I
cannot reform it. I can say that I shall reform myself, but so
slowly. I cannot give up smoking, and I cannot find a way of treating
my wife so as not to hurt her feelings and not to give in to her. I
am seeking it, I am trying.
_June 16._[27]--It was very painful, longed to go away at once. All
that is weakness. Not for men's sake but for God's. Do as one knows
best for oneself and not in order to prove something. But it is
awfully painful. Of course I am to blame if it hurts me. I struggle,
I put out the rising fire, but I feel that it has violently bent the
scales. And indeed what use am I to them, what use are all my
sufferings? And however hard (though they are easy) the conditions of
a vagrant's life, there can be nothing in it like this heartache!
_June 23._--I am calmer, stronger in spirit. In the evening a cruel
conversation about the Samara revenues.[28] I am trying to act as
though in the presence of God, and I cannot avoid anger. This must
end.
_July 6._--I was reading over the diary of those days when I was
seeking the cause of temptation. All nonsense--it is the absence of
hard physical labour.[29] I do not sufficiently prize the happiness
of freedom from temptation after work. That happiness is cheaply
bought at the price of fatigue and aching muscles.
_July 5_ (isn't it the 8th?).--My wife is very serene and contented
and does not see the gulf between us. I try to do what I ought, but
what I ought I do not know. I must do as I ought every minute, and
everything will turn out as it should.
_July 19._--She came in to me and began a hysterical scene--the
upshot of which is that nothing can be changed and she is unhappy and
wants to run away somewhere. I was sorry for her, but at the same
time I recognised that it was hopeless--to the day of my death she
will be a millstone round my neck and my children's. I suppose it
must be so. I must learn not to drown with a millstone round my neck.
But the children? It seems it must be, and it only hurts me because I
am short-sighted. I soothed her as though she were ill.
_August 8._--I thought; we reproach God, we complain that we meet
with obstacles in fulfilling the teaching of Christ. Well, but what
if we were all free from families who disagree with us? We should
come together and live happily and joyfully. But the others? The
others would not know. We want to gather all the light together that
it may burn better, but God has scattered the fire among the logs.
They are being kindled while we fret that they are not burning.
_August 12._--It is all right with my wife, but I am afraid and
straining every nerve.
_August 14._--Peace and friendliness with my wife, but I am afraid
every minute.
_August 20._--An outburst against me at dinner.... The sense of peace
and welfare had got hold of the family. Every one depressed ...
painful conversation in the house. Sonya, feeling that she was to
blame tried to justify herself by anger. I was sorry for her.
_August 21._--In the morning began a conversation, hotly too but
well. I said what ought to be said.... I came home. Sonya was
reconciled. How glad I was. Certainly if she would take to being good
she would be very good.
_September 3._--Something touches them somehow ... but I don't know
how.
_September 7._--Went looking for mushrooms ... my wife did not follow
me but went off by herself not knowing where, only not after me--that
is all our life.
_September 9._--It is pleasant being with my wife. Told her
unpleasant truths and she was not angry.
_September 10._--Sonya tidied my room and then shouted disgustingly
at Vlass. I am training myself to abstain from indignation and to see
in it a moral bump which one must recognise as a fact and face its
existence in one's action.
_September 15._--Went to look for mushrooms. Miserable.
_September 17._--Talk in the morning. And sudden fury. Then she came
to me and nagged until I was beside myself. I said nothing and did
nothing, but I was very unhappy. She ran away in hysterics, I ran
after her, horribly worried.
* * * *
After this diary of 1884 no diaries so far as I know were left by Leo
Nikolaevitch for several years. Did he cease to keep his diary that
he might not increase his spiritual sufferings by recording them on
paper, preferring to continue his intense struggle with himself in
complete solitude before no one but his God? Did he keep a diary and
afterwards himself destroy it, not wishing to reveal to anyone the
sufferings to which he was subjected? Were the missing diaries lost
in some other way, if indeed they ever existed? To these questions
there is no answer, and it is hardly likely there will be.
By Leo Nikolaevitch's notes in his later diaries kept from the year
1888, one thing is placed beyond doubt, that is, that his spiritual
sufferings and inward struggles in connection with his family
relations continued the whole of the rest of his life. And in this
struggle his higher consciousness became brighter and brighter, his
spiritual force grew and gained strength. As the years passed he
gained an amazing mastery of his personal desires and weaknesses. At
times, as indeed was inevitable, he recognised with peculiar pain his
complete loneliness in the midst of the people surrounding him. To
what degree he felt himself a stranger in his own family, how
completely he was deprived of that warm, genuine sympathy on the part
of his wife which is the most precious thing in married life, can to
some extent be judged by the notes in which, with irrepressible
grief, he recalls his mother.
His attitude to her memory, as is well known, was always the most
reverent. In his _Recollections of Childhood_ he writes of her: "It
was necessary for her to love not herself, and one love followed
another. Such is the spiritual figure of my mother in my imagination;
she stood before me as such a lofty, pure, spiritual being that often
in the middle period of my life, when I was struggling with
temptations which almost overwhelmed me, I prayed to her soul,
entreating her to help me, and this prayer was always a help to me."
Leo Nikolaevitch sometimes invoked the holy image of his mother in
his most difficult moments, even in his old age. In the beginning of
1900 he wrote on a scrap of paper, "Dull, miserable state the whole
day. Towards evening this mood passed into tenderness--a desire for
fondness, for love, longed as children do to press up to a loving,
pitying creature and to weep with emotion and to be comforted. But
what creature is there to whom I could come close like that? I go
over all the people I have loved; not one is suitable to whom I can
come close. If I could be little and snuggle up to my mother as I
imagine her to myself! Yes, yes, mother whom I called to when I could
not speak, yes, she, my highest imagination of pure love,--not cold,
divine love, but earthly, warm, motherly. It is to that that my
battered, weary soul is drawn. You, mother, you caress me. All this
is senseless, but it is all true."
On apparently the next day, calmly analysing the attack of misery he
had passed through the day before, he wrote in his diary: "Yesterday
particularly oppressed condition. Everything unpleasant felt with
peculiar vividness. So I say to myself, but in reality I seek what is
unpleasant; I am receptive, absorbent to what is unpleasant. I could
not get rid of this feeling anyhow. I have tried everything--prayer
and the sense of my own badness--and nothing succeeds. Prayer, that
is, vividly picturing my position does not reach to the depths of my
consciousness; the recognition of my worthlessness, paltriness does
not help. It is not that one wants something, but is miserably
dissatisfied one does not know with what. It seems it is with life,
one longs to die. Towards evening this condition passed into a
feeling of forlornness and an overwhelming desire of fondling, of
love; I, an old man, longed to be a baby, to snuggle up to a loving
creature, to be petted, to complain and to be fondled and comforted.
