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Title: The Life of Tolstoy: First Fifty Years

Author: Aylmer Maude

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Portrait of Tolstoy
when commencing Anna Karénina, 1873,
by Kramskóy.

THE LIFE OF TOLSTOY

FIRST FIFTY YEARS

BY
AYLMER MAUDE

'A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.'
Dryden

FIFTH EDITION

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1911

First Edition September 1908
Second Edition October 1908
Third Edition September 1910
Fourth Edition January 1911
Fifth Edition April 1911

PREFACE

The reason I have written this work is because so many among us are
interested in Tolstoy and so few seem to understand him. It would seem
therefore that an English Life of Tolstoy is needed, and having lived in
Russia for twenty-three years, known Tolstoy well for several years, visited
him frequently in Moscow, and stayed with him repeatedly at Yásnaya
Polyána, I am perhaps as well qualified as any one to write it, especially as I
have long made a careful study of his views. My wife and I have translated
several of his works, have known people closely connected with him, and
some ten years ago we took part in an unsuccessful 'Tolstoy' Colony;
besides which I went to Canada at his wish to make arrangements for the
Doukhobór migration, of which I subsequently wrote the history.
Moreover, I am impartial. That is to say, I have taken pains to understand
Tolstoy's views, and to see the good there is in them; but being a Westerner,
I see also certain things Tolstoy overlooks, and I know that these things
knock big holes in some of his most cherished 'principles.'
The book has had the great advantage of being carefully revised by his
wife, the Countess S. A. Tolstoy, who both verbally and in writing has
rendered me most valuable assistance.
I owe sincere thanks also to my friend P. I. Birukóf, Tolstoy's Russian
biographer. He modestly speaks of his own work as 'a collection of those
materials for the biography of Leo Tolstoy which are accessible to me.' I
have no hesitation in saying that his care and integrity in gathering and
using those materials, entitle him to the gratitude of all who deal with the
same subject.

There is one small matter of typography which needs a word of explanation.
I have sought to tell as much of the story as possible in Tolstoy's own
words, and have also had occasion to quote other writers. At times the
Russian text quoted contains allusions or expressions which might perplex
an English reader unless a word or two of explanation were added. To
introduce paragraphs of explanation would interrupt the narrative, besides
lengthening the book. To have recourse to frequent footnotes in cases where
two or three words of explanation are all that is required is unsightly and
unsatisfactory; so I have adopted the plan of using square brackets [ ] to
enclose such explanations. The ordinary round parentheses ( ) I have kept
for their common use, and for cases where, for clearness' sake, words are
added that are not contained in the original.
Beyond indicating the varying value of sums of money mentioned, I have
not troubled the reader with the fluctuations of the rouble, which went from
over 38 pence before the Crimean war, to 19 pence after the Russo-Turkish
war of 1878. If he wants a concise history of the Russian currency, he can
find it in the preface to my edition of Sevastopol.
In that as in other matters I have tried to be accurate without being pedantic.
It is Tolstoy and his views that I aim at presenting to English readers; and I
have kept in the background, as far as I could, the obstacles resulting from
the Tower of Babel.
AYLMER MAUDE.
Great Baddow,
Chelmsford, 20th August 1910.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
Preface v
Note on Pronunciation of Russian Names xiii
I. Ancestry and Parentage 1
II. Youth and Early Manhood 16
III. The Caucasus 59
IV. The Crimean War 93
V. Petersburg; Love Affair; Drouzhínin 138
VI. Travels Abroad 166
VII. At Yásnaya again; Tourgénef; Arbiter; Magazine 214
VIII. The School 246
IX. Marriage 282
X. Nearing the Crisis 329
XI. Confession 399
XII. Works: 1852-1878 427
Chronology 450
Index 457

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of Tolstoy when commencing Anna Karénina,
1873. By Kramskóy Frontispiece

Facing page
Tolstoy in 1848, after leaving the University 48
Map of Sevastopol 113
Prominent Russian Writers, 1856: Tourgénef, Sologoúb,
Tolstoy, Nekrásof, Grigoróvitch, and Panáef 142
Tolstoy in 1856, the year he left the Army 152
Tolstoy in 1860, the year his brother Nicholas died 200
Tolstoy in 1862, the year of his Marriage 290
Tolstoy's Library, showing the wooden crosspiece from
which he wished to hang himself 402

NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION OF RUSSIAN
NAMES

The spelling of Russian names in Latin letters in a work of this kind,
presents great difficulties. To begin with, we have as yet (though it is much
needed) no accepted method of transliteration from Russian into English;
and though it is not difficult for any one to frame or select his own system
of transliteration—as I have done for my translations—this does not
entirely meet the case when one has to deal with the names of people, many
of whom have adopted a spelling of their own.
On the one hand, a man has a right to decide how he will have his own
name spelt; but on the other hand, the inclusion of a dozen different systems
of transliteration in one book, is apt to create confusion.
I have had to do the best I could under the circumstances. To pronounce the
names correctly, in accord with the system of transliteration I have adopted,
the reader should note the following:
I. Lay stress on the syllable marked with an accent.
II. Vowel sounds are broad and open:

a as in father.
e as a in fate.

But e initial and unaccented is pronounced ye.

i as ee in meet.
o as in loch.
u as you.

In diphthongs the broad sounds are retained:

ou as oo in boot.
ya as in yard.
ye as in yes.
yo as in yore.
ay as eye.
ey as in they.
oy as in boy.

III. y with a vowel forms a diphthong; y at the end of a word, after
a consonant, sounds something like ie in hygiene.
IV. Consonants:

G is hard, as in go.
Zh is like z in azure.
R is sounded strongly, as in rough, barren.
S is sharp, as in seat, pass.

Where I know of a spelling deliberately adopted by the owner of a name, I
have felt bound to follow it. For instance, the name which under my system
of transliteration I should have spelt 'Suhotín,' appears in the book as
Soohoteén, but in such cases, on the first occasion on which the name
occurs, I have given my usual transliteration in square brackets.
I hope the day is not distant when some system will be generally agreed
upon in this matter. Any system would be better than the present anarchy.

CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE

Ancestors. Count Peter. Russian titles. Tolstoy's grandfather and
father. His maternal grandfather and mother. First recollections.
Aunty Tatiána. Antecedents.

1353

In the annals of the Russian nobility it is recorded that a man named Idris
came from 'the lands of Cæsar,' that is to say, from the Holy Roman Empire,
in the year 1353 with two sons and 3000 followers, and settling at
Tchernígof in Little Russia was received with favour by the reigning Grand
Duke, who granted him much land. A great-grandson of this Idris, Andrew
by name, migrated to Moscow, where he was well received by the reigning
Grand Duke Vasíly, who conferred upon him the surname of Tolstóy.

1645

As, however, the annals of the Russian nobility were to a large extent
concocted in the reign of Peter the Great, it is extremely doubtful whether
this story is reliable. Be that as it may, it is certain that Peter Tolstoy, born in
1645, was a Russian who distinguished himself in the service of the State.
During the struggles which preceded the acquisition of power by Peter the

Great, he made the mistake of allying himself with that autocrat's ambitious
half-sister, Sophia. The defeat of her Guards, the Streltsí, caused him
quickly to transfer his allegiance to Peter, whose favour he eventually
managed to secure. When drinking with his chosen companions in later
days, the Tsar would often pat Tolstoy's head, saying, 'Little head, little
head, had you been less wise, you would have come off your shoulders long
ago.'

1697, 1716, 1717

This Peter Tolstoy held a commission in the Guards, and fought in the Azof
campaign of 1696; but later on he went abroad to study shipbuilding when
Peter the Great was seeking volunteers for that purpose. He was sent in
1701 as Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and in the years 1710-1713,
when political affairs were critical, he twice suffered severe imprisonment
in the Seven Towers—the stronghold wherein the Sultan occasionally
confined the ambassadors of States with whose conduct he felt dissatisfied.
Returning to Russia in 1714, Tolstoy obtained the favour of Prince
Ménshikof and became a Minister of State. He married; but his wife does
not appear to have been of sufficient importance for any one to have said
anything about her. He accompanied Peter the Great to Holland and France,
and rendered him an important though discreditable service. Peter the
Great's son, the refractory Alexis, who disliked his father's reforms, had
escaped from Russia and was living with his mistress Euphrosyne at St.
Elmo, near Naples. By threats and promises, and by the aid of this woman,
Tolstoy induced the unfortunate Tsarévitch to return to Russia, and when he
had got him there, took a leading part in his trial and secret execution.

30 Aug. 1725

For this service Tolstoy received large estates and was promoted to the
headship of the Secret Chancellery. On the day of the coronation of Peter's
second wife, Catherine, Tolstoy was made a Count. His coat of arms shows

seven towers, in memory of his imprisonment by the Sultan, and is
appropriately supported by two wolf-hounds rampant, looking outwards.

6 May 1727, 1729

On the death of Peter the Great, Tolstoy actively supported Ménshikof in
securing the throne for Catherine the First, and he was one of the seven
members of the Upper Secret Council which practically ruled Russia. On
the question of choosing a successor to Catherine, he ventured however to
oppose Ménshikof. The latter was too powerful for him; and forfeiting his
title of Count and deprived of all offices rewards and estates, Tolstoy, at the
age of eighty-two, was banished for life to the Solovétz Monastery, situated
on an island in the White Sea. Here, two years later, he died. Ménshikof
himself, one may remark in passing, finished his life that same year in
Siberia, having been banished by an order signed by the boy he had placed
on the throne. To be a Russian Minister of State in those days was almost as
dangerous as it is in our times to be a revolutionary conspirator.
The title of Count was revived in the family in 1770, for the benefit of Peter
Tolstoy's grandson; whose son, Count Elias Tolstoy (he figures in War and
Peace as the elder Count Rostóf), was the grandfather of Leo Tolstoy,
whose life this book narrates.
There is one matter which it may be as well to explain at the outset, as
English readers are so often puzzled by it: I refer to the nature of Russian
titles of nobility. The only really Russian title is that of Knyaz, commonly
translated 'Prince.' It is borne by descendants of Rúrik, by descendants of
the Lithuanian Prince Ghedimin, and by descendants of various Tartar
Khans whose dominions Russia has annexed. It has also been conferred by
Imperial Decree on a dozen or more other Russian families. Though Knyaz
is translated 'Prince,' Velíky Knyaz, curiously enough, is not translated 'Great
Prince,' but 'Grand Duke,' and this indicates how difficult it is to find
suitable equivalents for these titles. Not till the time of Peter the Great were
the German titles, Count (Graf) and Baron, introduced into Russia. Both of
these are now common among the Russo-German landlords of the Baltic
Provinces; and less so among real Russians.

It must be borne in mind that there is no law of primogeniture in Russia.
Each son and daughter inherits the family title, so that there are usually
several, and sometimes many, people with equal rights to use the same title.
Though springing from one stock, they may be only distantly connected.
There are for instance other Counts Tolstoy, contemporaries of Leo Tolstoy
and distant cousins of his. One of these, the poet Count Alexis Tolstoy, was
a well-known author and dramatist. Another, the reactionary Count Dmítry
Tolstoy, was successively Head of the Holy Synod, Minister of Education,
and Minister of the Interior.
Tolstoy's grandfather already mentioned, Count Elias Tolstoy, was an easy-
going generous trustful and extravagant man, who married a wealthy
Princess Gortchakóf, but ran through her money and his own, and at last to
secure a means of livelihood, procured the post of Governor of Kazán. This
he was able to do, thanks to his family influence. It is recorded to his credit
that, contrary to the general custom of the time, he accepted no bribes
(except from the Government contractor, who was considered the natural
financial prop of a Provincial Governor), though his wife accepted presents
without his knowledge.
Their eldest daughter married a Count Osten-Saken. She became guardian
of Leo Tolstoy and of his brothers and sister, after they had lost their
parents. Another daughter married V. I. Úshkof. Leo Tolstoy was under her
charge when he lived in Kazán and studied at its University.
The first fact known to us about his father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, is
characteristic of the manners of his class and day. When he was only
sixteen, his parents arranged a liaison between him and a peasant girl, such
connections being considered necessary for the health of young men. A son
was born, and Tolstoy records his 'strange feeling of consternation when (in
after years) this brother of mine, fallen into destitution and bearing a greater
resemblance to my father than any of us, used to beg help of us, and was
thankful for the ten or fifteen roubles we used to give him.'

1812, 1814

Nicholas Tolstoy was not yet seventeen when Napoleon invaded Russia; but
in spite of his parents' efforts to dissuade him, he insisted on entering the
army, and thanks to his mother's family influence, quickly obtained an
appointment as Adjutant to Prince Andrew Gortchakóf, a General in
command. He went through the campaigns of 1813 and 1814; and in the
latter year he and his orderly, while on their way to rejoin the Russian army
in Germany, after taking despatches to Petersburg, were captured by the
French. The orderly managed to hide his master's gold coins in his boots,
and for months never risked taking them off, though his feet grew sore and
he suffered extreme discomfort. Thanks to this devotion, Nicholas Tolstoy,
after reaching Paris, was able to live in comfort.
Having attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he left the army when the
war was over, and, disillusioned with military service, returned to Kazán,
where his father (completely ruined by that time) was still Governor.

1820

In 1820 Count Elias died, leaving his estate so encumbered that his son
declined to accept the inheritance. The young man had to face the task of
providing for his old mother, who was accustomed to great luxury, as well
as for his sister and a distant cousin, Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky, who
had been adopted into the family; and so a marriage was arranged for him
with the wealthy but plain Princess Marie Volkónsky, who was no longer
very young.
His father's life, Tolstoy tells us, was then
passed in attending to the estate, a business in which he was not
very expert, but in which he exercised a virtue great for those
days: he was not cruel, but perhaps even lacked firmness. During
his lifetime I never heard of corporal punishment. If it ever was
administered to the serfs, the cases were so rare and my father
took so little part in them, that we children never heard them
mentioned. It was after his death that I learnt, for the first time,
that such punishment ever took place at home.

Like most men who served in the army in the early years of
Alexander's reign, he [Count Nicholas Tolstoy] was not what is
now called a Liberal, but out of self-respect he considered it
impossible to serve during the latter [reactionary] part of
Alexander's reign, or under Nicholas. During all my childhood
and youth, our family had no intimate relations with any
Government official. I, of course, understood nothing about this
in childhood, but I understood that my father never humbled
himself before any one, nor altered his brisk, merry, and often
chaffing tone. This feeling of self-respect, which I witnessed in
him, increased my love and admiration for him.
Leo Tolstoy's mother's family, the Volkónskys, were descended from Rúrik
(the first ruler mentioned in Russian history) as well as from St. Michael the
martyr, Prince of Tchernígof; and through them, even more than on his
father's side, Tolstoy is connected with many of the leading families of the
Russian aristocracy. Prince Nicholas Volkónsky, his mother's father, came
into conflict with the most powerful of the favourites of Catherine the
Great, for Tolstoy tells us that:
Having attained the high position of Commander-in-Chief, he lost
it suddenly by refusing to marry Potémkin's niece and mistress,
Varvára Engelhardt. To Potémkin's suggestion that he should do
so, he replied: 'What makes him think I will marry his strumpet?'
He married instead, a Princess Catherine Troubetskóy, and after retiring
from the service, settled down on his estate at Yásnaya Polyána. His wife
soon died, leaving him only one surviving child, a daughter, Tolstoy's
mother. Tolstoy writes of this grandfather:
He was regarded as a very exacting master, but I never heard any
instance of his being cruel or inflicting the severe punishments
usual in those days. I believe such cases did occur on his estate,
but the enthusiastic respect for his importance and cleverness was
so great among the servants and peasants whom I have often
questioned about him, that though I have heard my father
condemned, I have heard only praise of my grandfather's

intelligence, business capacity, and interest in the welfare both of
the peasants and of his enormous household.
Later, a strange chance brought Prince Volkónsky again into touch with
Varvára Engelhardt, whom he had refused to marry. She married a Prince
Sergius Golítsin, who consequently received promotions and decorations
and rewards; and Tolstoy tells us:
With this Sergius Golítsin and his family, my grandfather formed
so close a friendship that my mother from her childhood was
betrothed to one of his ten sons.... This alliance, however, was not
destined to be consummated, for the young man died prematurely
of fever.
In a portrait of Prince N. Volkónsky which has been preserved in the family
there is much that corresponds to Leo Tolstoy's own appearance. 'Both,' as
his brother-in-law remarks, 'have high, open foreheads and large organs of
the creative faculty, and in both the organs of musical talent are exceedingly
prominent and are covered by thick, overhanging eyebrows, from beneath
which small, deep-set, grey eyes literally pierce the soul of the man on
whom they are turned.'

1822

Prince N. Volkónsky died in 1820, and two years later his daughter married
Count Nicholas Tolstoy. Of her Tolstoy tells us:
I do not remember my mother. I was a year-and-a-half old when
she died. By some strange chance no portrait of her has been
preserved, so that as a real physical being I cannot picture her to
myself. I am in a way glad of this, for in my conception of her
there is only her spiritual figure, and all that I know about her is
beautiful; and I think this has come about not merely because all
who spoke to me of my mother tried to say only what was good,
but because there actually was much good in her.

She was well educated, spoke five languages, played the piano well, and
had a wonderful gift for improvising tales in the most delightful manner. It
is said that at balls her young lady friends would leave the dance and gather
in a dark room to hear her tell a story, which shyness induced her to do
where she could not be seen. Tolstoy remarks that 'her most valuable quality
was that though hot-tempered, she was yet self-restrained. "She would get
quite red in the face and even cry," her maid told me, "but would never say
a rude word."' She had one quality Tolstoy values very highly—that of
never condemning any one. It was a quality shared by her eldest son,
Nicholas; and Leo Tolstoy says:
In the Lives of the Saints by D. Rostóvsky, there is a short story
which has always touched me exceedingly, of a certain monk,
who to the knowledge of all his brethren had many faults, but
whom an old monk, in a dream, saw occupying a place of honour
among the saints. The old man asked in astonishment, 'How could
this monk, so unrestrained in many ways, deserve so great a
reward?' The answer was: 'He never condemned any one.'
Tolstoy adds: 'If such rewards did exist, I think my brother and my mother
would have received them.'
Another feature Tolstoy records of his mother is 'her truthfulness and the
simple tone of her correspondence.' He tells us that in his imagination his
mother
appeared to me a creature so elevated, pure and spiritual, that
often in the middle period of my life, during my struggles with
overwhelming temptations, I prayed to her soul begging her to aid
me; and such prayer always helped me much.

1828

Five children were born to Nicholas and Marie Tolstoy. First came four
sons, of whom Leo was the youngest. His name in Russian is Lyóf
Nikoláyevitch (Leo, son-of-Nicholas) Tolstóy. Leo Tolstoy is the way he
signs himself when using the Latin alphabet; and when pronouncing his

name it should be remembered that the accent falls on the second syllable,
and that that syllable rhymes with 'boy.' The fancy spellings Tolstoi and
Tolstoï are due to the fact that some of the early translators and reviewers,
not being able to read Russian, relied on French versions, and did not know
how Tolstoy spells or pronounces his own name. He was born on 28th
August 1828[1] at Yásnaya Polyána, with a caul—which both in Russia and
in England is considered a sign of good-fortune.
A year and a half later a daughter, Marie, was born; and in giving birth to
her the mother died, on 7th March 1830.
Pilgrims, monks, nuns, and various half-crazy devotees were frequent
visitors at the house, and even took up their abode there. One of these was a
nun, Márya Gerásimovna, who in her youth had made pilgrimages to
various holy places dressed as a man. After the birth of four boys Tolstoy's
mother longed for a daughter, and promised Márya Gerásimovna that she
should be godmother if by prayer she enabled her to obtain her desire. The
next child really was a daughter. The promise was kept, and thereafter
Márya Gerásimovna, though she lived partly in the Toúla convent, was free
of the Tolstoys' house and spent much of her time there.
Tolstoy gives us his earliest reminiscences in an autobiographical fragment
published in 1878:
These are my first recollections. I cannot arrange them in order,
for I do not know which come first or last. Of some of them I do
not even know whether they happened in a dream or when I was
awake. I lie bound[2] and wish to stretch out my arms, but cannot.
I scream and cry, and my screams are disagreeable to myself, but
I cannot stop. Some one—I do not remember who—bends over
me. This all happens in semi-darkness. I only know there were
two people there. My cries affect them: they are agitated by my
screams, but do not untie me as I want them to, and I scream still
louder. To them it seems necessary that I should be bound, but I
know it is unnecessary and I wish to prove this to them, and I
again burst into cries which are unpleasant to myself but are yet
unrestrainable. I feel the injustice and cruelty—not of people, for
they pity me, but—of fate, and I pity myself. I do not know and

shall never know, what it was all about: whether I was swaddled
while still a baby at the breast, and struggled to free my hands;
whether they swaddled me when I was more than a year old, to
prevent my scratching some sore, or whether I have gathered into
this one recollection (as one does in a dream) many different
impressions. The one sure thing is, that this was the first and
strongest impression of my life. And what remains on my
memory is not my cries nor my suffering, but the complexity and
contradictoriness of the impressions. I desire freedom, it would
harm no one, but I who need strength am weak, while they are
strong.
The next impression is a pleasant one. I am sitting in a tub, and
am surrounded by a new and not unpleasant smell of something
with which they are rubbing my tiny body. Probably it was bran,
put into the water of my bath; the novelty of the sensation caused
by the bran aroused me, and for the first time I became aware of,
and liked, my own little body with the visible ribs on my breast,
and the smooth, dark, wooden tub, the bared arms of my nurse,
the warm, steaming, swirling water, the noise it made, and
especially the smooth feel of the wet rim of the tub as I passed my
hands along it.
My next recollections belong to the time when I was five or six,
and there are very few of them, and not one that relates to life
outside the walls of the house. Nature, up to the age of five, did
not exist for me. All that I remember, happened in bed or in our
rooms. Neither grass, nor leaves, nor sky, nor sun existed for me.
It cannot be that no one ever gave me flowers and leaves to play
with, that I never saw any grass, that they never shaded me from
the sun; but up to the time when I was five or six years old, I have
no recollection of what we call Nature. Probably, to see it, one has
to be separate from it, and I was Nature.
The recollection that comes next after the tub is that of
Ereméyevna. 'Ereméyevna' was the name with which they used to
frighten us children. Probably they had long frightened us with it,
but my recollection of it is this: I am in bed and feel well and

happy as usual, and I should not remember it, but that suddenly
the nurse, or some one of those who made up my life, says
something in a voice new to me, and then goes away; and in
addition to being happy I am also frightened. And besides me
there is some one else like me. (Probably my sister Mary, whose
crib stood in the same room.) And I now remember a curtain near
my bed; and both my sister and I are happy and frightened at the
strange thing happening to us, and I hide in my pillow: hide, and
glance at the door from behind which I expect something new and
merry. We laugh, and hide, and wait. And then some one appears
in a dress and cap quite unknown to me, but I recognise that it is
the same person who is always with us (whether my nurse or aunt
I do not remember), and this some one says something about bad
children and about Ereméyevna in a gruff voice which I know.
And I squeal with fear and pleasure, and really am frightened, and
yet am glad to be frightened, and wish her who is frightening me
not to know that I have recognised her. We become quiet, but
presently begin whispering to one another again, on purpose that
Ereméyevna may come back.
I have another recollection similar to this of Ereméyevna (but as it
is clearer it probably belongs to a later date) which has always
remained inexplicable to me. In this recollection the chief part is
played by our German tutor, Theodore Ivánitch, but I am sure I
was not yet in his charge; so the event must have taken place
before I was five. It is my first recollection of Theodore Ivánitch,
and it took place at so early an age that I can remember no one
else: neither my brothers nor my father nor any one. If I have
some notion of some one individual person, it is only of my sister,
and this only because she, like me, was afraid of Ereméyevna.
With this recollection is joined my first conception of the fact that
our house had a top story. How I climbed there—whether I went
by myself or whether any one carried me—I have quite forgotten,
but I remember that many of us are there, and we all form a circle
holding each other's hands; among us are some women I did not
know (for some reason I remember that they were washer-
women), and we all begin to go round and to jump; and Theodore

Ivánitch jumps, lifting his legs too high and too loudly and
noisily, and I at one and the same instant feel that this is bad and
depraved, and notice him and (I believe) begin to cry—and all is
over.
That is all I remember up to the age of five. Neither my nurses,
aunts, brothers, sister, nor my father, nor the rooms, nor my toys,
do I remember. My more distinct recollections begin from the
time I was moved downstairs to Theodore Ivánitch and the elder
boys.
When I was moved downstairs to Theodore Ivánitch and the boys,
I experienced for the first time and therefore more strongly than
ever since, the feeling which is called the sense of duty, the
consciousness of the cross every man is called upon to bear. It
was hard to leave what I was accustomed to from the beginning
of things, and I was sad, poetically sad, not so much at parting
from people: sister, nurse, and aunt, as at parting with my crib, the
curtain and the pillow; and I feared the new life into which I was
entering. I tried to see the jolly side of this new life awaiting me; I
tried to believe the caressing words with which Theodore Ivánitch
lured me to him. I tried not to see the contempt with which the
boys received me, the youngest boy. I tried to think it was a
shame for a big boy to live with girls, and that there was nothing
good in the life upstairs with nurse; but my heart was terribly sad,
I knew I was irreparably losing my innocence and happiness; and
only a feeling of personal dignity and the consciousness of doing
my duty upheld me. (Often in after-life I have experienced similar
moments at the parting of crossroads, when entering on a fresh
course.) I experienced quiet grief at the irreparableness of my
loss; I was unable to believe that it would really happen. Though I
had been told that I should be moved to the boys' rooms, I
remember that the dressing-gown with a cord sewn to its back,
which they put on me, seemed to cut me off for ever from
upstairs, and I then for the first time observed—not all those with
whom I had lived upstairs, but—the chief person with whom I
lived, and whom I did not remember before. This was my Aunty
Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky. I remember her short, stout,

black-haired, kindly, tender, and compassionate. It was she who
put the dressing-gown on me, and embracing me and kissing me,
tied it round my waist; and I saw that she felt as I did, that it was
sad, terribly sad, but had to be; and for the first time I felt that life
is not a game but a serious matter.
'Aunty' Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky, mentioned in the above
reminiscences, was a very distant relative who being left an orphan, had
been brought up by Tolstoy's paternal grandparents. She was very attractive
and affectionate. She loved and was loved by Count Nicholas, Leo's father,
but stood aside that he might marry the rich Princess Marie Volkónsky and
repair the family fortunes. Six years after his wife's death Count Nicholas
asked Tatiána to marry him and be a mother to his children. Not wishing
(Tolstoy tells us) to spoil her pure, poetic relations with the family, she
refused the first but fulfilled the second of these requests.
The joyousness of Tolstoy's boyhood was largely due to the care and
affection of this excellent woman, and in the most firmly rooted of his
principles—such as his detestation of corporal punishment and his approval
of complete chastity—it is easy to trace her unconscious influence.
Here for instance is one episode:
We children were returning home from a walk with our tutor,
when near the barn we met the fat steward, Andrew, followed by
the coachman's assistant, 'Squinting Kouzmá' as he was called,
whose face was sad. He was a married man and no longer young.
One of us asked Andrew where he was going, and he quietly
replied that he was going to the barn, where Kouzmá had to be
punished. I cannot describe the dreadful feeling which these
words and the sight of the good-natured crestfallen Kouzmá
produced on me. In the evening I told this to my Aunt Tatiána,
who hated corporal punishment and, wherever she had influence,
never allowed it for us any more than for the serfs. She was
greatly revolted at what I told her, and rebuking me said, 'Why
did you not stop him?' Her words grieved me still more.... I never
thought that we could interfere in such things, and yet it appeared

that we could. But it was too late, and the dreadful deed had been
done.
To sum up what we know of Tolstoy's antecedents: he was descended on his
father's side and still more on his mother's, from aristocratic families who
were more or less in passive opposition to the Government, and who shared
the humanitarian sympathies current in the early years of the reign of
Alexander I. A cousin of Tolstoy's mother was one of the Decembrists, and
on the accession of Nicholas I in 1825 took part in their abortive attempt to
establish Constitutional Government. He was exiled to Eastern Siberia for
thirty years, doing hard labour in irons part of the time. His wife (another
Princess Marie Volkónsky) voluntarily accompanied him, as Nekrásof has
told in a well-known Russian poem. Several members of the family towards
the end of their lives retired into convents or monasteries.
We find strong family love uniting the homes of Tolstoy's parents and
grandparents; and even after their death, Tolstoy's nature ripened in a
congenial atmosphere of family affection; and many of his most
pronounced sympathies and antipathies are not peculiar to himself, but were
shared equally by other members of the family.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER I

P. Birukof: Lyof Nikolayevitch Tolstoy. Biografiya: Moscow, 1906. (The
Russian edition is much more readable and accurate than the English.)
Referred to hereafter as Birukof.
S. A. Behrs: Vospominaniya o Grafe L. N. Tolstom, Smolensk, 1894, is very
valuable as being the work of one who spent twelve summers at Yasnaya,
and knew Tolstoy intimately.
Referred to hereafter as Behrs.
There is an English edition of this book: Recollections of Count Leo
Tolstoy, London, 1893, but it is incomplete, and inferior to the Russian in
many ways. It gives the author's name wrongly as C. A. Behrs.

Leo Tolstoy, First Recollections, a fragment: Tolstoy's collected works,
Moscow, 1892.
Supplement to Novy Mir, Graf Lyof Tolstoy: St. Petersburg, 1903.
Referred to hereafter as Novy Mir.

CHAPTER II
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD

Yásnaya Polyána. Aunt Tatiána. The German Tutor. The brothers:
Nicholas, Sergius and Demetrius. Doúnetchka. The house-serfs. A
family scene. Pilgrims and saints. Death of father and
grandmother. Flying. Personal appearance. Corporal punishment.
Originality. Riding lessons. The Countess Osten-Saken. Aunt P. I.
Úshkof. Books. Abstract speculations. Kazán University.
Imprisonment. Diary. Demetrius. Books: Dickens and Rousseau.
Yásnaya again. Petersburg. Consistency. Rudolph the Musician.
Women. Gambling. Gipsy girls. Money difficulties. The liberty of
Russian nobles.

Yásnaya Polyána (Bright Glade), where Tolstoy was born, had been an
ancestral estate of the Volkónskys and belonged to his mother, the Princess
Marie. It is situated ten miles south of Toúla, in a pleasantly undulating
country. The estate, which is enclosed by an old brick wall, is well wooded
and has many avenues of lime-trees, a river and four lakes. In Tolstoy's
grandfather's time, sentinels kept guard at the small, round, brick towers,
which now stand neglected at the entrance of the main birch avenue leading
to the house. Something of the great confidence in himself and readiness to
despise others, which despite all his efforts to be humble, characterise
Tolstoy, may be due to the fact that he was born and grew up on an estate
where for generations his ancestors had been the only people of importance.

'Aunty' Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky had been brought up by his
grandmother on an equality with her own children. She (Tatiána) was
resolute, self-sacrificing, and, says Tolstoy,
must have been very attractive with her enormous plait of crisp,
black, curly hair, her jet-black eyes, and vivacious, energetic
expression. When I remember her she was more than forty, and I
never thought about her as pretty or not pretty. I simply loved her
eyes, her smile, and her dusky broad little hand, with its energetic
little cross vein.
We had two aunts and a grandmother; they all had more right to
us than Tatiána Alexándrovna, whom we called Aunt only by
habit (for our kinship was so distant that I could never remember
what it was), but she took the first place in our upbringing by
right of love to us (like Buddha in the story of the wounded
swan), and we felt her right.
I had fits of passionately tender love for her.
I remember once, when I was about five, how I squeezed in
behind her on the sofa in the drawing-room and she caressingly
touched me with her hand. I caught it and began to kiss it, and to
cry with tender love of her....
Aunty Tatiána had the greatest influence on my life. From early
childhood she taught me the spiritual delight of love. She taught
me this joy not by words; but by her whole being she filled me
with love. I saw, I felt, how she enjoyed loving, and I understood
the joy of love. This was the first thing.
Secondly, she taught me the delights of an unhurried, quiet life.
Another, though a much less important, influence was that of the tutor,
Theodore Rössel (who figures as Karl Ivánovitch Mauer in Tolstoy's early
sketch, Childhood). Tolstoy owes his excellent knowledge of German and
French to the fact that his father, following a custom common among well-
to-do Russians, engaged foreign teachers and let his children learn
languages not so much from books as by conversation, while they were still

quite young. Rössel's 'honest, straightforward, and loving nature' helped to
develop the boy's good qualities.
Tolstoy got on well, too, with his brothers, who were five-and-a-half, two,
and one year older than himself, as well as with his little sister Marie, his
junior by a year-and-a-half.
He not only loved, but deeply respected, his eldest brother Nicholas (pet
name, Nikólenka), whose influence lasted until, and even after, his death in
1860. Of him Tolstoy says:
He was a wonderful boy, and later a wonderful man. Tourgénef
used to say of him very truly, that he only lacked certain faults to
be a great writer. He lacked the chief fault needed for authorship
—vanity, and was not at all interested in what people thought of
him. The qualities of a writer which he possessed were, first of
all, a fine artistic sense, an extremely developed sense of
proportion, a good-natured gay sense of humour, an extraordinary
inexhaustible imagination, and a truthful and highly moral view
of life; and all this without the slightest conceit. His imagination
was such that for hours together he could tell fairy-tales or ghost-
stories, or amusing tales in the style of Mrs. Radcliffe, without a
pause and with such vivid realisation of what he was narrating
that one forgot it was all invention.... When he was not narrating
or reading (he read a great deal) he used to draw. He almost
invariably drew devils with horns and twisted moustaches,
intertwined in the most varied attitudes and engaged in the most
diverse occupations. These drawings were also full of
imagination.
It was he who, when I was five and my brothers, Dmítry six and
Sergéy seven, announced to us that he possessed a secret by
means of which, when disclosed, all men would become happy:
there would be no more disease, no trouble, no one would be
angry with anybody, all would love one another, and all would
become 'Ant-Brothers.'... We even organised a game of Ant-
Brothers, which consisted in sitting under chairs, sheltering
ourselves with boxes, screening ourselves with handkerchiefs,

and cuddling against one another while thus crouching in the
dark.... The Ant-Brotherhood was revealed to us, but not the chief
secret: the way for all men to cease suffering any misfortune, to
leave off quarrelling and being angry, and become continuously
happy; this secret he said he had written on a green stick, buried
by the road at the edge of a certain ravine, at which spot (since
my body must be buried somewhere) I have asked to be buried in
memory of Nikólenka. Besides this little stick, there was also a
certain Fanfarónof Hill, up which he said he could lead us, if only
we would fulfil all the appointed conditions. These were: first, to
stand in a corner and not think of a white bear. I remember how I
used to get into a corner and try (but could not possibly manage)
not to think of a white bear. The second condition was to walk
without wavering along a crack between the boards of the floor;
and the third was, for a whole year not to see a hare, alive or dead
or cooked; and it was necessary to swear not to reveal these
secrets to any one. He who fulfilled these, and other more
difficult conditions which Nikólenka would communicate later,
would have one wish, whatever it might be, fulfilled.
Nikólenka, as I now conjecture, had probably read or heard of the
Freemasons—of their aspirations toward the happiness of
mankind, and of the mysterious initiatory rites on entering their
order; he had probably also heard about the Moravian Brothers
[in Russian ant is mouravéy].
Writing when he was over seventy, Tolstoy adds:
The ideal of ant-brothers lovingly clinging to one another, though
not under two arm-chairs curtained by handkerchiefs, but of all
mankind under the wide dome of heaven, has remained the same
for me. As I then believed that there existed a little green stick
whereon was written the message which could destroy all evil in
men and give them universal welfare, so I now believe that such
truth exists and will be revealed to men, and will give them all it
promises.

It was, however, Tolstoy's second brother, Sergius (or Sergéy: pet name,
Seryózha), whom Tolstoy in his young days most enthusiastically admired
and wished to imitate. Sergius was handsome, proud, straightforward, and
singularly sincere. Of him Leo Tolstoy says:
I loved and wished to be like him. I admired his handsome
appearance, his singing (he was always singing), his drawing, his
gaiety and especially (strange as it may seem to say so) the
spontaneity of his egotism. I myself was always aware of myself
and self-conscious; I always guessed, rightly or wrongly, what
other people thought or felt about me, and this spoilt my joy in
life. This probably is why in others I specially liked the opposite
feature—spontaneity of egotism. And for this I specially loved
Seryózha. The word loved is not correct. I loved Nikólenka; but
for Seryózha I was filled with admiration as for something quite
apart from and incomprehensible to me.
Of the third brother, Demetrius (or Dmítry: pet name, Mítenka), only a year
older than himself, Tolstoy tells us:
I hardly remember him as a boy. I only know by hearsay that as a
child he was very capricious. He was nearest to me in age and I
played with him oftenest, but did not love him as much as I loved
Seryózha, nor as I loved and respected Nikólenka. He and I lived
together amicably. I do not recollect that we quarrelled. Probably
we did, and we may even have fought.... As a child I remember
nothing special about Mítenka except his childish merriment.
Tolstoy says he was 'afraid of beggars, and of one of the Volkónskys, who
used to pinch me; but, I think, of no one else.'
A girl, Doúnetchka Temeshóf, was adopted as a member of the family. She
was a natural daughter of a wealthy bachelor friend of Tolstoy's father.
I remember how, when I had already learnt French, I was made to
teach her that alphabet. At first it went all right (we were both
about five years old), but later she probably became tired, and
ceased to name correctly the letters I pointed out. I insisted. She

began to cry. I did the same, and when our elders came, we could
say nothing owing to our hopeless tears.
In his later recollections of her he says:
She was not clever, but was a good, simple girl; and, above all, so
pure that we boys never had any but brotherly relations with her.
By which he means that there was no flirtation.
The relations between the family and its servants, who were serfs (and of
whom there were about thirty), were, as in many a Russian family, often
really affectionate. One instance of a serf's devotion has already been
quoted; and such cases were not rare. In Childhood mention is made of the
old housekeeper, Praskóvya Isáyevna, who was completely devoted to the
welfare of the family, and Tolstoy says: 'All that I there wrote about her was
actual truth.'
Here is another example illustrating both kindly toleration of minor
offences committed by a serf, and the family affection which sweetened
life:
My pleasantest recollections of my father are of his sitting with
grandmother on the sofa, helping her to play Patience. My father
was polite and tender with every one, but to my grandmother he
was always particularly tenderly submissive. They used to sit—
Grandma playing Patience, and from time to time taking pinches
from a gold snuff-box. My aunts sit in arm-chairs, and one of
them reads aloud. We children come in to say good-night, and
sometimes sit there. We always take leave of Grandma and our
aunts by kissing their hands. I remember once, in the middle of a
game of Patience and of the reading, my father interrupts my
aunt, points to a looking-glass and whispers something. We all
look in the same direction. It was the footman Tíkhon, who
(knowing that my father was in the drawing-room) was going into
the study to take some tobacco from a big leather folding tobacco-
pouch. My father sees him in the looking-glass, and notices his
figure carefully stepping on tip-toe. My aunts laugh. Grandmama
for a long time does not understand, but when she does, she too

smiles cheerfully. I am enchanted by my father's kindness, and on
taking leave of him kiss his white muscular hand with special
tenderness.
An important feature of the life in which Tolstoy grew up was furnished by
the half-crazy saints who swarmed in Russia in those days, and are still
occasionally to be met with. Readers of Childhood will remember Grísha,
an admirable specimen of that class, about whom Tolstoy makes the
following characteristic note in his memoirs:
Grísha is an invented character. We had many of these half-crazy
saints at our house, and I was taught to regard them with profound
respect, for which I am deeply grateful to those who brought me
up. If there were some among them who were insincere, or who
experienced periods of weakness and insincerity, yet the aim of
their life, though practically absurd, was so lofty that I am glad I
learned in childhood unconsciously to understand the height of
their achievement. They accomplished what Marcus Aurelius
speaks of when he says: 'There is nothing higher than to endure
contempt for one's good life.' So harmful and so unavoidable is
the desire for human glory which always contaminates good
deeds, that one cannot but sympathise with the effort not merely
to avoid praise, but even to evoke contempt. Such a character was
Márya Gerásimovna, my sister's godmother, and the semi-idiot
Evdokímoushka, and some others in our house.
How deeply these early impressions were engraved on Tolstoy's mind is
obvious from his earliest as well as his latest writings. Take, for instance,
the lines from Childhood referring to Grísha's prayer overheard by the
children.
Much water has flowed away since then, many recollections of
the past have lost for me their meaning and become blurred
fancies; even the pilgrim Grísha himself has long since finished
his last pilgrimage; but the impression he produced on me and the
feeling he evoked, will never die out of my memory.
In Tolstoy's later life we shall again and again find this medieval note
recurring (with whatever of truth or falsity it contains), and the assertion

that it is not the usefulness or uselessness of a man's life that matters, so
much as his self-abnegation and the humility of his soul.
To complete the picture of Tolstoy's early boyhood at Yásnaya Polyána, we
must think of him as interested in his father's dogs and horses and hunting
(in Childhood he tells the true story of how he hunted his first hare), and
also in the games and masquerades with which the family and visitors, as
well as the servants, amused themselves, especially at New Year.
In spite of his sensitive introspective nature, Tolstoy's childhood was a
happy one; and to it he always looks back with pleasure. He speaks of 'that
splendid, innocent, joyful, poetic period of childhood, up to fourteen,' and
he tells us that the impressions of early childhood, preserved in one's
memory, grow in some unfathomable depth of the soul, like seeds thrown
on good ground, till after many years they thrust their bright, green shoots
into God's world.