But who is the being to whom I could snuggle up and on whose arms I
could weep and complain? There is no one living. Then what is this?
Still the same devil of egoism which in such a new, cunning form is
trying to deceive and overpower me. This last feeling has explained
to me the state of misery which preceded it. It is only the
weakening, the temporary disappearance of spiritual life and the
assertion of the claims of egoism which on awakening finds no food
for itself and is miserable. The only means to use against it is to
serve someone in the simplest way that comes first, to work for
someone."--(_Diary, March 11, 1906._)
The complete absence in Leo Nikolaevitch of the slightest
sentimentality in regard to the spiritual sufferings which he had to
endure was apparently connected with his lofty conception of Christ
and the deep reverence he felt for his heroic life. In 1885 Leo
Nikolaevitch wrote: "Christ conquered the world and saved it not by
suffering for us, but by suffering with love and joy, _i.e._ by
conquering suffering, and he taught us thereby."
And indeed to the very last days and hours of his life Leo
Nikolaevitch persistently and with striking success strove to train
himself to "conquer suffering." In confirmation of my words I quote a
series of further extracts from his diaries and letters.
_June 15, 1889_ (from a diary).--"I am burdened by life, I forget
that if one has vital forces they can be used for the service of God,
and that there is no getting away, there is no emptiness, everywhere
there is contact, and in contact there is life."
_July 18, 1889_ (from the letters).--"What do I want? To live with
God, according to His will, with Him. What is wanted for that? One
thing only is wanted: to preserve the talent given to me, my soul,
given to me not only to preserve but to make it grow. How make it
grow? I know for myself what is needed; to keep what is animal in me
in purity, what is human in humility, and what is divine in love.
What is wanted for preserving purity? Privations, privations of every
sort. Humility? humiliation. Love? the hostility of men. Where and
how am I to keep my purity without privations, my humility without
humiliation, and my love without hostility? 'And if you love those
that love you, that is not love, but love ye your enemies, love ye
those that hate you.' One sorrow approaches humiliation and
hostility, and these thoughts have revived me. Another sorrow is
privation, suffering--the very thing that is needed for the growth of
the soul. That is how one must look at it."
_July 18, 1889_ (from the letters).--All our sorrows have one root,
and, strange as it sounds, they all not only can, but ought, to be a
blessing.... God grant that we may believe in the possibility of
it--that is one thing; and the other is that we may not return in
thought to our sorrow, in our imagination changing the conditions in
which our sorrow has occurred and correcting our actions. "If we had
done this or that this would not have happened." God preserve us
from this mistake, with its painful consequences. What has been is,
and what is was bound to have been, and all our vital force ought to
be directed to the present, to bearing our cross in the best way
possible.
_December, 1889_ (from the letters).--The cross is given according to
the strength.... I believe that, and cannot but believe it, because I
know by experience that the harder my sufferings have been, if only I
have succeeded in taking them in a Christian spirit ... the fuller,
more vivid, more joyful and full of meaning life has become. It is so
often insincerely repeated that sufferings are good for us and are
sent by God, that we have ceased to believe it, and yet it is the
simplest, clearest and most indubitable truth. Suffering--what is
called suffering--is the condition of spiritual growth. Without
suffering growth is impossible, the widening of life is impossible.
For this reason sufferings also always accompany death. If a man had
no suffering he would be in a bad way; that is why they say among the
people that those whom God loves He visits by misfortunes. I
understand that a man may be sad and apprehensive when misfortunes
have not visited him for a long time. There is no movement, no growth
of life. Suffering is only suffering for the heathen, for the man
who has not the light of the truth, and for us in the measure in
which we have not the light; but sufferings cease to be such for the
Christian--they become birth-pangs, even as Christ promised to
deliver us from evil. And all this is not rhetoric, but is for me as
undoubtedly in accordance with reason and experience as that it is
now winter.
1892-3 (from the letters).--Nothing, I imagine, sets a man free from
dependence on others and brings him near, or rather may bring him
near, to God so much as your position. One only leans upon Him when
men compel one to. God help you to bear your cross patiently,
submissively, so as to get from it all the good which external
suffering gives and can give. Or it will be mortifying that there has
been suffering, but struggling with it, indignant and despairing, you
did not get from it all that it is capable of giving.
_May 17, 1893_ (from the letters).--I am forced to live without
personal, legitimate joys such as you have: labour, associations with
animals, nature; without association (not poisoned by their
corruption) with children; without the encouragement of public
opinion. What has happened to me is not exactly that the praise of
men has destroyed for me the attractiveness of their praise, but
their praise has been tainted, has become poisoned. I cannot now
desire the praise of men, fame among the crowd, because I have it and
know how double-faced it is; if there are some who praise, there are
others who revile; that praise of men which you have, the good
opinion of estimable men for a good life, at least consistent with
your convictions I cannot have. And on the top of all that this
praise of men--the way they write abroad and the opinion is current,
that I lead a modest, laborious life in poverty--that praise arraigns
me every second as a liar, a scoundrel living in luxury, making money
out of the sale of his books. If I think of the praise of men it is
like a thief who is every minute afraid that he will be caught, so
that I have not only to live without the stimulus of lawful joys, and
not only without the praise of men, but even with the perpetual
consciousness of the shamefulness of life; I have to live by that
which I consider men can and ought to live by; that is, by the
consciousness of fulfilling the will of Him who sent us. And I see
that I am still far from being ready for that, and am still only
learning, and life is teaching me. And I ought to rejoice, and I do
rejoice.
_February 28, 1894_ (from the letters).--The longer I live and the
nearer I am to death, the more certain to me is the injustice of our
wealthy mode of life, and I cannot help suffering by it.
_March 27, 1895_ (from a diary).--If there is suffering there has
been and is egoism. Love does not know suffering, because the loving
life is the divine life which can do all. Egoism is the limitation of
personality.
_December 20, 1896_ (from a diary).--Everything just as painful. Help
me, O Father. Comfort me. Be strong in me, subdue me, drive out and
destroy the unclean flesh and all that I feel through it. It is
better now though. Particularly soothing is the problem--the trial of
meekness, of humiliation, of quite unexpected humiliation. In
fetters, in prison one may be proud of humiliation, but in this case
it is merely painful, unless one takes it as a trial sent from God.
Yes, I will learn to bear it calmly, joyfully and to love.
_January 18, 1897_ (from a diary).--Depressing, disgusting.
Everything repels me in the life they are living around me.
Alternately I get free from misery and suffering and fall into it
again. Nothing shows so clearly how far I am from what I want to be.
If my life really were spent wholly in the service of God nothing
could trouble it.
_April 4, 1907_ (from a diary).--I have not lost my calm though my
soul is agitated, but I am mastering it. O God! if one could but
remember that one is His messenger, that the divinity ought to shine
through one! But what is hard is that if one only remembers this, one
will not live, and yet one must live, live energetically and
remember. Help me O Father. I have prayed a great deal of late that
life might be better, for I am ashamed and cast down by the
consciousness of the unrighteousness of my life.
_July 12, 1897_ (from the letters).--I understand your trouble and
sympathise with all my heart. It is your examination, try not to fail
in it. Remember that it is the one chance of applying your faith to
life. I always strengthen myself with that in difficult moments, and
sometimes with success.
1897 (from the letters).--The doubts as to whether one makes
concessions for the sake of not destroying love or for the sake of
indulging in one's own weaknesses persist as ever, and the older I
get, the more strongly I feel this sin, and I humble myself, but I do
not submit, and I hope to rise up again.
_March 10, 1899_ (from the letters).--It is very difficult and dreary
and lonely for me and I am afraid of unpleasantness--of people being
angry with me, and people are angry with me.
_November 29, 1901_ (from a diary).--If you are suffering it is only
from your not seeing everything (the time has not yet come). What is
accomplished by those sufferings has not been revealed.
_January 31, 1903_ (from the letters).--Sufferings are profitable
just because a man in ordinary worldly life forgets the unbreakable
bond which exists between all living creatures; the sufferings which
he endures and of which he has been the cause to other people remind
him of that bond. This bond is spiritual, seeing that the Son of God
is one in all men; physical sufferings drive a man involuntarily into
the spiritual sphere in which he feels in union with God and with the
world, and in which he ... bears the sufferings caused by others as
though caused by himself, and even joyfully takes upon himself the
burden of suffering, taking it from others. In that is the profit and
fruitfulness of suffering.
_June 12, 1905_ (from a diary).--More and more I am pained by my
abundance and the want surrounding me.
_May 29, 1906_ (from a diary).--I am very heavy-hearted with shame at
my life, and what to do I don't know: Lord, help me.
_November 23, 1906_ (from a diary).--In a very good spiritual state
of love for all. Read the Epistle of St. John. Marvellous, only now I
understand it fully. To-day there was a great temptation which I did
not fully conquer. Abakumov overtook me with a petition and a
complaint at having been sentenced to prison on account of the oak
trees. It was very painful. He cannot understand that I, the husband,
cannot do as I like, and looks on me as an evil-doer and a Pharisee
hiding behind my wife. I had not the strength to bear it lovingly,
said that I could not go on living here. And that was wrong.
Altogether I am more and more abused on all hands; that's a good
thing, it drives me to God--if I could only remain there. Altogether
I am conscious of one of the greatest changes which has taken place
in me just now. I feel this from my serenity and joyfulness and the
good feeling (I dare not say love) for people.
_June 7, 1907_ (from a diary).--My former ailment has passed, but a
new one seems to be beginning. To-day I was very, very sad. I am
ashamed to confess it, but I cannot call up joy. My soul is calm and
grave, but not joyful. My sadness is chiefly due to the darkness in
which people live so persistently. The exasperation of the peasants,
our senseless luxury. Experienced the joy of being alone with God ...
sorrowful, sorrowful. Lord, help me, burn up the old fleshly man in
me. Yes, the one consolation, the one salvation is to live in
eternity and not in time.
_April 7, 1908_ (from the letters).--One thing I can say, that the
reasons which restrain me from changing my manner of life as you
advise me,--though not changing it, is a source of misery to me--the
reasons that hinder me have their origin in the same principles of
love, in the name of which the change is desirable both for you and
me. It is very probable that I do not know and am not capable, or
simply there are bad qualities in me which prevent me from doing what
you advise me. But what is to be done? With the utmost effort of my
mind and heart I cannot find the means, and I should only be thankful
to anyone who will point it out to me. I say this quite sincerely,
without any irony.
_May 20, 1908_ (from a diary).--My life is good in that I bear all
the burden of a wealthy life which I detest--the sight of others
labouring for me, the begging for help, the censure, the envy, the
hatred,--and I do not enjoy its advantages, even that of loving what
is done for me and helping those who ask.
_July 3, 1908_ (from a diary).--The day before yesterday I received a
letter full of upbraidings for my wealth and hypocrisy and
persecution of the peasants, and, to my shame, it hurt me. To-day I
have been sad and ashamed all day. Just now I went for a ride, and it
seemed so desirable, so joyful to go away like a beggar, thanking and
loving everyone. Yes, I am weak, I cannot perpetually live in my
spiritual self, and as soon as one does not live in it, everything
vexes one. One thing is good, that I am dissatisfied with myself and
ashamed, but I must not be proud of it.
_July 9, 1908_ (from a diary).--I have passed through very painful
feelings; thank God that I have passed through them. An innumerable
multitude of people, and all this would be joyful if it were not all
poisoned by the consciousness of the senselessness, sinfulness,
nastiness, luxury, servants, and poverty and overstrained intensity
of labour around. Without ceasing I suffer misery from it, and I
alone. I cannot help wishing for death, though I hope as far as I
can to make use of what is left.
_January 12, 1909_ (from a diary).--It grows more and more difficult.
I do not know how to thank God that, together with the growing
difficulty, the strength to endure it grows also. Together with the
burden there is also the strength, and there is incomparably more joy
from the consciousness of strength than pain from the burden. Yes,
for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
_May 6, 1907_ (from the letters).--It is hard for you. God help you
to bear your trial without reproaches to others and without
infringement of love for them. It is always a great help to me, when
anything is difficult, to think and to remember that it is the
material--and necessary, good material--upon which I am called to
work, and not before men but before God.
_July 21, 1909_ (from a diary).--Last night Sonya has been weak and
irritable. I could not go to sleep till after two o'clock. I woke up
feeling weak, I was awakened. Sonya did not sleep all night. I went
to her. It was something insane. "Dushan poisoned her," etc. I am
tired and cannot stand it any more and feel quite ill. I feel I
cannot be loving and reasonable, absolutely cannot. At present I
want only to keep away and to take no part. There is nothing else I
can do, or else I have seriously thought of escaping. Now then, show
your Christianity. _C'est le moment ou jamais._ But I awfully want to
go away. I doubt if my presence here is of any use to anyone. Help
me, my God, teach me. There is only one thing I want--to do not my
will, but Thine. I write and ask myself: Is it true? Am I posing to
myself? Help me, help me, help me!
_July 22, 1909_ (from a diary).--Yesterday I did not eat anything and
did not sleep. As usual I felt very wretched. I am wretched now, but
my heart is melted. Yes--to love those that do us evil, you say; will
try it. I try, but badly. I think more and more of going away and
making a settlement about property.... I don't know what I shall do.