1837

When Tolstoy was eight years old the family moved to Moscow for his
elder brothers' education. The following summer they lost their father, who,
having gone to Toúla on business, fell down in the street on his way to visit
his friend Temeshóf, and died of apoplexy. What money he had with him
was stolen, but some unnegotiable bonds were brought back to the Tolstoys
in Moscow by an unknown beggar. The funeral took place at Yásnaya
Polyána; and Leo, who did not attend it, long fancied that his father was not
really dead. Looking at the faces of strangers in the streets of Moscow, he
felt almost certain he might at any moment meet him alive again.
This event brought the problems of life and death vividly to the boy's mind,
and nine months later the impression was intensified by the death of his
grandmother, who never recovered from the shock of her son's death. Hers
was the first death Tolstoy witnessed, and he never forgot the horror he felt
when, as she lay dying of dropsy, he was admitted to kiss her swollen white
hand and saw her, dressed in white, lying motionless on a high white bed.
But he says:

I remember that new jackets of black material, braided with
white, were made for all of us. It was dreadful to see the
undertakers' men hanging about near the house, and then bringing
in the coffin, with its lid covered with glazed brocade, and my
grandmother's stern face, with its Roman nose, and her white cap
and the white kerchief on her neck, lying high in the coffin on the
table; and it was sad to see the tears of our aunts and of Páshenka;
but yet the new braided jackets and the soothing attitude adopted
towards us by those around, gratified us.... I remember how
pleasant it was to me to overhear during the funeral the
conversation of some gossiping female guests, who said,
'Complete orphans; their father only lately dead, and now the
grandmother gone too.'
Some time after this, an event occurred that is recorded on the first page of
Tolstoy's Confession:
I remember how, when I was about eleven, a boy Vladímir
Milútin (long since dead), a Grammar School pupil, visited us one
Sunday and announced as the latest novelty a discovery made at
his School. The discovery was that there is no God, and all that
we are taught about Him is a mere invention. I remember how
interested my elder brothers were in this news. They called me to
their council and we all, I remember, became animated, and
accepted the news as something very interesting and fully
possible.
Various stories have been preserved relating to Tolstoy's boyhood, and some
of them are sufficiently characteristic to be worth repeating.
One incident which made a strong impression on the lad, keenly sensitive as
he always was to any shade of injustice, was the following:
Soon after the death of their father and grandmother, the orphan Tolstoys,
then living in rather straitened circumstances (owing to the property being
left in trust), were invited to a Christmas Tree at the house of an
acquaintance, and the young Princes Gortchakóf, nephews of the then
Minister of War, were also among the guests. All the children received

presents; but whereas the Gortchakófs had expensive ones, the Tolstoys, to
their annoyance, received cheap common ones.
Another occurrence that clung to his recollection through life, was the
friendly welcome they received one day when they made their way
uninvited into a private garden in Moscow; and the sad disappointment they
experienced when, returning a few days later unaccompanied by a pretty
and attractive girl who had been with them on the former occasion, they
were coldly informed that it was private ground, not open to the public.
Other stories, told by Tolstoy himself or by the family, illustrate his
impulsive, imaginative, strenuous and rather erratic nature at this period.
When he was about seven or eight years old he had an ardent desire to fly,
and persuaded himself that it was possible to do so. It was only necessary to
sit down tight on your heels, clasping your arms firmly round your knees,
and the tighter you held them the higher you would fly. As Tolstoy was
always ardent to put his beliefs into practice, it is not very surprising that
one day, soon after the family had moved to Moscow, he stayed behind in
the class-room when he should have come down to dinner, and climbing out
on the window-sill, some six yards from the ground, threw himself out. He
was picked up unconscious. The ill results of his fall were fortunately
confined to a slight concussion of the brain; and after sleeping for eighteen
hours on end he woke up again quite well.
It would be a mistake to take his story, Childhood, as strictly
autobiographical; but it contains many passages which one knows from
other sources to be true of his own life, and one such is the passage in
which (speaking in the character of Nikólenka) he says:
I knew very well that I was plain, and therefore every reference to
my appearance was painfully offensive to me.... Moments of
despair frequently came over me: I imagined that there could be
no happiness on earth for a man with so broad a nose, such thick
lips, and such small grey eyes as mine. I asked God to perform a
miracle and change me into a handsome boy, and all I then had
and all I could ever possess in the future, I would have given for a
handsome face.

In fact, his personal appearance caused the sensitive lad much concern, but
his efforts to improve it were unsuccessful. On one occasion he clipped his
eyebrows, and the unsatisfactory results of that operation occasioned him
great grief.
He records in his Reminiscences the following incident, which certainly
intensified his lifelong antipathy to corporal punishment:
I do not remember for what, but for something quite undeserving
of punishment, St. Thomas [the resident French tutor who
succeeded Rössel] first locked me into a room, and secondly
threatened to flog me. I thereupon experienced a dreadful feeling
of anger indignation and disgust, not only towards St. Thomas
himself, but towards the violence with which I was threatened.
When quite a small boy he conceived an attachment for the nine-year-old
daughter of his father's friend, Islényef, and being jealous of her for daring
to talk to others, he angrily pushed her off a balcony, with the result that she
limped for a long time afterwards. A quarter of a century later, when he
married this lady's daughter, his mother-in-law used laughingly to remind
him of the incident, and say, 'Evidently you pushed me off the balcony in
my childhood that you might marry my daughter afterwards!'
His sister relates that once when they were driving in a troika (i.e. three
horses abreast) to Yásnaya, Leo got down during a break in the journey and
went forward on foot. When the carriage started again and began to
overtake him he took to running, and when the horses went faster he also
increased his speed, racing as hard as he could. He was not overtaken till he
had gone about two miles and was completely tired out. He was lifted back
into the carriage gasping for breath, perspiring and quite exhausted. Any
one not endowed with the remarkable physical vigour that, in spite of
frequent attacks of ill-health, has characterised Tolstoy through life, would
probably have done themselves serious injury had they taxed their vital
resources as recklessly as he often did.
All accounts agree in representing him as an original and odd little fellow,
unwilling to do things like other people. He would for instance enter a
drawing-room and, carefully placing his feet together and bending his head,
would make his bow backwards, saluting each of the company in turn.

Two incidents are recorded relating to the love of riding which has
remained a characteristic of his through life.
When his brothers were sent to a riding-school, Leo (in spite of his father's
assurances and those of the riding-master that he was too small to begin and
would tumble off) also obtained permission to learn to ride. At his first
lesson he duly tumbled off, but begged to be replaced in the saddle; and he
did not fall off again, but became an expert horseman. In one of the short
stories he wrote many years later for the use of school-children, he tells
how he once wished to ride the old horse Raven after his brothers had each
had a turn on it; and how Raven being too tired to move from the stables, he
beat it till he broke his switch on its sides. He then demanded a stouter
switch from the serf in charge, but the man replied:
'Ah, master, you have no pity! Why do you beat him? He is
twenty years old, and is tired out; he can hardly breathe. Why, for
a horse, he is as old as Timoféyitch [a very old peasant living at
the place]. You might as well get on Timoféyitch's back, and drive
him beyond his strength like that, with a switch. Would you feel
no pity for him?'
I thought of Timoféyitch, and hearkened to the man. I got off the
horse's back; and when I noticed how its steaming sides were
working, and how heavily it breathed through its nostrils,
swishing its thin tail, I understood how hard it was for it. Till then
I had thought that it was as happy as I was myself. And I felt so
sorry for Raven that I began to kiss his sweaty neck and to beg his
pardon for having beaten him.
Since then I have grown up, but I always have pity on horses, and
always remember Raven and Timoféyitch when I see horses ill-
treated.
He does not appear to have been very good at his lessons, and himself
somewhere mentions the dictum of a student who used to coach his brothers
and himself, and said of their aptitude for learning:
'Sergéy both wishes and can, Dmítry wishes but can't' (this was
not true), 'and Leo neither wishes nor can.' (This, I think, was

perfectly true.)
On the other hand, St. Thomas, the French tutor already referred to (he
figures in Childhood as St. Jérôme), must have noticed the lad's capacity,
for he used to say, 'Ce petit a une tête: c'est un petit Molière' (This little one
has a head: he is a little Molière).

1837

After the father's death the family property passed under the control of the
Court of Wards, and expenses had to be cut down. It was therefore decided
that, though the two elder brothers had to remain in Moscow for the sake of
their education, the three younger children should return to Yásnaya
Polyána, where living was cheaper, in charge of their much loved Aunty
Tatiána. Their legal guardian, the Countess Alexandra ('Aline') Ilýnishna
Osten-Saken, remained in Moscow with the elder boys.
This lady had made what seemed a brilliant marriage with the wealthy
Count Osten-Saken, whose family was among the first in the Baltic
Provinces; but her married life was a terrible one. Her husband went out of
his mind and tried to kill her. While he was confined in an asylum, the
Countess gave birth to a still-born child. To save her from this fresh shock,
a girl born of a servant, the wife of a Court cook, was substituted for the
still-born baby. This girl, Páshenka, lived with the Tolstoy family, and was
already grown up when Tolstoy was quite a child. Subsequently the
Countess Alexandra lived first with her parents and then with her brother,
Tolstoy's father. Though she was a devotee of the Orthodox Russo-Greek
Church of which Tolstoy eventually became so fierce an opponent, much in
her character and conduct accords with the precepts laid down in his later
writings; and it is evident that certain aspects of his understanding of the
Christian character, which strike most Englishmen as peculiar, far from
being invented out of his own head, are derived from a deeply-rooted
Russian and family tradition. He tells us:
My aunt was a truly religious woman. Her favourite occupation
was reading the Lives of the Saints, conversing with pilgrims,

half-crazy devotees, monks and nuns, of whom some always lived
in our house, while others only visited my aunt.... She was not
merely outwardly religious, keeping the fasts, praying much, and
associating with people of saintly life, but she herself lived a truly
Christian life, trying not only to avoid all luxury and acceptance
of service, but herself serving others as much as possible. She
never had any money, for she gave away all she had to those who
asked. A servant related to me how, during their life in Moscow,
my aunt used carefully on tip-toe to pass her sleeping maid, when
going to Matins, and used herself to perform all the duties which
it was in those days customary for a maid to perform. In food and
dress she was as simple and unexacting as can possibly be
imagined. Unpleasant as it is to me to mention it, I remember
from childhood a specific acid smell connected with my aunt,
probably due to negligence in her toilet: and this was the graceful
poetic Aline with beautiful blue eyes, who used to love reading
and copying French verses, who played on the harp, and always
had great success at the grandest balls! I remember how
affectionate and kind she always was, and this equally to the most
important men and women and to the nuns and pilgrims.
Tolstoy goes on to tell how pleasantly she bore the jests and teasing that her
devotion to the priests brought upon her.
I remember her dear good-natured laugh, and her face shining
with pleasure. The religious feeling which filled her soul was
evidently so important to her, so much higher than anything else,
that she could not be angry or annoyed at anything, and could not
attribute to worldly matters the importance others attach to them.

1840

In the summer of 1839 the whole family assembled at Yásnaya Polyána.
The next year, 1840, was a famine year. The crops were so poor that corn
had to be bought to feed the serfs, and to raise funds for this purpose one of
the Tolstoys' estates had to be sold. The supply of oats for the horses was

stopped, and Tolstoy remembers how he and his brothers, pitying their
ponies, secretly gathered oats for them in the peasants' fields, quite
unconscious of the crime they were committing.

1841

In the autumn of that year the whole family moved to Moscow, returning to
Yásnaya for the following summer. The next autumn their guardian, the
kind good Countess Alexandra Osten-Saken, died in the Convent or
'Hermitage' founded by Óptin (a robber chief of the fourteenth century) in
the Government of Kaloúga, to which she had retired.
After her death her sister, Pelagéya Ilýnishna Úshkof, became their
guardian. She was the wife of a Kazán landowner. Aunty Tatiána and she
were not on friendly terms; there was no open quarrel between them, but V.
I. Úshkof (Pelagéya's husband) had been a suitor for Tatiána's hand in his
youth, and had been refused. Pelagéya could not forgive her husband's old
love for Tatiána.
The change of guardianship led to the removal of the family to Kazán, and
to the children being separated from Aunty Tatiána, much to her grief.
The books which up to the age of fourteen, when he went to Kazán, had
most influenced Tolstoy were, he tells us, the Story of Joseph from the
Bible, the Forty Thieves and Prince Kamaralzaman from the Arabian
Nights, various Russian folk-legends, Poúshkin's Tales and his poem
Napoleon, and The Black Hen by Pogorélsky. The influence the story of
Joseph had on him, he says, was 'immense.'
In his aptitude for abstract speculation, as in other respects, the boy was
truly father to the man; and in a passage, certainly autobiographical, in
Boyhood, he says:
It will hardly be believed what were the favourite and most
common subjects of my reflections in my boyhood—so
incompatible were they with my age and situation. But in my

opinion incompatibility between a man's position and his moral
activity is the surest sign of truth....
At one time the thought occurred to me that happiness does not
depend on external causes, but on our relation to them; and that a
man accustomed to bear suffering cannot be unhappy. To
accustom myself therefore to endurance, I would hold Tatíshef's
dictionaries in my outstretched hand for five minutes at a time,
though it caused me terrible pain; or I would go to the lumber
room and flog myself on my bare back with a cord so severely
that tears started to my eyes.
At another time suddenly remembering that death awaits me
every hour and every minute, I decided (wondering why people
had not understood this before) that man can only be happy by
enjoying the present and not thinking of the future; and for three
days, under the influence of this thought, I abandoned my lessons,
and did nothing but lie on my bed and enjoy myself, reading a
novel and eating honey-gingerbreads, on which I spent my last
coins....
But no philosophic current swayed me so much as scepticism,
which at one time brought me to the verge of insanity. I imagined
that except myself no one and nothing existed in the world, that
objects are not objects but apparitions, appearing only when I pay
attention to them and disappearing as soon as I cease to think of
them. In a word, I coincided with Schelling in the conviction that
what exists is not objects, but only my relation to them. There
were moments in which under the influence of this fixed idea, I
reached such a stage of absurdity that I glanced quickly round
hoping to catch Nothingness by surprise, there where I was not.
The philosophical discoveries I made greatly flattered my vanity:
I often imagined myself a great man, discovering new truths for
the benefit of humanity, and I looked on other mortals with a
proud consciousness of my own dignity; yet, strange to say, when
I came in contact with these mortals I grew timid before each of
them. The higher I stood in my own opinion the less was I able to

show any consciousness of my own dignity before others, or even
to avoid being ashamed of every word or movement of my own—
even the simplest.
At the time of the move to Kazán, a serf lad of about his own age was
presented to each of the young Tolstoys to attend on him. Alexis, the one
given to Leo Tolstoy, remained in his service all his life, and died at
Yásnaya a few years ago.

1841

For five and a half years, from the autumn of 1841 to the spring of 1847,
the brothers lived at Kazán, returning each summer to Yásnaya for the
vacation. They all entered Kazán University. The aunt who was their
guardian, and with whom they lived the greater part of the time, was a kind
but not particularly clever woman. Her house was the centre of much
hospitality and gaiety.

1844

Leo Tolstoy prepared to enter the faculty of Oriental Languages, in which a
knowledge of Arabic and Turco-Tartar was required. He worked hard, and
matriculated in May 1844 before he was sixteen, passing in French (for
which he received the mark 5+; 5 being in an ordinary way the highest
mark, and the + indicating exceptional distinction), German, Arabic, and
Turco-Tartar very well, and in English, Logic, Mathematics and Russian
Literature, well; but he did indifferently in Latin, and failed completely in
History and Geography, getting the lowest mark, a 1, for each of them. Of
History he says, 'I knew nothing,' and of Geography 'still less'; adding, 'I
was asked to name the French seaports, but I could not name a single one.'
At the end of the summer vacation he was admitted for re-examination in
the subjects in which he had failed, and passed successfully.

1844-1845

The winter season when Tolstoy, as a student at the University and a young
man of good position, entered Kazán society, was a particularly gay one. He
attended many balls, given by the Governor of the Province, by the
Maréchal de la Noblesse, and by private people, as well as many
masquerades, concerts, tableaux-vivants, and private theatricals. He is still
remembered by old inhabitants as having been 'present at all the balls,
soirées, and aristocratic parties, a welcome guest everywhere, and always
dancing, but, far from being a ladies' man, he was distinguished by a
strange awkwardness and shyness.' At Carnival time in 1845 he and his
brother Sergius took parts in two plays given for some charitable object. His
performance was a great success.
As to the nature of Kazán society and of his surroundings there, accounts
are contradictory. On the one hand, we have his own statement that
(imitating his brother Sergius in this as in other matters) he became
'depraved.' Birukóf, too, speaks of 'the detestable surroundings of Tolstoy's
life in Kazán,' and another writer, Zagóskin, a fellow-student of Tolstoy's at
the University, says that the surroundings in which the latter moved were
demoralising and must have been repellent to him. On the other hand, on
seeing Zagóskin's remarks, Tolstoy (in whom there is often observable a
strong spirit of contradiction) replied:
I did not feel any repulsion, but was very glad to enjoy myself in
Kazán society, which was then very good. I am on the contrary
thankful to fate that I passed my first youth in an environment
where a young man could be young without touching problems
beyond his grasp, and that I lived a life which, though idle and
luxurious, was yet not evil.
The explanation of these contradictions, no doubt, is that the family circle
in which Tolstoy lived was an affectionate one, and that he himself not only
enjoyed his life, but formed friendships and made efforts at which in later
years he looked back with satisfaction. Yet there was assuredly much in his
life and in the life around him which (except when others were severe on it)

he recalled with grave disapproval, a disapproval he has plainly expressed
in his Confession.
To come as near as we may to the truth, we must allow for the personal
equation which, in Tolstoy's case, is violent and fluctuating.
With constant amusements going on around him, it is not surprising that at
the end of his first University year he failed in his examinations. The failure
does not however appear to have been entirely his fault, for he tells us:
Ivanóf, Professor of Russian History, prevented me from passing
to the second course (though I had not missed a single lecture and
knew Russian History quite well) because he had quarrelled with
my family. The same Professor also gave me the lowest mark—a
'one'—for German, though I knew the language incomparably
better than any student in our division.

1845

Instead of remaining for a second year in the first course of Oriental
Languages, Tolstoy preferred to leave that faculty, and in August 1845 he
entered the faculty of Law. During the first months of this new course he
hardly studied at all, throwing himself more than ever into the gay life of
Kazán society. Before midwinter however he began for the first time, as he
tells us, 'to study seriously, and I even found a certain pleasure in so doing.'
Comparative Jurisprudence and Criminal Law interested him, and his
attention was especially arrested by a discussion on Capital Punishment.
Meyer, Professor of Civil Law, set him a task which quite absorbed him; it
was the comparison of Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois with Catherine the
Second's Great Nakaz. The conclusion to which he came was, that in
Catherine's Nakaz one finds Montesquieu's Liberal ideas mixed with the
expression of Catherine's own despotism and vanity, and that the Nakaz
brought more fame to Catherine than good to Russia.

1846

He passed his examinations successfully in May 1846, and was duly
admitted to the second year's course of Jurisprudence. Some time
previously Tolstoy and another student had disputed which of them had the
better memory, and to test this, each of them learnt by heart the reply to one
examination question in History. Tolstoy's task was to learn the life of
Mazeppa, and as luck would have it that was just the question he happened
to draw at his examination, so that he naturally obtained a 5, the highest
mark.
From the autumn of 1846 the three brothers, Sergius Demetrius and Leo,
ceased to live at their aunt's, and settled in a flat of their own, consisting of
five rooms.
A fellow-student, Nazáryef, has given us his impression of Tolstoy as a
student. He says:
I kept clear of the Count, who from our first meeting repelled me
by his assumption of coldness, his bristly hair and the piercing
expression of his half-closed eyes. I had never met a young man
with such a strange and, to me, incomprehensible air of
importance and self-satisfaction....
At first I seldom met the Count, who in spite of his awkwardness
and bashfulness had joined the small group of so-called
'aristocrats.' He hardly replied to my greetings, as if wishing to
intimate that even here we were far from being equals, since he
drove up with a fast trotter and I came on foot....
It so happened that Nazáryef and Tolstoy were both late for a lecture on
History one day, and were incarcerated together by order of the Inspector.
One gathers that Tolstoy was in those days particularly careful of his
personal appearance, his clothes indicating his aristocratic pretensions. But
though externally the Tolstoy of 1846 differed greatly from the Tolstoy of
forty years later, his conversation ran on much the same lines as in later life,
and was uttered with the intensity of conviction and the flashes of dry
humour which have since made even the most didactic of his writings so
readable.

Their conversation in their place of confinement having led to some
mention of Lérmontof's poem, The Demon, Tolstoy took occasion to speak
ironically of verse generally, and then, noticing a volume his companion
had of Karamzín's History of Russia, he
attacked History as the dullest and almost the most useless of
subjects. A collection of fables and useless details, sprinkled with
a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names.... Who wants to
know that the second marriage of John the Terrible, with Temrúk's
daughter, took place on 21st August 1562; and his fourth
marriage, with Anna Alexéyevna Koltórsky, in 1572? Yet they
expect me to grind all this, and if I don't, the examiner gives me a
'one.'
Later on, says Nazáryef, 'the, to me, irresistible force of Tolstoy's doubts
fell upon the University, and on University teaching in general. The phrase,
"The Temple of Science," was constantly on his lips. Remaining perfectly
serious himself, he portrayed our professors in such a comical light that, in
spite of all my efforts to appear indifferent, I laughed like one possessed....
"Yet," said Tolstoy, "we both had a right to expect that we should leave this
temple useful men, equipped with knowledge. But what shall we really
carry away from the University?... What shall we be good for, and to whom
shall we be necessary?"
Nazáryef says that in spite of the feeling half of dislike, half of perplexity,
that Tolstoy evoked in him, he well remembers that he was dimly conscious
of something remarkable, exceptional, and at the same time inexplicable,
about him.
From the educational articles Tolstoy wrote sixteen years later, we know
that he disapproved of examinations, of the restricted groove of studies
marked out for the students in each faculty, and of the system which made it
necessary for the professors to deliver original lectures of their own, and
obliged the students to listen to those lectures and to study them, however
incompetent the professors might be.

1847

The fact that his brother Sergius had finished his studies and was leaving,
strengthened Tolstoy's dissatisfaction with the University; and finally,
without waiting for the May examinations at which he might have qualified
for the third year's course, we find him, soon after Easter 1847, applying to
have his name removed from the University roll 'on account of ill-health
and family affairs.' He really had been in hospital in March, but the plea of
ill-health was a mere excuse.
His failure to take a degree was a source of great annoyance and
disappointment to him, and it must not be supposed that he left Kazán with
any idea of taking life easily or neglecting further study.
From the time he was a boy he had kept a diary of every little sin he had
committed, and especially of any offence against the Seventh
Commandment, in order that he might repent, and if possible refrain for the
future, and his diary shows how full he was at this time of strenuous
resolutions. During the last year of his life at Kazán he made close friends
with a student named Dyákof (the Nehlúdof of Boyhood), and under his
influence had developed
an ecstatic worship of the ideal of virtue, and the conviction that it
is man's destiny continually to perfect himself. To put all mankind
right and to destroy all human vices and misfortunes, appeared a
matter that could well be accomplished. It seemed quite easy and
simple to put oneself right, to acquire all the virtues, and to be
happy.
Here are some rules he set himself at that time:
1. To fulfil what I set myself, despite all obstacles.
2. To fulfil well what I do undertake.
3. Never to refer to a book for what I have forgotten, but always
to try to recall it to mind myself.
4. Always to make my mind work with its utmost power.
5. Always to read and think aloud.

6. Not to be ashamed of telling people who interrupt me, that they
are hindering me: letting them first feel it, but (if they do not
understand) telling them, with an apology.
Deciding to settle at Yásnaya for two years, he drew up a list of studies he
intended to pursue for his own mental development, and to qualify for a
University degree; and this list was, as the reader will see, appalling in its
scope.
1. To study the whole course of law necessary to get my degree.
2. To study practical medicine, and to some extent its theory also.
3. To study: French, Russian, German, English, Italian, and Latin.
4. To study agriculture, theoretically and practically.
5. To study History, Geography, and Statistics.
6. To study Mathematics (the High School course).
7. To write my [University] thesis.
8. To reach the highest perfection I can in music and painting.
9. To write down rules (for my conduct).
10. To acquire some knowledge of the natural sciences, and,
11. To write essays on all the subjects I study.
Such rules and resolutions abound in Tolstoy's Diary. After failing to act up
to them, he again and again gathers his energies and maps out for himself
plans of life and courses of study sufficient to tax the energies of an
intellectual giant.
As to his religious opinions at this time, he tells us:
I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith. I
was taught it in childhood and all through my boyhood and youth.
But before I left the University, in my second year, at the age of

eighteen, I no longer believed anything I had been taught.
(Confession.)
His Diary nevertheless shows that he prayed frequently and earnestly; the
fact no doubt being, that though intellectually he discarded the Orthodox
Russo-Greek Church, in times of trouble or distress he instinctively
appealed to God for help. His opinions were wavering and immature, as he
himself tells us in another passage:
The religious beliefs taught me in childhood disappeared... and as
from the time I was fifteen I began to read philosophic works, my
rejection of those beliefs very soon became a conscious one.
From the age of sixteen I ceased going to Church and fasting of
my own accord. I did not believe what had been taught me from
childhood, but I believed in something. What it was I believed in,
I could not at all have said. I believed in a God, or rather I did not
deny God; but I could not have said what sort of God. Neither did
I deny Christ and his teaching, but what his teaching consisted in
I could also not have said.
Looking back on that time now, I see clearly that my faith—my
only real faith, that which apart from my animal instincts gave
impulse to my life—was a belief in perfecting oneself. But in
what this perfecting consisted and what its object was, I could not
have said. I tried to perfect myself mentally—I studied everything
I could: anything life threw in my way; I tried to perfect my will,
I drew up rules which I tried to follow; I perfected myself
physically, cultivating my strength and agility by all sorts of
exercises and accustoming myself to endurance and patience by
all kinds of privations. And all this I considered to be perfecting
myself. The beginning of it all was, of course, moral perfecting;
but that was soon replaced by perfecting in general: by the desire
to be better, not in one's own eyes or those of God, but in the eyes
of other people. And very soon this effort again changed into a
desire to be stronger than others: to be more famous, more
important and richer than others. (Confession.)

When speaking of Tolstoy's relations with women, it should be borne in
mind that incontinence for young men was then considered so natural that
few of them in his position would have felt any serious qualms of
conscience about such visits to houses of ill-fame as he lets us know that he
began to pay at this time. His brother Dmítry however led a chaste life, and
alternating with gross lapses of conduct, we find Leo noting down for his
own guidance such resolutions as the following:
To regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of
social life, and to keep away from them as much as possible.
From whom indeed do we get sensuality, effeminacy, frivolity in
everything, and many other vices, if not from women? Whose
fault is it, if not women's, that we lose our innate qualities of
boldness, resolution, reasonableness, justice, etc.? Women are
more receptive than men, therefore in virtuous ages women were
better than we; but in the present depraved and vicious age they
are worse than we are.
During his years at the University, Tolstoy saw much of his brother Dmítry,
of whom he says:
I remember also at the University that when my elder brother
Dmítry, suddenly in the passionate way natural to him devoted
himself to religion and began to attend all the Church services, to
fast, and to lead a pure and moral life, we all, and even our elders,
unceasingly held him up to ridicule and called him, for some
unknown reason, 'Noah.' I remember that Moúsin-Poúshkin (then
Curator of Kazán University), when inviting us to a dance at his
house, ironically remonstrated with my brother, who had declined
the invitation, and used the argument that even David danced
before the Ark. I sympathised with these jokes my elders made,
and deduced from them the conclusion that though it is necessary
to learn the catechism and go to church, one must not take such
things too seriously. (Confession.)
Again we read of this brother:
His peculiarities became manifest, and are impressed on my mind
from the time of our life at Kazán. Formerly in Moscow I

remember that he did not fall in love, as Seryózha and I did, and
was not fond of dancing or of military pageants, but studied well
and strenuously.... At Kazán I, who had always imitated Seryózha,
began to grow depraved.... Not only at Kazán, but even earlier, I
used to take pains about my appearance. I tried to be elegant,
comme il faut. There was no trace of anything of this kind in
Mítenka. I think he never suffered from the usual vices of youth;
he was always serious thoughtful pure and resolute, though hot-
tempered, and whatever he did, he did to the best of his ability....
He wrote verses with great facility. I remember how admirably he
translated Schiller's Der Jüngling am Bache, but he did not
devote himself to this occupation.... He grew up associating little
with others, always—except in his moments of anger—quiet and
serious. He was tall, rather thin, and not very strong, with long,
large hands and round shoulders. I do not know how or by what
he was attracted at so early an age towards a religious life, but it
began in the very first year of his University career. His religious
aspirations naturally directed him to Church life, and he devoted
himself to this with his usual thoroughness.
In Mítenka there must have existed that valuable characteristic
which I believe my mother to have had, and which I knew in
Nikólenka, but of which I was altogether devoid—complete
indifference to other people's opinion about oneself. Until quite
lately (in old age) I have never been able to divest myself of
concern about people's opinion; but Mítenka was quite free from
this. I never remember on his face that restrained smile which
involuntarily appears when one is being praised. I always
remember his serious quiet sad, sometimes severe, almond-
shaped hazel eyes. Only in our Kazán days did we begin to pay
particular attention to him, and then merely because, while
Seryózha and I attached great importance to what was comme il
faut—to externalities—he was careless and untidy, and we
condemned him for this.
We others, especially Seryózha, kept up acquaintance with our
aristocratic comrades and other young men. Mítenka on the
contrary selected out of all the students a piteous-looking, poor,

shabbily dressed youth, Poluboyárinof [which may be translated
Half-noble]—whom a humorous fellow-student of ours called
Polubezobédof [Half-dinnerless]—and consorted only with him,
and with him prepared for the examinations.... We brothers, and
even our aunt, looked down on Mítenka with a certain contempt
for his low tastes and associates; and the same attitude was
adopted by our frivolous comrades.
After their University days were over, Tolstoy saw little of his brother
Demetrius; so it will be convenient here to sacrifice chronological sequence
and say what more there is to tell of the latter's life and death. The material
is again supplied by Tolstoy's Reminiscences.
When we divided up the family property, according to custom the
estate where we lived, Yásnaya Polyána, was given to me.
Seryózha, as a lover of horses and according to his wish, received
Pirogóvo, where there was a stud. To Mítenka and Nikólenka
were given the two other estates: to Nikólenka, Nikolsky; to
Mítenka, the Kursk estate, Sherbatchóvka. I have kept a note of
Mítenka's, showing how he regarded the possession of serfs. The
idea that it is wrong, and that serfs ought to be liberated, was
quite unknown in our circle in the 'forties. The hereditary
possession of serfs seemed a necessary condition of life, and all
that could be done to prevent its being an evil, was to attend not
only to their material but also to their moral welfare. In this sense
Mítenka wrote very seriously naïvely and sincerely. Thinking he
could not do otherwise, he, a lad of twenty, when he left the
University took it upon himself to direct the morality of hundreds
of peasant families, and to do this (as Gógol recommended in his
Letters to a Landowner) by threats of punishments and by
punishments.... But, besides this duty to his serfs, there was
another duty which at that time it seemed impossible not to fulfil:
namely, Military or Civil service. And Mítenka decided to enter
the Civil Service.
Tolstoy proceeds to tell how his brother, desiring to be useful to his country,
chose legislation as his speciality, and going to Petersburg astonished the
Head of the Department as well as certain aristocratic acquaintances by

asking where he could find a place in which he could be useful. The friend
to whom he went for advice, regarded the service of the State merely as a
means of satisfying ambition, and 'such a question had probably never
occurred to him before.' Eventually we find Demetrius returning home
discouraged, and taking up some local work. All this, to some extent, helps
us to understand Leo Tolstoy's sceptical attitude towards the institution of
Government, and his strong belief that men in Government service are
solely actuated by selfish motives.
Tolstoy continues:
After we had both left the University, I lost sight of him. I know
he lived the same severe, abstemious life, knowing neither wine
tobacco nor, above all, women, till he was twenty-six, which was
very rare in those days. I know also that he associated with monks
and pilgrims.... I think I was already in the Caucasus when an
extraordinary change took place. He suddenly took to drinking
smoking wasting money and going with women. How it
happened I do not know; I did not see him at the time. I only
know that his seducer was a thoroughly immoral man of very
attractive appearance, the youngest son of Islényef [an uncle of
the lady Leo Tolstoy subsequently married].
In this life Mítenka remained the same serious religious man he
was in everything. He ransomed from the brothel a prostitute
named Másha, who was the first woman he knew, and took her
into his house. But this life did not last long. I believe it was less
the vicious and unhealthy life he led for some months in Moscow,
than his mental struggle and his qualms of conscience, that
suddenly destroyed his powerful organism. He became
consumptive, went to the country, was doctored in the provincial
town, and took to his bed in Orél, where I saw him for the last
time just after the Crimean war. He was in a dreadful state of
emaciation: one could even see how his enormous hand joined on
to the two bones of his lower arm; his face was all eyes, and they
were still the same beautiful serious eyes, with a penetrating
expression of inquiry in them. He was constantly coughing and
spitting, but was loth to die, and reluctant to believe he was dying.

Poor pockmarked Másha, whom he had rescued, was with him
and nursed him. In my presence, at his own wish, a wonder-
working icon was brought. I remember the expression of his face
when he prayed to it.... He died a few days later!
Students of the didactic writings of Tolstoy's later years will notice how
closely his injunctions to a man to keep to the first woman, whoever she be,
with whom he has had intimate relations, correspond with the line actually
followed by his brother Demetrius.
When Tolstoy left the University, however, these things were still unthought
of. Let us, before returning to the events of his own life at that time, notice
some books which he read between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one.
They included:
The Sermon on the Mount from St. Matthew's Gospel,
Rousseau's Confession and Émile, and
Dickens's David Copperfield,
which all had an 'immense' influence on him.
In another category came works which he says had 'very great' influence.
These were:
Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse,
Sterne's Sentimental Journey,
Poúshkin's Eugene Onégin,
Schiller's The Robbers,
Gógol's Dead Souls,
Tourgénef's A Sportsman's Sketches,
Drouzhínin's Pólenka Sax,
Grigoróvitch's Antón Goremýka, and the chapter Tamán from
Lérmontof's A Hero of Our Times.
In a third category he mentions some of Gógol's Shorter Stories, and
Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, as having had 'great' influence.
In these works one finds many ideas which have been congenial to Tolstoy
throughout his life, and his adhesion to which has only become firmer with

age. In illustration of this, take a couple of passages from Dickens which
many readers may have passed without much attention, but which to
Tolstoy represented the absolute truth of the matters they touch on. David
Copperfield says of Parliament:
...I considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the
dreary debates. One joyful night, therefore, I noted down the
music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and I have
never heard it since; though I still recognise the old drone in the
newspapers without any substantial variation (except, perhaps,
that there is more of it) all the livelong session.
To most Englishmen with memories of Pym and Hampden, or personal
knowledge of the lives of men who have devoted themselves disinterestedly
to public affairs, Parliamentary or local, Dickens's sneer at Parliament
seems but a paradox or a joke; but to Tolstoy, with his inherited dislike of
Government, this testimony from a great English writer (who had served as
a Parliamentary reporter) seemed irrefutable evidence of the futility of
Parliaments.
Take, again, a passage in which Dickens hits a nail adroitly on the head:
Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words,
which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say,
not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my
life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the
taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy
themselves mightily when they come to several grand words in
succession, for the expression of one idea—as, that they utterly
detest, abominate, and abjure, and so forth—and the old
anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk
about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannise over them
too. We are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of
words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks
important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the
meaning of our liveries on State occasions, if they be but fine and
numerous enough, so the meaning or necessity of our words is a
secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them.

No modern writer has ever more carefully eschewed the practice Dickens
here attacks than Tolstoy has done throughout his career. Indeed, he is far
stricter than Dickens in this respect.
But much more important than the influence of Dickens was that of
Rousseau, of whom Tolstoy once remarked:
I have read the whole of Rousseau—all his twenty volumes,
including his Dictionary of Music. I was more than enthusiastic
about him, I worshipped him. At the age of fifteen I wore a
medallion portrait of him next my body instead of the Orthodox
cross. Many of his pages are so akin to me that it seems to me that
I must have written them myself.
Another writer who influenced Tolstoy, though to a very much smaller
extent, was Voltaire, of whom he says:
I also remember that I read Voltaire when I was very young, and
his ridicule (of religion) not only did not shock me, but amused
me very much.
Everything Tolstoy has done in his life he has done with intensity; and that
this applies to the way in which he read books in his youth, is shown by the
fact that we find him as an old man, in 1898, in What is Art? according the
highest praise to books he had read before he was twenty-one, or even
before he was fourteen.
It was in the spring of 1847 that Tolstoy, who was not yet nineteen, returned
to his estate of Yásnaya Polyána, to live with his dear Aunty Tatiána; to
'perfect' himself, to study, to manage his estate, and to improve the
condition of his serfs. The last part of this programme, at any rate, was not
destined to have much success. Though one must never treat Tolstoy's
fiction as strictly autobiographical, yet A Squire's Morning gives a very fair
idea of his own efforts to improve the lot of his serfs, and of the difficulties
and failures he encountered in the course of that attempt. In that story
Prince Nehlúdof decides to leave the University and settle in the country,
and writes to his aunt:
As I already wrote you, I found affairs in indescribable disorder.
Wishing to put them right, I discovered that the chief evil is the

truly pitiable, wretched condition of the serfs, and this is an evil
that can only be remedied by work and patience. If you could but
see two of my serfs, David and Iván, and the life they and their
families lead, I am sure the sight of these two poor wretches
would convince you more than all I can say in explanation of my
intention.
Is it not my plain and sacred duty to care for the welfare of these
seven hundred people for whom I must account to God? Will it
not be a sin if, following plans of pleasure or ambition, I abandon
them to the caprice of coarse Elders and stewards? And why
should I seek in any other sphere opportunities of being useful
and doing good, when I have before me such a noble brilliant and
intimate duty?
Not only is this letter just such as Tolstoy himself may have written, but the
difficulties Nehlúdof encounters when he tries to move his peasants from
the ruts to which generations of serfdom had accustomed them, are just
those Tolstoy himself met with: the suspicion shown by the serfs towards
any fresh interference on the part of the master, and the fact that ways to
which a community have grown accustomed are not easily changed by the
sudden effort of a well-intentioned but inexperienced proprietor.
After spending the summer of 1847 at Yásnaya, Tolstoy went to Petersburg,
where we find him settled in autumn; and early next year he entered for
examination at the University of that city.

1848

On the 13th of the following February he wrote to his brother Sergius:
I write you this letter from Petersburg, where I intend to remain
for ever.... I have decided to stay here for my examinations and
then to enter the service....
In brief, I must say that Petersburg life has a great and food
influence on me: it accustoms me to activity and supplies the

place of a fixed table of occupations. Somehow one cannot be
idle; every one is occupied and active; one cannot find a man with
whom one could lead an aimless life, and one can't do it alone....
I know you will not believe that I have changed, but will say, 'It's
already the twentieth time, and nothing comes of you—the
emptiest of fellows.' No, I have now altered in quite a new way. I
used to say to myself: 'Now I will change,' but at last I see that I
have changed, and I say, 'I have changed.'
Above all, I am now quite convinced that one cannot live by
theorising and philosophising, but must live positively, i.e. must
be a practical man. That is a great step in advance and a great
change; it never happened to me before. If one is young and
wishes to live, there is no place in Russia but Petersburg for it....

Tolstoy in 1848, after he had left the University.

On the 1st of May he wrote again to his brother, in a very different strain:
Seryózha! I think you already say I am 'the emptiest of fellows,'
and it is true. God knows what I have done! I came to Petersburg
without any reason, and have done nothing useful here, but have
spent heaps of money and got into debt. Stupid! Insufferably
stupid! You can't believe how it torments me. Above all, the
debts, which I must pay as soon as possible, because if I don't pay

them soon, besides losing the money, I shall lose my reputation....
I know you will cry out; but what's to be done? One commits
such folly once in a lifetime. I have had to pay for my freedom
(there was no one to thrash me, that was my chief misfortune) and
for philosophising, and now I have paid for it. Be so kind as to
arrange to get me out of this false and horrid position—penniless
and in debt all round.
He goes on to mention that he had passed two examinations at the
University, but that he had altered his mind, and now, instead of completing
his examinations, wanted to 'enter the Horse Guards as a Junker.' (A Junker
was a young man who volunteered for the army as a Cadet. Before
receiving a commission, a Junker lived with the officers, while preparing to
become one of them.)
God willing, I will amend and become a steady man at last, I hope
much from my service as a Junker, which will train me to
practical life, and nolens-volens I shall have to earn the rank of
officer. With luck, i.e. if the Guards go into action, I may get a
commission even before the usual two years are up. The Guards
start for the front at the end of May. At present I can do nothing:
first, because I have no money (of which I shall not need much, I
fancy), and secondly, because my two birth-certificates are at
Yásnaya. Have them sent on as soon as possible.
Before long, Tolstoy was again writing to his brother:
In my last letter I wrote much nonsense, of which the chief item
was that I intended to enter the Horse Guards; I shall act on that
plan only in case I fail in my examinations, and if the war is a
serious one.
The war in question was Russia's share in quelling the Hungarian rebellion
of 1849. Not a thought of the justice or otherwise of the cause seems at that
time to have crossed the mind of him who in later life became so powerful
an indicter of war.
This is Tolstoy's own summary, written many years later, of the period we
are now dealing with:

It was very pleasant living in the country with Aunty Tatiána, but
an indefinite thirst for knowledge drew me away to a distance.
This was in 1848, and I was still uncertain what to undertake. In
Petersburg two roads were open to me. I could either enter the
army, to take part in the Hungarian campaign, or I could complete
my studies at the University, to enter the Civil Service. My thirst
for knowledge conquered my ambition, and I again began to
study. I even passed two examinations in Law, but then all my
good resolutions broke down. Spring came, and the charm of
country life again drew me back to my estate.
Of the two examinations he passed at this time he says:
In 1848 I went to pass the examinations for my degree at
Petersburg University, knowing literally nothing, and reading up
during only one week. I worked day and night; and passed with
Honours in Civil and Criminal Law.
But in spite of this success he did not take the remaining examinations, and
returned to Yásnaya without having obtained a degree—finally abandoning
the attempt to do so.
In later times, when Tolstoy's reputation was world-wide, critics often
amused themselves by detecting inconsistencies in his conduct and
questioning his sincerity. But the proof of his sincerity is writ large in the
story of his life. Time after time, from the earliest pages of his Diary, we
find him vehemently resolving never more to do certain things, but always
to do other things, and again and again confessing in the greatest
tribulation, that he had failed to carry out his intentions; yet in spite of
everything he returns, and again returns, to his earliest ideals and gradually
shapes his life into accord with them, and eventually forms habits which,
when he first extolled them, appeared utterly beyond his reach. Not
insincerity but impetuosity, retrieved by extraordinary tenacity of purpose,
has always characterised him. It was the same with his thirst for knowledge
as with his yet deeper thirst after righteousness. Often as he was swayed by
the lures of life, each of those two great desires found its satisfaction at last.
The letters quoted above show some consciousness of the fact that there is a
practical side to life not to be mastered by theorising; but the duty of

learning by experience as well as by ratiocination is one Tolstoy has very
seldom dwelt on, and never, I think, realised at all fully.
Another characteristic matter alluded to in these letters is the difficulty he
found himself in for lack of his birth-certificates and other papers. Russia
has long suffered from a superabundance of red tape, which contrasts
strongly with the slipshod habits of its people, and promotes the hatred of
officialism that is there so common. The fact that Tolstoy has on several
occasions been put to great inconvenience for lack of certificates, which it
was not in his nature methodically to keep in readiness, is a small matter,
but it has probably had its share in increasing his strong dislike of
governments.
From Petersburg he brought back with him to Yásnaya a gifted but drunken
German musician named Rudolph, with whom he had chanced to make
acquaintance, and whose talent he had discerned. For some time Tolstoy
devoted himself passionately to music, acquiring sufficient skill on the
piano to become an excellent and sympathetic accompanist. He was always
very susceptible to the influence of music, and in music, as in literature, he
had strong sympathies and antipathies. Rudolph supplies the principal
figure in Tolstoy's story Albert, written several years later.
Aunt Tatiána, who had played the piano excellently in youth, but had quite
given it up for nearly thirty years, and who was now fifty-three years of
age, resumed its practice and, Tolstoy tells us, played duets with him, and
often surprised him by the accuracy and beauty of her execution.
For the next three years he lived partly at Yásnaya and partly in Moscow,
and led a life alternating between the asceticism of his brother Demetrius
and the self-indulgence of his brother Sergius; with dissipation, hunting,
gambling, and the society of gipsy-girl singers. These were among the
wildest and most wasted years of his life; but even here we find him, in the
summer of 1850, resuming his Diary with penitence and self-reproach, and
drawing up a time-table of how his days are in future to be spent: estate
management, bathing, diary-writing, music, dinner, rest, reading, bathing,
and again estate business to close the day. This curriculum was, however,
neglected. Gusts of passion again swept away his good resolutions.

1849

At this time he made his first attempt to start a school for the peasant
children of Yásnaya; but it was closed again two years later when he was in
pecuniary difficulties; and it was not till 1862 that he discovered that he had
infringed the law by opening it without official permission.
In relation to women, Tolstoy's ideal was a regular and affectionate family
life. Women were for him divided into two groups: those sacred ones who
could be looked on as possible wives or sisters, and those who, like the
gipsy singers, could be paid for and possessed for short periods. To try to
wipe out by a money payment any obligation arising from intimate
relations, seems to have been his fixed rule. His animal passions were very
strong, and late in life I have heard him say that neither drinking, cards,
smoking, nor any other bad habit, had been nearly so hard for him to
overcome as his desire for women. But he never doubted that that desire
was a bad one. To judge him fairly, it must be remembered how loose was
the general tone of the society in which he lived, and that the advice given
him at this critical time of his life by those who were his natural guides, was
not that he should live a chaste life, but that he should attach himself to a
woman of good social position. In his Confession he tells us:
The kind aunt with whom I lived, herself the purest of beings,
always told me that there was nothing she so desired for me as
that I should have relations with a married woman: 'Rien ne forme
un jeune homme, comme une liaison avec une femme comme il
faut' [Nothing so forms a young man, as an intimacy with a
woman of good breeding]. Another happiness she desired for me
was that I should become an aide-de-camp, and if possible aide-
de-camp to the Emperor. But the greatest happiness of all would
be that I should marry a very rich girl and become possessed of as
many serfs as possible.
We never find Tolstoy involved in any family scandal, or called on to fight a
duel about women; but his Diary at this period contains many traces of his
struggles and his falls; as when he writes:

Men whom I consider morally lower than myself, do evil better
than I.... I live an animal life, though not quite debauched. My
occupations are almost all abandoned, and I am greatly depressed
in spirit.
His pecuniary affairs became disordered, owing to his gambling and other
bad habits, and towards the end of 1850 he thought of trying to earn money
by taking on a contract to run the post-station at Toúla, which before
railways were built was an undertaking of some importance. Varied
however as Tolstoy's abilities unquestionably are, Nature never intended
him to be a man of business, and this plan fortunately came to nothing.

1850-1851

The winter of 1850-51 he passed for the most part in Moscow, and as a
foretaste of the simplification of life which was to be such a prominent
feature of his later years, we find him writing to his aunt at Yásnaya: 'Je
dîne à la maison avec des stchi et kasha dont je me contente parfaitement' [I
dine at home on cabbage soup and buckwheat porridge, with which I am
quite contented]; and he goes on to say that he only awaits the preserves
and home-made liqueurs (which she no doubt sent him) to have everything
as he was accustomed to have it in the country.
We find Aunty Tatiána warning him against card-playing. Tolstoy replies in
French:
[3]
Tout ce que vous me dîtes au sujet de la perversité du jeu est
très vrai et me revient souvent à l'esprit. C'est pourquoi je crois
que je ne jouerai plus.... 'Je crois,' mais j'espère bientôt vous dire
pour sûr.

1851

In March 1851 he returned to Moscow after visiting Yásnaya, and he notes
in his Diary that he went there with the treble aim of playing cards, getting

married, and entering the Civil Service. Not one of these three objects was
attained. He took an aversion to cards. For marriage he considered a
conjunction of love, reason, and fate to be necessary, and none of these was
present. As to entering the service, it was again the fact that he had not
brought the necessary documents with him that barred the way.
In March he writes to Aunty Tatiána and says he believes it to be true that
spring brings a moral renovation. It always does him good, and he is able to
maintain his good intentions for some months. Winter is the season that
causes him to go wrong.
Next came a period of religious humility: he fasted diligently and composed
a sermon, which of course was never preached. He also tried unsuccessfully
to write a gipsy story and an imitation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey.
This period of his life was brought to a close by the return from the
Caucasus, on leave of absence, of his eldest brother Nicholas, who was by
this time an artillery officer.
Anxious to economise and pay off the debts he had contracted at cards,
especially one of Rs. 4000 to Ogaryóf, a gendarme officer, who owned a
small estate not far from Yásnaya, Leo resolved to accompany his brother
on the latter's return to the Caucasus. He entrusted his estate to the care of
his brother-in-law (Mary's husband), who was to pay his debts and allow
him only Rs. 500 (then equal to about £80) a year to live on, and he gave
his word not to play cards any more.
Tolstoy had another reason for wishing to escape from his accustomed
surroundings. His brother Sergius was very fond of the gipsy choirs, famous
in Russia for their musical talent. These choirs used to visit Yásnaya, and
Leo Tolstoy, who shared his brother's susceptibility to the fascinations of
the gipsy girls, saw a means of safety in flight to the Caucasus.
Before closing this chapter, let us note the extraordinary freedom enjoyed
by young men of Tolstoy's class in those days of serfdom. Economically,
serfdom supplied them with means, at the expense of a class deprived of
almost all rights and absolutely dependent on their owners. Even if a
member of the aristocracy ruined himself, family interest or a prudent
marriage often retrieved the position for him. Religious restraint counted for

little, for side by side with superstition, scepticism was common among the
educated. The standard of morals expected of a young man was elastic and
ill-defined. No irksome sense of public duty pressed on his attention.
Politics, in our sense of the word, were forbidden; and though he had to
enter the State service (civil or military), this was regarded either as a way
of making a career for himself, or as a mere formality.
The detachment from the real business of life in which young Russians
grew up, and the comparative isolation in which they lived on their country
estates, explain the extremely radical conclusions often arrived at by those
of them who wished to make the world better. Chain a man to the heavily
laden car of social progress, and he can only advance very slowly, though
any advance he does accomplish represents much effort and is of practical
importance. Detach him from that car, and he may easily and pleasantly fly
away on the winds of speculation to the uttermost realm of the highest
heaven, without its producing any immediately perceptible result on the
lives of his fellow-men. What I mean is, that the less a man is involved in
practical work, the easier and pleasanter it is for him to take up extreme
positions; I do not mean to deny that activity in the realm of thought and
feeling exerts an unseen yet potent influence on other minds, and ultimately
on practical affairs.
A knowledge of the social surroundings in which Tolstoy grew up makes it
easier to understand the doctrines he subsequently taught. It was partly
because he grew up in a detached and irresponsible position that the state of
his own mind and soul were to him so much more important than the
immediate effect of his conduct on others, and the same cause led him to
remain in ignorance of lessons every intelligent man of business among us
learns of necessity.
His independent position made easier the formation of that state of mind
free from intellectual prejudice which enabled him later on to examine the
claims of the Church, of the Bible, of the economists, of governments, and
the most firmly established manners and customs of society, untrammelled
by the fear of shocking or hurting other people, though all the time his
feelings were so sensitive that it has never been possible for him to doubt or
question the goodness of those lines of conduct which he had admired and

approved when in childhood he saw them practised by those near and dear
to him.
Contrasting his moral attitude with that of a young Englishman anxious to
do right in our day, I should say that Tolstoy had no adequate sense of being
a responsible member of a complex community with the opinions and
wishes of which it is necessary to reckon. On the contrary, his tendency was
to recognise with extraordinary vividness a personal duty revealed by the
working of his own conscience and intellect apart from any systematic
study of the social state of which he was a member.
He thus came to see things in a way we do not see them, while he remained
blind to some things with which we are quite familiar. That is one reason
why he is so extraordinarily interesting: he puts things in a way no
Englishman would ever dream of putting them, and yet we feel how near
akin we of the Western twentieth-century world are to this nineteenth-
century Russian noble, who has so much in common with the medieval
saint and the Oriental fatalist; and this helps us to realise that all nations and
classes of men are, indeed, of one blood.
Later on, in the sequel to this work, when we have to deal with Tolstoy's
peaceful anarchism and his conviction that no external regulation of society
is necessary, but that all men would naturally do right were they not
hampered by man-made laws, it will be useful to bear in mind that his own
strength grew through having to steer unaided through the stormy seas of
passion, and from finding his own way to a haven the lights of which had
first shone on him in childhood. Like the rest of mankind, he judges others
by himself.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER II

Birukof.
Behrs.
Novy Mir.

Education and Instruction, and On the Education of the People, in vol. iv.
of Tolstoy's collected works: Moscow, 1903.
Confession. Published by the Svobodnoe Slovo, Christchurch, 1901.
Prof. Zagoskin, Stoudentcheskie gody gr. Tolstogo, in Istoritchesky Vestnik:
January 1894.
V. N. Nazaryef, Zhizn i ludi bylogo vremeni, in Istoritchesky Vestnik:
November 1900.
Tolstoy's talk with Pogodin, quoted in Mihaylovsky's Literary
Recollections: Petersburg, 1900.
L. N. Tolstoy. By E. Solovef: Petersburg, 1897.
Light is also thrown on this period by Tolstoy's Childhood, Boyhood, and
Youth, The Memoirs of a Billiard Marker, Two Hussars, A Squire's
Morning, and Albert (which, however, are not autobiographies), as well as
by stories included in Tolstoy's Readers for School-children—The Old
Horse and How I Learned to Ride.

CHAPTER III
THE CAUCASUS

Journey. Russian Conquest. Letters to Aunt Tatiána. Diary.
Cossacks. He volunteers. Enters army. Hádji Mourát. Story of a
gaming debt. Sádo. Dreams for the future. Childhood. Shooting.
Boúlka. Slow promotion. The Raid. The Censor. Danger. Applies
for discharge. Applies to Gortchakóf. Memoirs of a Billiard
Marker. Receives his commission. His retrospect.

1851

The brothers Nicholas and Leo left Yásnaya Polyána on 20th April 1851,
and spent a couple of weeks in Moscow. The frankness of Leo's intercourse
with his Aunt Tatiána is illustrated by the following letter which he wrote,
telling her of a visit he paid to Sokólniki, a pleasant outskirt of Moscow on
the borders of a pine forest, where a fête is held on May-day.
That he wrote in French is explained by the fact that Tatiána, like many
Russian ladies educated early in the nineteenth century, knew French better
than she did Russian.
[4]
J'ai été à la promenade de Sokólniki par un temps détestable,
c'est pourquoi je n'ai rencontré personne des dames de la société,
que j'avais envie de voir. Comme vous prétendez que je suis un
homme à épreuves, je suis allé parmi les plébs, dans les tentes
bohémiennes. Vous pouvez aisément vous figurer le combat

intérieur qui s'engagea là-bas pour et contre. Au reste j'en sortis
victorieux, c.à d. n'ayant rien donné que ma bénédiction aux
joyeux descendants des illustres Pharaons. Nicolas trouve que je
suis un compagnon de voyage très agréable, si ce n'était ma
propreté. Il se fâche de ce que, comme il le dit, je change de linge
12 fois par jour. Moi je le trouve aussi compagnon très agréable,
si ce n'était sa saleté. Je ne sais lequel de nous a raison.
On leaving Moscow, instead of travelling to the Caucasus by the usual route
viâ Vorónesh, Nicholas Tolstoy, who liked to do things his own way,
decided that they would drive first to Kazán. Here they stayed a week,
visiting acquaintances, and that was long enough for Leo to fall in love with
a young lady to whom his shyness prevented his expressing his sentiments.
He left for the Caucasus bearing his secret with him, and we hear no more
of the matter.
From Kazán they drove to Sarátof, where they hired a boat large enough to
take their travelling carriage on board, and with a crew of three men, made
their way down the Vólga to Astrakhán, sometimes rowing, sometimes
sailing, and sometimes drifting with the stream.
The scorn of luxury and social distinctions so prominent in Tolstoy's later
philosophy, was at this period more to the taste of his brother Nicholas. A
gentleman drove past them in Kazán leaning on his walking-stick with
ungloved hands, and that was sufficient to cause Leo to speak of him
contemptuously, whereupon Nicholas, in his usual tone of good-natured
irony, wanted to know why a man should be despised for not wearing
gloves.
From Astrakhán they had still to drive some two hundred and seventy miles
to reach Starogládovsk, where Nicholas Tolstoy's battery was stationed. The
whole journey from Moscow, including the stay in Kazán, took nearly a
month.
It may be convenient here to explain why the Russians were then fighting in
the Caucasus. Georgia, situated to the south of the Caucasian Mountains,
had been voluntarily annexed to Russia in 1799 to escape the oppression of
Persia; and it therefore became politically desirable for Russia to subdue the
tribes that separated her from her newly acquired dependency. During the

first half of the nineteenth century this task proceeded very slowly, but at
the time we are speaking of, Prince Baryatínsky, in command of the
Russian forces stationed on the left bank of the river Térek, which flows
into the Caspian Sea, was undertaking a series of expeditions against the
hostile native tribes. Up to that time the Russians had held hardly anything
south of the Térek and north of the Caucasian Mountains, except their own
forts and encampments; but in less than another decade, Baryatínsky had
captured Shámyl (the famous leader who so long defied Russia) and had
subdued the whole country.
Soon after the brothers Tolstoy arrived at Starogládovsk, Nicholas was
ordered to the fortified camp at Goryatchevódsk ('Hot Springs'), an
advanced post recently established to protect the invalids who availed
themselves of those mineral waters.
Here Leo Tolstoy first saw, and was deeply impressed by, the beauty of the
magnificent mountain range which he has so well described in The
Cossacks. In July 1851 he wrote to his Aunt Tatiána:
[5]
Nicolas est parti dans une semaine après son arrivée, et moi je
l'y suivis, de sorte que nous sommes presque depuis trois
semaines ici où nous logeons dans une tente. Mais comme le
temps est beau et que je me fais un peu à ce genre de vie, je me
trouve très bien. Ici il y a des coups d'œil magnifiques, à
commencer par l'endroit où sont les sources. C'est une énorme
montagne de pierres l'une sur l'autre, dont les unes se sont
détachées et forment des espèces de grottes, les autres restent
suspendues à une grande hauteur. Elles sont toutes coupées par les
courants d'eau chaude, qui tombent avec bruit dans quelques
endroits et couvrent surtout le matin toute la partie élevée de la
montagne d'une vapeur blanche qui se détache continuellement de
cette eau bouillante. L'eau est tellement chaude qu'on cuit dedans
les œufs hard en trois minutes. Au milieu de ce ravin sur le torrent
principal il y a trois moulins, l'un au-dessus de l'autre, qui sont
construits d'une manière toute particulière et très pittoresque.
Toute la journée les femmes tartares ne cessent de venir au-dessus
et au-dessous de ces moulins pour laver leur linge. II faut vous
dire qu'elles lavent avec les pieds. C'est comme une fourmilière

toujours remuante. Les femmes sont pour la plupart belles et bien
faites. Les costumes des femmes orientales malgré leur pauvreté,
sont gracieux. Les groupes pittoresques que forment les femmes,
joint à la beauté sauvage de l'endroit fait un coup d'œil
véritablement admirable. Je reste très souvent des heures à
admirer ce paysage. Puis le coup d'œil du haut de la montagne est
encore plus beau et tout à fait dans un autre genre. Mais je crains
de vous ennuyer avec mes descriptions.
Je suis très content d'être aux eaux puisque j'en profite. Je prends
des bains ferrugineux et je ne sens plus de douleur aux pieds.
As showing how hot these springs were, it may be mentioned that a dog
belonging to Nicholas tumbled into the water and was scalded to death.
The officers Tolstoy met, he found to be men without education, and he
wrote: 'At first many things in this society shocked me, but I have
accustomed myself to them, without however attaching myself to these
gentlemen. I have found a happy mean, in which there is neither pride nor
familiarity.' He was helped by the fact that Nicholas was popular with every
one; and, by adopting the plan of having vódka, wine, and something to eat
always ready for those who dropped in to see him, he succeeded in keeping
on good terms with these men, though he did not care to know them
intimately.
The following extract from his Diary preserves the record of the rapidly
changing moods he experienced in those days. Soon after reaching the
Caucasus he noted:

Stary Urt, 11th June 1851.
Yesterday I hardly slept all night. Having posted up my Diary, I
prayed to God. It is impossible to convey the sweetness of the
feeling I experienced during my prayer. I said the prayers I
usually repeat by heart: 'Our Father,' 'To the Virgin,' etc., and still
remained in prayer. If one defines prayer as a petition or as
thanksgiving, then I did not pray. I desired something supreme
and good; but what, I cannot express, though I was clearly

conscious of what I wanted. I wished to merge into the Universal
Being. I asked Him to pardon my crimes; yet no, I did not ask
that, for I felt that if He had given me this blissful moment, He
had pardoned me. I asked, and at the same time felt that I had
nothing to ask, and that I cannot and do not know how to ask; I
thanked Him, but not with words or thoughts. I combined in one
feeling both petition and gratitude. Fear quite vanished. I could
not have separated any one emotion—faith, hope or love—from
the general feeling. No, this was what I experienced yesterday: it
was love of God, lofty love, uniting in itself all that is good,
excluding all that is bad. How dreadful it was to me to see the
trivial and vicious side of life! I could not understand its having
any attraction for me. How I asked God with a pure heart to
accept me into His bosom! I did not feel the flesh.... But no, the
carnal, trivial side again asserted itself, and before an hour had
passed I almost consciously heard the voice of vice, vanity, and
the empty side of life; I knew whence that voice came, knew it
had ruined my bliss! I struggled against it, and yet yielded to it. I
fell asleep thinking of fame and of women; but it was not my
fault, I could not help it.
Again, on 2nd July, after writing down reflections on suffering and death,
he concludes:
How strong I seem to myself to be against all that can happen;
how firm in the conviction that one must expect nothing here but
death; yet a moment later I am thinking with pleasure of a saddle
I have ordered, on which I shall ride dressed in a Cossack cloak,
and of how I shall carry on with the Cossack girls; and I fall into
despair because my left moustache is higher than my right, and
for two hours I straighten it out before the looking-glass.
By August he was back again at Starogládovsk, and, full of energy, risked
his life as a volunteer in expeditions against the Circassians. Having met
Ilyá Tolstoy, an officer and a relation, he was introduced by him to the
Commander-in-Chief, General Baryatínsky. The latter had noticed Leo
Tolstoy during one of the expeditions, and on making his acquaintance
complimented him on his bravery and advised him to enter the army. Ilyá

Tolstoy urged the same advice, and Leo accepted it. Towards the end of
October he went a tiresome but beautiful seven-days' journey to Tiflis,
where he had to pass the examination qualifying him to become a Junker
(Cadet). From there he wrote to his Aunt Tatiána a letter containing the first
intimation of the vocation that was ultimately to make him far more famous
than Baryatínsky himself:
[6]
Vous rappelez-vous, bonne tante, un conseil que vous m'avez
donné jadis—celui de faire des romans? Eh bien! je suis votre
conseil et les occupations dont je vous parle consistent à faire de
la littérature. Je ne sais si ce que j'écris paraîtra jamais dans le
monde, mais c'est un travail qui m'amuse et dans lequel je
persévère depuis trop longtemps pour l'abandonner.
For two months he lived in the 'German' suburb of Tiflis, paying Rs. 5 a
month (at that time equal to about 16s.) for his two-roomed lodging;
disturbed by no one, writing Childhood, and trying to enter the army—the
main obstacle to which was that, as usual, he found himself without his
birth-certificate and other documents. He seldom enjoyed good health for
many consecutive months, and during his stay in Tiflis he was confined to
the house for some weeks by illness. At last, on 23rd December 1851, he
was able to write to his brother, Sergius, announcing that in a few days he
expected to receive his appointment as Junker in the 4th battery of artillery,
and that on the day he received it he would set out for Starogládovsk, and
from there go on campaign, and to the best of his ability 'assist, with the aid
of a cannon, in destroying the predatory and turbulent Asiatics.' He goes on
to tell of hunting. He had been out nine times, and had killed two foxes and
about sixty grey hares. He had also hunted wild boar and deer, but had not
killed any.
In the same letter Tolstoy mentions Hádji Mourát, the hero of a tale he
wrote more than fifty years later, and that has been put aside for
posthumous publication. He says: 'If you wish to show off with news from
the Caucasus, you may recount that a certain Hádji Mourát (the second in
importance to Shámyl himself) surrendered a few days ago to the Russian
Government. He was the leading dare-devil and "brave" in all Circassia, but
was led to commit a mean action.'

1852

A little later, on 6th January 1852, we find him again in Tiflis, writing to
Aunt Tatiána.
[7]
Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 24 Novembre et je vous y
réponds le moment même (comme j'en ai pris l'habitude).
Dernièrement je vous écrivais que votre lettre m'a fait pleurer et
j'accusai ma maladie de cette faiblesse. J'ai eu tort. Toutes vos
lettres me font depuis quelque temps le même effet. J'ai toujours
été Lyóva-ryóva [Leo, Cry-baby]. Avant cette faiblesse me faisait
honte, mais les larmes que je verse en pensant à vous et à votre
amour pour nous, sont tellement douces que je les laisse couler,
sans aucune fausse-honte. Votre lettre est trop pleine de tristesse
pour qu'elle ne produise pas sur moi le même effet. C'est vous qui
toujours m'avez donné des conseils et quoique malheureusement
je ne les aie pas suivis quelquefois, je voudrais toute ma vie n'agir
que d'après vos avis. Permettez-moi pour le moment de vous dire
l'effet qu'a produit sur moi votre lettre et les idées qui me sont
venues en la lisant. Si je vous parle trop franchement je sais que
vous me le pardonnerez en faveur de l'amour que j'ai pour vous.
En disant que c'est votre tour de nous quitter pour aller rejoindre
ceux qui ne sont plus et que vous avez tant aimés, en disant que
vous demandez à Dieu de mettre un terme à votre existence qui
vous semble si insupportable et isolée,—pardon, chère tante, mais
il me paraît qu'en disant cela vous offensez Dieu et moi et nous
tous qui vous aimons tant. Vous demandez à Dieu la mort, c. à
dire le plus grand malheur qui puisse m'arriver (ce n'est pas une
phrase, mais Dieu m'est témoin que les deux plus grands
malheurs qui puissent m'arriver ce serait votre mort ou celle de
Nicolas—les deux personnes que j'aime plus que moi-même).
Que resterait-il pour moi si Dieu exauçait votre prière? Pour faire
plaisir à qui, voudrais-je devenir meilleur, avoir de bonnes
qualités, avoir une bonne réputation dans le monde? Quand je fais
des plans de bonheur pour moi, l'idée que vous partagerez et
jouirez de mon bonheur m'est toujours présente. Quand je fais
quelque chose de bon, je suis content de moi-même, parce que je

sais que vous serez contente de moi. Quand j'agis mal, ce que je
crains le plus—c'est de vous faire du chagrin. Votre amour est tout
pour moi, et vous demandez à Dieu qu'il nous sépare! Je ne puis
vous dire le sentiment que j'ai pour vous, la parole ne suffit pas
pour vous l'exprimer et je crains que vous ne pensiez que
j'exagère et cependant je pleure à chaudes larmes en vous
écrivant.
In the same letter he tells of one of those remarkable 'answers to prayer,'
instances of thought-transference, or (if the reader pleases) simply
coincidences, which have played so great a part in the history of all
religious bodies.
[8]
Aujourd'hui il m'est arrivé une de ces choses qui m'auraient fait
croire en Dieu, si je n'y croyais déjà fermement depuis quelque
temps.
L'été à Stáry Urt tous les officiers qui y étaient ne faisaient que
jouer et assez gros jeu. Comme en vivant au camp il est
impossible de ne pas se voir souvent, j'ai très souvent assisté au
jeu et malgré les instances qu'on me faisait j'ai tenu bon pendant
un mois; mais un beau jour en plaisantant, j'ai mis un petit enjeu,
j'ai perdu, j'ai recommencé, j'ai encore perdu, la chance en était
mauvaise, la passion du jeu s'est reveillée et en deux jours j'ai
perdu tout ce que j'avais d'argent et celui que Nicolas m'a donné
(à peu près 250 r. argent) et par dessus cela encore 500 r. argent
pour lequel j'ai donné une lettre de change payable au mois de
Janvier 1852.
Il faut vous dire que près du camp il y a un Aoul qu'habitent les
Tchitchéniens. Un jeune garçon (Tchitchénien) Sado venait au
camp et jouait, mais comme il ne savait pas compter et inscrire il
y avait des chenapans qui le trichaient. Je n'ai jamais voulu jouer
pour cette raison contre Sado, et même je lui ai dit qu'il ne fallait
pas qu'il jouât, parce qu'on le trompait et je me suis proposé de
jouer pour lui par procuration. Il m'a été très reconnaissant pour
ceci et m'a fait cadeau d'une bourse. Comme c'est l'usage de cette
nation de se faire des cadeaux mutuels, je lui ai donné un

misérable fusil que j'avais acheté pour 8 rb. Il faut vous dire que
pour devenir Kounák, ce qui veut dire ami, il est d'usage de se
faire des cadeaux, et puis de manger dans la maison du Kounák.
Après cela, d'après l'ancien usage de ces peuples (qui n'existe
presque plus que par tradition) on devient ami à la vie et à la
mort, c.à d. que si je lui demande tout son argent, ou sa femme,
ou ses armes, ou tout ce qu'il a de plus précieux, il doit me les
donner, et moi aussi je ne dois rien lui refuser. Sado m'a engagé
de venir chez lui et d'être Kounák. J'y suis allé. Après m'avoir
régalé à leur manière, il m'a proposé de choisir dans sa maison
tout ce que je voudrais—ses armes, son cheval ... tout. J'ai voulu
choisir ce qu'il y avait de moins cher et j'ai pris une bride de
cheval montée en argent, mais il m'a dit que je l'offensais et m'a
obligé de prendre une sword qui vaut au moins 100 r. arg.
Son père est un homme assez riche, mais qui a son argent enterré
et ne donne pas le sou à son fils. Le fils pour avoir de l'argent va
voler chez l'ennemi des chevaux, des vaches; quelquefois il
expose 20 fois sa vie pour voler une chose qui ne vaut pas 10 r.,
mais ce n'est pas par cupidité qu'il le fait, mais par genre. Le plus
grand voleur est très estimé et on l'appelle 'Dzhigit,' un Brave.
Tantôt Sado a 1000 r. arg., tantôt pas le sou. Après une visite chez
lui, je lui ai fait cadeau de la montre d'argent de Nicolas et nous
sommes devenus les plus grands amis du monde. Plusieurs fois il
m'a prouvé son dévouement en s'exposant à des dangers pour
moi, mais ceci pour lui n'est rien—c'est devenu une habitude et un
plaisir.
Quand je suis parti de Stáry Urt et que Nicolas y est resté, Sado
venait chez lui tous les jours et disait qu'il ne savait que devenir
sans moi et qu'il s'ennuyait terriblement. Par une lettre je faisais
connaître à Nicolas, que mon cheval étant malade, je le priais de
m'en trouver un à Stáry Urt; Sado ayant appris cela n'eut rien de
plus pressé que de venir chez moi et de me donner son cheval,
malgré tout ce que j'ai pu faire pour refuser.
Après la bêtise que j'ai fait de jouer à Stáry Urt, je n'ai plus repris
les cartes en mains, et je faisais continuellement la morale à Sado

qui a la passion du jeu et quoiqu'il ne connaisse pas le jeu, a
toujours un bonheur étonnant. Hier soir je me suis occupé à
penser à mes affaires pécuniaires, à mes dettes; je pensais
comment je ferais pour les payer. Ayant longtemps pensé à ces
choses, j'ai vu que si je ne dépense pas trop d'argent, toutes mes
dettes ne m'embarrasseront pas et pourront petit à petit être
payées dans 2 ou 3 ans; mais les 500 rbs., que je devais payer ce
mois, me mettaient au désespoir. Il m'était impossible de les payer
et pour le moment ils m'embarrassaient beaucoup plus que ne
l'avaient fait autrefois les 4000 d'Ogaryéff. Cette bêtise d'avoir
fait les dettes que j'avais en Russie et de venir en faire de
nouvelles ici me mettait au désespoir. Le soir en faisant ma prière,
j'ai prié Dieu qu'il me tire de cette désagréable position et avec
beaucoup de ferveur. 'Mais comment est-ce que je puis me tirer de
cette affaire?' pensai-je en me couchant. 'Il ne peut rien arriver qui
me donne la possibilité d'acquitter cette dette.' Je me représentais
déjà tous les désagréments que j'avais à essuyer à cause de cela:
how when he presents the note for collection, the authorities will
demand an explanation as to why I did not pay, etc. 'Lord, help
me!' said I, and fell asleep.
Le lendemain je reçois une lettre de Nicolas à laquelle était jointe
la votre et plusieurs autres—il m'écrit:
The other day Sádo came to see me. He has won your notes-of-
hand from Knorring, and has brought them to me. He was so
pleased to have won them, and asked me so often, 'What do you
think? Will your brother be glad that I have done this?' that I have
grown very fond of him. That man is really attached to you.
N'est-ce pas étonnant que de voir ses vœux aussi exaucés le
lendemain même? C. à d., qu'il n'y a rien d'aussi étonnant que la
bonté divine pour un être qui la mérite si peu que moi. Et n'est-ce
pas que le trait de dévouement de Sado est admirable? Il sait que
j'ai un frère Serge, qui aime les chevaux et comme je lui ai promis
de le prendre en Russie quand j'y irai, il m'a dit, que dût-il lui en
coûter 100 fois la vie, il volera le meilleur cheval qu'il y ait dans
les montagnes, et qu'il le lui amènera.

Faites, je vous prie, acheter à Toúla un 6-barrelled pistol et un
musical-box, si cela ne coûte pas trop cher. Ce sont des choses qui
lui feront beaucoup de plaisir.
In explanation of this letter one has to mention that Sádo was a 'peaceful'
Circassian, that is, one friendly to Russia (though his tribe in general were
hostile), and further, that the passages printed in English in the midst of the
French text, are in the original written in Russian.
A few days later we find Tolstoy on his way back to Starogládovsk,
stopping (probably for post-horses) at the post-station Mozdók, and again
writing his aunt a long letter in which he says:
[9]
La religion et l'expérience que j'ai de la vie (quelque petite
qu'elle soit) m'ont appris que la vie est une épreuve. Dans moi elle
est plus qu'une épreuve, c'est encore l'expiation de mes fautes.
J'ai dans l'idée que l'idée si frivole que j'ai eu d'aller faire un
voyage au Caucase—est une idée qui m'a été inspirée d'en haut.
C'est la main de Dieu qui m'a guidé—je ne cesse de l'en
remercier. Je sens que je suis devenu meilleur ici (et ce n'est pas
beaucoup dire puisque j'ai été très mauvais) et je suis fermement
persuadé que tout ce qui peut m'arriver ici ne sera que pour mon
bien, puisque c'est Dieu lui-même qui l'a voulu ainsi. Peut-être
c'est une idée bien hardie, néanmoins j'ai cette conviction. C'est
pour cela que je supporte les fatigues et les privations physiques
dont je parle (ce ne sont pas des privations physiques—il n'y en a
pas pour un garçon de 23 ans qui se porte bien) sans les ressentir,
même avec une espèce de plaisir en pensant au bonheur qui
m'attend.
Voilà comment je le représente:
Après un nombre indéterminé d'années, ni jeune, ni vieux, je suis
à Yásnaya; mes affaires sont en ordre, je n'ai pas d'inquiétudes, ni
de tracasseries. Vous habitez Yásnaya aussi. Vous avez un peu
vieillie, mais êtes encore fraîche et bien portante. Nous menons la
vie que nous avons menée,—je travaille le matin, mais nous nous
voyons presque toute la journée. Nous dînons. Le soir je fais une

lecture qui ne vous ennuie pas, puis nous causons—moi je vous
raconte ma vie au Caucase, vous me parlez de vos souvenirs—de
mon père, de ma mère, vous me contez des 'terrible tales' que
jadis nous écoutions les yeux effrayés et la bouche béante. Nous
nous rappelons les personnes qui nous ont été chères et qui ne
sont plus; vous pleurerez, j'en ferai de même, mais ces larmes
seront douces; nous causerons des frères qui viendront nous voir
de temps en temps, de la chère Marie qui passera aussi quelques
mois de l'année a Yásnaya qu'elle aime tant, avec tous ses enfants.
Nous n'aurons point de connaissances—personne ne viendra nous
ennuyer et faire des commérages. C'est un beau rêve, mais ce
n'est pas encore tout ce que je me permets de rêver.—Je suis
marié—ma femme est une personne douce, bonne, aimante; elle a
pour vous le même amour que moi; nous avons des enfants qui
vous appellent grandmaman; vous habitez la grande maison en
haut, la même chambre que jadis habitait grandmaman. Toute la
maison est dans le même ordre qu'elle a été du temps de papa et
nous recommençons la même vie, seulement en changéant de
rôle; vous prenez le rôle de grandmaman, mais vous êtes encore
meilleure; moi le rôle de papa, mais je désespère de jamais le
mériter; ma femme celui de maman, les enfants le nôtre; Marie le
rôle des deux tantes, leurs malheurs exceptés.... Mais il manquera
un personnage pour prendre le rôle que vous avez joué dans notre
famille; jamais il ne se trouvera une âme aussi belle, aussi
aimante que la vôtre. Vous n'avez pas de successeur. Il y aura trois
nouveaux personnages, qui paraîtront de temps en temps sur la
scène—les frères, surtout l'un qui sera souvent avec nous: Nicolas
—vieux garçon, chauve, retiré du service, toujours aussi bon,
aussi noble.
I imagine how he will, as of old, tell the children fairy tales of his
own invention, and how they will kiss his greasy hands (but
which are worthy of it), how he will play with them, how my wife
will bustle about to get him his favourite dishes, how he and I will
recall our common memories of days long past, how you will sit
in your accustomed place and listen to us with pleasure; how, as
of yore, you will call us, old men, 'Lyóvotchka' and 'Nikólenka,'

and will scold me for eating with my fingers, and him for not
having clean hands.
Si on me faisait empereur de Russie, si on me donnait le Pérou, en
un mot si une fée venait avec sa baguette me demander ce que je
désire—la main sur la conscience, je répondrais que je désire
seulement que ce rêve puisse devenir une réalité.
He returned to Starogládovsk a Junker, and in February took part in an
expedition as a non-commissioned artillery officer, and nearly received a St.
George's Cross for bravery, but lost it because, once again, he had not his
documents in order.
Writing to his Aunt Tatiána some months later (June 1852), he says:
[10]
Pendant cette expédition, j'ai eu l'occasion d'être deux fois
présenté à la croix de St. Georges et je n'ai pas pu la recevoir à
cause du retard de quelques jours de ce maudit papier. J'ai été
présenté pour la journée du 18 Février (ma fête), mais on a été
obligé de refuser à cause du manque de ce papier. La liste des
présentations partit le 19, le 20 le papier était arrivé. Je vous
avoue franchement que de tous les honneurs militaires c'est cette
seule petite croix que j'ai eu la vanité d'ambitionner.
On a second occasion he had the refusal of the coveted cross, but his
Colonel pointed out to him that besides being sometimes given to Junkers
favoured by their officers, these crosses were also, and more usually,
granted to old and deserving privates, whom they entitled to a life pension;
and that if Tolstoy would forego the one intended for him, it would be given
to a veteran who deserved it, and to whom it would secure a subsistence for
his old age. Tolstoy, to his honour be it said, renounced the coveted
decoration. He had a third chance of securing it later on, but this time,
absorbed in playing chess till late at night, he omitted to go on duty, and the
Commander of the Division noticing his absence, placed him under arrest
and cancelled the award which had been already made in his favour. Chess,
I may here mention, has always been a favourite game of Tolstoy's. He has
never studied the game from books, but has played much and plays
ingeniously and well.

The kind of warfare in which he was now engaged, is well described in The
Raid and The Wood-Felling. A detachment would set out to seize a Tartar
village, make a clearing in a forest, or capture cattle. It would exchange
cannon- and rifle-shots with Tartar skirmishers, and would lose perhaps half
a dozen men killed or wounded before accomplishing its object; but the
more serious part of the work came when the expedition returned to the
fortified camp from which it had started. As soon as the retreat commenced,
Tartar sharpshooters would swarm out, trying to cut off stragglers and
inflicting as much damage as possible. Even after the Russians were beyond
rifle-shot, a chance ball from a Tartar cannon might reach them within sight
of their own quarters.
To see a single man one has known well, struck down by a deadly bullet,
may impress an observer as vividly as the myriad corpses of a great
battlefield; and in Tolstoy's earliest war-sketches one feels the note of horror
at war quite as strongly as when, later on, he described far bloodier
struggles at Sevastopol.
When not on campaign, Tolstoy was generally stationed at the Cossack
village of Starogládovsk, where he lived more or less the life vividly
described in The Cossacks. The Grebénsky Cossacks located there were
descended from Russian Dissenters (Old-Believers) who had fled from the
persecution of former Tsars and had settled among the Mohammedan
Circassians near the river Térek. They had retained the purity of their
Russian speech, and remained nominally Christians, but had intermarried
with the natives and adopted many of their manners and customs. Love of
freedom, idleness, robbery, hunting, and war were their most prominent
characteristics. They considered themselves altogether superior both to the
semi-savage Mohammedan natives and to the tame, disciplined Russians.
Drunkenness was not so much a weakness of these men as 'a tribal rite, to
abandon which would have been considered as an act of apostasy.' The
work was done by the women, or by hired Nogai-Tartar labourers. The
women were physically better developed than the men, and were celebrated
for their beauty, combining the purest type of Circassian features with the
powerful build of Northern women. In their relations with men, especially
before marriage, they enjoyed absolute freedom.

There was much that attracted Tolstoy in the simple life of these people:
their frankness, their skill in hunting, their contempt for all that is artificial
or weak, and their freedom from the moral struggles that tormented him.
With one beautiful girl—Mariána—he fell deeply in love, but she remained
indifferent to the attentions of a man who was inferior in the arts of war and
hunting to some of the young men of her own tribe. His courtship failed (as
he says of his hero in The Cossacks) because he could not, like a dashing
young Cossack, 'steal herds, get drunk on Tchikir wine, troll songs, kill
people, and when tipsy climb in at her window for a night, without thinking
who he was or why he existed.'
Though one has always to be carefully on one's guard against taking
Tolstoy's stories as though they were autobiographical, there are passages in
The Cossacks which certainly apply to himself, and give a vivid idea of
some of his moods at this time, as well as of his way of life while living as a
Junker at Starogládovsk.
On one occasion the hero is out hunting in the woods and asks himself:
'How must I live so as to be happy, and why was I formerly not
happy?' And he remembered his previous life, and felt disgusted
with himself.... And suddenly a new light seemed revealed to him.
'Happiness,' said he to himself, 'consists in living for others. That
is clear. The demand for happiness is innate in man; therefore it is
legitimate. If we seek to satisfy it selfishly: by seeking wealth,
fame, comforts, or love, circumstances may render the
satisfaction of these desires impossible. It follows that they are
illegitimate, but not that the demand for happiness itself is
illegitimate. But what desire is there that can always be satisfied
in spite of external conditions? What desire? Love, self-sacrifice!'
He was so glad and excited at discovering this, as it seemed to
him, new truth, that he jumped up and began impatiently seeking
for some one for whom he might quickly sacrifice himself: to
whom he might do good, and whom he could love. 'Yes; I need
nothing for myself!' he kept mentally repeating: 'Then why not
live for others?'

In the same story Tolstoy tells us that his hero lived monotonously and
regularly.
He had little to do with his Commander or fellow-officers. In the
Caucasus the position of a Junker with means of his own was in
this respect particularly favourable. He was not sent to drill nor
kept at work. As a reward for going on an expedition he was
recommended for a commission, and meanwhile he was left
alone. The officers considered him an aristocrat, and therefore in
their intercourse with him bore themselves with dignity. Card-
playing and the officers' carousals with singers, of which he had
had experience when on service with the detachment, seemed to
him unattractive, and he avoided the officers' society.
Again he tells us that his hero
often thought seriously of abandoning all else, enrolling himself
as a Cossack, buying a cottage, and marrying a Cossack girl ...
and living with Uncle Eróshka, going with him to hunt and to
fish, and with the Cossacks on expeditions. 'Why don't I do this?
What am I waiting for?' he asked himself.... But a voice told him
to wait, and not to decide. He was restrained by a dim
consciousness that he could not fully live the life of Eróshka and
Loukáshka, because he had another happiness,—he was
restrained by the thought that happiness lies in self-sacrifice.... He
continually sought an opportunity to sacrifice himself for others,
but it did not present itself.
In the same story the Cossack Loukáshka kills a Tartar 'brave' at night, and
rises greatly in the popular esteem and in his own; and the hero thinks to
himself:
'What nonsense and confusion! A man kills another and is as
happy and satisfied as though he had done an excellent deed.
Does nothing tell him there is here no cause for great rejoicing?
That happiness consists not in killing others, but in sacrificing
oneself?'