Help, help, help! This "help" means that I am weak, bad. It is a good
thing that I am at any rate conscious of this....
_July 26, 1909_ (from a diary).--After dinner I spoke of Sweden; she
became terribly, hysterically irritated. She wanted to poison herself
with morphia. I tore it out of her hands and threw it under the
stairs. I struggled. But when I went to bed and thought it over
calmly I decided not to go. I went and told her. She is pitiful; I am
truly sorry for her. But how instructive it is! I did nothing except
inwardly work at myself. And as soon as I started on my own self,
everything was solved. I have been ill all day....
_August 28, 1909_ (from a diary).--Dreadfully, dreadfully miserable
and oppressed; depression partly produced by letter from Berlin, in
reference to Sofya Andreyevna's letter and the article in the
_Petersburg News_, saying that Tolstoy is a deceiver and a hypocrite.
To my shame I did not rejoice at being reviled, but was hurt, and the
whole evening was agonisingly depressed. Go away? More and more often
the question presents itself.
_August 29, 1909_ (from a diary).--Painful feeling and desire (a bad
one?) to run away, and uncertainty what is my duty to God. In calm
moments, as now, I know that what is necessary above all is to do
nothing, to bear all, to remain in love.
_September 4, 1909_ (from a diary).--The false judgment of men about
me, the necessity for remaining in this position--however hard it all
is, I begin at times to understand its beneficial effect on my soul.
_November 15, 1909_ (from a diary).--The misery, almost despair, at
my idle life in senseless luxury, in the midst of men who are
overworked and deprived of the essentials, of the possibility of
satisfying their first needs, keeps growing more intense. It is
agonising to live like this, and I do not know how to help myself and
them. In weak moments I long to die. Help me, O Father, to do Thy
will up to the last minute. Meditation about myself which I am
learning, and to which I am giving myself up more and more of late,
has advanced me much, very much; but, as always, true progress in
goodness ... only reveals one's imperfection more and more.
_January 8, 1910_ (from the letters).--I live wrongly in wealth,
though myself I have nothing, but with those who live in wealth.
_January 8, 1910_ (from the letters).--If man grows weak he is weaker
than water. If he grows strong he is stronger than rock. What
strengthens me most in difficult moments is the sense that the very
thing that is worrying one is the material on which we are called to
work, and the material is the more precious the more difficult the
moments.
_March 19, 1910_ (from the letters).--In bad moments think that what
is happening to you is the material on which you are called to work.
To me at any rate this thought and the feeling evoked by it is a
great help.
_April 13, 1910_ (from a diary).--I woke at five and kept thinking
how to get out, what to do, and I don't know. I thought of
writing--and writing is loathsome while I remain in this life. Speak
to her? Go away? Change? By degrees ... it seems as though the last
is the only thing I shall and can do, and yet it is painful. Perhaps,
certainly, indeed that is good. Help me, Thou Who art in me, in
everything, and Who exists and Whom I implore and love. I am weeping
now as I love.
_April 14, 1910_ (from the letters).--You ask whether I like the life
in which I find myself. No, I don't like it. I don't like it because
I am living with my own people in luxury while there are poverty and
want around me, and I cannot get away from the luxury, and I cannot
help the poverty and want. For this I do not like my life. I like it
in that it is in my power to act, and that I can act, and that I do
act in the measure of my strength in accordance with the teaching of
Christ, to love God and my neighbour. To love God means to love the
perfection of goodness and to approach it as far as one can. To love
one's neighbour is to love all people alike as one's brothers and
sisters. It is this, and this alone, that I am striving for, and
since, little by little, however poorly, I am approaching it I do not
grieve, but only rejoice. You ask me too, if I rejoice, at what do I
rejoice, and what joy do I expect? I rejoice that I can carry out to
the measure of my strength the task set me by my Master; to work for
the setting up of that Kingdom of God to which we are all striving.
_June 4, 1910_ (from a diary).--I had a good ride; I came back and
found the Circassian who was taking Prokofy. I was horribly
distressed and thought of going away, and now at five in the morning
I don't look on that as impossible.
_July 2, 1910_ (from the letters).--All will be well if we do not
grow weak.... Very painful, but the better for that.
_July 16, 1910_ (from the letters).--I feel well ... a little weaker
than usual, but still well.... Why, really when I am calm I actually
feel that in all this there is more of good than bad, incomparably
more. It is absurd even to compare the little unpleasantnesses,
agitations, privations, and the sense of growing nearer to God.
_July 20, 1910_ (from the letters).--I am grateful to you for having
helped and helping me to bear the trial that I have deserved and that
is needful for my soul.... And please do help us both not to grow
weak and not to do anything of which we shall repent.
_July 29, 1910_ (from the letters).--We will each of us try to act as
we ought, and it will be all right. I am trying with all my might,
and I feel that that is the only thing that matters.
_July 31, 1910_ (from the letters).--If only we do not ourselves
spoil things all will be as it ought to be--that is, well.
_August 7, 1910_ (from the letters).--I am sorry for her, and she is
undoubtedly more to be pitied than I, so that it would be wrong of me
to increase her sufferings out of pity for myself. Though I am tired
I am really all right. Ever nearer and nearer comes the revelation of
the certainly blessed, fore-divined mystery, and getting near it
cannot but rejoice me.
_August 9, 1910_ (from the letters).--The nearer one is to death, or
anyway the more vividly one thinks of it (and thinking of it is
thinking of one's own true life which is independent of death), the
more important the one needful work of life becomes, and the clearer
it is that for the securing of that non-infringement of love with
anyone, I must not undertake anything, but only _do nothing_.
_August 14, 1910_, morning (from the letters).--I know that all this
present particularly morbid state may seem affected, intentionally
worked up (to some extent that is so), but the chief point is that it
is anyway illness, perfectly obvious illness, that deprives her of
will and self-control. If it is said that she is herself to blame for
this relaxation of her will, for giving in to her egoism, which began
long ago, the fault is of the past, of long ago. Now she is quite
irresponsible and one can feel for her nothing but pity, and it is
impossible, for me at any rate, utterly impossible, _contrecourir_
(to run counter to) her, and so unmistakably increase her sufferings.
I do not believe that the complete vindication of my decision opposed
to her wishes would be good for her, and if I did believe it I still
could not do that. Apart from the fact that I think that I ought to
act in this way, the point is that I know from experience that when I
insist, I am miserable, and when I give way I am not only
light-hearted, I am even joyful.... I have been ill for the last few
days, but to-day I am much better. And I am particularly glad of it
to-day, because there is anyway fewer chances of one's saying or
doing wrong when one is physically well.