We have a yet safer record of Tolstoy's feelings in his Diary, in which about
this time he noted down the following reflections concerning the chief
faults he was conscious of in himself:
1. The passion of gaming is a covetous passion, gradually
developing into a craving for strong excitement. Against this
passion one can struggle.
2. Sensuality is a physical need, a demand of the body, excited by
imagination. It increases with abstinence, and therefore the
struggle against it is very difficult. The best way is by labour and
occupation.
3. Vanity is the passion least harmful to others and most harmful
to oneself.
In another passage, indicating quite a different phase of consciousness, he
writes:
For some time past repentance for the loss of the best years of life
has begun to torment me, and this since I commenced to feel that
I could do something good.... There is something in me which
compels me to believe that I was not born to be like everybody
else.
In May we find him going on furlough to Pyatigórsk to drink the mineral
water and to be treated for rheumatism. This is his description of
Pyatigórsk, written nearly twenty years later in his Reading Book for
Children:
Pyatigórsk (Five Hills) is so called because it stands on Mount
Besh-tau. Besh means in Tartar 'five,' Tau means 'hill.' From this
mountain flows a hot sulphur stream. The water is boiling, and
over the places where it springs from the mountain there is always
steam, as from a samovár.
The whole place where the town stands is very gay. From the
mountain flow hot springs, and at the foot of the mountain flows
the river Podkoúmok. The mountain slopes are wooded, all
around are fields, and afar off one sees the great Caucasian

mountains. On these the snow never melts, and they are always as
white as sugar. When the weather is clear, wherever one goes one
sees the great mountain, Elbrus, like a sugar cone. People come to
the hot springs for their health; and over the springs, arbours and
awnings have been erected, and gardens and paths have been laid
out all around. In the morning a band plays, and people drink the
waters, or bathe, or stroll about.
Here he was joined by his sister Mary and her husband. She also came to
Pyatigórsk to be cured of rheumatism. She tells how her brother Leo was at
this time attracted by Spiritualism, and would sometimes even borrow a
table from a café and have a séance on the boulevard. He remained in
Pyatigórsk till 5th August, and then returned to Starogládovsk. From thence
he wrote to his aunt, repeating what he had said before of the officers with
whom he had to associate.
[11]
Il y a une trop grande différence dans l'éducation, les
sentiments et la manière de voir de ceux que je rencontre ici pour
que je trouve quelque plaisir avec eux. Il n'y a que Nicolas qui a
le talent, malgré l'énorme différence qu'il y a entre lui et tous ces
messieurs, à s'amuser avec eux et à être aimé de tous. Je lui envie
ce talent, mais je sens que je ne puis en faire autant.
He mentions that for some time past he has acquired a taste for reading
history, and says that he perseveres in his literary occupations. He had
already three times rewritten a work he had in hand, and intended to rewrite
it again. He felt much more content with himself at this time, and adds:
[12]
Il y a eu un temps où j'étais vain de mon esprit et de ma
position dans le monde, de mon nom; mais à présent je sais et je
sens que s'il y a en moi quelque chose de bon et que si j'ai à en
rendre grâce à la Providence, c'est pour un cœur bon, sensible et
capable d'amour, qu'il lui a plu de me donner et de me conserver.
On 29th June he again notes in his Diary:
He whose aim is his own happiness, is bad; he whose aim is the
good opinion of others, is weak; he whose aim is the happiness of
others, is virtuous; he whose aim is God, is great.

1852

On 2nd July he completed Childhood, and a few days later despatched the
manuscript, signed only with the initials L. N. T., to the best Petersburg
monthly, The Contemporary. On 28th August he received a reply from the
editor, the poet Nekrásof, saying he would publish the story and that he
thought its author had talent. Another letter followed, dated 5th September
1852, in which Nekrásof said that having re-read the story in proof, he
found it 'much better than I had realised at first. I can say definitely that its
author has talent.' He added that it would appear in the next number of his
magazine.
Tolstoy notes in his Diary: 'Received letter from Nekrásof; praises, but no
money.'
Nekrásof's next letter is dated 30th October, and explains that it is not
customary to pay authors for their first work, but that he hopes Tolstoy will
send him more stories, and that in future he will pay him as much as to the
very best known writers, namely Rs. 50 (nearly £7 at that time) per sheet of
sixteen pages. He mentioned also that Childhood had been very well
received by the public.
Tolstoy kept his authorship a secret, revealing it to no one except Nicholas
and Aunt Tatiána. His sister Mary was by this time back at her husband's
estate, situated near Tourgénef's village of Spássky. There Tourgénef came
one day to visit her, bringing with him the last number of the
Contemporary. Full of praise of a new story by an unknown author, he
began reading it aloud, and to her great astonishment Mary recognised, one
after another, various incidents from her own childhood. Her first guess was
that Nicholas must have written it.
Among the writers who at once acclaimed Tolstoy's genius was Panáef, co-
editor of the Contemporary, who, Tourgénef pretended, had to be carefully
shunned by his friends on the Névsky (the chief street in Petersburg) lest he
should insist on reading them extracts from the new story. Before long the
work reached Dostoyévsky in Siberia, and he was so struck by it that he
wrote to a friend asking him to find out who the talented L. N. T. was.

Meanwhile Tolstoy continued his military career in the Caucasus. On his
return to Starogládovsk in August, he had noted in his Diary: 'Simplicity—
that is the quality which above all others I desire to attain.'
He had to pass an unpleasant month in consequence of the autumn
manœuvres, about which he wrote: 'It was not very pleasant to have to
march about and fire off cannons; especially as it disturbed the regularity of
my life'; and he rejoiced when it was over and he was again able to devote
himself to 'hunting, writing, reading, and conversation with Nicholas.' He
had become fond of shooting game, at which—as at all physical exercises
—he was expert; and he spent two or three hours a day at it. He writes to
his Aunt Tatiána:
At 100 paces from my lodging I find wild fowl, and in half an
hour I kill 2, 3, or 4. Besides the pleasure, the exercise is excellent
for my health, which in spite of the waters is not very good. I am
not ill, but I often catch cold and suffer from sore throat or from
toothache or from rheumatism, so that I have to keep to my room
at least two days in the week.
One of the forms of sport he enjoyed during his stay in the Caucasus was
strepet shooting: the strepet being a steppe grouse. Before they migrate in
mid-August, these birds assemble in enormous flocks, and are extremely
wild and difficult of approach. It is hardly possible to get within two
hundred or two hundred and fifty yards of such a flock. Tolstoy had a horse
that was specially trained for this particular sport. On it he used to ride at a
foot-pace two or three times round a flock, carefully narrowing the circle
till he got as near as possible without alarming the birds. Then he would
dash forward at full gallop with his gun ready. The moment the birds rose
he dropped his reins on the horse's neck, and the well-trained animal would
instantly stop, allowing its master to take aim.
Tolstoy's military career was not giving him satisfaction. Having left home
without any definite plans, he had neglected to bring any documents with
him, and the result of this was that instead of becoming an officer within
eighteen months, as he expected to do when he entered the army, he now,
after serving for ten months, received notice that he would have to serve
another three years before he could obtain his commission.

In this difficulty he applied to his aunt P. I. Úshkof, who by application to
an influential friend eventually succeeded in hastening his promotion.
Meanwhile however Tolstoy—who had made up his mind to retire from the
army as soon as he received his commission—almost lost patience.
On 24th December he completed the sketch entitled The Raid: A Volunteer's
Story, and two days later posted it to the Contemporary, in which magazine
it appeared in March 1853. The following passage occurs in this his first
story of war, and foreshadows the attitude he ultimately made definitely his
own. He is describing a march through Caucasian scenery to a night attack
on a Tartar Aoul, and he says:
Nature, beautiful and strong, breathed conciliation.
Can it be that people have not room to live in this beautiful world,
under this measureless, starry heaven? Can feelings of enmity,
vengeance, or lust to destroy one's fellow beings, retain their hold
on man's soul amid this enchanting Nature? All that is evil in
man's heart should, one would think, vanish in contact with
Nature—this immediate expression of beauty and goodness.
From the very start we find Tolstoy hampered in his work by that incubus of
all Russian writers, the Censor. In a letter to his brother Sergius in May he
writes: 'Childhood was spoilt, and The Raid simply ruined by the Censor.
All that was good in it has been struck out or mutilated.' In comparing
Tolstoy's literary achievement with that of Western writers, one should
make a large allowance for the continual annoyance, delay, mutilation, and
suppression inflicted on him by that terrible satellite of despotism.

1853

In January, the battery in which Leo Tolstoy served went on active service
against Shámyl. The expedition assembled at Fort Grózny, where scenes of
debauchery occurred.
On 18th February Tolstoy's life was in great danger. A shell fired by the
enemy smashed the carriage of a cannon he was pointing. Strange to say he

was not even wounded. On 1st April he returned with his detachment to
Starogládovsk; and in May we find him writing to his brother Sergius that
he had applied for his discharge, and hoped in six weeks' time to return
home a free man. Difficult as his admission to the army had been, he found,
however, that to retire was a yet harder matter, destined to take not weeks
but years.
On 13th June his life was again in danger owing to an adventure which
supplied him with the subject he utilised later on in A Prisoner in the
Caucasus.
It being dangerous to travel between the Russian forts without an escort,
non-combatants, as well as stores and baggage, were periodically convoyed
from one post to another. On these expeditions it was forbidden for any one
to detach himself from the main body; but the intolerable slowness of the
infantry march on a hot day, frequently tempted those who were mounted,
to ride on, and to run the risk of being attacked by the 'Tartars' (who were
generally Circassians). On one such occasion five horsemen, including
Tolstoy and his friend Sádo, disobeyed the regulations and rode ahead. The
two friends ascended the hillside to see whether any foes were visible,
while their three companions proceeded along the valley below. Hardly had
the two reached the crest of the ridge when they saw thirty mounted Tartars
galloping towards them. Calculating that there was not time to rejoin their
companions in the valley, Tolstoy shouted them a warning, and raced off
along the ridge towards Fort Grózny, which was their destination. The three
did not, at first, take his warning seriously, but wasting some precious
moments before turning to rejoin the column, were overtaken by the
Tartars, and two of them were very severely wounded before a rescue party
from the convoy put the enemy to flight. Meanwhile Tolstoy and Sádo,
pursued by seven horsemen along the hill ridge, had to ride nearly three
miles to reach the fort. It so happened that Tolstoy was trying a young horse
of Sádo's, while Sádo was riding Tolstoy's ambler, which could not gallop.
Though Tolstoy could easily have escaped on Sádo's fiery horse, he would
not desert his comrade. Sádo had a gun, unluckily not loaded, and so he
could only make a pretence with it of aiming at his pursuers. It seemed
almost certain that both fugitives would be killed; but apparently the Tartars
decided to capture them alive, perhaps wishing to revenge themselves on
Sádo for being a pro-Russian, and therefore they did not shoot them down.

At last a sentinel at Grózny having espied their plight, gave the alarm and
some Cossacks galloped to their rescue. At sight of these, the Tartars made
off and the fugitives escaped uninjured.
Tolstoy continued his habit of forming resolutions; and about this time he
wrote: 'Be straightforward, not rough, but frank with all men; yet not
childishly frank without any need.... Refrain from wine and women ... the
pleasure is so small and uncertain, and the remorse so great.... Devote
yourself completely to whatever you do. On experiencing any strong
sensation, wait; but having once considered the matter, though wrongly, act
decisively.'
From the middle of July to October, Tolstoy again stayed at Pyatigórsk.
A companion he had brought with him to the Caucasus was his black
bulldog, Boúlka. He intended to leave it at home, but after he had started,
the dog had broken a pane of glass and escaped from the room in which it
was confined, and when Tolstoy, after stopping at the first post-station, was
just resuming his journey, he saw something black racing along the road
after him. It was Boúlka, who rushed to his master, licked his hand, and lay
down panting in the shade of a cart. The dog had galloped nearly fourteen
miles in the heat of the day, and was rewarded by being taken to the
Caucasus, where it was destined to meet with many adventures.
On one occasion this dog boldly attacked a wild boar, and had its stomach
ripped open by the latter's tusk. While its wound was being sewn up, the
dog licked its master's hand.
On another occasion, when Tolstoy was sitting at night with a friend in the
village street, intending to start for Pyatigórsk at daybreak, they suddenly
heard a sucking-pig squeal, and guessed that a wolf was killing it. Tolstoy
ran into the house, seized a loaded gun, and returned in time to see a wolf
running straight towards him from the other side of a wattle-fence. The wolf
jumped on to the top of the fence and descended close to Tolstoy who,
almost touching him with the muzzle of his gun, drew the trigger. The gun
missed fire, and the wolf raced off, chased by Boúlka and by Tolstoy's
setter, Milton. The wolf escaped, but not till it had snapped at Boúlka and
inflicted a slight wound on his head. Strange to say, the wolf ventured to
return a little later into the middle of the street, and again escaped unhurt.

Not long after, in Pyatigórsk, shortly before Tolstoy left the Caucasus, while
drinking coffee in the garden of his lodging, he heard a tremendous noise of
men and dogs, and, on inquiry, learnt that convicts had been let out of gaol
to kill the dogs, of whom there were too many in the town, but that orders
had been given to spare dogs wearing collars. As ill-luck would have it,
Tolstoy had removed Boúlka's collar; and Boúlka, apparently recognising
the convicts as his natural enemies, rushed out into the street and flew at
one of them. A man had just freed the long hook he carried, from the corpse
of a dog he had caught and held down while his companions beat it to death
with bludgeons. He now adroitly hooked Boúlka and drew the unfortunate
dog towards him, calling to his mate to kill it, which the latter prepared to
do. Boúlka however bounded aside with such force that the skin of his thigh
burst where the hook held it, and with tail between his legs and a red wound
on his thigh, he flew back into the house and hid under Tolstoy's bed. His
escape was not of much use. The wolf that had snapped at him six weeks
before must have been mad, for Boúlka after showing premonitory
symptoms of rabies, disappeared, and was never heard of more.
Tolstoy's state of mind during the latter part of this year is indicated by his
letters. To his brother Sergius he wrote on 20th July:
I think I already wrote you that I have sent in my resignation. God
knows, however, on account of the war with Turkey, whether it
will be accepted, or when. This disturbs me very much, for I have
now grown so accustomed to happy thoughts of soon settling
down in the country, that to return to Starogládovsk and again
wait unendingly—as I have to wait for everything connected with
my service—will be very unpleasant.
Again, in December, he writes from Starogládovsk:
Please write about my papers quickly. This is necessary. 'When
shall I come home?' God only knows. For nearly a year I have
been thinking only of how to sheath my sword, but still cannot
manage it. And as I must fight somewhere, I think it will be
pleasanter to do so in Turkey than here, and I have therefore
applied to Prince Serge Dmítrievitch [Gortchakóf] about it, and he

writes me that he has written to his brother, but what the result
will be, I do not know.
It will be remembered that Tolstoy's paternal grandmother was a
Gortchakóf. Through her he was nearly related to Prince S. D. Gortchakóf
and to his brother, Prince Michael Dmítrievitch Gortchakóf, who had been a
friend of his father's in the war of 1812, and was now in command of the
Russian army on the Danube.
The letter continues:
At any rate by New Year I expect to change my way of life, which
I confess wearies me intolerably. Stupid officers, stupid
conversations, and nothing else. If there were but a single man to
whom one could open one's soul! Tourgénef is right: 'What irony
there is in solitude,'—one becomes palpably stupid oneself.
Although Nikólenka has gone off with the hounds—Heaven
knows why (Epíshka[13] and I often call him 'a pig' for so doing)
—I go out hunting alone for whole days at a time from morning
to evening, with a setter. That is my only pleasure—and not a
pleasure but a narcotic. One tires oneself out, gets famished,
sleeps like the dead, and a day has passed. When you have an
opportunity, or are yourself in Moscow, buy me Dickens' David
Copperfield in English, and send me Sadler's English Dictionary
which is among my books.
Of the entries in his Diary at this time, we may note the following:
All the prayers I have invented I replace by the one prayer, 'Our
Father.' All the requests I can make to God are far more loftily
expressed and more worthily of Him, in the words 'Thy Kingdom
come, as in heaven so on earth.'
About this time he completed his Memoirs of a Billiard Marker, and sent it
to the Contemporary with a letter expressing his own dissatisfaction with
the hasty workmanship of the story; it did not appear till more than a year
later. He was also now at work on Boyhood.

Seventeen years after Tolstoy had left the Caucasus, an officer stationed at
Starogládovsk found his memory still fresh among the Cossacks, and saw
Mariána (comparatively aged by that time), as well as several elderly
Cossack hunters who had shot wild fowl and wild boars with Tolstoy. In his
regiment he left the reputation of being an excellent narrator, who
enthralled every one by his conversation.

1854

Not till January 1854 did the long-expected order arrive allowing him to
pass the examination (a pure formality at that time) entitling him to become
an officer. On the 19th he left for home, and on 2nd February reached
Yásnaya, where he enjoyed a three weeks' stay with his Aunt Tatiána, his
brother, and a friend. On this journey he encountered a severe storm, to
which we owe The Snow Storm, published a couple of years later, and
probably also much of the storm description in Master and Man, written in
later life.
The Russo-Turkish war had now begun in earnest, and, as a result of his
application, he received orders to join the army of the Danube, which he set
out accordingly to do.
Of the Caucasian period of his life, as of his University days, Tolstoy has at
different times expressed himself differently. To Birukóf, in 1905, he spoke
of it as one of the best times of his life, notwithstanding all his deflections
from his dimly recognised ideals. Yet two years earlier, writing of the four
periods of his life, he had spoken of 'the terrible twenty years of coarse
dissipation, the service of ambition, vanity, and above all, of lust,' which
followed after the age of fourteen.
But what it comes to is, that Tolstoy is a man of moods, and judges himself
and others, sometimes by ordinary and sometimes by extraordinary
standards.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER III

Birukof.
Behrs.
U. Bitovt, Graf L. Tolstoy v literatoure i iskousstve: Petersburg, 1903.
(Hereafter called 'Bitovt.') Though ill-arranged, this book is valuable to any
one engaged on the difficult task of compiling a Bibliography of Tolstoy's
works.
Nekrasof's letters to Tolstoy published in the Literary Supplement to the
Niva, February 1898.
Much light is also thrown on this period of Tolstoy's life by the following
works, which must not be considered autobiographical:
The Raid.
The Wood-Felling.
Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance.
The Cossacks, and
The Snow Storm,
as well as by stories included in Tolstoy's Readers:
Boulka.
Boulka and the Wild Boar.
Milton and Boulka.
Boulka and the Wolf.
What Happened to Boulka in Pyatigorsk.
Boulka's and Milton's End.
A Prisoner in the Caucasus.

CHAPTER IV
THE CRIMEAN WAR

Joins army of the Danube. Siege of Silistria. Sevastopol.
Projected Newspaper. Sevastopol in December. Battle of the
Tchérnaya. Capture of the Maláhof. Courier to Petersburg. Song.
Relations with superiors and fellow-officers. Self-depreciation.
The Wood-Felling. Sevastopol in May. The Censor. On War.

At twenty-five years of age it fell to Tolstoy's lot to take part in a great
European war and thereby to extend the range of his experience in a way
that considerably affected his subsequent life and writings.
Tolstoy tells us that he got his first understanding of war from Stendhal, the
author of Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme. In conversation
with Paul Boyer, Tolstoy once spoke of those novels as inimitable works of
art, adding, 'I am greatly indebted to Stendhal. He taught me to understand
war. Re-read the description of the battle of Waterloo in La Chartreuse de
Parme. Who ever before so described war? Described it, that is, as it is in
reality? Do you remember Fabrice riding over the field of battle and
understanding "nothing"?'
Tolstoy's brother Nicholas, though fond of war, also disbelieved in the
popular romantic view of it, and used to say: 'All that is embellishment, and
in real war there is no embellishment.'—'A little later, in the Crimea,' added
Tolstoy in his talk with Boyer, 'I had a grand chance to see with my own
eyes that this is so.'

Of the causes that led to the war it need only be said that the rule of the
Turks over Christian populations had long kept a dangerous sore open in
Europe, and the consequent diplomatic difficulties were complicated by the
indefiniteness of two lines in the Treaty of Kainardji, which Catherine the
Great had imposed upon Turkey in 1774. There was also friction between
the Eastern and Western Churches, with reference to the custody of the
Places in Palestine rendered holy by their traditional connection with the
Prince of Peace. Nicholas I, who had wellnigh drilled all intelligence out of
those near him in his Government and in his army, was not accustomed to
be thwarted. Dimly conscious of the first faint symptoms of that growth of
Liberalism which a few years later, in the early 'sixties, led to sweeping
reforms in Russia, he felt inclined to demonstrate the beneficence of his rule
not by allowing changes to be made at home, but by arbitrarily inflicting
reforms on Turkey. Failing to get his way by diplomatic pressure, he rashly
proceeded to occupy the Danubian Principalities as a 'material guarantee' of
Turkey's compliance with his demands.
He was opposed by Austria and Prussia as strongly as by England and
France, and the pressure exerted by the four powers sufficed to compel him
to withdraw his army from Turkish soil. Thereupon the war, which had as
yet been waged only between Russia and Turkey, might well have ended,
had not England and France undertaken a quite needless invasion of the
Crimea: an enterprise in which Austria and Prussia refused to join. The end
did not justify the proceedings, for in spite of success in this war, Napoleon
the Third's dynasty crumbled to dust within twenty years, while within a
like period after Palmerston's death Lord Salisbury frankly admitted that we
had 'put our money on the wrong horse.' As to Nicholas I, his pride was
destined to be bitterly mortified by the results of an enterprise which not
only failed of its immediate object, but by its failure actually hastened the
coming of those reforms in Russia against which he had set his face. Even
Turkey did not really benefit by being allowed to oppress her subject races
for a couple of generations longer.
It was the influence of Napoleon III, as Kinglake has pointed out, that led
England to take part in the war. Having by treachery and murder made
himself Emperor of the French, that monarch found himself for a time
dangerously isolated from the support of people of good repute. In
consultation with Palmerston, he decided to subordinate the traditional

Eastern policy of his country to that of England if thereby he could succeed
in being publicly paraded as the friend and ally of Queen Victoria. As soon
as he had secured an alliance with England, with Palmerston's aid, and
helped by the extraordinary war fever which seized the English nation, he
quickly forced the peacefully disposed Lord Aberdeen along an inclined
plane which ultimately plunged both nations into a war for which no
sufficient motive justification or excuse existed.

1854

Hostilities between Russia and Turkey had begun in October 1853, but
France and England did not break off negotiations with the former power
till the end of March 1854, the very month in which Tolstoy reached
Bucharest on his way through Wallachia to join the army.
From there he wrote to his aunt, telling of his journey. The roads after he
had passed Khersón, and especially after he had crossed the frontier, were
abominable; his journey lasted nine days; and he 'arrived almost ill with
fatigue.'
A few days later, on 17th March, he wrote of his first interview with
Gortchakóf:
[14]
Le prince Gortchakóf n'était pas ici. Hier il vient d'arriver et je
viens de chez lui. Il m'a reçu mieux que je ne croyais—en vrai
parent. Il m'a embrassé, il m'a engagé de venir dîner tous les jours
chez lui et il veut me garder auprès de lui, mais ce n'est pas
encore décidé.
Pardon, chère tante, que je vous écris peu—je n'ai pas encore la
tête à moi,—cette grande et belle ville, toutes ces présentations,
l'opéra italien, le théâtre français, les deux jeunes Gortchakóf qui
sont de très braves garçons ... de sorte que je ne suis pas resté
deux heures chez moi, et je n'ai pas pensé à mes occupations.
On 22nd March he adds: 'I learnt yesterday that I am not to remain with the
Prince, but am to go to Oltenitza to join my battery.'

In May he wrote:
[15]
Tandis que vous me croyez exposé à tous les dangers de la
guerre je n'ai pas encore senti la poudre turque, et je suis très
tranquillement à Boukarest à me promener, à faire de la musique
et à manger des glaces. En effet tout ce temps, excepté deux
semaines que j'ai passées à Oltenitza où j'ai été attaché à une
batterie, et une semaine que j'ai passée en courses par la
Moldavie, Valachie et Bessarabie par ordre du gén. Serjpoutóvsky
auprès duquel je suis à présent by special appointment, je suis
resté à Boukarest et à vous avouer franchement, ce genre de vie
un peu dissipé, tout à fait oisif et très coûteux que je mène ici me
déplaît infiniment. Auparavant c'était le service qui m'y retenait,
mais à présent j'y suis resté pendant près de trois semaines à cause
d'une fièvre que j'ai attrapée pendant mon voyage, mais dont,
Dieu merci, je suis pour le moment assez rétabli pour rejoindre
dans deux ou trois jours mon général qui est au camp près de
Silistrie. A propos de mon général, il a l'air d'être un très brave
homme et paraît, quoique nous nous connaissons fort peu, être
bien disposé à mon égard. Ce qui est encore fort agréable est que
son état-major est composé pour la plupart de gens comme il faut.
We shall find Tolstoy modifying this opinion, a little later on; but it is worth
noting that at this time he was fully alive to the superiority of 'gens comme
il faut,' and that his depreciation of them in later years may have been partly
a reaction from a previous over-valuation.
By June 1854 the military and political situation was as follows. The
Russians had advanced through Moldavia and Wallachia to the Danube, had
crossed that river, and were besieging Silistria. Austria, supporting the other
great powers, had massed a powerful army on the Turkish frontier, and a
glance at the map of Europe will show that the Russian army, far removed
from its base, was in imminent danger of being cut off by the Austrians,
who peremptorily summoned Russia to evacuate the Principalities, and on
14th June concluded a formal alliance with the Porte. These circumstances
explain the sudden abandonment of the siege of Silistria mentioned in the
following letter, addressed by Leo Tolstoy to his Aunt Tatiána and to his

brother Nicholas conjointly; though when he wrote it, the causes which
produced the result he described were a mystery to him.
[16]
Je vais vous parler donc de mes souvenirs de Silistrie. J'y ai vu
tant de choses intéressantes, poétiques et touchantes que le temps
que j'y ai passé ne s'effacera jamais de ma mémoire. Notre camp
était disposé de l'autre côté du Danube c.à d. sur la rive droite sur
un terrain très élevé au milieu de superbes jardins, appartenant à
Mustafa Pasha—le gouverneur de Silistrie. La vue de cet endroit
est non seulement magnifique, mais pour nous tous du plus grand
intérêt. Sans parler du Danube, de ces îles et de ces rivages, les
uns occupés par nous, les autres par les Turcs, on voyait la ville,
la forteresse, les petits forts de Silistrie comme sur la main. On
entendait les coups de canons, de fusils qui ne cessaient ni jour ni
nuit, et avec une lunette d'approche on pouvait distinguer les
soldats turcs. Il est vrai que c'est un drôle de plaisir que de voir de
gens s'entretuer et cependant tous les soirs et matins je me mettais
sur ma cart et je restais des heures entières à regarder et ce n'était
pas moi le seul qui le faisait. Le spectacle était vraiment beau,
surtout la nuit. Les nuits ordinairement mes soldats se mettent aux
travaux des tranchées, et les Turcs se jettent sur eux pour les en
empêcher, alors il fallait voir et entendre cette fusillade. La
première nuit que j'ai passée au camp ce bruit terrible m'a reveillé
et effrayé, je croyais qu'on est allé a l'assaut et j'ai bien vite fait
seller mon cheval, mais ceux qui avait déjà passé quelque temps
au camp me dirent que je n'avais qu'à me tenir tranquille, que
cette canonnade et fusillade était une chose ordinaire et qu'on
appela en plaisantant, 'Allah'; alors je me suis recouché, mais ne
pouvant m'endormir je me suis amusé, une montre à la main, à
compter les coups de canon que j'entendais et j'ai compté 110
explosions dans l'espace d'une minute. Et cependant tout ceci n'a
eu de près l'air aussi effrayant que cela le paraît. La nuit, quand on
n'y voyait rien, c'était à qui brûlerait le plus de poudre et avec ces
milliers de coups de canons on tuait tout au plus une trentaine
d'hommes de part et d'autre.
Ceci donc est un spectacle ordinaire que nous avions tous les
jours et dans lequel, quand on m'envoyait avec des ordres dans les

tranchées, je prenais aussi ma part; mais nous avions aussi des
spectacles extraordinaires, comme celui de la veille de l'assaut
quand on a fait sauter une mine de 240 pouds de poudre sous un
des bastions de l'ennemi. Le matin de cette journée le prince avait
été aux tranchées avec tout son état-major (comme le général
auprès duquel j'étais en fait partie, j'y ai aussi été) pour faire les
dispositions définies—vu pour l'assaut du lendemain. Le plan,
trop long pour que je puisse l'expliquer ici, était si bien fait, tout
était si bien prévu que personne ne doutait de la réussite. A propos
de cela il faut que je vous dise encore que je commence à avoir de
l'admiration pour le prince (au reste il faut en entendre parler
parmi les officiers et les soldats, non seulement je n'ai jamais
entendu dire du mal de lui, mais il est généralement adoré).
Je l'ai vu au feu pour la première fois pendant cette matinée. Il
faut voir cette figure un peu ridicule avec sa grande taille, ses
mains derrière le dos, sa casquette en arrière, ses lunettes et sa
manière de parler comme un dindon. On voit qu'il était tellement
occupé de la marche générale des affaires que les balles et les
boulets n'existaient pas pour lui; il s'expose au danger avec tant de
simplicité, qu'on dirait qu'il n'en a pas l'idée et
qu'involontairement qu'on n'a plus peur de lui que pour soi-même;
et puis donnant ses ordres avec tant de clarté et de précision et
avec cela toujours affable avec chacun. C'est un grand, c.à d. un
homme qui s'est voué toute sa vie au service de sa patrie et pas
par l'ambition, mais par le devoir. Je vais vous raconter un trait de
lui qui se lie à l'histoire de cet assaut que j'ai commencé à
raconter. L'après-dîner du même jour on a fait sauter la mine, et
près de 600 pièces d'artillerie ont fait feu sur le fort qu'on voulait
prendre, et on continuait ce feu pendant toute la nuit, c'était un de
ces coups d'œil et une de ces émotions qu'on n'oublie jamais. Le
soir de nouveau le prince, avec tout le tremblement, est allé
coucher aux tranchées pour diriger lui-même l'assaut qui devait
commencer à 3 heures de la nuit même.
Nous étions tous là et comme toujours à la veille d'une bataille
nous faisions tous semblant de ne pas plus penser de la journée de
demain qu'à une journée ordinaire et tous, j'en suis sûr, au fond du

cœur ressentaient un petit serrement de cœur et pas même un petit
mais un grand, à l'idée de l'assaut. Comme tu sais que le temps
qui précède une affaire est le temps le plus désagréable—c'est le
seul où on a le temps d'avoir peur, et la peur est un sentiment des
plus désagréables. Vers le matin, plus le moment approchait, plus
le sentiment diminuait et vers 3 heures quand nous attendions
tous à voir partir le bouquet de fusées qui était le signal de
l'attaque—j'étais si bien disposé que si l'on était venu me dire que
l'assaut n'aurait pas lieu, cela m'aurait fait beaucoup de peine. Et
voilà que juste une heure avant le moment de l'assaut arrive un
aide de camp du maréchal avec l'ordre d'ôter le siège de Silistrie.
Je puis dire sans craindre de me tromper que cette nouvelle a été
reçue par tous—soldats, officiers et généraux—comme un vrai
malheur, d'autant plus qu'on savait par les espions, qui nous
venaient très souvent de Silistrie, et avec lesquels j'avais très
souvent l'occasion de causer moi-même, on savait que ce fort pris,
—chose dont personne ne doutait—Silistrie ne pouvait tenir plus
de 2 ou 3 jours. N'est-ce pas que si cette nouvelle devait faire de
la peine à quelqu'un ce devait être au prince, qui pendant toute
cette campagne ayant fait toute chose pour le mieux, au beau
milieu de l'action vit venir le maréchal sur son dos pour gâter les
affaires et puis ayant la seule chance de réparer nos revers par cet
assaut, il reçoit le contre ordre du maréchal au moment de le
commencer. Eh bien, le prince n'a pas eu un moment de mauvaise
humeur, lui, qui est si impressionable, au contraire il a été content
de pouvoir éviter cette boucherie, dont il devait porter la
responsabilité et tout le temps de la retraite qu'il a dirigé lui-
même, ne voulant passer qu'avec le dernier des soldats, qui s'est
faite avec un ordre et une exactitude remarquables, il a été plus
gai qu'il n'a jamais été. Ce qui contribuait beaucoup à sa bonne
humeur, c'était l'émigration de près de 7000 familles bulgares, que
nous prenons avec pour le souvenir de la férocité des Turcs—
férocité a laquelle malgré mon incredulité j'ai été obligé de croire.
Dès que nous avons quitté des différents villages bulgares que
nous occupions, les Turcs y sont revenus et excepté les femmes
assez jeunes pour un harem, ils ont fait main basse sur tout ce
qu'il y avait. Il y a un village dans lequel je suis allé du camp pour

y prendre du lait et des fruits qui a été exterminé de la sorte. Alors
dès que le prince avait fait savoir aux Bulgares que ceux qui
voulaient pouvaient avec l'armée passer le Danube et devenir
sujets russes, tout le pays se soulève et tous avec leurs femmes,
enfants, chevaux, bétails arrivent au pont,—mais comme il était
impossible de les prendre tous, le prince a été obligé de refuser à
ceux qui sont venus les derniers et il fallait voir comme cela le
chagrinait. Il recevait toutes les députations qui venaient de ces
pauvres gens, il causait avec chacun d'eux, tâchait de leur
expliquer l'impossibilité de la chose, leur proposait de passer sans
leurs chariots et leur bétail et en se chargeant de leurs moyens de
subsistence jusqu'à ce qu'ils arrivassent en Russie, payant de sa
propre bourse des vaisseaux particuliers pour les transporter, en
un mot faisant tout son possible pour faire du bien à ces gens.
Oui, chère tante, je voudrais bien que votre prophétie se réalise.
La chose que j'ambitionne le plus, est d'être l'aide de camp d'un
homme comme lui que j'aime et que j'estime du plus profond de
mon cœur. Adieu, chère et bonne tante; je baise vos mains.
The army retired to Bucharest, and here, at an officers' ball, Tolstoy seized
an opportunity to beg Gortchakóf to have him transferred to where service
would be most active.
The retreat from Silistria took place at the end of June, and on 2nd August
we find Tolstoy starting for Russia. On the journey he fell ill and had to lie
up in hospital. On 13th November in Kishinéf he renewed his application
for an appointment in the Crimea, and was ordered to Sevastopol, which he
reached on the 20th of that month.[17]

1854

The situation there, at this time, was the following. The Allies had landed in
the Crimea to the north of Sevastopol on 14th September, and had defeated
the Russian army under Ménshikof on the 20th at Alma. Instead of
marching straight into the town, which was almost undefended, they had

then gone round and encamped on the south side, where they remained
inactive till 17th October, by which time Todleben, an engineer of rare
genius, had thrown up earthworks and mounted guns (many of them taken
from the Russian ships Ménshikof sank at the entrance to the Roadstead).
Ménshikof himself had practically abandoned the town, withdrawing the
bulk of his army northward; but the situation was saved by the patriotism of
just that section of the Russian forces which had been least exposed to the
deadening influence of Nicholas the First's militarism,—namely by the
officers and men of the fleet. Inspired by the example of the heroic Admiral
Kornílof (who lost his life during the siege) they rallied to the defence with
a courageous devotion seldom paralleled. Their example awoke enthusiasm
throughout Russia and compelled Ménshikof to supply reinforcements,
which enabled the town to hold out for eleven months, in spite of the great
superiority of the Allies in rifles, artillery and the modern equipments of
war generally.
Tolstoy reached Sevastopol when the defence was already fully organised,
and when (in spite of the repulse experienced by the Russians at Inkerman)
the garrison had gained confidence in their powers of resistance, and had
settled down to a dogged defence.
Of the hospitals, in which the wounded saw one another's limbs amputated
while waiting their own turn; of the staff officers, who managed to amuse
themselves pretty well during the siege; of the commissariat officers,
flourishing amid the general havoc; as well as of the line and non-
commissioned officers and privates, upon whom the greatest hardships fell,
Tolstoy gives vivid glimpses in the Sketches he wrote during the siege.
A fortnight after his arrival he writes, from somewhere outside the town, to
his brother Sergius, apologising for not having sent him a letter sooner, and
adds:
So much have I learnt, experienced, and felt this year that I
positively do not know what to begin to describe, nor how to
describe it as I wish to.... Silistria is now ancient history, and we
have Sevastopol, of which I suppose you all read with beating
hearts, and where I was four days ago. Well, how can I tell you all
I saw there, and where I went and what I did, and what the

prisoners and wounded French and English say; and whether it
hurts them and hurts very much,[18] and what heroes our enemies
are, especially the English? I will tell all that later at Yásnaya or
at Pirogóvo; and you will learn much of it from me through the
press. How this will happen, I will explain later; but now let me
give you an idea of the position of affairs in Sevastopol. The town
is besieged from one side, the south, where we had no
fortifications when the enemy approached it. Now we have on
that side more than 500 heavy guns, and several lines of
earthworks, positively impregnable. I spent a week in the fortress,
and to the last day used to lose my way among that labyrinth of
batteries, as in a wood. More than three weeks ago the enemy
advanced his trenches at one place to within 200 yards, but gets
no further. When he makes the smallest advance he is
overwhelmed with a hailstorm of shot and shell.
The spirit of the army is beyond all description. In the times of
ancient Greece there was not such heroism. Kornílof, making the
round of the troops, instead of greeting them with, 'Good health to
you, lads!' says: 'If you have to die, lads, will you die?' and the
troops shout, 'We'll die, Your Excellency! Hurrah!' and they do
not say it for effect. On every face one saw that it was not jest but
earnest; and 22,000 men have already fulfilled the promise.
A wounded soldier, almost dying, told me they captured the 24th
French Battery but were not reinforced; and he wept aloud. A
Company of Marines nearly mutinied because they were to be
withdrawn from batteries in which they had been exposed to
shell-fire for thirty days. The soldiers extract the fuses from the
shells. Women carry water to the bastions for the soldiers. Many
are killed and wounded. The priests with their crosses go to the
bastions and read prayers under fire. In one brigade, the 24th,
more than 160 wounded men would not leave the front. It is a
wonderful time! Now, however, after the 24th, we have quieted
down; it has become splendid in Sevastopol. The enemy hardly
fires, and all are convinced that he will not take the town; and it is
really impossible.... I have not yet succeeded in being in action
even once; but thank God that I have seen these people and live in

this glorious time. The bombardment of the 5th [17 October, n.s.]
remains the most brilliant and glorious feat not only in the history
of Russia, but in the history of the world. More than 1500 cannon
were in action for two days against the town, and not only did not
cause it to capitulate, but did not silence one two-hundredth part
of our batteries. Though, I suppose, this campaign is unfavourably
regarded in Russia, our descendants will place it above all others;
do not forget that we, with equal or even inferior forces, and
armed only with bayonets, and with the worst troops in the
Russian army (such as the 6th corps) are fighting a more
numerous enemy aided by a fleet, armed with 3000 cannon,
excellently supplied with rifles and with their best troops. I do not
even mention the superiority of their Generals.
Only our army could hold its ground and conquer (we shall yet
conquer, of that I am convinced) under such circumstances. You
should see the French and English prisoners (especially the
latter): they are each one better than the other—morally and
physically fine fellows. The Cossacks say it is even a pity to cut
them down, and alongside of them you should see some
Chasseurs or others of ours: small, lousy, and shrivelled up.
Now I will tell you how you will get printed news from me of the
deeds of these lousy and shrivelled heroes. In our artillery staff,
consisting, as I think I wrote you, of very good and worthy men, a
project has been started for publishing a military newspaper, in
order to maintain a good spirit in the army—a cheap paper (at Rs.
3) and popularly written, so that the soldiers may read it. We have
drawn up a plan and submitted it to the Prince. He likes the idea
very much, and has submitted the project and a specimen sheet
which we also wrote, for the Emperor's sanction. I and
Stolýpin[19] are advancing the money for the publication. I have
been chosen joint editor with a Mr. Konstantínof, who published
The Caucasus, a man experienced in such work. The paper will
publish descriptions of the battles (but not such dry and
mendacious ones as other papers) courageous deeds, biographies,
and obituaries of good men, especially the unknown; military
stories, soldiers' songs, and popular articles on engineering,

artillery, etc. This plan pleases me very much: in the first place, I
like the work; and secondly, I hope the paper will be useful and
not quite bad. It is as yet merely a project, until we know the
Emperor's reply, about which I confess I have my fears. In the
specimen sheet sent to Petersburg, we rashly inserted two articles,
one by me and one by Rostóvtsef, not quite orthodox. For this
business I want Rs. 1500, which I have asked Valeryán to send
me.
I, thank God, am well, and live happily and pleasantly since I
returned from Turkey. In general, my army service divides up into
two periods: beyond the frontier—horrid: I was ill, poor, and
lonely. This side of the frontier—I am well and have good friends,
though I am still poor: money simply runs away.
As to writing, I do not write; but, as Aunty teases me by saying, 'I
test myself.' One thing disquiets me: this is the fourth year I live
without female society; and I may become quite coarse and
unsuited for family life, which I so enjoy.
A few days later his battery was moved to Simferópol, a town lying to the
north of Sevastopol, beyond the sphere of actual fighting.

1855

On 6th January (o.s.) he wrote to his Aunt:
[20]
On ne se bat plus en rase campagne, à cause de l'hiver qui est
extraordinairement rigoureux, surtout à présent; mais le siège
dure toujours.... J'avais parlé je crois d'une occupation que j'avais
en vue et qui me souriait beaucoup; à présent que la chose est
décidée, je puis le dire. J'avais l'idée de fonder un journal
militaire. Ce projet auquel j'ai travaillé avec le concours de
beaucoup de gens très distingués fut approuvé par le prince et
envoyé à la décision de sa Majesté, mais l'empereur a refusé.

Cette déconfiture, je vous l'avoue, m'a fait une peine infinie et a
beaucoup changé mes plans. Si Dieu veut que la campagne de
Crimée finisse bien et si je ne reçois pas une place dont je sois
content, et qu'il n'y ait pas de guerre en Russie, je quitterai l'armée
pour aller à Pétersbourg à l'académie militaire. Ce plan m'est
venu, 1° parce que je voudrais ne pas abandonner la littérature
dont il m'est impossible de m'occuper dans cette vie de camp, et
2° parce qu'il me paraît que je commence à devenir ambitieux,
pas ambitieux, mais je voudrais faire du bien et pour le faire il
faut être plus qu'un Sub-Lieutenant; 3° parce que je vous verrai
tous et tous mes amis.
In May he wrote again to his brother:
From Kishinéf on 1st November (o.s.), I petitioned to be sent to
the Crimea, partly in order to see this war, and partly to break
away from Serzhpoutóvsky's staff, which I did not like, but most
of all from patriotism, of which at that time, I confess, I had a bad
attack. I did not ask for any special appointment, but left it to
those in authority to dispose of my fate. In the Crimea I was
appointed to a battery in Sevastopol itself, where I passed a
month very pleasantly amid simple, good companions, who are
specially good in time of real war and danger. In December our
battery was removed to Simferópol, and there I spent 6 weeks in a
squire's comfortable house, riding into Simferópol to dance and
play the piano with young ladies, and in hunting wild goats on the
Tchatyrdag [the highest point of the chain of mountains running
across the southern part of the Crimea] in company with officials.
In January there was a fresh shuffling of officers, and I was
removed to a battery encamped on the banks of the Belbék, 7
miles from Sevastopol. There I got into hot water: the nastiest set
of officers in the battery; a Commander who, though good-
hearted, was violent and coarse; no comforts, and it was cold in
the earth huts. Not a single book, nor a single man with whom
one could talk; and there I received the Rs. 1500 [= about £180 at
that time] for the newspaper, sanction for which had already been
refused; and there I lost Rs. 2500, and thereby proved to all the
world that I am still an empty fellow, and though the previous

circumstances may be taken into account in mitigation, the case is
still a very, very bad one. In March it became warmer, and a good
fellow, an excellent man, Brenévsky, joined the battery. I began to
recover myself; and on 1 April, at the very time of the
bombardment, the battery was moved to Sevastopol, and I quite
recovered myself. There, till 15 May (o.s.) I was in serious
danger, i.e. for four days at a time, at intervals of eight days, I was
in charge of a battery in the 4th Bastion; but it was spring and the
weather was excellent, there was abundance of impressions and
of people, all the comforts of life, and we formed a capital circle
of well-bred fellows; so that those six weeks will remain among
my pleasantest recollections. On 15 May Gortchakóf, or the
Commander of the Artillery, took it into his head to entrust me
with the formation and command of a mountain platoon at
Belbék, 14 miles from Sevastopol, with which arrangement I am
up to the present extremely well satisfied in many respects.
The transfer of Tolstoy from Sevastopol to Belbék was not, as he supposed
when he wrote this letter, a whim of Gortchakóf's or of the Commander of
the Artillery, but a result of his having written the first of his three sketches
of the siege of Sevastopol, Sevastopol in December. The article, though not
published in the Contemporary till June, had been read in proof by the
Emperor Alexander II [Nicholas had died 2nd March, n.s.], and had caused
him to give instructions to 'take care of the life of that young man,' with the
result that Tolstoy was removed from Sevastopol. The Dowager Empress
Alexándra Fédorovna also read the story and, it is said, wept over it.
It was, perhaps, at this time (though I am not sure of the date) that Tolstoy
found himself obliged to consent to the sale of the large wooden house in
which he had been born, for the wretched price of 5000 'assignation roubles'
(about £170). The house was taken to pieces, and removed to the estate of
the purchaser, where it still stands, though not now in use.
Apropos of the above letter it should be mentioned that the Fourth Bastion
was the one English writers call 'the Flagstaff Bastion.' It formed the
southernmost point of the fortifications, as a glance at the accompanying
map will show, and it was for a long time the point exposed to the fiercest
fire.

Throughout the siege Tolstoy was accompanied by Alexis, one of the four
serfs presented to the young Tolstoys when they entered the University.
This man (who figures in more than one of Tolstoy's works under the name
of Alyósha) brought him his rations to the bastion, a duty involving
considerable danger. What the bastions were like in the first months of the
siege, we learn from the following passages in the first part of Sevastopol:

...You want to get quickly to the bastions, especially to that Fourth
Bastion about which you have been told so many and such
different tales. When any one says, 'I am going to the Fourth
Bastion,' a slight agitation or a too marked indifference is always
noticeable in him; if men are joking they say, 'You should be sent
to the Fourth Bastion.' When you meet some one carried on a
stretcher, and ask, 'Where from?' the answer usually is, 'From the
Fourth Bastion.'...

...Beyond this barricade the houses on both sides of the street are
unoccupied: there are no signboards, the doors are boarded up,
the windows smashed; here a corner of the walls is knocked
down, and there a roof is broken in. The buildings look like old
veterans who have borne much sorrow and privation; they even
seem to gaze proudly and somewhat contemptuously at you. On
the road you stumble over cannon-balls that lie about, and into
holes full of water, made in the stony ground by bombs. You meet
and overtake detachments of soldiers, Cossacks, officers, and
occasionally a woman or a child—only it will not be a woman
wearing a bonnet, but a sailor's wife wearing an old cloak and
soldier's boots. Farther along the same street, after you have
descended a little slope, you will notice that there are now no
houses, but only ruined walls in strange heaps of bricks, boards,
clay and beams, and before you, up a steep hill, you see a black
untidy space cut up by ditches. This space you are approaching is
the Fourth Bastion.... Here you will meet still fewer people and no
women at all, the soldiers walk briskly by, traces of blood may be
seen on the road, and you are sure to meet four soldiers carrying a
stretcher, and on the stretcher probably a pale, yellow face and a
blood-stained overcoat....
The whiz of cannon-ball or bomb near by, impresses you
unpleasantly as you ascend the hill, and you at once understand
the meaning of the sounds very differently from when they
reached you in the town.... You have hardly gone a little way up,
when bullets begin to whiz past you right and left, and you will
perhaps consider whether you had not better walk inside the
trench which runs parallel to the road; but the trench is full of
such yellow, liquid, stinking mud, more than knee deep, that you
are sure to choose the road, especially as everybody keeps to the
road. After walking a couple of hundred yards, you come to a
muddy place much cut up, surrounded by gabions, cellars,
platforms, and dug-outs, and on which large cast-iron cannon are
mounted, and cannon-balls lie piled in orderly heaps. All seems
placed without any aim, connection, or order. Here a group of
sailors are sitting in the battery; here, in the middle of the open

space, half sunk in mud, lies a shattered cannon; and there a foot-
soldier is crossing the battery, drawing his feet with difficulty out
of the sticky mud. Everywhere, on all sides and all about, you see
bomb-fragments, unexploded bombs, cannon-balls, and various
traces of an encampment, all sunk in the liquid, sticky mud. You
think you hear the thud of a cannon-ball not far off, and you seem
to hear the different sounds of bullets all around—some humming
like bees, some whistling, and some rapidly flying past with a
shrill screech like the string of some instrument. You hear the
awful boom of a shot which sends a shock all through you, and
seems most dreadful.
'So this is it, the Fourth Bastion! This is that terrible, truly
dreadful spot!' So you think, experiencing a slight feeling of pride
and a strong feeling of suppressed fear. But you are mistaken; this
is still not the Fourth Bastion. This is only the Yazónovsky
Redoubt—comparatively a very safe and not at all dreadful place.
To get to the Fourth Bastion you must turn to the right, along that
narrow trench, where a foot-soldier, stooping down, has just
passed. In this trench you may again meet men with stretchers,
and perhaps a sailor or a soldier with spades. You will see the
mouths of mines, dug-outs into which only two men can crawl,
and there you will see the Cossacks of the Black Sea Battalions,
changing their boots, eating, smoking their pipes, and, in short,
living. And you will see again the same stinking mud, the traces
of camp life, and cast-iron refuse of every shape and form. When
you have gone some three hundred steps more, you come out at
another battery—a flat space with many holes, surrounded with
gabions filled with earth, and cannons on platforms, and the
whole walled in with earthworks. Here you will perhaps see four
or five soldiers playing cards under shelter of the breastworks;
and a naval officer, noticing that you are a stranger and
inquisitive, is pleased to show you his 'household' and everything
that can interest you.... He will tell you (but only if you ask) about
the bombardment on the 5th of October; will tell you how only
one gun in his battery remained usable and only eight gunners
were left of the whole crew, and how, all the same, next morning,

the 6th, he fired all his guns. He will tell you how a bomb
dropped into one of the dug-outs and knocked over eleven sailors;
he will show you from an embrasure the enemy's batteries and
trenches, which are here not more than seventy-five to eighty-five
yards distant. I am afraid, though, that when you lean out of the
embrasure to have a look at the enemy, you will, under the
influence of the whizzing bullets, not see anything; but if you do
see anything, you will be much surprised to find that this whitish
stone wall which is so near you, and from which puffs of white
smoke keep bursting—that this white wall is the enemy: is him, as
the soldiers and sailors say.
It is even very likely that the naval officer, from vanity, or merely
for a little recreation, will wish to show you some firing. 'Call the
gunner and crew to the cannon'; and fourteen sailors—clattering
their hob-nailed boots on the platform, one putting his pipe in his
pocket, another still chewing a rusk—quickly and cheerfully man
the gun and begin loading.
Suddenly the most fearful roar strikes not only your ears but your
whole being, and makes you shudder all over. It is followed by
the whistle of the departing ball, and a thick cloud of powder-
smoke envelops you, the platform, and the moving black figures
of the sailors. You will hear various comments by the sailors
concerning this shot of ours, and you will notice their animation,
the evidences of a feeling which you had not perhaps expected:
the feeling of animosity and thirst for vengeance which lies
hidden in each man's soul. You will hear joyful exclamations: 'It's
gone right into the embrasure! It's killed two, I think.... There,
they're carrying them off!' 'And now he's riled, and will send one
this way,' some one remarks; and really, soon after, you will see
before you a flash and some smoke; the sentinel standing on the
breastwork will call out 'Ca-n-non,' and then a ball will whiz past
you and squash into the earth, throwing out a circle of stones and
mud. The commander of the battery will be irritated by this shot
and will give orders to fire another and another cannon, the
enemy will reply in like manner, and you will experience
interesting sensations and see interesting sights. The sentinel will

again call 'Cannon!' and you will have the same sound and shock,
and the mud will be splashed round as before. Or he will call out
'Mortar!' and you will hear the regular and rather pleasant whistle
—which it is difficult to connect with the thought of anything
dreadful—of a bomb; you will hear this whistle coming nearer
and faster towards you, then you will see a black ball, feel the
shock as it strikes the ground, and will hear the ringing explosion.
The bomb will fly apart into whizzing and shrieking fragments,
stones will rattle into the air, and you will be bespattered with
mud.
At these sounds you will experience a strange feeling of mingled
pleasure and fear. At the moment you know the shot is flying
towards you, you are sure to imagine that this shot will kill you,
but a feeling of pride will support you and no one will know of
the knife that is cutting your heart. But when the shot has flown
past and has not hit you, you revive, and, though only for a
moment, a glad, inexpressibly joyous feeling seizes you, so that
you feel some peculiar delight in the danger—in this game of life
and death—and wish that bombs and balls would fall nearer and
nearer to you.
But again the sentinel, in his loud, thick voice, shouts 'Mortar!'
again a whistle, a fall, an explosion; and mingled with the last you
are startled by the groans of a man. You approach the wounded
man just as the stretchers are brought. Covered with blood and
dirt he presents a strange, not human, appearance. Part of the
sailor's breast has been torn away....
'That's the way with seven or eight every day,' the naval officer
remarks to you, answering the look of horror on your face, and he
yawns as he rolls another yellow cigarette.
As the siege progressed, things became worse, and in the last part of
Sevastopol Tolstoy, after telling how one of the characters felt satisfied with
himself, continues:
This feeling, however, was quickly shaken by a sight he came
upon in the twilight while looking for the Commander of the

bastion. Four sailors stood by the breastwork holding by its arms
and legs the bloody corpse of a man without boots or coat,
swinging it before heaving it over. (It was found impossible in
some parts to clear away the corpses from the bastions, and they
were, therefore, thrown out into the ditch, so as not to be in the
way at the batteries.) Volódya felt stunned for a moment when he
saw the body bump on the top of the breastwork and then roll
down into the ditch, but luckily for him the Commander of the
bastion met him just then and gave him his orders, as well as a
guide to show him the way to the battery and to the bomb-proof
assigned to his men. We will not speak of all the dangers and
disenchantments our hero lived through that evening; how—
instead of the firing he was used to, amid conditions of perfect
exactitude and order which he had expected to meet with here
also,—he found two injured mortars, one with its mouth battered
in by a ball, the other standing on the splinters of its shattered
platform; how he could not get workmen to mend the platform till
the morning; how not a single charge was of the weight specified
in the Handbook; how two of the men under him were wounded,
and how he was twenty times within a hair's-breadth of death.
Fortunately a gigantic gunner, a seaman who had served with the
mortars since the commencement of the siege, had been
appointed to assist Volódya, and convinced him of the possibility
of using the mortars. By the light of a lantern, this gunner showed
him all over the battery as he might have shown him over his own
kitchen-garden, and undertook to have everything right by the
morning. The bomb-proof to which his guide led him was an
oblong hole dug in the rocky ground, 25 cubic yards in size and
covered with oak beams nearly 2-1/2 feet thick. He and all his
soldiers installed themselves in it.
It was during one of his sojourns in the Fourth Bastion, that Tolstoy noted
down in his Diary the following prayer:
Lord, I thank Thee for Thy continual protection. How surely Thou
leadest me to what is good. What an insignificant creature should
I be, if Thou abandoned me! Leave me not, Lord; give me what is
necessary, not for the satisfaction of my poor aspirations, but that

I may attain to the eternal, vast, unknown aim of existence, which
lies beyond my ken.
It was due to Tolstoy's own choice that he was exposed to the rough life of
the bastion, for Prince Gortchakóf, at whose house he was a constant
visitor, had offered him an appointment on his staff. This offer, which at
Silistria he had so ardently desired, Tolstoy declined, having come to the
conclusion, subsequently expressed in his writings, that the influence
exercised by the staff on the conduct of a war is always pernicious! This
opinion not only influenced his conduct, and expressed itself in his novels,
but fitted into a general view of life he ultimately arrived at, a view the
consequences of which must be dealt with in the sequel to this work. For
the moment, let it suffice to mention that whereas he shows a keen
appreciation of Admiral Kornílof's achievement in rousing the spirit of the
garrison, he nowhere praises Todleben's achievement in organising the
defence of the town and improvising that 'labyrinth of batteries' in which
Tolstoy used constantly to lose his way. He says, for instance:
Now you have seen the defenders of Sevastopol.... The principal,
joyous thought you have brought away is a conviction of the
strength of the Russian people; and this conviction you gained,
not by looking at all these traverses, breastworks, cunningly
interlaced trenches, mines and cannon, one on top of another, of
which you could make nothing; but from the eyes, words and
actions—in short, from seeing what is called the 'spirit' of the
defenders of Sevastopol.
To everything a man can do off his own bat and by his own effort, Tolstoy
is keenly alive and sympathetic; but when it comes to a complex, co-
ordinated plan, involving the subordination of many parts to one whole, he
is suspicious or even hostile. Had he remained a subordinate officer, or even
a novelist, it would not have been specially necessary to draw attention to
this peculiarity; but that we may understand his later teachings, it is
important to note all the roots of feeling from which they grew, and this one
among the rest.
To get on however with our tale. One evening, while Tolstoy was sitting
with the adjutants of Count Osten-Sáken, Commander of the Garrison,

Prince S. S. Ouroúsof, a brave officer and first-rate chess player (he took
part in the International Chess Tournament of 1862, in London) and a friend
of Tolstoy's, entered the room and wished to speak to the General. An
adjutant took him to Osten-Sáken's room, and ten minutes later Ouroúsof
passed out again, looking very glum. After he had gone, the adjutant
explained that Ouroúsof had come to suggest that a challenge should be
sent to the English to play a game of chess for the foremost trench in front
of the Fifth Bastion: a trench that had changed hands several times and had
already cost some hundreds of lives. Osten-Sáken had naturally refused to
issue the challenge.
On 16th August Tolstoy took part in the battle of the Tchérnaya (Black
River) in which the Sardinian contingent, which had arrived in May to
reinforce the Allies, much distinguished itself. This last attempt to relieve
Sevastopol failed, as its forerunners had done. Three days later Tolstoy
wrote to his brother saying that he had not been hurt, and that 'I did nothing,
as my mountain artillery was not called on to fire.'
The end of the siege was now approaching, and on 8th September Tolstoy,
having volunteered for service in Sevastopol, reached the Star Fort on the
North Side of the Roadstead just in time to witness the capture of the
Maláhof by the French, as he has described in Sevastopol in August.[21]
On the North Side of the Roadstead, at the Star Fort, near noon,
two sailors stood on the 'telegraph' mound; one of them, an
officer, was looking at Sevastopol through the fixed telescope.
Another officer, accompanied by a Cossack, had just ridden up to
join him at the big Signal-post.... Along the whole line of
fortifications, but especially on the high ground on the left side,
appeared, several at a time, with lightnings that at times flashed
bright even in the noonday sun, puffs of thick, dense, white
smoke, that grew, taking various shapes and appearing darker
against the sky. These clouds, showing now here now there,
appeared on the hills, on the enemy's batteries, in the town, and
high up in the sky. The reports of explosions never ceased, but
rolled together and rent the air.

Towards noon the puffs appeared more and more rarely, and the
air vibrated less with the booming.
'I say, the Second Bastion does not reply at all now!' said the
officer on horseback; 'it is quite knocked to pieces. Terrible!'
'Yes, and the Maláhof, too, sends hardly one shot in reply to three
of theirs,' said he who was looking through the telescope. 'Their
silence provokes me! They are shooting straight into the Kornílof
Battery, and it does not reply.'
'But look there! I told you that they always cease the
bombardment about noon. It's the same to-day. Come, let's go to
lunch; they'll be waiting for us already. What's the good of
looking?'
'Wait a bit!' answered the one who had possession of the
telescope, looking very eagerly towards Sevastopol.
'What is it? What?'
'A movement in the entrenchments, thick columns advancing.'
'Yes! They can be seen even without a glass, marching in
columns. The alarm must be given,' said the seaman.
'Look! look! They've left the trenches!'
And, really, with the naked eye one could see what looked like
dark spots moving down the hill from the French batteries across
the valley to the bastions. In front of these spots dark stripes were
already visibly approaching our line. On the bastions white
cloudlets burst in succession as if chasing one another. The wind
brought a sound of rapid small-arm firing, like the beating of rain
against a window. The dark stripes were moving in the midst of
the smoke and came nearer and nearer. The sounds of firing,
growing stronger and stronger, mingled in a prolonged, rumbling
peal. Puffs of smoke rose more and more often, spread rapidly
along the line, and at last formed one lilac cloud (dotted here and
there with little faint lights and black spots) which kept curling

and uncurling; and all the sounds blent into one tremendous
clatter.
'An assault!' said the naval officer, turning pale and letting the
seaman look through the telescope.
Cossacks galloped along the road, some officers rode by, the
Commander-in-Chief passed in a carriage with his suite. Every
face showed painful excitement and expectation.
'It's impossible they can have taken it,' said the mounted officer.
'By God, a standard!... Look! look!' said the other, panting, and he
walked away from the telescope: 'A French standard on the
Maláhof!'
The point from which the officer in the story, and Tolstoy himself in reality,
watched the assault through a telescope is the spot marked 'a' on the map on
page 112.
The loss of the Maláhof rendered the further defence of the town
impossible, and the following night the Russians blew up and destroyed
such munitions of war as they could not remove from the bastions. Tolstoy
was deputed to clear the Fifth and Sixth Bastions before they were
abandoned to the Allies. When telling me this he added, 'The non-
commissioned officers could have done the work just as well without me.'
While the destruction was proceeding, the Russian forces crossed the
Roadstead by a pontoon bridge which had been constructed during the
siege. The town south of the Roadstead was abandoned, and the defenders
established themselves on the North Side, where they remained till peace
was concluded in February 1856.
After the retreat, Tolstoy was given the task of collating the twenty or more
reports of the action from the Artillery Commanders. This experience of
how war is recorded produced in him that supreme contempt for detailed
military histories which he so often expressed in later years. He says:
I regret that I did not keep a copy of those reports. They were an
excellent example of that naïve, inevitable kind of military
falsehood, out of which descriptions are compiled. I think many

of those comrades of mine who drew up those reports, will laugh
on reading these lines, remembering how, by order of their
Commander, they wrote what they could not know.
Carrying among other despatches the report he had himself compiled,
Tolstoy was sent as Courier to Petersburg; and this terminated his personal
experience of war. He was still only Sub-Lieutenant, his hopes of promotion
had come to nothing in consequence of a suspicion that he was the author of
some soldiers' songs which were sung throughout the army at this time. No
translation can do justice to these slangy, topical satires; but that the reader
may have some idea of them, my wife has put into English the following
stanzas:

In September, the eighth day,[22]
From the French we ran away,
For our Faith and Tsar!
For our Faith and Tsar!

Admiral Alexander,[23] he
Sank our vessels in the sea
In the waters deep,
In the waters deep.

'Luck to all I wish,' he said then.
To Baktchiseráy[24] he sped then;
'May you all be blowed!
'May you all be blowed!'

Saint Arnaud[25] got out of sight;
And in manner most polite,
Came round to our back,
Came round to our back.

And on Tuesday, I'm afraid
Had no saint come to our aid,
He'd have bagged us all,
He'd have bagged us all.

Our Liprandi, it is true
Captured 'trenchments not a few,
But to no avail!
But to no avail!

Out of Kishinéf a force
Was expected: Foot and Horse,

Was e pected: oot a d o se,
And at last they came,
And at last they came.

Dannenberg was in command:
Strictly told to understand
Not to spare his men,
Not to spare his men.

Two Grand Dukes a visit paid:
But the French, quite undismayed,
Blazed away with shells,
Blazed away with shells.

Some ten thousand men were shot:
From the Tsar they never got
Any great reward!
Any great reward!

Then the Prince[26] in anger spoke:
'Oh! our men are wretched folk:
'Why, they've turned their backs!
'Why, they've turned their backs!'

And in this great battle's flare
Heroes only two there were:
The two Royal Dukes!
The two Royal Dukes!

George's Crosses they were given
And to Petersburg were driven
To be fêted there!

To be fêted there!

All the priests with heads bent down
Prayed our God the French to drown,
And there came a storm,
And there came a storm!

There arose a dreadful gale,
But the French just shortened sail,
And remained afloat!
And remained afloat!

Winter came. Sorties we made;
Many soldiers low were laid,
Near those bags of sand,
Near those bags of sand.[27]

For re'nforcements Ménshik prayed;
But the Tsar sent to his aid
Only Osten-Sáken,
Only Osten-Sáken.[28]

Ménshik, Admiral so wise,
To the Tsar writes and replies:
'Oh, dear Father Tsar,
'Oh, dear Father Tsar.

'Sáken is not worth a grain,
And your Royal youngsters twain[29]
They're no good at all!
They're no good at all!'

Royal wrath on Ménshik fell,
And the Tsar felt quite unwell
At the next review,
At the next review.

Straight to heaven he did fare
(Seems they wanted him up there)
Not a whit too soon,
Not a whit too soon!

As on his deathbed he lay;
To his son[30] he this did say:
'Now just you look out,
'Now just you look out!'

And the son to Ménshik wrote:
'My dear Admiral, please note,
You may go to hell,
You may go to hell!'

'And in place of you I'll name
Gortchakóf, you know, the same
Who fought 'gainst the Turks!
Who fought 'gainst the Turks!'

'With few troops he'll go ahead,
And a pair of breeches red
Shall be his reward,
Shall be his reward!'

As a matter of fact the responsibility for these songs, which gave satirical
expression to the discontent then very generally felt, was not entirely

Tolstoy's. They originated with a group of officers on the staff of
Kryzhanóvsky, Commander of the Artillery, and some others (including
Tolstoy) who used to meet at Kryzhanóvsky's rooms almost daily. One of
this company used to preside at the piano, while the others stood round and
improvised couplets. In such cases some one has usually to pay the piper,

and that this one should have been Tolstoy, was a natural result both of the
fact that he seems to have been the chief culprit, and of the attention his
literary work was attracting at this time.
Another matter which appears to have done Tolstoy no good in the eyes of
his superiors, was his refusal to fall in with a reprehensible practice which
by long usage had become as well established as, for instance, among
ourselves, is the purchase of peerages by contributions to Party funds.
Those in command of various divisions of the army, including the
Commanders of Batteries, used to pay for various things, such as shoes for
the horses, medicine, office expenses, and certain extras for the soldiers, for
which no official allowance was made; and the way the money for this was
obtained was by overestimating the cost and quantity of stores, and of the
fodder required for the horses. The difference between the actual and
estimated cost supplied a revenue which different Commanders used in
different ways. Some spent it all for the good of the service, though in a
manner not shown in the accounts; others did not scruple to make private
profit of it. Tolstoy, during his command of a battery, refused to take a
balance of cash which had accumulated, and insisted on showing it in the
accounts. He thereby evoked the displeasure of less scrupulous
Commanders and called down upon himself a rebuke from General
Kryzhanóvsky, who did not consider that it lay with a Sub-Lieutenant in
temporary command, to attempt to upset so well-established a custom.
From his letters and memoirs we get clear indications of Tolstoy's feelings
towards his brother officers; his distaste for the common run of them, and
his preference for those who were gentlemanly. Here and there, in memoirs
and magazine articles, one finds records of the impression he in his turn
produced on his companions. One of them relates:
How Tolstoy woke us all up in those hard times of war, with his
stories and his hastily composed couplets! He was really the soul
of our battery. When he was with us we did not notice how time
flew, and there was no end to the general gaiety.... When the
Count was away, when he trotted off to Simferópol, we all hung
our heads. He would vanish for one, two or three days.... At last
he would return—the very picture of a prodigal son! sombre,
worn out, and dissatisfied with himself.... Then he would take me

aside, quite apart, and would begin his confessions. He would tell
me all: how he had caroused, gambled, and where he had spent
his days and nights; and all the time, if you will believe me, he
would condemn himself and suffer as though he were a real
criminal. He was so distressed that it was pitiful to see him. That's
the sort of man he was. In a word, a queer fellow, and, to tell the
truth, one I could not quite understand. He was however a rare
comrade, a most honourable fellow, and a man one can never
forget!
One who entered the battery just after Tolstoy left it, says he was
remembered there as an excellent rider, first-rate company, and an athlete
who, lying on the floor, could let a man weighing thirteen stone be placed
on his hands, and could lift him up by straightening his arms. At a tug-of-
war (played not with a rope, but with a stick) no one could beat him; and he
left behind him the recollection of many witty anecdotes told in that
masterly style of which he never lost the knack.
His private Diary bears witness to the constantly renewed struggle that went
on within him, as well as to his profound dissatisfaction with himself. Here,
for instance, is an estimate entered in his Diary at the commencement of the
war, while he was still at Silistria:
I have no modesty. That is my great defect. What am I? One of
four sons of a retired lieutenant-colonel, left at seven years of age
an orphan under the guardianship of women and strangers; having
neither a social nor a scholarly education, and becoming my own
master at seventeen; with no large means, no social position, and,
above all, without principle; a man who has disorganised his own
affairs to the last extremity, and has passed the best years of his
life without aim or pleasure; and finally who having banished
himself to the Caucasus to escape his debts and more especially
his bad habits—and having there availed himself of some
connection that had existed between his father and the general in
command—passed to the army of the Danube at twenty-six, as a
Sub-Lieutenant almost without means except his pay (for what
means he has he ought to employ to pay what he still owes)
without influential friends, ignorant of how to live in society,

ignorant of the service, lacking practical capacity, but with
immense self-esteem—such is my social position. Let us see what
I myself am like.
I am ugly, awkward, uncleanly, and lack society education. I am
irritable, a bore to others, not modest, intolerant, and as shame-
faced as a child. I am almost an ignoramus. What I do know, I
have learned anyhow, by myself, in snatches, without sequence,
without a plan, and it amounts to very little. I am incontinent,
undecided, inconstant and stupidly vain and vehement, like all
characterless people. I am not brave. I am not methodical in life,
and am so lazy that idleness has become an almost unconquerable
habit of mine.
I am clever, but my cleverness has as yet not been thoroughly
tested on anything; I have neither practical nor social nor business
ability.
I am honest, that is to say, I love goodness, and have formed a
habit of loving it, and when I swerve from it I am dissatisfied
with myself and return to it gladly; but there is a thing I love more
than goodness, and that is fame. I am so ambitious, and so little
has this feeling been gratified, that should I have to choose
between fame and goodness, I fear I may often choose the former.
Yes, I am not modest, and therefore I am proud at heart, though
shame-faced and shy in society.
That is a grossly unfair estimate of himself, but shows just that sort of eager
injustice to any one who fails to reach the high standard he sets up, that has
always characterised him. His account is inaccurate in details. For instance,
he was not seven, but nearly nine when his father died. He had not wrecked
his affairs to the extent he suggests. Though his studies had been desultory,
he had read widely, with a quick understanding and a retentive memory. He
was master of the Russian, French and German languages, besides having
some knowledge of English, Latin, Arabic, and Turco-Tartar. (Later in life
he added a knowledge of Italian, Greek and Hebrew.) As for not yet having
tested his cleverness: he had published stories for which the editor of the
best Russian magazine paid him the rate accorded to the best-known

writers; while his awkwardness in society did not depend on ignorance; on
the contrary, he had grown up among people who paid much attention to
manners, and he was himself gifted with social tact, which became plainly
apparent as soon as he attained self-confidence. Any defect in his manners
must have been merely a result of that nervous shyness natural to highly-
strung, sensitive natures, conscious of powers of a kind society recognises
but scantily. Yet, when all is said, his description gets home: over-emphatic
and unfair, like much of his other writing, it still leaves you in no doubt as
to what he meant, and hits the real points of weakness in the victim he is
flaying.
On 5th March 1855 (old style) when he was just recovering from that fit of
depression at Belbék which, as already mentioned, drove him to gamble, he
writes in his Diary:
A conversation about Divinity and Faith has suggested to me a
great, a stupendous idea, to the realisation of which I feel myself
capable of devoting my life. This idea is the founding of a new
religion corresponding to the present state of mankind: the
religion of Christianity, but purged of dogmas and mysticism: a
practical religion, not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on
earth. I understand that to accomplish this the conscious labour of
generations will be needed. One generation will bequeath the idea
to the next, and some day fanaticism or reason will accomplish it.
Deliberately to promote the union of mankind by religion—that is
the basic thought which, I hope, will dominate me.
In that passage one has, quite clearly stated before he was twenty-seven, the
main idea which actuated Tolstoy from the age of fifty onwards. Already by
the literary work he accomplished amid the bustle and excitement of the
siege, he was half consciously moving in the direction that allured him.
During the three months that elapsed between leaving Bucharest and
reaching Sevastopol, he wrote part of The Wood-Felling; a sketch of an
expedition such as he had taken part in the Caucasus; and during the siege
of Sevastopol he wrote the first two parts of Sevastopol and began Youth, a
sequel to Childhood and Boyhood.

1855

It was Sevastopol that first brought European fame to Tolstoy. When, as
already mentioned, Sevastopol in December appeared in the June
Contemporary, the Emperor ordered it to be translated into French. That
same month Tolstoy completed and despatched The Wood-Felling; in July
he sent off Sevastopol in May. Here once again the Censor exercised his
malignant power, and Panáef wrote to Tolstoy from Petersburg:
In my letter delivered to you by Stolýpin, I wrote that your article
has been passed by the Censor with unimportant alterations, and
begged you not to be angry with me that I was obliged to add a
few words at the end to soften.... 3000 copies of the article had
already been printed off, when the Censor suddenly demanded it
back, stopped the appearance of the number (so that our August
number only appeared in Petersburg on 18 August) and submitted
it to Poúshkin, President of the Committee of Censors. If you
know Poúshkin, you will be able partly to guess what followed.
He flew into a rage, was very angry with the Censor, and with me
for submitting such an article to the Censor, and altered it with his
own hand.... On seeing these alterations I was horror-struck, and
wished not to print the article at all, but Poúshkin explained to me
that I must print it in its present shape. There was no help for it,
and your mutilated article will appear in the September number,
but without your initials—which I could not bear to see attached
to it after that....
Now a word as to the impression your story produces on all to
whom I have read it in its original form. Every one thinks it
stronger than the first part, in its deep and delicate analysis of the
emotions and feelings of people constantly face to face with
death, and in the fidelity with which the types of the line-officers
are caught, their encounters with the aristocrats, and the mutual
relations of the two sets. In short, all is excellent, all is drawn in
masterly fashion; but it is all so overspread with bitterness, is so
keen, so venomous, so unsparing and so cheerless, that at the
present moment when the scene of the story is almost sacred

ground, it pains those who are at a distance from it; and the story
may even produce a very unpleasant impression.
The Wood-Felling, with its dedication to Tourgénef, will also
appear in September (Tourgénef begs me to thank you very, very
much for thinking of him and paying him this attention).... In this
story also (which passed three Censors: the Caucasian, the
Military, and our Civil Censor) the types of officers have been
tampered with, and unfortunately a little has been struck out.
Tolstoy's dedication of The Wood-Felling to Tourgénef proceeded from his
admiration for that writer's A Sportsman's Sketches, which to the present
time he continues to value very highly, considering Tourgénef's descriptions
of Nature in that book not merely excellent, but inimitable by any one else.
Nekrásof wrote to Tolstoy in September, about Sevastopol in August,
saying:
The revolting mutilation of your article quite upset me. Even now
I cannot think of it without regret and rage. Your work will, of
course, not be lost ... it will always remain as proof of a strength
able to utter such profound and sober truth under circumstances
amid which few men would have retained it. It is just what
Russian society now needs: the truth—the truth, of which, since
Gógol's death, so little has remained in Russian literature. You are
right to value that side of your gifts most of all. Truth—in such
form as you have introduced it into our literature—is something
completely new among us. I do not know another writer of to-day
who so compels the reader to love him and sympathise heartily
with him, as he to whom I now write; and I only fear lest time, the
nastiness of life, and the deafness and dumbness that surround us,
should do to you what it has done to most of us, and kill the
energy without which there can be no writer—none, at least, such
as Russia needs. You are young: changes are taking place which,
let us hope, may end well, and perhaps a wide field lies before
you. You are beginning in a way that compels the most cautious
to let their expectations travel far....

The Wood-Felling has passed the Censor pretty fairly, though
from it also some valuable touches have disappeared. ...In that
sketch there are many astonishingly acute remarks, and it is all
new, interesting, and to the point. Do not neglect such sketches.
Of the common soldier our literature has as yet not spoken,
except frivolously.
Tourgénef, writing from his estate at Spássky to Panáef, said:
Tolstoy's article about Sevastopol is wonderful! Tears came into
my eyes as I read it, and I shouted, Hurrah! I am greatly flattered
by his wish to dedicate his new tale to me.... Here his article has
produced a general furore.
By the side of these contemporary estimates one may set Kropótkin's
appreciation written fifty years later:
All his powers of observation and war-psychology, all his deep
comprehension of the Russian soldier, and especially of the plain
un-theatrical hero who really wins the battles, and a profound
understanding of that inner spirit of an army upon which depend
success and failure: everything, in short, which developed into the
beauty and the truthfulness of War and Peace, was already
manifested in these sketches, which undoubtedly represented a
new departure in war-literature the world over.
It is worth while to note the very different conclusions to which Kinglake,
the historian of this war, and Tolstoy, its novelist, arrived. Kinglake holds
the war to have been unnecessary, and attributes it chiefly to the
unscrupulous ambition of Napoleon III; yet he blames the Peace Party very
severely for protesting against it, for had they not done so Nicholas, he
thinks, would not have dared to act aggressively. Kinglake feels that
negotiations between rulers and diplomatists are important, and that
anything that prevents a Government from speaking with authority, makes
for confusion and disaster.
Tolstoy, on the other hand (if I may anticipate and speak of conclusions not
definitely expressed by him till much later), regards all war and preparation
for war as immoral, and wishes this conviction to become so strong and so

general that it will be impossible for any future Napoleon to plunge five
nations into war to gratify his own ambition.
Kinglake understands things as they are, and knows how easy it is to do
harm with good intentions, but is somewhat blind to the trend of human
progress, and as to what the aim before us should be. Tolstoy, on the
contrary, is chiefly concerned about the ultimate aim, and about the state of
mind of the individual. The actual working of our political system and
international relations are things he ignores. The English writer sees clearly
what is, and cares little about what should be; the Russian writer cares
immensely about what should be, and rather forgets that it can only be
approached by slow and difficult steps, to take which surefootedly, needs an
appreciation of things as they are.
Neither of them manages to say the word which would synthesize their
divergent views: namely, that no self-respecting people should support or
tolerate as rulers, men who seek to gain national advantages by means not
strictly fair, honest and even generous. That is the real key to the world's
future peace. Kinglake's appeal to us not to hamper the government that
represents us, and Tolstoy's appeal to us not to spend our lives in preparing
to slay our fellow men, can both be met in that way, and, I think, in that way
alone.
For an ambitious young officer actually engaged in a war, related to the
Commander-in-Chief, and favourably noticed by the Emperor, even
partially to express disapproval of war, was difficult; and Tolstoy has told
me that, contending with his desire to tell the truth about things as he saw it,
he was at the same time aware of another feeling prompting him to say
what was expected of him.
He, however, like the child in Andersen's story who sees that the king has
nothing on, when every one else is in ecstasies over the magnificence of the
monarch's robes, had the gift of seeing things with his own eyes, as well as
a great gift of truthfulness. These were the qualities which ultimately made
him the greatest literary power of his century; and in spite of his own
hesitation and the Censor's mutilations, we may still read the description he
then wrote of the truce in which the French and Russian soldiers hobnobbed
together in friendship, a description closing with these words:

White flags are on the bastions and parallels; the flowery valley is
covered with corpses; the beautiful sun is sinking towards the
blue sea; and the undulating blue sea glitters in the golden rays of
the sun. Thousands of people crowd together, look at, speak to,
and smile at one another. And these people—Christians
confessing the one great law of love and self-sacrifice—seeing
what they have done, do not at once fall repentant on their knees
before Him who has given them life and laid in the soul of each a
fear of death and a love of goodness and of beauty, and do not
embrace like brothers with tears of joy and happiness.
The white flags are lowered, again the engines of death and
suffering are sounding, again innocent blood flows, and the air is
filled with moans and curses.
In Sevastopol, and in Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade (with its
rhymes about 'hundred' and 'thundered,' and its panegyric of those who
knew it was not their business to think, and at whom 'all the world
wondered'), we have two typical expressions of conflicting views on war:
the view of a man who knew it from the classics and was Poet Laureate,
and the view of a man who was in the thick of it, and whose eyes were
connected with his brain.
Thirty-four years later Tolstoy wrote a Preface to a fellow-officer's
Recollections of Sevastopol. It could not pass the Censor, but has been used
as a Preface to his own sketches of war in the English version of
Sevastopol, translated by my wife and myself, and I cannot conclude this
chapter better than by quoting a few sentences from it.
Speaking of the position of a young officer engaged in the Crimean war, he
says:
To the first question that suggests itself to every one, Why did he
do it? Why did he not cease, and go away?—the author does not
reply. He does not say, as men said in olden times when they
hated their enemies as the Jews hated the Philistines, that he hated
the Allies; on the contrary, he here and there shows his sympathy
for them as for brother men.

Nor does he speak of any passionate desire that the keys of the
Church at Jerusalem should be in our hands, or even that our fleet
should, or should not, exist. You feel as you read, that to him the
life and death of men are not commensurable with questions of
politics. And the reader feels that to the question: Why did the
author act as he did?—there is only one answer; It was because I
enlisted while still young, or before the war began, or because
owing to inexperience I chanced to slip into a position from
which I could not extricate myself without great effort. I was
entrapped into that position, and when they obliged me to do the
most unnatural actions in the world, to kill my brother men who
had done me no harm, I preferred to do this rather than to suffer
punishment and disgrace.... One feels that the author knows there
is a law of God: love thy neighbour, and therefore do not kill him,
—a law which cannot be repealed by any human artifice.
The merit of the book consists in that. It is a pity it is only felt,
and not plainly and clearly expressed. Sufferings and deaths are
described; but we are not told what caused them. Thirty-five years
ago—even that was well, but now something more is needed. We
should be told what it is that causes soldiers to suffer and to die,
—that we may know, and understand, and destroy these causes.
'War! How terrible,' people say, 'is war, with its wounds,
bloodshed, and deaths! We must organise a Red Cross Society to
alleviate the wounds, sufferings and pains of death.' But, truly,
what is dreadful in war is not the wounds, sufferings and deaths.
The human race that has always suffered and died, should by this
time be accustomed to suffering and death, and should not be
aghast at them. Without war people die by famine, by
inundations, and by epidemics. It is not suffering and death that
are terrible, but it is that which allows people to inflict suffering
and death....
It is not the suffering and mutilation and death of man's body that
most needs to be diminished,—but it is the mutilation and death
of his soul. Not the Red Cross is needed, but the simple cross of
Christ to destroy falsehood and deception....

I was finishing this Preface when a cadet from the Military
College came to see me. He told me that he was troubled by
religious doubts.... He had read nothing of mine. I spoke
cautiously to him of how to read the Gospels so as to find in them
the answers to life's problems. He listened and agreed. Towards
the end of our conversation I mention wine, and advised him not
to drink. He replied: 'but in military service it is sometimes
necessary.' I thought he meant necessary for health and strength,
and I intended triumphantly to overthrow him by proofs from
experience and science, but he continued: 'Why, at Geok-Tepe, for
instance, when Skóbelef had to massacre the inhabitants, the
soldiers did not wish to do it, but he had drink served out and
then....' Here are all the horrors of war—they are in this lad with
his fresh young face, his little shoulder-straps (under which the
ends of his hood are so neatly tucked), his well-cleaned boots, his
naïve eyes, and with so perverted a conception of life.
This is the real horror of war!
What millions of Red Cross workers could heal the wounds that
swarm in that remark—the result of a whole system of education!

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER IV

Birukof.
Behrs.
Bitovt.
Nekrasof's letters to Tolstoy, Niva, February 1898.
Also, Tolstoy's Sevastopol, and his
Preface to Ershof's Recollections of Sevastopol.
Kropotkin, Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature: London, 1905.

CHAPTER V
PETERSBURG; LOVE AFFAIR; DROUZHÍNIN

Petersburg. Tourgénef. The Contemporary. Death of his brother
Demetrius. Drouzhínin. The Behrs. Love affairs. Engagement
with V.V.A. Illness. Leaves the army. Engagement broken off.
Correspondence with Tourgénef. Writings. Drouzhínin's criticism
of Youth and of Tolstoy's style. Books that influenced him.
Emancipation of serfs. Poúshkin. Self-condemnation in his
Confession.

A number of distinguished writers have recorded their opinions of the
talented young officer who appeared in Petersburg before the war was quite
over, and immediately entered the fraternity then supporting the
Contemporary. From their memoirs one sees what Tolstoy was like at this,
perhaps the stormiest and least satisfactory period of his life.
The Contemporary was a monthly review founded by Poúshkin and Pletnéf
in 1836. It passed in 1847 to Panáef and the poet Nekrásof, and when
Tolstoy began to write, was recognised as the leading and most progressive
Russian literary periodical. Its chief contributors formed an intimate group,
united by close personal acquaintance, by sympathy with the Emancipation
movement then making itself felt, and also by a common agreement (not it
is true very strictly or very permanently observed) to write exclusively for
the Contemporary. The point to be noticed is that the circle Tolstoy entered
consisted of a friendly, sociable group of people who considered themselves
ardent reformers; and that though Tolstoy's talent and his wish to have his

works published, threw him and them together, he never appears to have
had the least inclination to co-operate on that footing of mutual give-and-
take toleration which is so essential in public life. Certainly he never
became friendly with the more advanced men, Tchernyshévsky, Miháylof,
and the ultra-democratic Dobrolúbof, who were intent on spreading
democratic and socialistic ideas in Russia.
It has been suggested that this was due to the fact that he was an aristocrat
and that they were democrats; but one has to go deeper than that for the
explanation, which lies, to a considerable extent, in the fact that the
advanced Russian Radicals were, for the most part, admirers of
Governmental Jacobinism, whereas Tolstoy has from the very start tended
to be a No-Government man, an Anarchist, and has objected to linking
himself closely with any group, since such alliance always implies some
amount of compromise, and some subordination of one's own opinions.
The poet Fet, himself a young officer, made Tolstoy's acquaintance at this
time. A couple of years later he purchased an estate at no very great distance
from Yásnaya Polyána, and became a friend of Tolstoy's—one in fact of the
very few people, not of his own family, with whom the latter ever formed a
close personal friendship.