_August 14, 1910_, evening (from the letters).--I agree that one
ought not to make promises to anyone, and especially to a person in
the state in which she is now, but I am bound now not by any promise,
but simply by pity, by compassion, which I have been feeling
particularly strongly to-day as I wrote to you. Her position is very
painful, no one can see it and not sympathise with it.
_August 20, 1910_; Kotchety. (From the letters.)--Without
exaggeration I can say that I recognise that what has happened was
inevitable, and therefore profitable for my soul. I think so at any
rate in my better moments.
_August 25, 1910_; Kotchety. (From the letters.)--Of myself I may say
that I am very well here, even my health, which was affected too by
agitation, is far better. I am trying to behave as justly and firmly
as possible in regard to Sofya Andreyevna, and it seems as though I
am more or less successful in my object of calming her.... I am often
terribly sorry for her. When one thinks what it must be for her
lying awake alone at nights, for she gets no sleep for the greater
part of the night, with a confused but painful consciousness that she
is not loved, but is burdensome to everyone except the children, one
cannot but pity her.
_August 28, 1910_; Kotchety. (From the letters.)--Do not think that
it is easy for me to advise the manly, serene and even joyful
endurance of suffering because I do not myself experience it. Do not
think that, because all men are liable to sufferings which may be
regarded as objectless torments, or as trials, the mild and religious
endurance of which may, strange as it sounds, be transmuted to a
greater spiritual blessing. We are all liable to these trials, and
often to much harder ones than those which you are enduring. May God
who lives in you help you to be conscious of yourself. And when there
is that consciousness there is no suffering and there is no death.
_August 30, 1910_; Kotchety. (From the letters.)--Sofya Andreyevna
went away from here yesterday, and took a very touching farewell of
me and Tanya and her husband, with evident sincerity begging
forgiveness of all with tears in her eyes. She is inexpressibly
pathetic. What will happen later I cannot imagine. "Do what you
ought before your conscience and God, and what will be will be," I
say to myself and try to act on it.
_September 9, 1910_; Kotchety. (From the letters.)--She was very much
irritated, not irritated (_ce n'est pas le mot_, that is not the
right word), but _morbidly_ agitated. I underline that word. She is
unhappy and cannot control herself. I have only just been talking to
her. She came thinking I should go away with her, but I have refused
without fixing the date of my going away, and that greatly distressed
her. What I shall do later I don't know. I shall try to bear my cross
day by day.
_September 16, 1910_ (from the letters).--I am still as before in a
middling condition physically, and spiritually I try to look upon my
painful or rather difficult relations with Sofya Andreyevna as a
trial which is good for me, and which it depends upon myself to turn
into a blessing, but I rarely succeed in this. One thing I can say:
not in my brain but with my sides, as the peasants say, I have come
to a clear understanding of the difference between resistance which
is returning evil for evil, and the resistance of not giving way in
those of one's actions which one recognises as one's duty to one's
conscience and to God. I will try.
_September 18, 1910_ (from the letters).--I understand now from
experience that all that we call suffering is for our good.
_October 6, 1910_ (from the letters).--She is ill and all the rest of
it, but it is impossible not to pity her and not to be indulgent to
her.
_October 17, 1910_ (from the letters).--Yesterday was a very serious
day. Others will describe the physical details to you, but I want to
give you my own account from the inside. I pity and pity her, and
rejoice that at times I love her without effort. It was so last night
when she came in penitent and began seeing about warming my room, and
in spite of her exhaustion and weakness pushed the shutters and
screened the windows, taking pains and trouble about my ... bodily
comfort. What's to be done if there are people for whom, and I
believe only for a time, the reality of spiritual life is
unattainable. Yesterday evening I was almost on the point of going
away to Kotchety, but now I am glad I did not go. To-day I feel
physically weak, but serene in spirit.
_October 26, 1910_ (from a diary).--It is very oppressive for me in
this house of lunatics.
_October 26, 1910_ (from the letters).--The third thing is not so
much a thought as a feeling, and a bad feeling--the desire to change
my position. I feel something unbefitting, rather shameful, in my
position. Sometimes I look upon it as I ought, as a blessing but
sometimes I struggle against it and am revolted....
_October 27, 1910_ (from a diary).--It seems _bad_ but is really
good; the oppressiveness of our relations keeps increasing.
_October 29, 1910_ (from the letters).--I am waiting to see what will
come of the family deliberation--I think, good. In any case, however,
my return to my former life has become still more difficult--almost
impossible, owing to the reproaches which will now be showered upon
me, and the still smaller share of kindness which will be shown me. I
cannot and will not enter into any sort of negotiations--what will be
will be--only to sin as little as possible.... I cannot boast of my
physical and spiritual condition, they are both weak and shattered. I
feel most of all sorry for her. If only that pity were quite free
from an admixture of _rancune_ (resentment), and that I cannot boast
of.
_October 29, 1910_; Optin Monastery. (From a diary.)--I have been
much depressed all day and physically weak.... As I came here I was
thinking all the time on the road, of the way out of my and her
position, and could not think of any way out of it, but yet there
will be one whether one likes it or not; it will come, and not be
what one foresees. Yes, think only of how to avoid sin, and let come
what will come. That is not my affair. I have taken up ... the
_Circle of Reading_, and, just now, reading Number Twenty-eight was
struck by the direct answer to my position: trial is what I need, it
is beneficial for me. I am going to bed at once. Help me, O Lord.
_November 3, 1910_; Station Astapovo. (From a diary; the last words
written by Leo Nikolaevitch in his diary.)--_Fais ce que doit
adv...._[30] And it is all for the best both for others and for me.
The extracts from the diary and letters of Tolstoy that have been
quoted, though far from exhausting all the material, show
sufficiently clearly what Leo Nikolaevitch had to endure in
connection with his family and domestic conditions in the course of
the last thirty years of his life. In it of course all aspects of his
spiritual growth are not touched upon, the whole course of his inner
development during that period is not explained. But what is revealed
to us in these extracts is sufficient to excite the warmest sympathy
for Leo Nikolaevitch in his great and prolonged ordeal, and to
inspire the deepest respect for his touching ability to blame himself
for everything, and always to strive not towards what he desired but
towards his duty. At the same time there is here revealed to us in
its general features the path by which he came to the conviction that
if we suffer spiritually we are ourselves to blame.
As is the case with everyone for whom the true meaning of life is
revealed, after Leo Nikolaevitch's inner awakening at the beginning
of the 'eighties, his spiritual consciousness could not, of course,
remain at the same point. And indeed from the fragments we have
quoted we see that up to the very last days of his life it was
growing and becoming more perfect, as he became more and more
penetrated with purity and strength.