1855

His first acquaintance with Tolstoy was however hardly auspicious. Calling
on Tourgénef in St. Petersburg at ten o'clock one morning, he saw an
officer's sword hanging in the hall, and asked the man-servant whose it was.
'It's Count Tolstoy's sword,' replied the man. 'He is sleeping in the drawing-
room. Iván Sergéyevitch [Tourgénef] is having breakfast in the study.'
During Fet's visit of an hour's duration, he and his host had to converse in
low tones for fear of waking Tolstoy. 'He is like this all the time,' said
Tourgénef. 'He came back from his Sevastopol battery; put up here, and is
going the pace. Sprees, gipsy-girls and cards all night long—and then he
sleeps like a corpse till two in the afternoon. At first I tried to put the break
on, but now I've given it up, and let him do as he likes.'

Fet tells us that as soon as he met Tolstoy he noticed his instinctive defiance
of all accepted opinions; and at Nekrásof's lodgings, the first time he saw
Tolstoy and Tourgénef together, he witnessed the desperation to which the
former reduced the latter by his biting retorts.
'I can't admit,' said Tolstoy, 'that what you say expresses your
convictions. If I stand at the door with a dagger or a sword, and
say, "While I am alive no one shall enter here," that shows
conviction. But you, here, try to conceal the true inwardness of
your thoughts from one another, and call that conviction!'
'Why do you come here?' squeaked Tourgénef, panting, his voice
rising to a falsetto (as always happened when he was disputing).
'Your banner is not here! Go! Go to the salon of Princess B——!'
'Why should I ask you, where I am to go? Besides, empty talk
won't become conviction, merely because I am, or am not here,'
replied Tolstoy.
Though he cared little for politics, Fet's sympathies inclined to the
Conservative side, and he found himself in accord with Tolstoy rather than
with Tourgénef and the other Contemporarians; but Fet's stay in Petersburg
at this time was a short one, and he therefore saw little of Tolstoy. D. V.
Grigoróvitch, the novelist, however, reported to him another scene which
also occurred at Nekrásof's lodging.
You can't imagine what it was like! Great Heavens! said
Grigoróvitch. Tourgénef squeaked and squeaked, holding his hand
to his throat, and with the eyes of a dying gazelle whispered: 'I
can stand no more! I have bronchitis!' and began walking to and
fro through the three rooms.—'Bronchitis is an imaginary illness,'
growls Tolstoy after him: 'Bronchitis is a metal!'
Of course Nekrásof's heart sank: he feared to lose either of these
valuable contributors to the Contemporary. We were all agitated,
and at our wits' end to know what to say. Tolstoy, in the middle
room, lay sulking on the morocco sofa; while Tourgénef,
spreading the tails of his short coat and with his hands in his
pockets, strode to and fro through the three rooms. To avert a

catastrophe, I went to the sofa and said, 'Tolstoy, old chap, don't
get excited! You don't know how he esteems and loves you!'
'I won't allow him to do anything to spite me!' exclaimed Tolstoy
with dilated nostrils. 'There! Now he keeps marching past me on
purpose, wagging his democratic haunches!'
The rest of the evidence is of much the same nature. Of desire to agree,
there was hardly a trace in Tolstoy, who never doubted his own sincerity
and seldom credited that quality to others. The aristocratic influences that
surrounded his upbringing never induced him to be lenient to men of his
own class, such as Tourgénef; but they led him to judge harshly and
unsympathetically new men who were pushing their way to the front by
their own ability. Fet, in his Mémoires, speaks with regret of the fact that the
educated classes ('the Intelligents') attracted by Liberal ideas which made
for the Emancipation of the serfs, formed so strong a current of opinion that
even the literature produced by the nobility (and he claims that the nobles
supplied all the truly artistic literature) advocated changes which struck at
the root of the most fundamental privileges of their class. This tendency, he
tells us, revolted 'Tolstoy's fresh, unwarped instinct.'
Grigoróvitch, in his Literary Memoirs, tells us that, knowing how out of
sympathy Tolstoy was with Petersburg, and how evident it was that
everything in Petersburg irritated him, he was surprised to find that the
latter took permanent lodgings there. Grigoróvitch, himself a
Contemporarian, had met Tolstoy in Moscow, and coming across him again
in Petersburg, and hearing that he was invited to dine with the staff of the
Contemporary, but did not yet know any of the members intimately, agreed
to accompany him.
On the way I warned him to be on his guard about certain matters,
and especially to avoid attacking George Sand, whom he much
disliked, but who was devoutly worshipped by many
Contemporarians. The dinner passed off all right, Tolstoy being
rather quiet at first, but at last he broke out. Some one praised
George Sand's new novel, and he abruptly declared his hatred of
her, adding that the heroines of the novels she was then writing, if
they really existed, ought to be tied to the hangman's cart and

driven through the streets of Petersburg. He had, adds
Grigoróvitch, already then developed that peculiar view of
women and of the woman-question, which he afterwards
expressed so vividly in Anna Karénina.
With all the curious convolutions of Tolstoy's character, there is a
remarkable tenacity of conviction running through his whole life, and a
remark in Resurrection, written nearly half a century later, throws a flood of
light on the fact of his so detesting George Sand's emancipated heroines
while he was himself living a loose life. In that book, the hero has been
attracted as well as repelled first by Mariette, the General's wife, and then
by a handsome demi-mondaine he passes in the street, and this is his
reflection:
The animalism of the brute nature in man is disgusting, thought
he; but as long as it remains in its naked form we observe it from
the height of our spiritual life and despise it; and, whether one has
fallen or resisted, one remains what one was before. But when
that same animalism hides under a cloak of poetry and esthetic
feeling, and demands our worship—then we are swallowed up by
it completely, and worship animalism, no longer distinguishing
good from evil. Then it is awful!

Prominent Russian Writers, (1856): Tourgénef, Sologoúb, Tolstoy,
Nekrásof, Grigóryef, Panáef.

Grigoróvitch in another place speaks of Tolstoy's 'readiness to contradict.' It
did not matter what opinion was being expressed; and the more
authoritative the speaker appeared to be, the more eager was Tolstoy to
oppose him and to begin a verbal duel. 'Watching how he listened to the
speaker and pierced him with his eyes, and noticing how ironically he
pressed his lips together, one conjectured that he was preparing not a direct
reply, but such an expression of opinion as would perplex his opponent by
its unexpectedness.'
Danílevsky, the novelist, confirms this impression of Tolstoy's eagerness to
oppose. They met at the house of a well-known sculptor. Tolstoy entered the
drawing-room while a new work of Herzen's was being read aloud, and
quietly took up a position behind the reader's chair. When the reading was
over, he began, at first gently and with restraint, then hotly and boldly, to
attack Herzen and the enthusiasm then current for his revolutionary and
emancipatory works; and he spoke so convincingly and with such sincerity,

that Danílevsky says he never afterwards saw one of Herzen's publications
in that house.
Tourgénef once said: 'In Tolstoy the character which afterwards lay at the
base of his whole outlook on life early made itself manifest. He never
believed in people's sincerity. Every spiritual movement seemed to him
false, and he used to pierce those on whom his suspicion fell with his
extraordinarily penetrating eyes'; and Tourgénef went on to say that
personally he had never encountered anything more disconcerting than that
inquisitorial look, which, accompanied by two or three biting words, was
enough to goad to fury any man who lacked strong self control.
The different sides of men's characters do not always advance
simultaneously or harmoniously; and it frequently happens that those
awakening to a sense of public duty remain self-indulgent in respect to wine
or women, while others become abstainers or respectable husbands while
remaining oblivious of the political duties they owe to the community.
Among the reformers whose acquaintance Tolstoy made in Petersburg,
there was unfortunately a great deal of gluttony, drinking, gambling and
loose living, and Tolstoy—though he was often remorseful and repentant
about his own excesses with wine, women, and cards—with his innate
propensity for demanding all or nothing, bitterly resented this in others. He
would no doubt have considered it hypocritical had he himself come
forward as a reformer before obtaining mastery over his own appetites, and
he judged others by the same standard.
The ill success of the Crimean war had dealt a blow to the prestige of the
Tsardom, and a series of wide-reaching reforms were being prepared at this
time—among which the most important were the abolition of serfdom, the
reform of civil and criminal law, the introduction of trial by jury and of oral
proceedings in the law courts, the establishment of a system of Local
Government somewhat resembling our County Councils, and some
relaxation of the insensate severity of the press censorship. But though
Tolstoy reached Petersburg at a moment when Russia was entering on this
hopeful and fruitful period of internal reform, neither in his published
writings nor in any private utterance we know of, does he express much
sympathy with those reforms, or show any perception of the advantage that
accrues to a nation whose inhabitants interest themselves in public affairs.

He never realised that even if a people make for themselves bad laws, the
very fact of being invited to think about large practical matters, and being
allowed to test their own conclusions in practice, fosters a habit of not
fearing to think and to act in accord with one's thought; and that this habit
of applying thought to the guidance of practical affairs, overflows into a
nation's commerce and industry and agriculture, and ultimately causes the
difference between the comparative material security of our Western world
and the chronic fear of famine that oppresses many Eastern lands.
But complex problems of public policy—which are always difficult, and
call for patience, tolerant co-operation, and a willingness to accept half-
loaves when whole ones are unobtainable—never were to Tolstoy's taste.
He hankers after simple, clear-cut solutions, such as are obtainable only
subjectively, in the mind.
A few years later than the time of which we are speaking, Tolstoy
commenced a novel called The Decembrists, which begins with a
description of these reform years. The passage shows how scornfully he
regarded the whole movement for the liberation of the people and the
democratisation of their institutions. These are his words:
This happened not long ago, in the reign of Alexander II, in our
times of civilisation, progress, problems, re-birth of Russia, etc.
etc.; the time when the victorious Russian army returned from
Sevastopol which it had surrendered to the enemy; when all
Russia was celebrating the destruction of the Black Sea fleet; and
white-walled Moscow greeted, and congratulated on that
auspicious event, the remainder of the crews of that fleet, offering
them a good old Russian goblet of vódka, and in the good old
Russian way bringing them bread and salt and bowing at their
feet. This was the time when Russia, in the person of her far-
sighted virgin politicians, wept over the destruction of her dream
of a Te Deum in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, and the deep-felt
loss to the fatherland of two great men who had perished during
the war (one who, carried away by impatience to hear the Te
Deum referred to above, had fallen on the fields of Wallachia, not
without leaving there two squadrons of Hussars; and the other an
invaluable man who distributed tea, other people's money, and

sheets, to the wounded without stealing any of them); in that time
when from all sides, in all departments of human activity in
Russia, great men sprang up like mushrooms: commanders,
administrators, economists, writers, orators, and simply great men
without any special calling or aim; in that time when at the
Jubilee of a Moscow actor, public opinion, fortified by a toast,
appeared and began to punish all wrongdoers; when stern
Commissioners galloped from Petersburg to the South and
captured, exposed, and punished the commissariat rascals; when
in all the towns dinners with toasts were given to the heroes of
Sevastopol, and to those of them whose arms and legs had been
torn off, coppers were given by those who met them on the
bridges or highways; at that time when oratorical talents were so
rapidly developed among the people that one publican
everywhere and on all occasions wrote, printed, and repeated by
heart at dinners, such powerful speeches that the guardians of
order were obliged to undertake repressive measures to subdue
his eloquence; when even in the English Club in Moscow a
special room was set apart for the consideration of public affairs;
when periodicals appeared under the most varied banners;
journals developing European principles on a European basis but
with a Russian world-conception, and journals on an exclusively
Russian basis, developing Russian principles but with a European
world-conception; when suddenly, so many journals appeared that
it seemed as if all possible titles had been used up: 'The
Messenger,' 'The Word,' 'The Discourse,' 'The Eagle,' and many
others; when nevertheless fresh titles presented themselves
continually; at that time when pleiades of new author-
philosophers appeared, proving that Science is national and is not
national and is international, and so on: and pleiades of writer-
artists, who described woods and sun-rises, and thunders, and the
love of a Russian maiden, and the idleness of one official, and the
misconduct of many officials; at that time when from all sides
appeared problems (as in the year '56 every concourse of
circumstances was called of which nobody could make head or
tail); the problem of the Cadet Schools, the Universities, the
Censor, oral tribunals, finance, the banks, the police, the

Emancipation, and many others; everybody still tried to discover
new questions, and everybody tried to solve them; they wrote,
and read, and talked, and drew up projects, and all wished to
amend, destroy and alter, and all Russians, as one man, were in an
indescribable state of enthusiasm. That was a condition which has
occurred twice in Russia in the nineteenth century: the first time
was in the year '12 when we thrashed Napoleon I, and the second
time was in '56 when Napoleon III thrashed us. Great,
unforgettable epoch of the re-birth of the Russian people! Like the
Frenchman who said that he had not lived at all who had not lived
during the Great French Revolution, so I make bold to say that he
who did not live in Russia in '56, does not know what life is. The
writer of these lines not merely lived at that time, but was one of
the workers of that period. Not merely did he personally sit for
some weeks in one of the casemates of Sevastopol, but he wrote a
work about the Crimean War which brought him great fame, and
in which he clearly and minutely described how the soldiers in the
bastion fired off their muskets, how in the hospitals people were
bound up with bandages, and how in the cemetery they were
buried in the earth.
Having performed these exploits, the writer of these lines arrived
at the heart of the Empire, at a rocket-station, where he reaped his
laurels. He witnessed the enthusiasm of both capitals and of the
whole people, and experienced in his own person how Russia can
reward real service. The great ones of the earth sought his
acquaintance, pressed his hands, offered him dinners, persistently
invited him to come and see them, and in order to hear from him
particulars about the war, narrated to him their own sensations.
Therefore the writer of these lines knows how to appreciate that
great and memorable time. But that is not what I want to tell
about.
The very day he reached Petersburg from Sevastopol, in September 1855,
Tolstoy called on Tourgénef, who pressed him to stay with him and
introduced him to all that was most interesting in Petersburg literary and
artistic circles, watching over his interests 'like an old nurse,' as Tourgénef
himself once expressed it. Tourgénef fully appreciated Tolstoy's artistic

genius, but was strangely blind to the specially Tolstoyan side of Tolstoy's
complex nature. As we have already seen, friction soon arose between the
two men, and though they again and again made friends, their friendship
was very unstable and easily upset.

1856

Early in 1856 Tolstoy's third brother, Demetrius, died in Orél. His history
has been told in Chapter II. Tolstoy says: 'I was particularly horrid at that
time. I went to Orél from Petersburg, where I frequented society and was
filled with conceit. I felt sorry for Mítenka, but not very sorry. I paid him a
hurried visit, but did not stay at Orél, and my brother died a few days after I
left.' On 2nd February the news reached Leo; but he says: 'I really believe
that what hurt me most, was that it prevented my taking part in some private
theatricals then being got up at Court, and to which I had been invited.'
In March the war ended, and Tolstoy obtained furlough. On 25th March he
wrote to his brother Sergius:
I want to go abroad for eight months, and if they give me leave I
shall do so. I wrote to Nikólenka about it, and asked him to come
too. If we could all three arrange to go together it would be first-
rate. If each of us took Rs. 1000, we could do the trip capitally.
Please write and tell me how you like The Snow Storm. I am
dissatisfied with it—seriously. But I now want to write many
things, only I positively have no time in this damned Petersburg.
Anyway, whether they let me go abroad or not, I intend to take
furlough in April and come to the country.
On 13th May he was still in Petersburg, and we find him noting in his
Diary:
The powerful means to true happiness in life, is to let flow from
oneself on all sides, without any laws, like a spider, a cobweb of
love, and to catch in it all that comes to hand: women old or
young, children, or policemen.

Among his literary acquaintances at this time the one for whom he seems to
have felt most sympathy and respect was Drouzhínin, a critic, writer of
stories, and translator of Shakespear. Before long we find Drouzhínin
leading a revolt against the Contemporary and attracting some of the
contributors to the Reading Library, a rival magazine, to which Tolstoy
contributed an article in December 1856.
It was not till the end of May that he got away from Petersburg; and on his
road home he stopped in Moscow and visited the family of Dr. Behrs, a
Russian of German origin, who had married Miss Islényef. The first
mention one gets of Tolstoy's future wife is a note in his Diary relating to
this visit to the Behrs's country house near Moscow. He says: 'The children
served us. What dear, merry little girls! Little more than six years later, the
second of these 'merry little girls' was Countess Tolstoy!
Three days later he writes to his brother Sergius: 'I spent ten days in
Moscow ... very pleasantly, without champagne or gipsies, but a little in
love—I will tell you later on with whom.' The object of his affection at that
time was of course not Dr. Behrs's twelve-year-old daughter.
From Yásnaya he made a round of visits to see his married sister and other
neighbours; among them Tourgénef, at whose house a gathering of the
Tolstoys took place. Special honour was paid to Leo, who comically posed
as the hero of a Triumph. He was being crowned and almost covered with
flowers, leaves, grass, and anything that came handy, when the approach of
an unwelcome guest—a lady neighbour of Tourgénef's—was announced.
Thereupon the host seized his head in despair; the triumpher, with a howl,
began to turn rapid catherine-wheel somersaults through the rooms; and his
sister's husband was quickly bandaged up as an invalid, to be used as an
excuse and a protection from the unwelcome intruder.
The letter to Sergius, quoted above, contains an allusion to Tolstoy's first
serious matrimonial project.
He had in childhood been much attached to a certain Sónitchka Kalóshina.
While at the University, he had had a sentimental love affair with a certain
Z. M., who seems hardly to have been aware of his devotion. Then there
was the Cossack damsel who figures in The Cossacks, and subsequently he
much admired a society lady, Madame Sch., who may also have been

scarcely aware of his feelings, for Tolstoy was shy and timid in these
matters—which were quite different from his affairs with gipsy girls and
other hireable women.
The present affair with V. V. A. was more serious than any of its
predecessors. It led to a long correspondence, and even to their engagement
being announced among relations and friends. The lady was the good-
looking daughter of a landowner in the neighbourhood of Yásnaya Polyána.
In August she accompanied her family to Moscow for the Coronation of
Alexander II. At these festivities she enjoyed herself greatly, and described
her feelings in a letter which dealt the first blow to Tolstoy's admiration. He
at once assumed towards her the rôle which more than twenty-five years
later he assumed towards mankind in general, and upbraided her with the
insignificant and unworthy nature of her interests and enjoyments, besides
indulging in scathing sarcasms about the fashionable circles with which she
was so enraptured.
The young lady did not reply. Tolstoy then begged pardon—which was
granted.
Meanwhile he had fallen ill; and early in September he wrote to his brother
Sergius:
Only now, at nine o'clock on Monday evening, can I give you a
satisfactory reply, for till now things went worse and worse. Two
doctors were sent for, and administered another forty leeches, but
only now have I had a good sleep and, on waking up, feel
considerably better. All the same, there can be no question of my
leaving home for five or six days yet. So au revoir; please let me
know when you go (shooting) and whether it is true that your
farming has been seriously neglected; and do not kill all the game
without me. I will send the dogs, perhaps, to-morrow.
He recovered. The young lady returned to her family's estate at Soudakóva,
and his visits being renewed, Tolstoy's intimacy with her continued and
grew closer.
Yet to 'test himself,' he started for a visit to Petersburg, and as soon as he
had got as far as Moscow, wrote a letter to the young lady in which he dwelt

on the importance of the mutual attraction of the sexes, the serious nature of
his and her relation to one another, and the necessity of testing themselves
by time and distance.
While living in Petersburg, he learnt the particulars of a flirtation the young
lady had carried on at the time of the Coronation with a French music-
master, Mortier; and he wrote her a letter full of reproaches. Instead of
posting it, however, he wrote her another—telling her of the one he had
written, which he intended to show her when they met.
After once breaking off relations with Mortier, the young lady allowed them
to be again renewed, and what Tolstoy learned of the matter caused him
seriously to reconsider his position. For some time his feelings evidently
wavered. The very day after posting his remonstrance, he wrote another
letter in a conciliatory tone, and though no reply came, he assumed that all
was well, and continued the correspondence by sending her a detailed plan
of the life they might hope to live together: its surroundings, circle of
acquaintance, and the arrangement of their time. He also tried to interest her
in the most serious problems of life.
No answer reaching him for a long time, he became agitated and perplexed.
Then several letters, delayed in the post, arrived all at once, and cordial
intercourse was re-established between the lovers. But though the
engagement and correspondence continued, and expressions of affection
were interchanged, it gradually became more and more evident that there
was something artificial and unsatisfactory in their relation to one another.
Meanwhile Tolstoy was having other difficulties in Petersburg. On 10th
November 1856 he writes to his brother Sergius:
Forgive me, dear friend Seryózha, for only writing two words—I
have no time for more. I have been most unlucky since I left
home; there is no one here I like. It seems that I have been abused
in the Fatherland Journal for my war stories—I have not yet read
the attack; but the worst is that Konstantínof [the General under
whose command was the battery to which Tolstoy was attached]
informed me as soon as I got here that the Grand Duke Michael,
having learnt that I am supposed to have composed the Soldiers'
Song, is displeased, particularly at my having (as rumour says)

taught it to the soldiers. This is abominable. I have had an
explanation with the Head of the Staff. The only satisfactory thing
is that my health is good, and that (Dr.) Schipoulínsky says my
lungs are thoroughly sound.
On 20th November 1856 Tolstoy left the army, in which he had never
secured promotion though he had private influence enough to enable him,
about this time, to save from trial by Court Martial the Commander of the
battery in which he had served in the Crimea.
Early in December he left Petersburg for Moscow. From there, on 5th
December, he writes to Aunt Tatiána:
When I first went away and for a week after, I thought I was 'in
love' as it is called; but with an imagination such as mine that was
not difficult.
Now, however, especially since I have set to work diligently, I
should like—and very much like—to be able to say that I am in
love, or even that I love her; but it is not the case. The only
feeling I have for her is gratitude for her love of me, and the
thought that of all the girls I have known or know, she would
have made me the best wife, as I understand family life. And that
is what I should like to have your candid opinion about. Am I
mistaken or not? I should like to hear your advice because, in the
first place, you know both her and me; and chiefly because you
love me, and those who love are never wrong. It is true that I have
tested myself very badly, for from the time I left home I have led
a solitary rather than a dissipated life, and have seen few women;
but notwithstanding that, I have had many moments of vexation
with myself for having become connected with her, and I have
repented of it. All the same, I repeat that if I were convinced that
she is of a steadfast nature, and would love me always—even
though not as now, yet more than any one else—then I should not
hesitate for a moment about marrying her. I am confident that
then my love of her would increase more and more and that
through that feeling she would become a good woman.

Tolstoy in 1856, the year he left the army.

The young lady in question visited Petersburg for part of the winter season,
but Tolstoy does not appear to have met her there, being himself away in
Moscow for several weeks. The correspondence was largely didactic on his
side, and was so unsatisfactory to the young lady that she finally forbade
him to write again. He disobeyed the injunction, asking her pardon, telling
her he was going abroad, and begging that she would write to him once
more, to an address in Paris.
He wrote to Aunt Tatiána from Moscow, on 12th January 1857, a letter in
which Russian and French alternate.
[31]
Chère Tante!—J'ai reçu mon passeport pour l'étranger et je
suis venu à Moscou pour y passer quelques jours avec Marie
arranger mes affaires et prendre congé de vous.
But now I have reconsidered the matter, especially on Máshenka's
advice, and have decided to remain with her here a week or two

and then to go straight through Warsaw to Paris. You no doubt
understand, chère tante, why I do not wish and why it is not right
for me to come now to Yásnaya, or rather to Soudakóva. I, it
seems, have acted very badly in relation to V., but were I to see
her now, I should behave still worse. As I wrote you, I am more
than indifferent to her, and feel that I can no longer deceive either
her or myself. But were I to come, I might perhaps, from
weakness of character, again delude myself.
Vous rappelez-vous, chère tante, comme vous vous êtes moquée
de moi, quand je vous ai dit que je partais pour Pétersbourg 'pour
m'éprouver,' et cependant c'est à cette idée que je suis redevable
de n'avoir pas fait le malheur de la jeune personne et le mien, car
ne croyez pas que ce soit de l'inconstance ou de l'infidélité;
personne ne m'a plu pendant ces deux mois, mais tout bonnement
j'ai vu que je me trompais moi-même; que non seulement jamais
je n'ai eu, mais jamais je n'aurais pour V. le moindre sentiment
d'amour véritable. La seule chose qui me fait beaucoup de peine
c'est que j'ai fait du tort à la demoiselle et que je ne pourrai
prendre congé de vous avant de partir....
After reaching Paris (an event belonging properly to the next chapter) he
received a last communication from V. V. A. and wrote her a friendly letter
in reply, speaking of his love as of something past, thanking her for her
friendship, and wishing her every happiness.
His Aunt Tatiána—generally the mildest of critics where he was concerned
—appears to have blamed him for his conduct; and the friends of V. V. A.,
including a French governess, Mlle. Vergani, did so yet more severely. In
one of his letters, which contains indications of an agitation too strong to
allow him to complete the construction of the opening sentence, he says:
[32]
Si Mlle. V. qui m'a écrit une lettre aussi ridicule, voulait se
rappeler toute ma conduite vis-à-vis de V. V. A., comment je
tâchais de venir le plus rarement possible, comment c'est elle qui
m'engageait à venir plus souvent et à entrer dans des relations
plus proches. Je comprends qu'elle soit fâchée de ce qu'une chose
qu'elle a beaucoup désirée ne s'est pas faite (j'en suis fâché peut-

être plus qu'elle) mais ce n'est pas une raison pour dire à un
homme qui s'est efforcé d'agir le mieux possible, qui a fait des
sacrifices de peur de faire le malheur des autres, de lui dire, qu'il
est un pig [this one word is in Russian in the original] et de le
faire accroire à tout le monde. Je suis sûr que Toúla [the town
nearest his estate] est convaincu que je suis le plus grand des
monstres.
Turning from love to literature and friendship, we have two letters of this
period from Tourgénef. The first is dated Paris, 16th November 1856, and is
as follows:
Dearest Tolstoy,—Your letter of 15 October took a whole month
crawling to me—I received it only yesterday. I have thought
carefully about what you write me—and I think you are wrong. It
is true I cannot be quite sincere, because I can't be quite frank,
with you. I think we got to know each other awkwardly and at a
bad time, and when we meet again it will be much easier and
smoother. I feel that I love you as a man (as an author it needs no
saying); but much in you is trying to me, and ultimately I found it
better to keep at a distance from you. When we meet we will
again try to go hand in hand—perhaps we shall succeed better; for
strange as it may sound, my heart turns to you when at a distance,
as to a brother: I even feel tenderly towards you. In a word, I love
you—that is certain; perchance from that, in time, all good will
follow. I heard of your illness and grieved; but now, I beg you,
drive the thought of it out of your head. For you too have your
fancies, and are perhaps thinking of consumption—but, God
knows, you have nothing of the sort....
You have finished the first part of Youth—that is capital. How
sorry I am to be unable to hear it read! If you do not go astray
(which I think there is no reason to anticipate) you will go very
far. I wish you good health, activity—and freedom, spiritual
freedom.
As to my Faust, I do not think it will please you very much. My
things could please you and perhaps have some influence on you,

only until you became independent. Now you have no need to
study me; you see only the difference of our manners, the
mistakes and the omissions; what you have to do is to study man,
your own heart, and the really great writers. I am a writer of a
transition period—and am of use only to men in a transition state.
So farewell, and be well. Write to me.
On 8th December 1856 he writes again:
Dear Tolstoy,—Yesterday my good genius led me past the post-
office, and it occurred to me to ask if there were any letters for me
at the poste-restante (though I think that all my friends ought long
ago to have learnt my Paris address) and I found your letter, in
which you speak of my Faust. You can well imagine how glad I
was to read it. Your sympathy gladdened me truly and deeply.
Yes, and from the whole letter there breathes a mild, clear and
friendly peacefulness. It remains for me to hold out my hand
across the 'ravine' which has long since become a hardly
perceptible crack, about which we will speak no more—it is not
worth it.
I fear to speak of one thing you mention: it is a delicate matter,—
words may blight such things before they are ripe, but when they
are ripe a hammer will not break them. God grant that all may
turn out favourably and well. It may bring you that spiritual
repose which you lacked when I knew you.
You have, I see, now become very intimate with Drouzhínin—and
are under his influence. That is right, only take care not to
swallow too much of him. When I was your age, only men of
enthusiastic natures influenced me; but you are built differently,
and perhaps also the times are changed.... Let me know in which
numbers of the Contemporary your Youth will appear; and by the
way, let me know the final impression made on you by Lear,
which you probably have read, if only for Drouzhínin's sake.
About the same time Tourgénef wrote to Drouzhínin:

I hear that you have become very intimate with Tolstoy—and he
has become very pleasant and serene. I am very glad. When that
new wine has finished fermenting, it will yield a drink fit for the
Gods. What about his Youth, which was sent for your verdict?
The allusion to Drouzhínin's translation of King Lear is worth noticing
because fully fifty years later it was this play that Tolstoy selected for
hostile analysis in his famous attack on Shakespear. One gathers from a
letter written by V. P. Bótkin, that Drouzhínin's rendering impressed Tolstoy
favourably at the time.
Before quoting Drouzhínin's criticism of Youth, it will be in place to
mention other works by Tolstoy, not yet enumerated, which appeared at this
period. Memoirs of a Billiard Marker, giving a glimpse of temptations
Tolstoy had experienced, was published in January 1855, while he was in
Sevastopol. In January 1856 came Sevastopol in August. In March 1856
appeared The Snow Storm. In May 1856 came a rollicking tale, with flashes
of humour like that of Charles Lever, entitled Two Hussars. It is the only
story Tolstoy ever wrote in that vein; and in it are introduced gipsy singers
such as those of whom repeated mention occurs in his letters. In December,
before he went abroad, two more tales were published: one of these, entitled
Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance in the Detachment, containing a scathing
portrayal of the cowardice a man, who had passed muster in 'good society,'
displayed when circumstances put him to the test. The other story, A
Squire's Morning, is closely drawn from Tolstoy's own experience when on
first leaving the University he settled on his estate and attempted to better
the condition of his serfs. Their stolidity, their distrust, and the immense
difficulty of introducing any changes, are all brought out.
In a letter to Drouzhínin, Tourgénef wrote:
I have read his Squire's Morning, which pleased me exceedingly
by its sincerity and almost complete freedom of outlook. I say
'almost' because in the way he set himself the task, there still is
hidden (without his perhaps being aware of it) a certain amount of
prejudice. The chief moral impression produced by the story
(leaving the artistic impression aside) is that so long as the state
of serfdom exists, there is no possibility of the two sides drawing

together, despite the most disinterested and honourable desire to
do so; and this impression is good and true. But beside it, like a
horse cantering beside a trotter, there is another: namely, that in
general to try to enlighten or improve the condition of the
peasants leads to nothing; and this impression is unpleasant. But
the mastery of language, the way it is told, and his character-
drawing, are grand.

1857

In January 1857 appeared Youth, the continuation of Childhood and
Boyhood.
How great Drouzhínin's influence was with Tolstoy at this time, may be
judged by the tone of his letter to him, giving an opinion on Youth. He
writes:
About Youth one ought to write twenty pages. I read it with anger,
with yells and with oaths—not on account of its literary quality,
but because of the quality of the notebooks in which it is written,
and the handwritings. The mixing of two hands, a known and an
unknown, diverted my attention and hindered an intelligent
perusal. It was as though two voices shouted in my ear and
purposely distracted my attention, and I know that this has
prevented my receiving an adequate impression. All the same I
will say what I can. Your task was a terrible one, and you have
executed it very well. No other writer of our day could have so
seized and sketched the agitated and disorderly period of youth.
To those who are developed, your Youth will furnish an immense
pleasure; and if any one tells you it is inferior to Childhood and
Boyhood you may spit in his physiognomy. There is a world of
poetry in it—all the first chapters are admirable; only the
introduction is dry till one reaches the description of spring.... In
many chapters one scents the poetic charm of old Moscow, which
no one has yet reproduced properly. Some chapters are dry and

long: for instance all the stipulations with Dmítry Nehlúdof....
The conscription of Semyónof will not pass the Censor.
Do not fear your reflections, they are all clever and original. But
you have an inclination to a super-refinement of analysis which
may become a great defect. You are sometimes on the point of
saying that so-and-so's thigh indicated that he wished to travel in
India. You must restrain this tendency, but do not extinguish it on
any account. All your work on your analyses should be of the
same kind. Each of your defects has its share of strength and
beauty, and almost every one of your qualities carries with it the
seed of a defect.
Your style quite accords with that conclusion: you are most
ungrammatical, sometimes with the lack of grammar of a
reformer and powerful poet reshaping a language his own way
and for ever, but sometimes with the lack of grammar of an
officer sitting in a casemate and writing to his chum. One can say
with assurance that all the pages you have written with love are
admirable,—but as soon as you grow cold, your words become
entangled, and diabolical forms of speech appear. Therefore the
parts written coldly should be revised and corrected. I tried to
straighten out some bits, but gave it up; it is a work which only
you can and must do. Above all, avoid long sentences. Cut them
up into two or three; do not be sparing of full-stops.... Do not
stand on ceremony with the particles, and strike out by dozens the
words: which, who, and that. When in difficulties, take a sentence
and imagine that you want to say it to some one in a most
conversational way.
As a translator I may testify that Tolstoy never fully learned the lesson
Drouzhínin here set him, and that to the very last he continued occasionally
to intermingle passages of extraordinary simplicity and force with sentences
that defy analysis and abound in redundances.
Nearly fifty years later Tolstoy himself criticised the subject-matter of
Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth as follows:

I have re-read them and regret that I wrote them; so ill, artificially
and insincerely are they penned. It could not be otherwise: first,
because what I aimed at was not to write my own history but that
of the friends of my youth, and this produced an awkward
mixture of the facts of their and my own childhood; and secondly,
because at the time I wrote it I was far from being independent in
my way of expressing myself, being strongly influenced by two
writers: Sterne (his Sentimental Journey) and Töpffer (his
Bibliothèque de Mon Oncle).
I am now specially dissatisfied with the two last parts. Boyhood
and Youth, in which besides an awkward mixture of truth and
invention, there is also insincerity: a desire to put forward as good
and important what I did not then consider good and important,
namely, my democratic tendency.
Before concluding this chapter it will be in place to give a list of books
Tolstoy mentions as having influenced him after he left the University and
before his marriage. They were: Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea; Hugo's
Notre Dame de Paris; Plato's Phaedo and Symposium (in Cousin's French
translation); and the Iliad and Odyssey in Russian versions. All these, he
says, had a 'very great' influence on him, while the poems of his
compatriots, Tútchef, Kóltsof, and his friend Fet, had 'great' influence.
He tells us that artistic talent in literature influenced him more than any
political or social tendency; and this is quite in accord both with his highly
artistic nature and with his general apathy towards public affairs. There was
a Slavophil theory (built to justify things as they were) which proclaimed it
natural for a Slavonic people to leave the task of governing to its rulers,
while retaining its intellectual freedom to disapprove of what was done
amiss; and though Tolstoy never joined the Slavophils, this has been very
much his own attitude on the matter.
Even in early childhood he had appreciated some of Poúshkin's poems, such
as To the Sea and To Napoleon, and had learned them by heart and recited
them with feeling; but curiously enough it was the perusal of Mérimée's
French prose translation of Poúshkin's Gipsies that, after he was grown up,
aroused Tolstoy's keen admiration of Poúshkin's mastery of clear, simple,

direct language. Later in life Tolstoy used to say that Poúshkin's prose
stories, such as The Captain's Daughter, are his best works; but he never
lost his appreciation of Poúshkin's power of expression in verse. In his
Diary (4th January 1857) he wrote:
I dined at Bótkin's with Panáef alone; he read me Poúshkin; I
went into Bótkin's study and wrote a letter to Tourgénef, and then
I sat down on the sofa and wept causeless but blissful tears. I am
positively happy all this time, intoxicated with the rapidity of my
moral progress.
Despite his headstrong outbursts and many vacillations, he seems to have
been always a welcome guest in almost any society he cared to frequent,
and none of his critics has spoken as harshly of him as he speaks of himself
when describing these
terrible twenty years of coarse dissipation, the service of
ambition, vanity, and above all of lust.... It is true that not all my
life was so terribly bad as this twenty-year period from fourteen
to thirty-four; and it is true that even that period of my life was
not the continuous evil that during a recent illness it appeared to
me to be. Even during those years, strivings towards goodness
awoke in me, though they did not last long, and were soon choked
by passions nothing could restrain.
In his Confession, written more than twenty years later, when speaking of
his religious beliefs at this time, Tolstoy tells us:
With all my soul I wished to be good; but I was young,
passionate, and alone, completely alone when I sought goodness.
Every time I tried to express my most sincere desire, namely, to
be morally good, I met with contempt and ridicule; but as soon as
I yielded to nasty passions I was praised and encouraged.
Ambition, love of power, covetousness, lasciviousness, pride,
anger and revenge—were all respected.... I cannot think of those
years without horror, loathing and heartache. I killed men in war,
and challenged men to duels in order to kill them; I lost at cards,
consumed the labour of the peasants, sentenced them to

punishments, lived loosely and deceived people. Lying, robbery,
adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, murder—there was
no crime I did not commit, and people approved of my conduct,
and my contemporaries considered and consider me to be a
comparatively moral man.
So I lived for ten years.
During that time I began to write from vanity, covetousness and
pride. In my writings I did the same as in my life. To get fame and
money, for the sake of which I wrote, it was necessary to hide the
good and to show the evil. And I did so. How often in my
writings did I contrive to hide under the guise of indifference or
even of banter, those strivings of mine towards goodness, which
gave meaning to my life! And I succeeded in this, and was
praised.

At twenty-six years of age[33] I returned to Petersburg after the
war, and met the writers. They received me as one of themselves
and flattered me. And before I had time to look round I had
adopted the class views on life of the authors I had come among,
and these views completely obliterated all my former strivings to
improve. Those views furnished a theory which justified the
dissoluteness of my life. The view of life of these people, my
comrades in authorship, consisted in this: that life in general goes
on developing, and in this development we—men of thought—
have the chief part; and among men of thought it is we—artists
and poets—who have the chief influence. Our vocation is to teach
mankind. And lest the simple question should suggest itself: What
do I know, and what can I teach? it is explained in this theory that
this need not be known, and that the artist and poet teach
unconsciously. I was considered an admirable artist and poet, and
therefore it was very natural for me to adopt this theory. I, artist
and poet, wrote and taught, without myself knowing what. For
this I was paid money; I had excellent food, lodging, women and
society; and I had fame, which showed that what I taught was
very good.

This faith in the meaning of poetry and in the development of life,
was a religion, and I was one of its priests. To be its priest was
very pleasant and profitable. And I lived a considerable time in
this faith without doubting its validity. But in the second, and
especially in the third year of this life, I began to doubt the
infallibility of this religion and to examine it. My first cause of
doubt was that I began to notice that the priests of this religion
were not all in accord among themselves. Some said: We are the
best and most useful teachers; we teach what is wanted, but the
others teach wrongly. Others said: No! we are the real teachers,
and you teach wrongly. And they disputed, quarrelled, abused one
another, cheated, and tricked one another. There were also many
among them who did not care who was right and who was wrong,
but were simply bent on attaining their covetous aims by means
of this activity of ours. All this obliged me to doubt the validity of
our creed.
Moreover, having begun to doubt the truth of the authors' creed
itself, I also began to observe its priests more attentively, and I
became convinced that almost all the priests of that religion, the
writers, were immoral, and for the most part men of bad,
worthless character, much inferior to those whom I had met in my
former dissipated and military life; but they were self-confident
and self-assured as only those can be who are quite holy or who
do not know what holiness is. These people revolted me, and I
became revolting to myself, and I realised that that faith is a
fraud.
But strange to say, though I understood this fraud and renounced
it, yet I did not renounce the rank these people gave me: the rank
of artist, poet, and teacher. I naïvely imagined that I was a poet
and artist and could teach everybody without myself knowing
what I was teaching, and I acted on that assumption.
From my intimacy with these men I acquired a new vice:
abnormally developed pride, and an insane assurance that it was
my vocation to teach men, without knowing what.

To remember that time, and my own state of mind and that of
those men (though there are thousands like them to-day) is sad
and terrible and ludicrous, and arouses exactly the feeling one
experiences in a lunatic asylum.
We were all then convinced that it was necessary for us to speak,
write, and print as quickly as possible and as much as possible,
and that it was all wanted for the good of humanity. And
thousands of us, contradicting and abusing one another, all
printed and wrote—teaching others. And without remarking that
we knew nothing, and that to the simplest of life's questions:
What is good and what is evil? we did not know how to reply, we
all, not listening to one another, talked at the same time,
sometimes backing and praising one another in order to be backed
and praised in turn, sometimes getting angry with one another—
just as in a lunatic asylum.
Thousands of workmen laboured to the extreme limit of their
strength day and night setting the type and printing millions of
words which the post carried all over Russia, and we still went on
teaching and could nohow find time to teach enough, and were
always angry that sufficient attention was not paid to us.
It was terribly strange, but is now quite comprehensible. Our real
innermost consideration was, that we wanted to get as much
money and praise as possible. To gain this end we could do
nothing except write books and papers. So we did that. But in
order to do such useless work and feel assured that we were very
important people, we required a theory justifying our activity.
And so among us this theory was devised: 'All that exists
develops. And it all develops by means of Culture. And Culture is
measured by the circulation of books and newspapers. And we are
paid money and are respected because we write books and
newspapers, and therefore we are the most useful and the best of
men.' This theory would have been all very well if we had been
unanimous, but as every thought expressed by one of us was
always met by a diametrically opposed thought expressed by
some one else, we ought to have been driven to reflection. But we

ignored this; people paid us money, and those on our side praised
us; so each one of us considered himself justified.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER V

Birukof.
Behrs.
A. Fet (Shenshin): Moi Vospominaniya, Moscow, 1890. These Recollections
contain much authentic information about Tolstoy, as well as a large
number of his letters to Fet, which I have quoted in subsequent chapters.
Bitovt.
Golovatcheva-Panaeva, Rousskie Pisateli i Artisty: Petersburg, 1890.
D. V. Grigorovitch, Literatourniya Vospominaniya: vol. xii. p. 326.
G. P. Danilevsky, Istoritcheskii Vestnik: March 1886.
P. A. Sergeyenko, Tourgenef i Tolstoy: Niva, No. 6, 1906.
Tolstoy's Confession.
See also, in Tolstoy's works. The Decembrists, chap. i.