Becoming convinced that in spite of all his sufferings he could not
draw his wife to take part in his efforts, Leo Nikolaevitch began to
experience the most agonising distress, which, as we see from his
diary of 1884, sometimes became so acute that he hardly had the
strength to endure it. He even had moments almost of despair and as
it were revolt against his fate, especially when he learned from
experience that his wife was too far away from him spiritually to be
his companion in the reorganisation of their lives. It was at such a
moment that there broke from him that agonising cry of a tortured
heart, that she would for ever remain a millstone round his neck and
his children's. But at the same time he tried to accept these
sufferings with meekness and submission as a trial laid upon him, and
to behave with love and patience to her who evoked them. So about the
same time, on one of those exceptionally rare occasions when in
conversation with me he permitted himself to touch on his relations
with his wife, he spoke approximately as follows:
"It is impossible to blame Sofya Andreyevna. It is not her fault that
she does not follow me. Why, what she clings to so obstinately now is
the very thing in which I trained her for many years. Apart from
that, in the early days of my awakening I was too irritable and
insisted on trying to convince her that I was right. In those days I
put my new conception of life before her in a form so repellent and
unacceptable to her that I quite put her off. And now I feel that
through my own fault she can never come to the truth by my way. That
door is closed for her. But, on the other hand, I notice with joy
that by ways peculiar to her alone, and quite incomprehensible to me,
she seems at times to be gradually moving in the same direction."
About the same time Leo Nikolaevitch wrote to me:
"'He who loves not his brother, he dwelleth in death.' I have
learned, but to my cost. I did not love, I had malice against my
neighbours, and I was dying and dead. I began to be afraid of death;
not afraid exactly, but bewildered before it. But love had but to
rise up and I rose up again. I had forgotten Christ's first precept,
'Be not wrathful.' So simple, so small and so immense! If there is
one man whom one does not love one is lost, one is dead. I have
learned that by experience."--(Letter, December 28, 1885.)
At that period of his life Leo Nikolaevitch wrote in his diary the
reflection which has already appeared in print concerning the
chloroform of love, which expresses with remarkable vividness his
recognition of the way we ought to help men who have gone astray: "At
first I thought, Can one point out to people their mistakes, their
sins, their faults, without hurting them? We have chloroform and
cocaine for physical pain, but not for the soul. I thought this, and
at once it came into my head, it is untrue--there is such a spiritual
chloroform. They perform the operation of amputating a leg or an arm
with chloroform, but they perform the operation of reforming a man
painfully, stifling the reform with pain, exciting the worse
disease--vindictiveness. But there is a spiritual chloroform, and it
has long been known,--always the same--love. And that is not all: in
physical disease one may do good by an operation without chloroform,
but the soul is such a sensitive creature that an operation performed
upon it without the chloroform of love is never anything but
injurious. Patients always know it and ask for chloroform, and know
that it ought to be used.... The sick man is in pain and he screams,
hides the sore spot and says, 'You won't heal me, you won't heal me,
and I don't want to be healed, I would rather get worse if you cannot
heal me without pain....' And he is right ... you cannot drag a man
straight out when he is tangled in a net--you will hurt him. You must
disentangle the netting gently and firmly first. This delay, this
disentangling, is the chloroform of love.... This I almost understood
before, now I quite understand and begin to feel it...."
(Tolstoy's diary, January 25, 1889. Cf. _Biography of L. N. Tolstoy_
by P. I. Biryukov, Vol. III. chap. iii.)
Striving to work out in himself a patient and loving attitude to the
erring, beginning with those who were nearest to him, Leo
Nikolaevitch from the earliest days of his domestic ordeal applied
all his spiritual forces to avoiding giving way to his spiritual
sufferings and throwing the blame for them either on people or on
external circumstances. And this consciousness was continually
strengthened and confirmed in him, helping him to bestow less and
less pity on himself and more and more pity on those at whose hands
he suffered. At first, as we have seen, such resignation to destiny
was attained only with the greatest spiritual effort; but gradually
he succeeded in conquering himself more and more by means of this
incessant struggle carried on for many years. Such, anyway, is, it
seems to me, the general deduction which may be drawn from his diary
and letters. This deduction is confirmed too by the immediate
impression which many of those to whose lot it fell to be in close
relations with Leo Nikolaevitch in his later years carried away from
personal intercourse with him. Even the expression of his face during
this last period often seemed lighted up with a peculiar spiritual
radiance. Such in its most general features is my conception of the
consistent growth of Leo Nikolaevitch's inner consciousness after his
spiritual awakening in so far as that growth is connected with his
domestic sufferings and going away from home. This conception has
been formed, on the one hand, on the basis of my personal intimacy
and my spiritual unity with Leo Nikolaevitch as well as my long,
intimate acquaintance with his family; and, on the other hand, on an
attentive study of all that Leo Nikolaevitch has at various times
expressed in his letters.
But the secret of another man's soul is too great and too intricate
for anyone to be able to assert with confidence that he has fully
grasped it even on any one side. And therefore while expressing here
my personal opinion so far as it can have significance for anyone, I
feel great satisfaction in the fact that I have been able to a
considerable extent to incorporate Leo Nikolaevitch's own words in
this book. And thus it will be possible for the reader to draw his
own conclusions; at least from those notes of Leo Nikolaevitch's
which I have here brought into connection with my argument, and to
correct for himself anything in which it may seem to him that I am
mistaken. I should like to conclude with two more thoughts of Leo
Nikolaevitch's which show his comprehension of the spiritual
significance of suffering.
"For a man living a spiritual life suffering is always an
encouragement to becoming more perfect and more enlightened, and
getting nearer to God. For such people suffering can always be
transformed into the business of life."--(_Circle of Reading._)
"The cross that is laid upon us is that at which we ought to work.
Our whole life is this work. If the cross is illness, then bear it
well, with submission; if it is injury at the hands of men, know how
to return good for evil; if it is humiliation, be meek; if it is
death, accept it with gratitude."--(_The Way of Life._)
FOOTNOTES
[26] To what precisely Leo Nikolaevitch ascribed his realisation
that in 1870 the "cord had snapped" in the relations between him
and his wife I am not in a position to state with certainty. I can
only say for the information of the reader that I heard from Leo
Nikolaevitch that their relations began to change for the worse
from the time when Sofya Andreyevna, contrary to his principles
and desire, refused to nurse her second daughter Marya Lvovna,
born 1870, and engaged a wet nurse for her who was taken away
from her own baby.
[27] It may interest the reader to know that on
June 18 Sofya Andreyevna gave birth to her youngest daughter,
Alexandra.--_Translator's note._
[28] At that period Leo Nikolaevitch's attitude of disapproval
of property was beginning to take definite shape. In consequence
he did not wish to make use of the revenues from his estate in
Samara, considering it unjust to make the peasants work for him
and his family. Even the income which his family received from
the Yasnaya Polyana estate and from the sale by Sofya Andreyevna of
his works he considered as unjust, though he did not yet see clearly
how he ought to act in the matter, considering his duties to his
family.
[29] Compare entry for June 7.
[30] An unfinished French proverb; translated in full it means,
"Do what you ought and let come what may."
APPENDIX I
In view of the fact that Leo Nikolaevitch's diaries and letters have
not yet been published in their entirety, I think it essential to
make a note in connection with the character of the extracts which I
have made from them in this book. These passages have been selected
with the special object of illustrating Leo Nikolaevitch's attitude
to suffering in general and to his own sufferings in particular.
Owing to this, their context is inevitably one-sided and cannot give
a general idea of his prevailing spiritual mood during the last
thirty years of his life. That general mood, in spite of the
conditions which oppressed Leo Nikolaevitch externally, was doubtless
one of joy in life, in accordance with the characteristics of his
nature, and filled with inner satisfaction, as all those who were in
close communication with him for any length of time during that
period can testify. And in this fact, _i.e._ in his preserving those
characteristics in spite of all the trials to which he was subjected
throughout that whole period, I see one of the most remarkable
aspects of his heroic endurance.
Indeed one has but for one moment to enter in spirit into his
position at that time to be truly amazed at what he succeeded in
attaining in his inner life. Love for freedom in general and for
personal independence was to an exceptional degree characteristic of
his powerful personality. The demands of creative work attracted him
to prolonged absences far from home in the midst of the most varied
natural scenery, and the most different strata of humanity. The
working of his mind after his spiritual awakening required the
closest association with working people. For the satisfaction of his
spiritual needs he required the possibility of receiving unhindered
in his house all and each of those with whom he would have liked to
hold intercourse, without any limitation or restriction, and
consequently to show hospitality, to seat at his table on occasions,
to put up for the night both the peasant of the district who had come
to pay him a visit, and the passing pilgrim weary from the road, and
the visitor who had come from afar seeking spiritual intercourse and
help.... And of all this so needful to Tolstoy as artist and thinker,
and above all as a man leading a spiritual life,--of all this he was
deprived, thanks to the egoism of his family and the class prejudices
ruling in his house, in which a woman's self-will was paramount.
Being completely indifferent to his spiritual needs and callous to
his sufferings, Sofya Andreyevna expected him in his old age, as in
the first period of their life, to be continually at her side in
spite of the spiritual change that had taken place in her husband,
and only rarely agreed to his being absent for short intervals, and
then with the greatest difficulty. Leo Nikolaevitch could not refuse
these demands of hers without destroying the very small share of
domestic peace without which his life in the home would have lost any
sort of meaning. And in spite of all the oppressiveness of these
domestic conditions, which defy description in words and, lasting as
they did over thirty years, for us ordinary people would have been
truly shattering, Leo Nikolaevitch, far from giving way to despair,
did not even complain of his fate. On the contrary, he blamed himself
for his sufferings, ascribing them to his own imperfection, and
making the utmost effort to perform his family duties as
irreproachably as possible. "I am all right, quite all right," he
often said and wrote to his friends. At times he even displayed a
childlike gaiety, and sometimes jested at the very circumstances
which caused him the most suffering.
This remarkable circumstance I explain solely by the fact that Leo
Nikolaevitch firmly made it his aim to do nothing but the will of
God. This, and only this, he set before him as his fundamental task,
and for the sake of carrying it out he consciously denied himself the
satisfaction of his personal needs and any self-gratification during
the whole of that second long period of his married life. And denying
himself all the so-called joys of life, he incidentally attained true
spiritual joy and peace, true blessedness.
The subject of Leo Nikolaevitch's inner life is, however, outside the
limits of our present investigation and I have referred to it only
that the reader might not receive a quite mistaken impression that
Leo Nikolaevitch was lacking in that courageous joy in life affecting
all around him, which, on the contrary, he possessed in the highest
degree.[31]
FOOTNOTE
[31] As I am touching upon the general mood of Leo Nikolaevitch's
spiritual life, I foresee that the extracts I have made from his
diaries and letters will in many readers arouse a feeling of regret
that they have hitherto not had the opportunity of reading this
precious material in its entirety. And therefore I think it needful
to state that the principal obstacles to the continuation of the
series of issues of Tolstoy's diaries, begun several years ago, and
to the systematic publication of all his writings, are now happily
overcome, and the first complete edition of all Tolstoy's works is
at the present time being zealously prepared for the press.
APPENDIX II
The personality of Leo Nikolaevitch's wife, Sofya Andreyevna, is
connected in the closest way with the account I have given of his
leaving home. I have consequently been compelled to touch upon her
relations with her husband. While describing the agonising sufferings
to which Leo Nikolaevitch was subjected in his family circle, I have
to my regret been forced to state a great deal which appears as an
attack upon the character and behaviour of his wife. And therefore,
to prevent any misunderstandings on the part of readers with regard
to my personal relations with her, I wish to speak out openly upon
the subject.
It would perhaps have been natural for me, as a friend of Leo
Nikolaevitch's, to feel bitterness and hostility towards the person
who had been for him such a heavy cross during the last thirty years
of his life. And it would be natural for the reader to suppose that
under the influence of such feelings I could not be free from
prejudice in regard to Sofya Andreyevna, and could not help, even
against my will, laying the colour on thick in describing her
deficiencies. There will no doubt be ill-wishers who will say that,
moved by resentment, I find a satisfaction in laying bare in an
exaggerated form the mistakes and failings of a person who caused me
much suffering. But in spite of the naturalness of such suppositions,
they would in the present case be mistaken. In reality my attitude to
Leo Nikolaevitch's wife is quite different.
First of all, as in Leo Nikolaevitch's lifetime I never forgot, so
after the death of both of them I never can forget, that Sofya
Andreyevna was his wife, _i.e._ occupied quite an exceptional
position in regard to him, and for the first half of their life
together was the person nearest to him in the world. This
circumstance alone has inspired, and still inspires, a peculiar
strictness toward myself in my behaviour to her and circumspection in
my judgments of her. Moreover, having been a close witness of the
wonderfully loving solicitude with which Leo Nikolaevitch behaved to
his wife, never losing hope of the possibility of her spiritual
awakening, I could not on my side help being infected by this
attitude, at least so far as not to feel ill-will or prejudice
against her.
Apart from that, I do not on principle acknowledge a man's right to
judge another. The character and behaviour of this or the other
person depends on so many external and internal circumstances for
which the person is not in the least responsible; and the most secret
region in our inner consciousness, in which we really are answerable
to our own conscience, is so entirely beyond the reach of any outside
eye that we have neither the power nor the right to judge any but
ourselves. In relation to anyone else we can judge only their
actions, laying completely aside, as not within our competence, the
question of the degree of their responsibility for committing them.