CHAPTER VI
TRAVELS ABROAD

Paris. Relations with Tourgénef. Albert. An execution.
Switzerland. Lucerne. Yásnaya again. The Iliad and the Gospels.
Moscow: gymnastics. Three Deaths. Musical Society. Aunty
Tatiána. 'Ufanizing.' Emancipation. Bear-hunting. Moscow
Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. Attitude towards Art in
1859. Tourgénef. Farming. Fet. Drouzhínin. Nicholas's illness.
Goes abroad again. Germany. Educational studies. Auerbach.
Nicholas dies. Life at Hyères: children. Italy. Marseilles. Paris.
Paul de Kock. London. Herzen. Proudhon. Polikoúshka.
Auerbach again. Returns home.

1857

Since he took part in the Turkish war in 1854, Tolstoy has only twice been
out of Russia. The first time was at the period we have now reached. On
10th February 1857 (new style) he left Moscow by post-chaise for Warsaw,
from whence a railway already ran westward. He reached Paris on 21st
February. There he met Tourgénef and Nekrásof, with the former of whom
he was still unable to get on smoothly. Tourgénef writes: 'With Tolstoy I
still cannot become quite intimate; we see things too differently'; and in
some moment of anger Tolstoy even challenged his fellow-writer to a duel.
[34]
Nekrásof appears to have patched matters up, and in March Tolstoy and
Tourgénef went to Dijon together, and spent some days there. During this

trip Tolstoy commenced his story Albert, founded on his experience with
the talented but drunken musician Rudolf, already mentioned in Chapter III.
After he had returned to Paris, he was present at an execution, and made the
following jotting in his Diary:
I rose at seven o'clock and drove to see an execution. A stout,
white, healthy neck and breast: he kissed the Gospels, and then—
Death. How senseless.... I have not received this strong
impression for naught. I am not a man of politics. Morals and art I
know, love, and can (deal with). The guillotine long prevented my
sleeping and obliged me to reflect.
Tolstoy has a gift of telling the essential truth in few words, and never did
he sum himself up better than in the sentences, 'I am not a man of politics.
Morals and art I know, love, and can.' There is hardly any possible room for
doubt about the second sentence, and there is certainly none about the first,
as his whole life shows.
Many years later, he wrote of this event in his Confession:
When I saw the head separate from the body, and how they both
thumped into the box at the same moment, I understood, not with
my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the
reasonableness of our present progress can justify this deed; and
that though everybody from the creation of the world, on
whatever theory, had held it to be necessary, I know it to be
unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good
and evil is not what people say and do, and is not progress, but is
my heart and I.
It was probably during this visit to Paris that Tolstoy witnessed and admired
Chevet's popularisation of music by an easy system of instruction, of which
he says:

I have seen hundreds of horny-handed working men sitting on benches
(under which lay the tool-bags they brought from their work) singing
at sight, and understanding and being interested in the laws of music.

This experience he utilised later on in his school at Yásnaya.

In spring he went to Switzerland, and from Geneva he wrote to his Aunt
Tatiána:
[35]
J'ai passé un mois et demi à Paris, et si agréablement que tous
les jours je me suis dit, que j'ai bien fait de venir à l'étranger. Je
suis très peu allé ni dans la société, ni dans le monde littéraire, ni
dans le monde des cafés et des bals publics, mais malgré cela j'ai
trouvé ici tant de choses nouvelles et intéressantes pour moi, que
tous les jours, en me couchant, je me dis, quel dommage que la
journée est passée si vite; je n'ai même pas eu le temps de
travailler, ce que je me proposais de faire.
Le pauvre Turgenef est très malade physiquement et encore plus
moralement. Sa malheureuse liaison avec Madame Viardot, et sa
fille, le retiennent ici dans un climat qui lui est pernicieux et il fait
pitié de voir. Je n'aurais jamais cru qu'il put aimer ainsi.
Tolstoy's friends Drouzhínin and V. P. Bótkin visited Geneva at this time,
and they all three went on a walking tour into Piedmont together. After that
he settled at Clarens on the lake of Geneva, from whence he again wrote to
Aunt Tatiána:

18 Mai 1857.
[36]
Je viens de recevoir votre lettre, chère tante, qui m'a trouvée
comme vous devez le savoir d'après ma dernière lettre, aux
environs de Genève à Clarens dans ce même village, où a
demeuré la Julia de Rousseau.... Je n'essaierai pas de vous
depeindre la beauté de ce pays, surtout à présent, quand tout est
en feuilles et en fleurs; je vous dirai seulement, qu'à la lettre il est
impossible de se détacher de ce lac et de ces rivages et que je
passe la plus grande partie de mon temps à regarder et à admirer
en me promenant, ou bien en me mettant seulement à la fenêtre de
ma chambre.
Je ne cesse de me féliciter de l'idée que j'ai eu de quitter Paris et
de venir passer le printemps ici, quoique cela m'ait mérité de

votre part le reproche d'inconstance. Vraiment, je suis heureux,
and begin to feel the advantage of having been born with a caul.
Il y a ici société charmante de russes: les Poúshkins, the
Karamzíns and the Mestchérskys; and they have all, Heaven
knows why, taken to liking me; I feel it, and the month I have
spent here I have been so nice and good and cosy, that I am sad at
the thought of leaving.
From Clarens he took steamer to Montreux, and from there went on foot,
taking with him as companion a ten-year-old lad named Sásha, the son of
some Russians whose acquaintance he had made at Clarens. They crossed
the Pass of Jamon and, after changing their minds as to the direction they
would take, finally made for Château d'Oex, from whence they proceeded
by diligence to Thun. From that town Tolstoy went on to Lucerne, which he
reached in July 1857.
Again and again in his Diary and letters Tolstoy's vivid delight in Nature
shows itself in descriptions of the scenery: 'It is wonderful,' he writes, 'but I
was at Clarens for two months, and every time—when in the morning, and
especially after dinner towards evening—I opened the shutters on which the
shadows were already falling, and glanced at the lake and the distant blue of
the mountains reflected in it, the beauty blinded me and acted on me with
the force of a surprise.' But together with this keen appreciation, comes now
and then a sort of protest that this grandiose Swiss mountain scenery is,
after all, not the Nature that most appeals to him—a yearning for the vast
steppes and forests of his native land. After ascending the Pass of Jamon
and describing the magnificent scenery and the pleasure of the climb, he
adds:
It was something beautiful, even unusually beautiful, but I do not
love what are called magnificent and remarkable views: they are,
as it were, cold.... I love Nature when, though it surrounds me on
all sides and extends unendingly, I am part of it. I love it, when on
all sides I am surrounded by hot air, and that same air rolls away
to unending distance, and those same sappy leaves of grass which
I crush as I sit on them, form the green of the boundless
meadows; when those same leaves which, fluttering in the wind,

run their shadows across my face, form also the dark blue of the
distant forests; while the same air one breathes makes the deep,
light blue of the immeasurable sky; when you do not exult and
rejoice alone in Nature, but when around you myriads of insects
buzz and whirl, and beetles, clinging together, creep about, and all
around you birds overflow with song.
But this is bare, cold, desolate, grey plateau; and somewhere afar
there is something beautiful veiled with mist. But that something
is so distant that I do not feel the chief delight of Nature—do not
feel myself a part of that endless and beautiful distance: it is
foreign to me.
From Lucerne he writes:
[37]
Je suis de nouveau tout seul, et je vous avouerai que très
souvent la solitude m'est pénible, car les connaissances qu'on fait
dans les hôtels et en chemin de fer ne sont pas des ressources;
mais cet isolement a du moins le bon côté de me pousser au
travail. Je travaille un peu, mais cela va mal, comme d'ordinaire
en été.
It was here that the incident occurred described in Lucerne, a sketch
published in the September number of the Contemporary that same year,
and one which in its fierce castigation of the rich is a precursor of much that
he wrote thirty years later. Especially the conduct of the wealthy English
tourists roused his ire. The particular incident the story deals with is this:
On 7 July 1857, in Lucerne, in front of the Schweizerhof Hotel,
where the richest people stay, an itinerant mendicant-singer sang
songs and played his guitar for half-an-hour. About a hundred
people listened to him. Three times the singer asked them to give
him something, but not one of them did so, and many laughed at
him.
This is not fiction, but a positive fact, which any one who cares
may verify by asking the permanent inhabitants of the
Schweizerhof, and by looking up the newspaper lists of foreign
visitors at the Schweizerhof on 7 July.

It is an event which the historians of our times should inscribe in
indelible letters of fire.
In the story, Prince Nehlúdof, indignant at such treatment of a man who was
a real artist and whose songs all had enjoyed, brought the singer into the
hotel and treated him to a bottle of wine. He goes on to ask himself:
Which is more a man, and which more a barbarian: the lord who,
on seeing the singer's worn-out clothes, angrily left the table, and
for his service did not give him a millionth part of his property,
and who now sits satiated, in a well-lit, comfortable room, calmly
discussing the affairs of China and approving the murders that are
being committed there—or the little singer who with a franc in his
pocket, risking imprisonment, has tramped over hill and dale for
twenty years, harming no one but cheering many by his songs,
and whom they insulted to-day and all but turned out, leaving him
—weary, hungry and humiliated—to make his bed somewhere on
rotting straw?
After passing a few weeks at Lucerne, Tolstoy returned to Russia viâ
Stuttgart, Berlin, and Stettin, from which port he took steamer to
Petersburg, and after staying a week there to see Nekrásof and meet his
colleagues of the Contemporary, he went through Moscow to Yásnaya,
where he arrived in August. In his Diary we find this note:
This is how, on my journey, I planned my future occupations:
first, literary work; next, family duties; then, estate management.
But the estate I must leave as far as possible to the steward,
softening him and making improvements, and spending only Rs.
2000 a year [then equal to about £270], and using the rest for the
serfs. Above all, my stumbling-block is Liberal vanity. To live for
oneself and do a good deed a day, is sufficient.
Further on he says: 'Self-sacrifice does not lie in saying "Take what you like
from me," but in labouring and thinking, and contriving how to give
oneself.'
At this time he read (in translation) the Iliad and the Gospels, which both
impressed him greatly. 'I have finished reading the indescribably beautiful

end of the Iliad,' he notes, and expresses his regret that there is no
connection between those two wonderful works.
In October he first accompanied his brother Nicholas and his sister Mary to
Moscow, and then spent a few days in Petersburg, where he found that he
had been forgotten by a world absorbed in the great measures of public
reform then in course of preparation. Here is a sentence from his Diary:
Petersburg at first mortified me and then put me right. My
reputation has fallen and hardly gives a squeak, and I felt much
hurt; but now I am tranquil. I know I have something to say and
strength to say it strongly; and the public may then say what it
will. But I must work conscientiously, exerting all my powers;
then ... let them spit upon the altar.
By the end of October (old style) he was back in Moscow, established in
furnished apartments in the Pyátnitsky Street, with his sister and his brother
Nicholas. His friend Fet was also in Moscow at this time, and in his
Recollections makes frequent mention of the Tolstoys. He tells us that the
Countess Mary (who was an exceedingly accomplished pianist) used to
come to his house for music in the evenings, accompanied sometimes by
both her brothers and sometimes by Nicholas alone, who would say:
'Lyóvotchka has again donned his evening clothes and white necktie, and
gone to a ball.'
Tolstoy's elegance in dress was very noticeable at this period. We read of
the grey beaver collar of his overcoat, of a fashionable cane he carried, and
of the glossy hat he wore placed on one side, as well as of his curly, dark-
brown hair.
Gymnastics were fashionable in Moscow in those days, and any one
wishing to find Tolstoy between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, could
do so at the Gymnasium on the Great Dmítrovka Street, where, dressed in
gymnastic attire, he might be seen intent on springing over the vaulting-
horse without upsetting a cone placed on its back. He always was expert at
physical exercises: a first-rate horseman, quick at all games and sports, a
swimmer, and an excellent skater.

Among the visitors Fet met at Tolstoy's house we note the name of Saltykóf,
who under the pseudonym of Stchedrín is known as one of the keenest and
most powerful of Russia's satirists, and who during the last seven years of
the reign of Nicholas I had lived in banishment in the far-off town of
Vyátka. Another guest was B. N. Tchitchérin, philosopher and jurist, and
author of works on Science and Religion, Property and the State, and other
subjects Tolstoy dealt with three or four decades later. Katkóf, editor of the
Moscow Gazette and monthly Russian Messenger, was another
acquaintance; and in his magazine some of Tolstoy's chief works appeared.

1858

In January 1858 Tolstoy's aunt, who had been a friend of his boyhood, the
Countess Alexandra A. Tolstoy, Maid of Honour to the Grand Duchess
Márya Nikoláyevna, came to Moscow. Through this aunt (who lived to a
great age, and died only a few years ago) Tolstoy used to receive
information of what went on at Court, and was sometimes able indirectly to
exert influence 'in the highest circles.' When she returned to Petersburg
Tolstoy accompanied her as far as the town of Klin, on the Nicholas
railway, and took the opportunity to visit the Princess Volkónsky (a cousin
of his mother's), who had a small estate in those parts. He remained some
weeks with this affectionate old lady, who told him much about his mother
and her family, and he greatly enjoyed his quiet stay with her. At her house
he wrote Three Deaths, which appeared the following January in The
Reading Library. It is an admirably written study of the deaths of a rich
lady, a poor post-horse driver, and a tree.
In February he returned to Yásnaya Polyána; then again visited Moscow,
and in March spent a fortnight in Petersburg. His love of music reasserted
itself strongly at this period; and in conjunction with V. P. Bótkin, Perfílief,
Mortier (his late rival in love) and others, he founded the Moscow Musical
Society, which ultimately resulted in the formation of the Moscow
Conservatoire of which Nicholas Rubinstein became Director.
One of Tolstoy's most intimate acquaintances at this period was S. T.
Aksákof, author of stories and memoirs, lover of hunting and fishing, and

father of two famous sons, both prominent Slavophil leaders.
The invigorating influence of spring shows itself in a letter Tolstoy wrote
about this time to his aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy (whom he calls
'Grandma'):

Grandma!—Spring!
For good people it is excellent to live in the world; and even for
such men as me, it is sometimes good. In Nature, in the air, in
everything, is hope, future—an attractive future.... Sometimes one
deceives oneself and thinks that happiness and a future await not
only Nature but oneself also, and then one feels happy. I am now
in such a state, and with characteristic egotism hasten to write to
you of things that interest only me. When I review things sanely, I
know very well that I am an old, frozen little potato, and one
already boiled with sauce; but spring so acts on me that I
sometimes catch myself in the full blaze of imagining myself a
plant which with others has only now blossomed, and which will
peacefully, simply and joyfully grow in God's world. The result is
that at this time of year, such an internal clearing-out goes on in
me, such a cleansing and ordering, as only those who have
experienced this feeling can imagine. All the old—away! All
worldly conventions, all idleness, all egotism, all vices, all
confused indefinite attachments, all regrets, even repentances—
away with you all!... Make room for the wonderful little flowers
whose buds are swelling and growing with the spring!...
After much more he concludes:
Farewell, dear Grandma, do not be angry with me for this
nonsense, but answer with a word of wisdom, imbued with
kindness, Christian kindness! I have long wished to say that for
you it is pleasanter to write French, and I understand feminine
thoughts better in French.
In April he was again at Yásnaya where, in spite of repeated visits to
Moscow, he spent most of the summer. There was at this time no railway

from Moscow southward to Toúla; and the serfs' belief concerning the new
telegraph posts which stood by the side of the highroad, was that when the
wire had been completed, 'Freedom' would be sent along it from Petersburg.
Even Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky did not understand these new-fangled
things, and, when driving along the road one day, asked Tolstoy to explain
how letters were written by telegraph. He told her as simply as he could
how the telegraphic apparatus works, and received the reply: 'Oui, oui, je
comprends, mon cher!' How much she had really understood was however
shown half an hour later when, after keeping her eye on the wire all that
time, she inquired: 'But how is it, mon cher Léon, that during a whole half-
hour I have not seen a single letter go along the telegraph?'
Fet and his wife used to stay a day or two at Yásnaya when journeying to
and from Moscow, and Fet's account of Aunt Tatiána accords with Tolstoy's
own affectionate recollections of that lady. Fet says that he and his wife
'made the acquaintance of Tolstoy's charming old aunt, Tatiána
Alexándrovna Érgolsky, who received us with that old-world affability
which puts one at once at one's ease on entering a new house. She did not
devote herself to memories of times long past, but lived fully in the present.'
Speaking of them all by their pet names, she mentioned that 'Seryózhenka
Tolstoy had gone to his home at Pirogóvo, but Nikólenka would probably
stay a bit longer in Moscow with Máshenka, but Lyóvotchka's friend
Dyákof had recently visited them,' and so on.
Many years later, Tolstoy jotted down his memories of the long autumn and
winter evenings spent with Aunt Tatiána to which, he says, he owed his best
thoughts and impulses. He would sit in his arm-chair reading, thinking, and
occasionally listening to her kindly and gentle conversation with two of the
servants: Natálya Petróvna (an old woman who lived there not because she
was of much use, but because she had nowhere else to live) and a maid
Doúnetchka.
The chief charm of that life lay in the absence of any material
care; in good relations with those nearest—relations no one could
spoil; and in the leisureliness and the unconsciousness of flying
time....

When, after living badly at a neighbour's in Toúla, with cards,
gipsies, hunting, and stupid vanity, I used to return home and
come to her, by old habit we would kiss each other's hand, I her
dear energetic hand, and she my dirty, vicious hand; and also by
old habit, we greeted one another in French, and I would joke
with Natálya Petróvna, and would sit down in the comfortable
arm-chair. She knew well all I had been doing and regretted it, but
never reproached me, retaining always the same gentleness and
love.... I was once telling her how some one's wife had gone away
with another man, and I said the husband ought to be glad to be
rid of her. And suddenly my aunt lifted her eyebrows and said, as
a thing long decided in her mind, that that would be wrong of the
husband, because it would completely ruin the wife. After that she
told me of a drama that had occurred among the serfs. Then she
re-read a letter from my sister Máshenka, whom she loved if not
more, at least as much as she loved me, and she spoke of Másha's
husband (her own nephew) not to condemn him, but with grief for
the sorrow he inflicted on Máshenka.... The chief characteristic of
her life, which involuntarily infected me, was her wonderful,
general kindliness to every one without exception. I try to recall a
single instance of her being angry, or speaking a sharp word, or
condemning any one, and I cannot recall one such instance in the
course of thirty years. She spoke well of our real aunt, who had
bitterly hurt her by taking us away from her.... As to her kindly
treatment of the servants—that goes without saying. She had
grown up in the idea that there are masters and servants, but she
utilised her authority only to serve them.... She never blamed me
directly for my evil life, though she suffered on my account. My
brother Sergéy, too, whom also she loved warmly, she did not
reproach even when he took a gipsy girl to live with him. The
only shade of disquietude she showed on our account was that,
when he was very late in returning home, she would say: 'What
has become of our Sergius?' Only Sergius instead of Seryósha....
She never told us in words how to live, never preached to us. All
her moral work was done internally; externally one only saw her
deeds—and not even deeds: there were no deeds; but all her life,
peaceful, sweet, submissive and loving, not troubled or self-

satisfied, but a life of quiet, unobtrusive love.... Her
affectionateness and tranquillity made her society noticeably
attractive and gave a special charm to intimacy with her. I know
of no case where she offended any one, and of no one who did not
love her. She never spoke of herself, never of religion or of what
we ought to believe, or of how she believed or prayed. She
believed everything, except that she rejected one dogma—that of
eternal torment. 'Dieu, qui est la bonté même, ne peut pas vouloir
nos souffrances.'[38]... She often called me by my father's name
(Nicholas) and this pleased me very much, because it showed that
her conceptions of me and of my father mingled in her love of us
both.
It was not her love for me alone that was joyous. What was
joyous was the atmosphere of love to all who were present or
absent, alive or dead, and even to animals....
After telling of her goodness and her affection Tolstoy says in his Memoirs
that, though he appreciated his happiness with her, he did not at the time
nearly realise its full value; and he adds:
She was fond of keeping sweets: figs, gingerbreads and dates, in
various jars in her room. I cannot forget, nor remember without a
cruel pang of remorse, that I repeatedly refused her money she
wanted for such things and how she, sighing sadly, remained
silent. It is true I was in need of money, but I cannot now
remember without horror that I refused her.
Again in another place, after mentioning her self-devotion, he says:
And it was to her, to her, that I refused the small pleasure of
having figs and chocolate (and not so much for herself as to treat
me) and of being able to give a trifle to those who begged of
her.... Dear, dear Aunty, forgive me! Si jeunesse savait, si
vieillesse pouvait [if youth but knew, if age but could], I mean not
in the sense of the good lost for oneself in youth, but in the sense
of the good not given and the evil done to those who are no more.

Of Leo's life at Yásnaya at this time, his brother Nicholas gave Fet the
following humorous account:
Lyóvotchka is zealously trying to become acquainted with
peasant life and with farming, of both of which, like the rest of us,
he has till now had but a superficial knowledge. But I am not sure
what sort of acquaintance will result from his efforts: Lyóvotchka
wants to get hold of everything at once, without omitting anything
—even his gymnastics. So he has rigged up a bar under his study
window. And of course, apart from prejudice, with which he
wages such fierce war, he is right: gymnastics do not interfere
with farming; but the steward sees things differently and says,
'One comes to the master for orders, and he hangs head
downward in a red jacket, holding on by one knee to a perch, and
swings himself. His hair hangs down and blows about, the blood
comes to his face, and one does not know whether to listen to his
orders or to be astonished at him!'
Lyóvotchka is delighted with the way the serf Ufán sticks out his
arms when ploughing; and so Ufán has become for him an
emblem of village strength, like the legendary Michael; and he
himself, sticking his elbows out wide, takes to the plough and
'Ufanizes.'
In May 1858 Tolstoy wrote to Fet:
Dearest little Uncle [as we might say, Dear old Boy]!—I write
two words merely to say that I embrace you with all my might,
have received your letter, kiss the hand of Márya Petróvna [Fet's
wife] and make obeisance to you all. Aunty thanks you very much
for your message and bows to you, so also does my sister. What a
wonderful spring it has been and is! I, in solitude, have tasted it
admirably. Brother Nicholas must be at Nikólsk. Catch him and
do not let him go. I want to come to see you this month.
Tourgénef has gone to Winzig till August to cure his bladder.
Devil take him. I am tired of loving him. He deserts us, and won't
cure his bladder.

Now good-bye, dear friend. If you have no poem ready for me by
the time I come, I shall proceed to squeeze one out of you.—Your
Count L. Tolstoy.
Another letter to Fet runs:
Ay, old fellow, ahoy! First, you give no sign, though it is spring
and you know we are all thinking of you, and that I, like
Prometheus, am bound to a rock, yet thirst for sight or sound of
you. You should either come, or at least send us a proper
invitation. Secondly, you have retained my brother, and a very
good brother, surnamed 'Firdusi' [an allusion to Nicholas's
Oriental wisdom]. The chief culprit in this matter, I suspect, is
Márya Petróvna, to whom I humbly bow, requesting her to return
us our own brother. Jesting apart, he bids me let you know that he
will be here next week. Drouzhínin will also come, so mind you
come too, old fellow.
The first record of any participation by Tolstoy in political affairs relates to
the preparations for the Emancipation of the serfs. Immediately after the
conclusion of the Crimean war Alexander II, addressing the Marshals of the
Nobility, in Moscow, had said: 'The existing manner of possessing serfs
cannot remain unchanged. It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to
await the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below. I request you,
gentlemen, to consider how this can be done, and to submit my words to the
Nobility for their consideration.' Some time passed without any definite
response to this appeal, and meanwhile the Polish nobility of the Lithuanian
Provinces, dissatisfied with certain regulations enacted in the previous
reign, incautiously asked to have them revised. The Government grasped
the opportunity, and treating this as the expression of a wish for
Emancipation, replied that 'the abolition of serfdom must be effected not
suddenly, but gradually,' and authorised the Nobility to form Committees
for the preparation of definite projects to that end. Four days later the
Minister of the Interior, acting on secret orders from the Emperor, sent a
circular to all the Governors and Marshals of the Nobility in Russia proper,
stating that the Lithuanian nobles 'had recognised the necessity of liberating
the peasants,' and that 'this noble intention' had afforded peculiar

satisfaction to His Majesty, and explaining the principles to be observed in
case the nobles of other Provinces should express a similar desire. A few
weeks later the Emperor publicly expressed a hope that, with the co-
operation of his nobles, the work of Emancipation would be successfully
accomplished. It therefore became quite evident that, whether the nobles
liked it or not, Emancipation was at hand; since the Emperor had, at last,
definitely ranged himself on the side of the Emancipationists. By accepting
the invitation to co-operate in the preparation of the scheme, there appeared
to be a chance that the nobles might so shape the measure that their interests
would not suffer; and consequently, during 1858, a Committee was chosen
in almost every Province of Central Russia. Among the rest a Meeting of
the Nobility of the Government of Toúla was fixed for the first of
September, to elect Deputies to the Committee for the Improvement of the
Condition of the Peasants. Tolstoy attended this meeting, and together with
one hundred and four fellow-nobles signed a document stating that 'with the
object of improving the condition of the peasants, preserving the property
of the landowners, and securing the safety of both the one and the other, we
consider it necessary that the peasants should be liberated not otherwise
than with an allotment of a certain amount of land in hereditary possession,
and that the landowners should receive for the land they give up, full,
equitable, pecuniary recompense by means of such financial measures as
will not entail any obligatory relations between peasants and proprietors,—
relations which the Nobility consider it necessary to terminate.'
There is no indication that Tolstoy took any prominent part in this meeting;
and the resolution just quoted, while approving of Emancipation, seems to
attach at least equal importance to securing full compensation for the
landowners. Explain it how one may, the fact remains that while the
Contemporary, and all that was progressive in Russian literature, was
preoccupied with the effort to help to shape the reforms so that they might
really attain the ends aimed at, Tolstoy almost retired from the scene, and
hardly appeared aware of the movement going on around him. The battle
for freedom was fought in the press by Tchernyshévsky, Kosheléf, and N.
Samárin, by Herzen, and by many others, including Nekrásof and Saltykóf;
and Tolstoy's indifference helps to explain the fact, already alluded to, that
during these years the critics ignored him, though his artistic power

continued to increase. His friend Fet also took no part in the Emancipation
movement; being in fact rather opposed to it.
On 24th October 1858 Tolstoy writes to Fet:
To write stories is stupid and shameful. To write verses—well,
write them; but to love a good man is very pleasant. Yet perhaps,
against my will and intention, not I, but an unripe story inside me,
compels me to love you. It sometimes seems like that. Do what
one will amid the manure and the mange, one somehow begins to
compose. Thank heaven, I have not yet allowed myself to write,
and will not do so.... Thank you exceedingly for your trouble
about a veterinary. I have found one in Toúla and have begun the
cure, but I do not know what will come of it.—And, may the
devil take them all,—Drouzhínin is appealing to me as a matter of
friendship to write a story. I really want to. I will spin such a yarn
that there will be no head or tail to it.... But joking apart, how is
your Hafiz getting on? [Fet was translating some poems by
Hafiz.] Turn it which way you will, the height of wisdom and
fortitude for me is to enjoy the poetry of others, and not to let my
own in ugly garb loose among men, but to consume it myself with
my daily bread. But at times one suddenly wishes to be a great
man, and it is so annoying that this has not yet come about! One
even hurries to get up quicker or to finish dinner in order to
begin.... Send me a poem, the healthiest of those you have
translated from Hafiz, me faire venir l'eau à la bouche,[39] and I
will send you a sample of wheat. Hunting has bored me to death.
The weather is excellent, but I do not hunt alone.
In company, Tolstoy was however a keen sportsman, and in December 1858
nearly lost his life while out bear-shooting. He has told the story, with some
embellishments, in one of the tales for children contained in the volume.
Twenty-three Tales.[40] The real facts were these:
Tolstoy and his brother Nicholas had made the acquaintance of S. S.
Gromeka, a well-known publicist who shared their fondness for hunting—a
sport very different in Russia from what it is in England, as readers of
Tolstoy's descriptions well know.

Gromeka having heard that a she-bear with two young ones had her lair in
the forest near the railway at Volotchók, half-way between Petersburg and
Moscow, arranged matters with the peasants of that locality, and invited the
Tolstoys and other guests to a hunt. The invitation was accepted, and on
21st December Leo Tolstoy shot a bear. On 22nd the members of the party,
each armed with two guns, were placed at the ends of cuttings running
through the forest in which the big she-bear had been surrounded. These
paths or cuttings divided the wood like the lines of a chess-board. Peasants
employed as beaters were stationed to prevent the animal escaping except
by approaching one or other of the sportsmen. Ostáshkof, a famous
professional huntsman, supervised the proceedings. The guests were
advised to stamp down the snow around them, so as to give themselves
room to move freely; but Tolstoy (with his usual objection to routine
methods) argued that as they were out to shoot the bear and not to box with
her, it was useless to tread down the snow. He therefore stood with his two-
barrelled gun in his hand, surrounded by snow almost up to his waist.
Tile bear, roused by the shouts of Ostáshkof, rushed down a cutting directly
towards one of the other sportsmen; but, perceiving him, she suddenly
swerved from her course and took a cross path which brought her out on to
the cutting leading straight to Tolstoy. He, not expecting her visit, did not
fire until the beast was within six yards, and his first shot missed. The bear
was only two yards from him when his second shot hit her in the mouth. It
failed to stop her rush, and she knocked Tolstoy over on to his back in the
snow. Carried past him at first by her own impetus, the bear soon returned;
and the next thing Tolstoy knew was that he was being weighed down by
something heavy and warm, and he then felt that his face was being drawn
into the beast's mouth. He could only offer a passive resistance, by drawing
down his head as much as possible between his shoulders and trying to
present his cap instead of his face to the bear's teeth. This state of things
lasted only a few seconds, yet long enough for the bear, after one or two
misses, to get her teeth into the flesh above and below his left eye. At this
moment Ostáshkof, armed with a small switch, came running up, shouting:
'Where are you getting to? Where are you getting to?' At which the beast
promptly took fright, and rushed off. Next day she was followed up and
killed. Owing to the amount of blood and torn flesh, Tolstoy's wound at first
appeared serious; but when it had been washed with snow, and he had been

taken to the nearest town and had had it sewn up, it turned out to be
superficial. He long retained a very noticeable scar however as a memento
of the encounter; and the bear's skin may still be seen at Yásnaya.
Family Happiness, written partly in 1858, was published early in 1859. It
grew out of the unsuccessful love affair mentioned in the last chapter, and is
Tolstoy's imaginative description of what might have been.

1859

The first months of 1859 he spent in Moscow, and here on the occasion of
joining the Moscow Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, on 4th
February, he for the first time made a public speech: a task for which, he
once told me, he had no aptitude, and which he much disliked. He wrote it
out, and it was to have appeared in the Proceedings of the Society, but for
some reason never got printed. Its subject was 'The Supremacy of the
Artistic Element in Literature,' and in it he maintained a position almost the
opposite of the one he advocated so ardently and with such full conviction
in What is Art? forty years later.
He was answered by the Slavophil A. S. Homyakóf, who presided at the
meeting, and who in the course of his remarks said:
Allow me to remark that the justice of the opinion you have so
skilfully stated is far from destroying the legitimacy of the
temporary and exceptional side of literature. That which is always
right, that which is always beautiful, that which is as unalterable
as the most fundamental laws of the soul, undoubtedly holds, and
should hold, the first place in the thoughts, the impulses, and
therefore in the speech of man. It, and it alone, will be handed on
by generation to generation and by nation to nation as a precious
inheritance. But on the other hand, in the nature of man and of
society there is continual need for self-indictment. There are
moments, moments important in history, when that self-
indictment acquires a special and indefeasible right, and manifests
itself in literature with great definiteness and keenness....

The rights of literature, the servant of eternal beauty, do not
destroy the rights of the literature of indictment, which always
accompanies social deficiencies and sometimes appears as the
healer of social evils....
Of course, Art is perfectly free: it finds its justification and its aim
in itself. But the freedom of Art in the abstract, has nothing to do
with the inner life of the artist. An artist is not a theory—a sphere
of thought and mental activity—but a man, and always a man of
his own times, usually its best representative, completely imbued
with its spirit and its defined or nascent aspirations. By the very
impressionability of his nature, without which he could not be an
artist, he, even more than others, receives all the painful as well as
joyous sensations of the society to which he is born....
So the writer, a servant of pure art, sometimes becomes an
accuser even unconsciously, and despite his own will. I allow
myself, Count, to cite you as an example. You consciously follow
a definite road faithfully and undeviatingly; but are you really
completely alien to the literature of indictment? Were it but in the
picture of a consumptive post-boy, dying on top of a stove amid a
crowd of comrades apparently indifferent to his sufferings [this
refers to Three Deaths] have you not indicated some social
disease, some evil? When describing that death, is it possible that
you did not suffer from the horny indifference of good but
unawakened human souls? Yes, you too have been and will be an
involuntary indicter!
This question of the true position of literary art and its relation to the rest of
life, was one which occupied Tolstoy for many years, and on which before
the century closed he expressed himself in a book which must be reckoned
with by all who may hereafter deal with the subject. The attitude he
maintained at the time he entered the Society of Lovers of Russian
Literature, was in striking contrast with that of the Slavophils, such as
Homyakóf, and of the great majority of the leading Russian writers of that
day, who were fired with the hope of Emancipation, just as in America at
the same time, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, Thoreau, Walt Whitman,

'Kiss Nicholas Tolstoy on my behalf
And to his brother Leo make my bow,
—As to his sister also.
He rightly says in his postscriptum:
"There is no cause" for me to write to him,
Indeed, I know he bears me little love
And I love him as little. Too differently
Are mixed those elements of which we're formed.'

1859-1860

During this winter Tolstoy devoted much time to an attempt to organise
schools on and near his estate. The education of its peasant children was
one of the things Russia most needed, and most terribly neglected. Tolstoy
recognised this, and set himself strenuously and eagerly to show how the
great need could be met. The work he did at this time was, however, only
preliminary to what he undertook after his next visit to Western Europe, and
he was far from being mentally at peace. At the commencement of the New
Year he noted in his Diary: 'The burden of the estate, the burden of bachelor
life, and all sorts of doubts and pessimistic feelings agitate my mind.'
One mention of the serfs (who were now nearing freedom) occurs in a letter
Tolstoy wrote to Fet on 23rd February 1860, in reply to a note in which the
latter had expressed a wish to buy an estate, settle down in the country, and
devote himself to farming. Tolstoy replies that there is an estate for sale
adjoining his own, containing:
Four hundred desyatíns of good land with, unfortunately, seventy
souls of bad serfs. But that does not matter; they will gladly pay
quit-rent [in lieu of personal service] as mine do, at the rate of Rs.
30 a tyaglo [man and wife with an allotment of land] or Rs. 660
for the twenty-two tyaglos, and you will get not less than that, if
not more, at the Emancipation, and will have sufficient
unexhausted land and meadow left to yield about Rs. 2000 a year,

or over Rs. 2600 in all. The price asked for the estate is Rs.
24,000, besides a mortgage of about Rs. 5000.... At any rate it
would be a good bargain to buy it for Rs. 20,000.... The seller is
an old man who is ruined, and wants to sell it quickly in order to
get rid of his son-in-law. He has twice sent to offer it me. The
above calculation shows what the estate should yield in a couple
of years' time if about Rs. 5000 be spent on improving it; but even
in its present condition one can answer for a return of Rs. 1500,
which is more than 7 per cent. on the cost.
In Russia to buy serfs was not then considered more discreditable than it is
in England to-day to buy shares in a china or match factory; and in the same
letter Tolstoy goes on to discuss literature:
I have read Tourgénef's On the Eve. This is my opinion: to write
novels is undesirable, especially for people who are depressed
and do not well know what they want from life. However, On the
Eve is much better than A Nest of Gentlefolk, and there are in it
excellent negative characters: the artist and the father. The rest are
not types; even their conception, their position, is not typical, or
they are quite insignificant. That however is always Tourgénef's
mistake. The girl is hopelessly bad: 'Ah, how I love thee ... her
eyelashes were long.' In general it always surprises me that
Tourgénef, with his mental powers and poetic sensibility, should
even in his methods not be able to refrain from banality. This
banality shows itself most of all in his negative methods, which
recall Gógol. There is no humanity or sympathy for the
characters, but the author exhibits monsters whom he scolds and
does not pity. This jars painfully with the tone and intention of
Liberalism in everything else. It was all very well in the days of
Tsar Goroh [a character in a fairy story] or of Gógol (though if
one does not pity even the most insignificant of one's characters,
one should scold them so that the heavens grow hot, or laugh at
them so that one's sides split, and not as our splenetic and
dyspeptic Tourgénef does). On the whole, however, there is now
no one else who could write such a novel, though it will not meet
with success.

Ostróvsky's The Storm is, in my opinion, a wretched work, but
will be successful. Not Ostróvsky and Tourgénef are to blame, but
the times.... Something else is now needed: not that we should
learn and criticise, but that we should teach Jack and Jill at least a
little of what we know.
This letter to Fet, who was in Moscow, ends with requests to procure some
books, including a veterinary handbook, a veterinary instrument, and a
lancet for use on human beings; to see about procuring six ploughs of a
special make, and to find out the price of clover and timothy-grass, of
which Tolstoy had some to sell.

1860

At this time Tolstoy worked at his story The Cossacks, the plan of which he
had sketched out in 1852, but which he did not complete till 1862.
One comes across notes in his Diary which indicate his state of mind at this
period with regard to religion. After reading a book on Materialism he
notes:
I thought of prayer. To what can one pray? What is God, imagined
so clearly that one can ask him to communicate with us? If I
imagine such an one, he loses all grandeur for me. A God whom
one can beseech and whom one can serve—is the expression of
mental weakness. He is God, because I cannot grasp his being.
Indeed, he is not a Being, but a Law and a Force.
He was a great puzzle to his friends and acquaintances—always ready to
take his own line strenuously, yet sometimes far from sure what that line
was. Tourgénef wrote to Fet:
Leo Tolstoy continues his eccentricities. Evidently it was so
decreed at his birth. When will he turn his last somersault and
stand on his feet?
The fact that Tolstoy, like his friend Fet, was neglecting literature did not
fail to call forth many remonstrances, one of the most urgent of which came

to him from Drouzhínin, who wrote:
Every writer has his moments of doubt and self-dissatisfaction,
and however strong and legitimate this feeling may be, no one on
that account has yet ceased his connection with literature; every
one goes on writing to the end. But all tendencies, good or bad,
cling to you with peculiar obstinacy; so that you, more than
others, need to think of this and to consider the whole matter
amicably.
First of all, remember that after poetry and mental labour all other
work seems worthless. Qui a bu, boira; and at the age of thirty to
tear oneself away from authorship means losing half the interest
of life. But that is only half the matter; there is something still
more important.
On all of us lies a responsibility rooted in the immense
importance of literature to Russian society. An Englishman or an
American may laugh at the fact that in Russia not merely men of
thirty, but grey-haired owners of 2000 serfs sweat over stories of
a hundred pages, which appear in the magazines, are devoured by
everybody, and arouse discussion in society for a whole day.
However much artistic quality may have to do with this result,
you cannot explain it merely by Art. What in other lands is a
matter of idle talk and careless dilettantism, with us is quite
another affair. Among us things have taken such shape that a story
—the most frivolous and insignificant form of literature—
becomes one of two things: either it is rubbish, or else it is the
voice of a leader sounding throughout the Empire. For instance,
we all know Tourgénef's weakness, but a whole ocean divides the
most insignificant of his stories from the very best of Mrs.
Eugene Tour's, with her half-talent. By some strange instinct the
Russian public has chosen from among the crowd of writers four
or five bell-men whom it values as leaders, refusing to listen to
any qualifications or deductions. You—partly by talent, partly by
the practical qualities of your soul, and partly owing simply to a
concurrence of fortunate circumstances—have stepped into this
favourable relation with the public. On that account you must not

go away and hide, but must work, even to the exhaustion of your
strength and powers. That is one side of the matter; but here is
another. You are a member of a literary circle that is honourable
(as far as may be), independent, and influential; and which for ten
years, amid persecutions and misfortunes, and notwithstanding its
members' vices, has firmly upheld the banner of all that is Liberal
and enlightened, and has borne all this weight of abuse without
committing one mean action. In spite of the world's coldness and
ignorance and its contempt for literature, this circle is rewarded
with honour and moral influence. Of course, there are in it
insignificant and even stupid homunculi; but even they play a part
in the general union, and have not been useless. In that circle you
again, though you arrived but recently, have a place and a voice
such as Ostróvsky for instance does not possess, though he has
immense talent and his moral tendency is as worthy as your own.
Why this has happened it would take too long to analyse, nor is it
to the point. If you tear yourself off from the circle of writers and
become inactive, you will be dull, and will deprive yourself of an
important rôle in society....
At this time the state of health of his brother Nicholas—who (like
Demetrius) had consumptive tendencies—began to disturb Leo Tolstoy. It
was arranged that Nicholas should go to Germany for a cure. The following
letter written by Leo Tolstoy to Fet, after Nicholas had started, refers to this
and other matters:
... You are a writer and remain a writer, and God speed you. But
that, besides this, you wish to find a spot where you can dig like
an ant, is an idea which has come to you and which you must
carry out, and carry out better than I have done. You must do it
because you are both a good man and one who looks at life
healthily.... However, it is not for me now to deal out to you
approval or disapproval with an air of authority. I am greatly at
sixes and sevens with myself. Farming on the scale on which it is
carried out on my estate, crushes me. To 'Ufanize'[41] is a thing I
only see afar off. Family affairs, Nicholas's illness (of which we
have as yet no news from abroad) and my sister's departure (she
leaves me in three days' time) also crush and occupy me.