With this point of view every censure, irritation, or vexation with
anyone, to say nothing of wrath or revenge, appears merely as the
sign of our own imperfection, against which, when looked upon as
such, it is easier to struggle than when such feelings are regarded
as legitimate.
In view of these two circumstances, though I have, willy-nilly, in
the present work to exhibit Sofya Andreyevna in an unfavourable
light, I have not done so from personal ill-will to her, nor in a
spirit of censure, but simply through the necessity of giving a
faithful picture of what Leo Nikolaevitch had to endure.
I know that many will fail to understand my true motives and will
severely censure me. I resign myself to this in advance. But I
confess it grieves me, grieves me deeply, that by this present book I
shall be bound to cause pain to those members of Leo Nikolaevitch's
family who are still alive and who are nearest to him--his children.
An old friend of their father's, I have always been conscious of
being a friend of the family as well, and I naturally attach
particular value to good relations with them. If they feel bitter
against me, I beg them to believe that, whether mistakenly or not, I
have, in any case, sincerely felt myself morally bound to act in the
way I have acted, for reasons set forth in the Introduction. I beg
them also to consider that the present publication of the truth I
knew about their father's family life was, so to speak, forcibly
wrung from me by all the untruths on the subject which for many years
were persistently circulated all over the world, both in speaking and
writing, by their own mother and their two brothers, Ilya Lvovitch
and Leo Lvovitch. These two made it a kind of profession to give
public lectures on the subject. Quite recently I came across, in one
of the most popular foreign newspapers, the Paris _Figaro_, a series
of articles by Leo Lvovitch Tolstoy in which he strives to cover the
memory of his father with shame and ignominy, in contradistinction to
that of his mother, whose image he idealises till it becomes utterly
distorted. He is so careless with the facts that, under the influence
of his notorious envy and enmity for his father, he tells absolute
untruths about him and definitely slanders him, though perhaps
without meaning to do so. Such pernicious attacks upon Leo
Nikolaevitch made in the world's Press by some of his nearest
relatives give me reason to hope that his other relatives will not be
surprised when they find, as their father's champion upon the same
arena, one of his most intimate friends, who is able to speak more
freely concerning the relations between their parents than those who
are naturally constrained by the bonds of blood relationship.
It goes without saying that Sofya Andreyevna, like everyone else, had
her virtues and her defects, but at the same time it will be readily
understood that if Leo Nikolaevitch was reduced to the necessity of
leaving her, it was not her good qualities which drove him to it.
And therefore, in describing the causes of his departure, I have
inevitably been forced to dwell upon the negative sides of her
character.
In this brief narrative exclusively devoted to one definite event in
the life of Leo Nikolaevitch and the internal and external
circumstances connected with that event, I have not made it my aim to
draw a general and complete picture of the characters of Leo
Nikolaevitch and Sofya Andreyevna. The limited range of my special
task laid upon me the necessity of keeping strictly within the limits
of those of their characteristics and peculiarities which in one way
or another threw a direct light upon the incident described. There
could be no question of an all-round and to any extent exhaustive
account of the characters of those persons, apart from the fact that
such a task is far beyond my capacity. The most important and perhaps
the most difficult aspect of the task which actually lay before me
consisted in exhibiting in their full force the circumstances which
in the end compelled Leo Nikolaevitch to take his final step, with
perfect truthfulness, exaggerating nothing, of course, but at the
same time concealing nothing from false delicacy. This I have tried
to do as conscientiously, carefully and truthfully as I can. Though I
might from the natural perhaps, but in the present case misplaced,
sensibility have smoothed over the extremes of Sofya Andreyevna's
behaviour, and have softened the real character of her attitude to
Leo Nikolaevitch, yet in doing that I should have deprived the
motives of his departure of reasonable basis and inevitability, and
should have set forth Leo Nikolaevitch's impulses in a more or less
distorted form--and that, of course, was inadmissible.
Even in the lifetime of Sofya Andreyevna Tolstoy I did at one time
entertain the idea of publishing the truth about Leo Nikolaevitch's
leaving home in her interests. I cherished the hope that from such a
truthful account she might derive some conception of how much Leo
Nikolaevitch suffered at her hands, how he struggled with himself,
how self-sacrificingly he returned her good for evil, how
persistently, in spite of everything, he believed in the divine spark
in her soul, and how he rejoiced and was touched at the slightest
gleam of that spark. And who knows, I said to myself, perhaps such a
presentation before her eyes of what really happened, in
contradistinction to the fantastic inventions with which she
screened the truth from herself--perhaps this truthful picture of
what Leo Nikolaevitch really did endure, might help her in time to
recognise the truth, to come to herself, and to become one in soul
with him who loved her so that he laid down his soul for her?
But at the time I did not decide to do this, and now I do not regret
it. Apart from any external influences, there is no doubt that after
Leo Nikolaevitch's death there appeared at times a certain inner
softening in Sofya Andreyevna, though only of brief duration. So it
was, for instance, immediately after his death, when, in the presence
of several persons, she repeated in spiritual agonies that she had
been the cause of his death. And though a prolonged period followed
after it during which she displayed, at least in words, her former
indifference or even hostility to Leo Nikolaevitch, yet before her
own death, as those near her relate, she again expressed regret for
the wrong she had done him. And if outwardly she repented but little,
yet who can say what were her thoughts and reflections in her soul,
and especially what passed in her consciousness during those dying
hours and minutes when man, cut off from communication with those
around him, in complete solitude before his Maker, knows that he is
departing this life?
And though as she left this world Sofya Andreyevna carried with her
the answer to this question, nevertheless we have no grounds for
denying the possibility that the cherished hope which Leo
Nikolaevitch never lost, that sooner or later she would be one with
him in spirit, was realised at last before her death. Let us, too,
look with a spirit of love and compassion upon the errors, the
defects and the spiritual limitations of the companion of Leo
Nikolaevitch's life. But at the same time let us boldly look the
truth in the face, in no way softening the magnitude of the
sufferings endured by Leo Nikolaevitch by concealing the true
attitude of his wife to him, or by depicting her behaviour in a
softened light. If we keep in mind the great divine love with which
he loved her soul, then in face of the naked truth we shall not
condemn, but shall sincerely compassionate, her whose destiny it was
to serve as the instrument of his severest trials. And we shall
understand that those trials which in the end exhausted Leo
Nikolaevitch's physical forces and brought about his death were
obviously needful to the manifestations in him of the fullness of
spiritual strength received from him by God.
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
Bungay, Suffolk.
* * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor corrections were made to the original publication.