Bachelor life, i.e. not having a wife, and the thought that it is
getting too late, torments me from a third side. In general,
everything is now out of tune with me. On account of my sister's
helplessness and my wish to see Nicholas, I shall at any rate
procure a foreign passport to-morrow, and perhaps I shall
accompany my sister abroad; especially if we do not receive
news, or receive bad news, from Nicholas. How much I would
give to see you before leaving, how much I want to tell you and to
hear from you; but it is now hardly possible. Yet if this letter
reaches you quickly, remember that we leave Yásnaya on
Thursday or more probably on Friday.
Now as to farming: The price they ask of you is not exorbitant,
and if the place pleases you, you should buy it. Only why do you
want so much land? I have learned by three years' experience that
with all imaginable diligence it is impossible to grow cereals
profitably or pleasantly on more than 60 or 70 desyatíns [160 to
190 acres] that is, on about 15 desyatíns in each of four fields.
Only in that way can one escape trembling for every omission
(for then one ploughs not twice but three or four times) and for
every hour a peasant misses, and for every extra rouble-a-month
one pays him; for one can bring 15 desyatíns to the point of
yielding 30 to 40 per cent. on the fixed and working capital; but
with 80 or 100 desyatíns under plough one cannot do so. Please
do not let this advice slip past your ears; it is not idle talk, but a
result of experience I have had to pay for. Any one who tells you
differently is either lying or ignorant. More than that, even with
15 desyatíns an all-absorbing industry is necessary. But then one
can gain a reward—one of the pleasantest life gives; whereas with
90 desyatíns one has to labour like a post-horse, with no
possibility of success. I cannot find sufficient words to scold
myself for not having written to you sooner—in which case you
would surely have come to see us. Now farewell.
Things meanwhile were not going very well with Nicholas, who wrote from
Soden in Hesse-Nassau:

In Soden we joined Tourgénef, who is alive and well—so well
that he himself confesses that he is 'quite' well. He has found
some German girl and goes into ecstasies about her. We (this
relates to our dearest Tourgénef) play chess together, but
somehow it does not go as it should: he is thinking of his German
girl, and I of my cure.... I shall probably stay in Soden for at least
six weeks. I do not describe my journey because I was ill all the
time.
Eventually Leo Tolstoy made up his mind to accompany his sister and her
children abroad, and on 3rd July (old style) they took steamer from
Petersburg for Stettin en route for Berlin. Besides anxiety on his brother's
account, Tolstoy had another reason for going abroad: he wished to study
the European systems of education, in order to know what had been
accomplished in the line to which he now intended to devote himself.
On reaching Berlin he suffered from toothache for four days, and decided to
remain there while his sister proceeded to join Nicholas at Soden. He
consulted a doctor, as he was suffering also from headache and
hemorrhoidal attacks, and he was ordered to take a cure at Kissingen.
He only stayed a few days in Berlin after getting rid of his toothache, and
left on 14th July (old style), having however found time to attend lectures
on History by Droysen, and on Physics and Physiology by Du Bois-
Reymond, and having also visited some evening classes for artisans at the
Handwerksverein, where he was greatly interested in the popular lectures,
and particularly in the system of 'question-boxes.' The method of arousing
the interest of the audience by allowing them to propound questions for the
lecturer to reply to, was new to him, and he was struck by the life it brought
into the classes, and by the freedom of mental contact between scholars and
teacher. He noticed the same thing when he was in London a few months
later, for he told me that nothing he saw there interested him more than a
lecture he attended in South Kensington, at which questions were put by
working men, and answered by a speaker who was master of his subject and
knew how to popularise it.
In Berlin he visited the Moabit Prison, in which solitary confinement was
practised. Tolstoy strongly disapproved of this mechanical attempt to

achieve moral reformation. From Berlin he went to Leipzig, where he spent
a day inspecting schools; but he derived little satisfaction from the Saxon
schools he visited, as is indicated by a remark he jotted down in his Diary,
'Have been in school—terrible. Prayers for the King, blows, everything by
rote, frightened, paralysed children....' He then proceeded to Dresden, where
he called on the novelist Auerbach, whose story, Ein Neues Leben (A New
Life), had much influenced him. The chief character in that story is Count
Fulkenberg, who after being an officer in the army, gets into trouble,
escapes from prison, buys the passport of a school-master, Eugene
Baumann, and under that name devotes himself to the task of educating
peasant children. When Auerbach entered the room in which his visitor was
waiting, the latter introduced himself with the words: 'I am Eugene
Baumann,' in such solemn tones and with so morose an appearance, that the
German writer was taken aback and feared that he was about to be
threatened with an action for libel. Tolstoy however hastened to add: '—not
in name, but in character—' and went on to explain how good an effect
Auerbach's Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten (Village Tales of the Black
Forest) had had on him.
After three days in Dresden, he went on to Kissingen, which was in those
days about five hours' journey from Soden, where Nicholas was staying.
Still intent on his educational inquiries, he read en route a history of
pedagogics.
From Kissingen he wrote his Aunt Tatiána that he thought the cure was
doing him good, and added:
Tell the steward to write me most minutely about the farming, the
harvest, the horses and their illness. Tell the schoolmaster to write
about the school: how many pupils come, and whether they learn
well. I shall certainly return in autumn and intend to occupy
myself more than ever with the school, so I do not wish its
reputation to be lost while I am away, and I want as many pupils
as possible from different parts.
While in Kissingen he read Bacon and Luther and Riehl, and made the
acquaintance of Julius Froebel, author of The System of Social Politics and
nephew of Froebel, the founder of the Kindergarten system. Julius Froebel

was himself much interested in educational matters, and was a particularly
suitable person to explain his uncle's ideas to Tolstoy.
The latter astonished his new acquaintance, with whom he used to go for
walks, by the uncompromising rigidity of his views, which showed a
considerable tinge of Slavophilism. Progress in Russia, declared Tolstoy,
must be based on popular education, which would give better results in
Russia than in Germany, because the Russian people were still unperverted,
whereas the Germans were like children who had for years been subjected
to a bad education. Popular education should not be compulsory. If it is a
blessing, the demand for it should come naturally, as the demand for food
comes from hunger.
Tolstoy visited the country round Kissingen, and travelling northward
through a part of Germany rich both in scenery and in historic interest,
reached Eisenach and visited the Wartburg, where Luther was confined after
the Diet of Worms. The personality of the great Protestant reformer
interested Tolstoy greatly, and after seeing the room in which Luther
commenced his translation of the Bible, he noted in his Diary: 'Luther was
great'! Twenty years later Tolstoy himself attempted to free the minds of
men from the yoke of an established Church, and he too shaped his chief
weapon against the Church by translating, not, it is true, like Luther, the
whole Bible, but the Gospels.
Meanwhile Nicholas Tolstoy's health had been growing worse rather than
better. Sergius, having been unlucky at roulette, decided to return to Russia,
and visiting Leo at Kissingen en route, told him of his fears for Nicholas.
On 9th August Sergius left Kissingen and Nicholas himself arrived there to
visit Leo, but soon returned to Soden. Leo then spent a fortnight in the Harz
Mountain district, enjoying nature and reading a great deal. On 26th August
he rejoined Nicholas, his sister and her children, at Soden. The doctors had
decided that Nicholas must winter in a warmer climate, and the place
decided on was Hyères near Toulon, on the shores of the Mediterranean.
The first stage of the journey undertaken by the family party was to
Frankfurt-on-Main, where their aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy, was
staying. She tells the following story of Leo's visit to her on this occasion:

One day Prince Alexander of Hesse and his wife were calling on
me, when suddenly the door of the drawing-room opened and Leo
appeared in the strangest garb, suggestive of a picture of a
Spanish bandit. I gasped with astonishment. Leo apparently was
not pleased with my visitors, and soon took his departure.
[42]
'Qui est donc ce singulier personnage?' inquired my visitors in
astonishment.
'Mais c'est Léon Tolstoy.'
'Ah, mon Dieu, pourquoi ne l'avez vous pas nommé? Après avoir
lu ses admirables écrits, nous mourions d'envie de le voir,' said
they, reproachfully.
From Frankfurt the party proceeded to Hyères, where Nicholas, growing
rapidly worse and worse, died on 20th September (new style).
Few men have been so admired and loved as he was by all who knew him.
The only thing recorded against him is the fact that when serving in the
Caucasus he, like many of his fellow-officers, gave way to some extent to
intemperance; but after returning home he recovered his self-control. I have
already told of his influence over Leo in the early days of the Ant-
Brotherhood, and of the green stick, buried where Tolstoy himself wishes
his body to lie. Such influence he retained all through life, and men and
women of most different temperaments make equally enthusiastic mention
of his charm and goodness. That Leo's judgment of what is good and bad
has remained strongly influenced by his love for and memory of Nicholas,
is plain enough to all who have the facts before them and read his works
attentively.
Tourgénef once said:
The humility which Leo Tolstoy developed theoretically, his
brother actually practised in life. He always lived in the most
impossible lodgings, almost hovels, somewhere in the out-of-the-
way quarters of Moscow, and he willingly shared all he had with
the poorest outcast. He was a delightful companion and narrator,
but writing was to him almost a physical impossibility, the actual

process of writing being as difficult for him as for a labourer
whose stiff hands will not hold a pen.
Nicholas did, however, as a matter of fact, contribute some Memoirs of a
Sportsman to the Contemporary.
Never was any one's death more sincerely regretted. This is the letter Leo
wrote to Aunt Tatiána, the night the event occurred.
Chère Tante!—The black seal will have told you all. What I have
been expecting from hour to hour for two weeks occurred at nine
o'clock this evening. Only since yesterday did he let me help him
undress, and to-day for the first time he definitely took to his bed
and asked for a nurse. He was conscious all the time, and a
quarter-of-an-hour before he died he drank some milk and told me
he was comfortable. Even to-day he still joked and showed
interest in my educational projects. Only a few minutes before he
died he whispered several times: 'My God, my God!' It seems to
me that he felt his position, but deceived himself and us.
Máshenka, only to-day, some four hours before, had gone three
miles out of Hyères to where she is living. She did not at all
expect it to come so soon. I have just closed his eyes. I shall now
soon be back with you and will tell you all personally. I do not
intend to transport the body. The funeral will be arranged by the
Princess Golítsin, who has taken it all on herself.
Farewell, chère tante. I cannot console you. It is God's will—that
is all. I am not writing to Seryózha now. He is probably away
hunting, you know where. So let him know, or send him this
letter.
On the day after the funeral he wrote to Sergius:
I think you have had news of the death of Nicholas. I am sorry for
you that you were not here. Hard as it is, I am glad it all took
place in my presence, and that it acted on me in the right way—
not like Mítenka's [his third brother, Demetrius] death, of which I
heard when I was not thinking at all about him. However, this is
quite different. With Mítenka only memories of childhood and

family feeling were bound up; but this was a real man both to you
and to me, whom we loved and respected positively more than
any one else on earth. You know the selfish feeling which came
latterly, that the sooner it was over the better; it is dreadful now to
write it and to remember that one thought it. Till the last day, with
his extraordinary strength of character and power of
concentration, he did everything to avoid becoming a burden to
me. On the day of his death he dressed and washed himself, and
in the morning I found him dressed on his bed. Only about nine
hours before he died did he give way to his illness and ask to be
undressed. It first happened in the closet. I went downstairs, and
heard his door open. I returned and did not find him. At first I
feared to go to him—he used not to like it; but this time he
himself said, 'Help me!'
And he submitted and became different that day, mild and gentle.
He did not groan, did not blame any one, praised everybody, and
said to me: 'Thank you, my friend.' You understand what that
meant between us. I told him I had heard how he coughed in the
morning, but did not come to him from fausse honte [false
shame]. 'Needlessly,' said he—'it would have consoled me.'
Suffering? He suffered; but it was not until a couple of days
before his death that he once said: 'How terrible these nights
without sleep are! Towards morning the cough chokes one,
unendingly! And it hurts—God knows how! A couple more such
nights—it's terrible!' Not once did he say plainly that he felt the
approach of death. But he only did not say it. On the day of his
death he ordered a dressing-gown, and yet when I remarked that
if he did not get better, Máshenka and I would not go to
Switzerland, he replied: 'Do you really think I shall be better?' in
such a tone that it was evident what he felt but for my sake did
not say, and what I for his sake did not show; all the same, from
the morning I knew what was coming, and was with him all the
time. He died quite without suffering—externally, at all events.
He breathed more and more slowly—and it was all over. The next
day I went to him and feared to uncover his face. I thought it
would show yet more suffering and be more terrible than during

his illness; but you cannot imagine what a beautiful face it was,
with his best, merry, calm expression.
Yesterday he was buried here. At one time I thought of
transporting him, and of telegraphing for you; but I reconsidered
it. It is no use chafing the wound. I am sorry for you that the news
will have reached you out hunting, amid distractions, and will not
grip you as it does us. It is good for one. I now feel what I have
often been told, that when one loses some one who was what he
was to us, it becomes much easier to think of one's own death.
On 13th October 1860 he notes in his Diary:
It is nearly a month since Nicholas died. That event has torn me
terribly from life. Again the question: Why? Already the departure
draws near. Whither? Nowhere. I try to write, I force myself, but
do not get on, because I cannot attach enough importance to the
work to supply the necessary strength and patience. At the very
time of the funeral the thought occurred to me to write a
Materialist Gospel, a Life of Christ as a Materialist.
One sees how bit by bit the seeds of the work Tolstoy was to do in later
years planted themselves in his mind. In early childhood came the
enthusiasm for the Ant-Brotherhood and the influence of his brother, of
Aunt Tatiána, and of the pilgrims; then an acquaintance with the writings of
Voltaire and other sceptics, undermining belief in the miraculous; then, in
Sevastopol, the idea of 'founding a new religion: Christianity purged of
dogmas and mysticism'; then a study of Luther's Reformation, and now the
idea of a rationalist Life of Christ.

Tolstoy in 1860, the year his brother Nicholas died.

On 17th October Tolstoy writes to Fet:
I think you already know what has happened. On 20 September
he died, literally in my arms. Nothing in my life has so impressed
me. It is true, as he said, that nothing is worse than death. And
when one reflects well that yet that is the end of all, then there is
nothing worse than life. Why strive or try, since of what was
Nicholas Tolstoy nothing remains his? He did not say that he felt
the approach of death, but I know he watched each step of its
approach and knew with certainty how much remained. Some
moments before his death he drowsed off, but awoke suddenly
and whispered with horror: 'What is that?' That was when he saw
it—the absorption of himself into Nothingness. And if he found

nothing to cling to, what can I find? Still less! And assuredly
neither I nor any one will fight it to the last moment, as he did.
Two days before, I said to him: 'We ought to put a commode in
your room.'
'No,' said he, 'I am weak, but not yet so weak as that; I will
struggle on yet awhile.'
To the last he did not yield, but did everything for himself, and
always tried to be occupied. He wrote, questioned me about my
writings, and advised me. But it seemed to me that he did all this
not from any inner impulse, but on principle. One thing—his love
of Nature—remained to the last. The day before, he went into his
bedroom and from weakness fell on his bed by the open window.
I came to him, and he said with tears in his eyes, 'How I have
enjoyed this whole hour.'
From earth we come, and to the earth we go. One thing is left—a
dim hope that there, in Nature, of which we become part in the
earth, something will remain and will be found.
All who knew and saw his last moments, say: 'How wonderfully
calmly, peacefully he died'; but I know with what terrible pain, for
not one feeling of his escaped me.
A thousand times I say to myself: 'Let the dead bury their dead.'
One must make some use of the strength which remains to one,
but one cannot persuade a stone to fall upwards instead of
downwards whither it is drawn. One cannot laugh at a joke one is
weary of. One cannot eat when one does not want to. And what is
life all for, when to-morrow the torments of death will begin, with
all the abomination of falsehood and self-deception, and will end
in annihilation for oneself? An amusing thing! Be useful, be
beneficent, be happy while life lasts,—say people to one another;
but you, and happiness, and virtue, and utility, consist of truth.
And the truth I have learned in thirty-two years is, that the
position in which we are placed is terrible. 'Take life as it is; you
have put yourselves in that position.' How! I take life as it is. As
soon as man reaches the highest degree of development, he sees

clearly that it is all nonsense and deception, and that the truth—
which he still loves better than all else—is terrible. That when
you look at it well and clearly, you wake with a start and say with
terror, as my brother did: 'What is that?'
Of course, so long as the desire to know and speak the truth lasts,
one tries to know and speak. That alone remains to me of the
moral world; higher than that I cannot place myself. That alone I
will do, but not in the form of your art. Art is a lie, and I can no
longer love a beautiful lie.
I shall remain here for the winter because I am here, and it is all
the same where one lives. Please write to me. I love you as my
brother loved you, and he remembered you to his last moment.
A month later we find him writing in a different state of mind:
A boy of thirteen has died in torment from consumption. What
for? The only explanation is given by faith in the compensation of
a future life. If that does not exist, there is no justice, and justice
is vain, and the demand for justice—a superstition.
Justice forms the most essential demand of man to man. And man
looks for the same in his relation to the universe. Without a future
life it is lacking. Expediency is the sole, the unalterable law of
Nature, say the naturalists. But in the best manifestations of man's
soul: love and poetry—it is absent. This has all existed and has
died—often without expressing itself. Nature, if her one law be
expediency, far o'erstepped her aim when she gave man the need
of poetry and love.
Nearly twenty years later, in his Confession, Tolstoy referred to his brother's
death in the words:
Another event which showed me that the superstitious belief in
progress is insufficient as a guide to life, was my brother's death.
Wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered
for more than a year and died painfully, not understanding why he
had lived, and still less why he had to die. No theories could give

me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and
painful dying.
Any one who has read the works Tolstoy wrote during the quarter of a
century which succeeded his brother's death, will be aware how long he
remained in doubt on this matter of a future life, and how he expressed now
one, and now another view.
At Hyères he continued to study the question of education, and for that
purpose made many visits to Marseilles. He also wrote: continuing The
Cossacks and commencing an article on Popular Education. We get a
glimpse of him at this period from his sister, who tells us that they had been
invited to an At Home at Prince Doundoukóf-Korsákof's; but Tolstoy, who
was to have been the lion of the occasion, failed to put in an appearance.
The company, which included all the 'best' people, were getting dull, despite
everything the hostess could devise for their amusement, when at last, very
late, Count Tolstoy was announced. The hostess and her guests immediately
brightened up; but what was their astonishment to see him appear in tourist
garb and wearing wooden sabots! He had been for a long walk, and
returning late, had come to the party without calling at his lodgings; and no
sooner was he in the room than he began assuring everybody that wooden
sabots were the very best and most comfortable of foot-gear, and advising
every one to adopt them. Even in those days he was a man to whom all
things were allowed, and the evening, instead of being spoilt, became all the
gayer from his eccentricity. There was a great deal of singing, and it fell to
Tolstoy's lot to accompany the singers.
At Hyères, after his brother's death, Tolstoy lived with his sister and her
three children in a pension where the only other lodgers were a Madame
Pláksin and her delicate nine-year-old son Sergéy, whose lungs were
thought to be affected, but who lived to become a poet and to publish his
recollections of Tolstoy. Pláksin describes him as having been at that time a
strongly built, broad-shouldered man, with a good-natured smile on his
face, which was fringed by a thick, dark-brown beard. Under a large
forehead, still bearing a deep scar from the wound inflicted by the bear two
years before, wise, kind eyes shone out of very deep sockets. 'Tolstoy,' says
Pláksin, 'was the soul of our little society, and I never saw him dull; on the
contrary, he liked to amuse us with his stories, which were sometimes

extremely fantastic.' Tolstoy rose early, and while he was at work the
children were not allowed to disturb him beyond running in for a moment to
say 'good-morning.' Being himself an indefatigable walker, Tolstoy used to
plan out excursions for the company, constantly discovering new places to
visit: the salterns on the peninsula of Porquerolle; the holy hill where the
chapel with the wonder-working image of the Madonna stands; or the ruins
of the castle called Trou des Fées. They used to have with them on these
excursions, a small ass carrying provisions, fruit and wine.
On the way Tolstoy used to tell us various tales; I remember one
about a golden horse and a giant tree, from the top of which all
the seas and all towns were visible. Knowing that my lungs were
delicate, he often took me on his shoulder and continued his tale
as he walked along. Need I say that we would have laid down our
lives for him?
At dinner-time Tolstoy used to tell the French proprietors of the pension the
strangest stories about Russia, which they never knew whether or not to
believe until the Countess or Madame Pláksin came to their rescue by
separating the truth from the fiction.
After dinner, either on the terrace or indoors, a performance commenced,
opera or ballet, to the sound of the piano: the children 'mercilessly
tormenting the ears of the audience' (which consisted of the two ladies,
Tolstoy, and Pláksin's nurse). Next came gymnastic exercises, in which
Tolstoy acted as professor. 'He would lie at full length on the floor, making
us do the same, and we had then to get up without using our hands.' He also
contrived an apparatus out of rope, which he fixed up in the doorway; and
on this he performed somersaults, to the great delight of his juvenile
audience.
When the latter became too turbulent and the ladies begged Tolstoy to
subdue the noise, he would set the children round the table, and tell them to
bring pens and ink.
The following is an example of the sort of occupation he provided:
'Listen,' said he one day; 'I am going to give you a lesson.'
'What on?' demanded bright-eyed Lisa.

Disregarding his niece's question, he continued:
'Write...'
'But what are we to write, uncle?' persisted Lisa.
'Listen; I will give you a theme...!'
'What will you give us?'
'A theme!' firmly replied Tolstoy. 'In what respect does Russia
differ from other countries? Write it here, in my presence, and
don't copy from one another! Do you hear?' added he,
impressively.
In half an hour the 'compositions' were ready. Pláksin had to read his own,
as his lines were so irregular that no one else could decipher them. In his
opinion Russia differed from other countries in that, at carnival time,
Russians eat pancakes and slide down ice-hills, and at Easter they colour
eggs.
'Bravo!' said Tolstoy, and proceeded to make out Kólya's MS., in which
Russia was distinguished by its snow, and Lisa's, in which 'troikas' (three-
horse conveyances) played the chief part.
In reward for these evening exercises, Tolstoy brought water-colour paints
from Marseilles and taught the children drawing.
He often spent nearly the whole day with the children, teaching them,
taking part in their games, and intervening in their disputes, which he
analysed, proving to them who was in the right and who in the wrong.
There was at this time some mutual attraction between Tolstoy and a young
Russian lady, Miss Yákovlef, who was staying at Hyères; but, like many
other similar affairs, it came to nothing.
On leaving Hyères, Tolstoy, his sister, and her children, went to Geneva,
and from thence he proceeded alone to Nice, Leghorn, Florence, Rome, and
Naples. In Italy he says he experienced his first lively impression of
antiquity; but very little record remains of this journey, and it is nowhere
reflected in his writings.

He returned to Paris viâ Marseilles, the schools and other institutions of
which he observed closely, trying to discover how man's intelligence is
really best developed.
He was very unfavourably impressed by the popular schools of Marseilles.
The studies, he says, consisted in learning by heart the Catechism, sacred
and general History, the four rules of Arithmetic, French spelling and Book-
keeping—the latter without sufficient comprehension of the use of
arithmetic to enable the children to deal sensibly with the simplest practical
problems requiring addition and subtraction, though they could do long
multiplication sums quickly and well when only abstract figures were
given. Similarly, they answered well by rote questions in French History,
but, when asked at hazard, they would give such answers as that Henry IV
was killed by Julius Cæsar.
He observed the instruction given by the Churches, and visited the adult
schools of the town, as well as its Salles d'Asile, in which, he says:
I saw four-year-old children perform like soldiers, evolutions
round benches to orders given by whistle, and raise and cross
their arms to the word of command, and with strange trembling
voices sing hymns of praise to God and their benefactors; and I
became convinced that the educational establishments of
Marseilles were extremely bad.
Any one seeing them would naturally conclude that the French
people must be ignorant, coarse, hypocritical, full of superstition
and almost savage.
Yet one need only come in contact with and chat with any of the
common people, to convince oneself that on the contrary the
French people are almost what they consider themselves to be:
intelligent, clever, sociable, freethinking, and really civilised.
Take a workman of, say, thirty years of age: he will write a letter
without such mistakes as at school, sometimes even quite
correctly; he has some idea of politics, and therefore of recent
history and geography; he knows some history from novels,
knows something of natural history, and he very often draws, and

is able to apply mathematical formulae to his trade. Where did he
get all this?
I recently discovered the answer in Marseilles, by wandering
about the streets, drink-shops, cafés chantants, museums,
workshops, wharves and book-stalls. The very boy who told me
that Henry IV was killed by Julius Cæsar, knew the history of The
Three Musketeers and of Monte Cristo very well.
In Marseilles Tolstoy found that everybody had read Dumas' works, of
which there were twenty-eight cheap editions. He estimated that each week,
in the cafés chantants, at least one-fifth of the population received oral
education, as the Greeks and Romans used to do. Comedies and sketches
were performed, verses declaimed, and the influence for good or evil of this
unconscious education far outweighed that of the compulsory education
given in schools.

1861

In January he reached Paris, where he spent a large part of his time in
omnibuses, amusing himself by observing the people. He declares he never
met a passenger who was not represented in one or other of Paul de Kock's
stories. Of that writer, as of Dumas père, he thinks highly. 'Don't talk
nonsense to me,' he once said, 'about Paul de Kock's immorality. He is,
according to English ideas, somewhat improper. He is more or less what the
French call leste and gaulois, but never immoral. In everything he says, and
despite his rather free jests, his tendency is quite moral. He is a French
Dickens.... As to Dumas, every novelist should know him by heart. His
plots are admirable, not to mention the workmanship. I can read and re-read
him, though he aims chiefly at plots and intrigue.'
In Paris he again met Tourgénef; and from France he went on to London,
where he remained six weeks, not enjoying his visit much as he suffered
severely from toothache nearly all the time. It is characteristic of Tolstoy
that though he has often been a victim to toothache and has also been much
tried by digestive troubles, he never appears to have had his teeth properly

attended to by a dentist. A dentist's establishment seems to him so unnatural
and artificial that it must be wrong. Moreover, dentists do not always do
their work well; and toothache—if one endures it long enough—cures itself,
and in the past the majority of mankind have got along without dentists. So
he has been inclined to put up with toothache as one of the ills it is best to
bear patiently.
During his stay he, and Tourgénef who had also come to London, saw a
great deal of Alexander Herzen, who was editing Kólokol (The Bell)—the
most influential paper ever published by a Russian exile.
I have already remarked on the fact that the Reform movements of that time
left Tolstoy curiously cold; and here again it may be noted that though
Tourgénef contributed to Herzen's prohibited paper, Tolstoy never wrote
anything for it.
Herzen's little daughter, who had read and greatly enjoyed Childhood,
Boyhood, and Youth, hearing that the author was coming to see her father,
obtained permission to be present when he called. She ensconced herself in
an arm-chair in a corner of the study at the appointed time, and when Count
Tolstoy was announced, awaited his appearance with beating heart; but she
was profoundly disillusioned by the entrance of a man of society manners,
fashionably dressed in the latest style of English tailoring, who began at
once to tell with gusto of the cock-fights and boxing-matches he had
already managed to witness in London. Not a single word with which she
could sympathise did she hear from Tolstoy throughout that one and only
occasion on which she was privileged to listen to his conversation; and in
this she was particularly unlucky, for Tolstoy saw Herzen very frequently
during his stay in London, and the two discussed all sorts of important
questions together.
One of Herzen's closest friends and co-workers during his long exile from
Russia, was the poet N. P. Ogaryóf, who had been his fellow-student at the
Moscow University. Ogaryóf, besides being a man of ability, possessed a
very amiable character that greatly endeared him to his friends; but in an
essay entitled The First Step[43] written in 1892, we get a glimpse of what
alienated Tolstoy's sympathy from the progressive movement these men
represented. He there says:

I have just been reading the letters of one of our highly educated
and advanced men of the forties, the exile Ogaryóf, to another yet
more highly educated and gifted man, Herzen. In these letters
Ogaryóf gives expression to his sincere thoughts and highest
aspirations, and one cannot fail to see that—as was natural to a
young man—he rather shows off before his friend. He talks of
self-perfecting, of sacred friendship, love, the service of science,
of humanity, and the like. And at the same time he calmly writes
that he often irritates the companion of his life by, as he expresses
it, 'returning home in an unsober state, or disappearing for many
hours with a fallen, but dear creature.'...
Evidently it never even occurred to this remarkably kind-hearted,
talented, and well-educated man that there was anything at all
objectionable in the fact that he, a married man, awaiting the
confinement of his wife (in his next letter he writes that his wife
has given birth to a child) returned home intoxicated, and
disappeared with dissolute women. It did not enter his head that
until he had commenced the struggle, and had at least to some
extent conquered his inclination to drunkenness and fornication,
he could not think of friendship and love, and still less of serving
any one or any thing. But he not only did not struggle against
these vices—he evidently thought there was something very nice
in them, and that they did not in the least hinder the struggle for
perfection; and therefore instead of hiding them from the friend in
whose eyes he wishes to appear in a good light, he exhibits them.
Thus it was half a century ago. I was contemporary with such
men. I knew Ogaryóf and Herzen themselves and others of that
stamp, and men educated in the same traditions. There was a
remarkable absence of consistency in the lives of all these men.
Together with a sincere and ardent wish for good, there was an
utter looseness of personal desire, which, they thought, could not
hinder the living of a good life, nor the performance of good and
even great deeds. They put unkneaded loaves into a cold oven,
and believed that bread would be baked. And then, when with
advancing years they began to remark that the bread did not bake

—i.e. that no good came of their lives—they saw in this
something peculiarly tragic.
This was written twenty years later; but it was latent in his mind at the time,
and furnishes a clue to the fact that he never really made friends with these
men.
Of Herzen as a writer Tolstoy ultimately came to have a very high opinion,
and admitted that he exerted a very considerable influence on the mind of
educated Russia.
In England, as elsewhere, Tolstoy saw as much as he could of the
educational methods in vogue. He also visited the House of Commons and
heard Palmerston speak for three hours; but he told me he could form no
opinion of the oration, for 'at that time I knew English with my eyes but not
with my ears.'
While in London, he received news that he had been nominated Arbiter of
the Peace for his own district, near Toúla. The duties of the office were to
settle disputes between the serfs and their former proprietors. Except a short
service on the Zémstvo in 1874, this was the only official position in which
Tolstoy ever took much active part after leaving the army.
On 3rd March (new style), the day of Alexander II's famous Manifesto
emancipating the serfs, Tolstoy left London for Russia viâ Brussels. In that
city he made the acquaintance of Proudhon (the author of Qu'est-ce que la
Propriété? and a Système des Contradictions Économiques) to whom
Herzen had given him a letter of introduction. Proudhon impressed Tolstoy
as a strong man who had the courage of his opinions; and though
Proudhon's theories had no immediate effect on Tolstoy's life, the social
political and economic views expounded by the latter a quarter of a century
later, are deeply dyed with Proudhonism. Both writers consider that
property is robbery; interest immoral; peaceful anarchy the desirable
culmination of social progress, and that every man should be a law unto
himself, restrained solely by reason, conscience and moral suasion. Another
writer whose acquaintance Tolstoy made in Brussels was the Polish patriot
Lelewel, who had taken a prominent part in the rebellion of 1830, and had
written on Polish history and on many other subjects. He was at this time a
decrepit old man living in great poverty. While in Brussels Tolstoy wrote

Polikoúshka, almost the only story of his (besides A Squire's Morning) that
implies a condemnation of serfdom.
Passing through Germany, Tolstoy stopped at Weimar, where he stayed with
the Russian Ambassador, Von Maltitz, and was introduced to the Grand
Duke Carl Alexander. Tolstoy (who had been reading Goethe's Reineke
Fuchs not long before) visited the house in which Goethe had lived, but was
more interested in a Kindergarten conducted by Minna Schelholm, who had
been trained by Froebel. From another school he visited, we hear of his
collecting and carrying off the essays the pupils had written, explaining to
the master that he was much concerned with the problem, 'How to make
thought flow more freely.'
At Jena he made acquaintance with a young mathematician named Keller,
whom he persuaded to accompany him to Yásnaya to help him in his
educational activities. He also stopped at Dresden, where he again visited
Auerbach, concerning whom he jots down in his Diary:
21 April, Dresden: Auerbach is a most charming man. Has given
me a light.... He spoke of Christianity as the spirit of humanity,
than which there is nothing higher. He reads verse enchantingly.
Of Music as Pflichtloser Genuss (dutyless pleasure).... He is 49
years old. Straightforward, youthful, believing, not troubled by
negation.
On another occasion Tolstoy expressed surprise at never having seen
Auerbach's Village Tales of the Black Forest in any German peasant's
house, and declared that Russian peasants would have wept over such
stories.
From Dresden he wrote to his Aunt Tatiána:
[44]
Je me porte bien et brûle d'envie de retourner en Russie. Mais
une fois en Europe et ne sachant quand j'y retournerai, vous
comprenez que j'ai voulu profiter, autant que possible, de mon
voyage. Et je crois l'avoir fait. Je rapporte une si grande quantité
d'impressions, de connaissances, que je devrai travailler
longtemps, avant de pouvoir mettre tout cela en ordre dans ma
tête.

I am bringing with me a German from the University, to be a
teacher and clerk, a very nice, well-educated man, but still very
young and unpractical.
He adds that he intends to return to Yásnaya viâ St. Petersburg, as he wants
to obtain permission to publish an educational magazine he is projecting.
On 22nd April he was already in Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of
the head of the Teachers' Seminary, the son of the celebrated pedagogue
Diesterweg, whom, to his disappointment, he found to be 'a cold, soulless
pedant, who thinks he can develop and guide the souls of children by rules
and regulations.'
On 23rd April (old style) he re-entered Russia, after a stay abroad of nearly
ten months.
He brought with him complete editions of the works of several of the
greatest European writers. They were kept at the Custom House to be
submitted to the Censor, and, as Tolstoy plaintively remarked nearly half a
century later, 'he is still reading them!'

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER VI

Birukof.
Bitovt.
Fet, Moi Vospominaniya: Moscow, 1890.
Tolstoy's Confession.
Golovatcheva-Panaeva, Rousskie Pisateli i Artisty.
Tourgenef, Letters.
S. Plaksin, Graf L. Tolstoy sredi detey.
Tolstoy's works, vol. iv.: Moscow, 1903.
R. Löwenfeld, Leo N. Tolstoj.

R. Löwenfeld, Gespräche über und mit Tolstoy.

CHAPTER VII
AT YÁSNAYA AGAIN; TOURGÉNEF;

ARBITER; MAGAZINE

Quarrel with Tourgénef. Attitude towards Reforms. Arbiter of the
Peace. Educational Magazine.

After the winter's snow has so far thawed that sleighing is impracticable,
there comes a time during which there is still too much snow left, and the
roads have become too soft to allow of travelling on wheels, and when
transit is practically impossible. Tolstoy reached Moscow at this transition
period, but had not to wait long before the roads were dry enough for
carriage traffic. He made the journey southward to Toúla in company with
Mrs. Fet, wife of his friend the poet. Mrs. Fet was travelling in her own
carriage, accompanied by her maid, to the estate Fet had purchased at some
distance from Yásnaya. Tolstoy had his own conveyance, but for company's
sake changed places with the maid and travelled with Mrs. Fet. In the cool
of the evening he borrowed and wrapped himself in a cloak of Fet's,
declaring that this would be sure to result in his producing a lyric poem.

1861

Soon after reaching Yásnaya he wrote (in the third week of May) to
congratulate Fet on having become a landed proprietor:

How long it is since we met, and how much has happened to both
of us meanwhile! I do not know how to rejoice sufficiently when I
hear or think of your activity as a farmer, and I am rather proud to
have had at least some hand in the matter.... It is good to have a
friend; but he may die or go away, or one may not be able to keep
pace with him; but Nature, to which one is wedded by a Notarial
Deed, or to which one has been born by inheritance, is still better.
It is one's own bit of Nature. She is cold, obdurate, disdainful and
exacting, but then she is a friend one does not lose till death, and
even then one will be absorbed into her. I am however at present
less devoted to this friend: I have other affairs that attract me; yet
but for the consciousness that she is there, and that if I stumble
she is at hand to hold on to—life would be but a sad business.
A few days later, having received an invitation from Tourgénef, Tolstoy
paid him a visit the first hours of which passed off to their mutual
satisfaction. Tourgénef had just finished his favourite novel, Fathers and
Sons, and it was arranged that after dinner Tolstoy was to read it and give
his opinion on it. To do this the more comfortably, Tolstoy, left in the
drawing-room by himself, lay down on a large sofa. He began to read; but
the story seemed to him so artificially constructed and so unimportant in its
subject-matter, that he fell fast asleep.
'I awoke,' he narrates, 'with a strange sensation, and when I opened my eyes
I saw Tourgénef's back just disappearing.'
In spite of this occurrence and the unpleasant feeling it occasioned, the two
novelists set out next morning to visit Fet, who was not expecting them that
day.
While the visitors rested for a couple of hours, recovering from the fatigue
of their journey, Mrs. Fet saw to it that the dinner assumed 'a more
substantial and inviting appearance.' During the meal the whole party began
an animated conversation, and Tourgénef, always fond of good eating, fully
appreciated the efforts Fet's excellent man-cook had made. Champagne
flowed, as was usual at such reunions. After dinner the three friends strolled
to a wood a couple of hundred yards from the house, and lying down in the

high grass at its outskirts, continued their talk with yet more freedom and
animation.
Next morning at the usual breakfast time, about eight o'clock, the visitors
entered the room where Mrs. Fet presided at the samovár. Fet sat at the
opposite end of the table, Tourgénef at the hostess's right hand, and Tolstoy
at her left. Knowing the importance Tourgénef attached to the education of
his natural daughter, who was being brought up in France, Mrs. Fet inquired
whether he was satisfied with her English governess. Tourgénef praised the
latter highly, and mentioned that, with English exactitude, she had requested
him to fix the sum his daughter might give away in charity. 'And now,'
added Tourgénef, 'she requires my daughter to take in hand and mend the
tattered clothes of the poor.'
To Tolstoy, the foreign education Tourgénef was giving his daughter, who
was quite forgetting her own language, was very distasteful; and his feeling
no doubt showed itself in his question:
'And you consider that good?'
'Certainly: it places the doer of charity in touch with everyday needs.'
'And I consider that a well-dressed girl with dirty, ill-smelling rags on her
lap, is acting an insincere, theatrical farce.'
'I beg you not to say that!' exclaimed Tourgénef, with dilated nostrils.
'Why should I not say what I am convinced is true?' replied Tolstoy.
'Then you consider that I educate my daughter badly?'
Tolstoy replied that his thought corresponded to his speech.
Before Fet could interpose, Tourgénef, white with rage, exclaimed: 'If you
speak in that way I will punch your head!' and, jumping up from the table
and seizing his head in his hands, he rushed into the next room. A second
later he returned and, addressing Mrs. Fet, said: 'For heaven's sake excuse
my improper conduct, which I deeply regret!' and again left the room.
Fet, realising the impossibility of keeping his visitors together after what
had happened, was perplexed what to do, for they had both arrived in

Tourgénef's vehicle, and, newly established in the country, Fet, though he
had horses, had none accustomed to be driven in the only conveyance he
possessed. To get Tourgénef off was easy; but it was not without some
difficulty and even danger from the restive horses, that Tolstoy was
conveyed to the nearest post-station at which a hired conveyance could be
procured.
From Novosélok, the first country house Tolstoy reached, he wrote
Tourgénef a letter demanding an apology; and asked for an answer to be
sent to the next post-house at Bogousláf. Tourgénef, not noticing this
request, sent his reply to Fet's house, in consequence of which it was several
hours late in reaching Tolstoy—who was so enraged at this (as it seemed to
him) fresh act of discourtesy, that from Bogousláf he sent a messenger to
procure pistols, and wrote a second letter containing a challenge to
Tourgénef, and stating that he did not wish to fight in a merely formal
manner, like literary men who finish up with champagne, but that he was in
earnest, and hoped Tourgénef would meet him with pistols at the outskirt of
the Bogousláf woods.
That night was a sleepless one for Tolstoy. The morning brought
Tourgénef's reply to his first letter. It commenced in the usual formal
manner of polite communications:
Gracious Sir, Leo Nikoláyevitch!—In reply to your letter, I can
only repeat, what I myself considered it my duty to announce to
you at Fet's: namely, that carried away by a feeling of involuntary
enmity, the causes of which need not here be considered, I
insulted you without any definite provocation; and I asked your
pardon. What happened this morning proved clearly that attempts
at intimacy between such opposite natures as yours and mine can
lead to no good result; and I the more readily fulfil my duty to
you, because the present letter probably terminates our relations
with one another. I heartily hope it may satisfy you, and I consent
in advance to your making what use you please of it.
With perfect respect, I have the honour to remain, Gracious Sir,
your most humble servant,

Iv. Tourgénef.
Spássky, 27 May 1861.
P.S. 10.30 P.M.:
Iván Petróvitch has just brought back my letter, which my servant
stupidly sent to Novosélok instead of to Bogousláf. I humbly beg
you to excuse this accidental and regrettable mistake, and I hope
my messenger will still find you at Bogousláf.
Tolstoy thereupon wrote to Fet:
I could not resist opening another letter from Mr. Tourgénef in
reply to mine. I wish you well of your relations with that man, but
I despise him. I have written to him, and therewith have
terminated all relations, except that I hold myself ready to give
him any satisfaction he may desire. Notwithstanding all my
apparent tranquillity, I was disturbed in spirit and felt I must
demand a more explicit apology from Mr. Tourgénef; I did this in
my letter from Novosélok. Here is his answer, which I accept as
satisfactory, merely informing him that my reason for excusing
him is not our opposite natures, but one he may himself surmise.
In consequence of the delay which occurred, I sent besides this,
another letter, harsh enough and containing a challenge, to which
I have not received any reply; but should I receive one I shall
return it unopened. So there is an end of that sad story, which, if it
goes beyond your house, should do so with this addendum.
Tourgénef's reply to the challenge came to hand later, and ran as follows:
Your servant says you desire a reply to your letter; but I do not
see what I can add to what I have already written; unless it be that
I admit your right to demand satisfaction, weapons in hand. You
have preferred to accept my spoken and repeated apology. That
was as you pleased. I will say without phrases, that I would
willingly stand your fire in order to efface my truly insane words.
That I should have uttered them is so unlike the habits of my
whole life, that I can only attribute my action to irritability
evoked by the extreme and constant antagonism of our views.

This is not an apology—I mean to say, not a justification—but an
explanation. And therefore, at parting from you for ever—for
such occurrences are indelible and irrevocable—I consider it my
duty to repeat once again that in this affair you were in the right
and I in the wrong. I add that what is here in question is not the
courage I wish, or do not wish, to show, but an acknowledgment
of your right to call me out to fight, in the accepted manner of
course (with seconds), as well as your right to pardon me. You
have chosen as you pleased, and I have only to submit to your
decision. I renew my assurance of my entire respect,
Iv. Tourgénef.

The quarrel was not, however, destined to die out so quickly. Even good-
natured Fet got into trouble by trying to reconcile the irascible novelists.
Here is one of the notes he received from Tolstoy:
I request you not to write to me again, as I shall return your
letters, as well as Tourgénef's, unopened.
Fet remarks: 'So all my attempts to put the matter right ended in a formal
rupture of my relations with Tolstoy, and I cannot now even remember how
friendly intercourse between us was renewed.'
Before four months had passed, Tolstoy repented him of his quarrel. Like
Prince Nehlúdof in Resurrection, he used from time to time to repent of all
his sins and all his quarrels, and undertook a sort of spring- or autumn-
cleaning of his soul. It was at such a moment that, on 25th September, he
wrote to Tourgénef expressing regret that their relations to one another were
hostile, and he added: 'If I have insulted you, forgive me; I find it
unendurably hard to think I have an enemy.' Not knowing Tourgénef's
address in France, he sent this letter to a bookseller in Petersburg (with
whom he knew Tourgénef corresponded) to be forwarded. The letter took
more than three months to reach its destination, nor was this the only thing
that went wrong, as is shown by the following portion of a letter, dated 8th
November, from Tourgénef to Fet:

Apropos, 'one more last remark' about the unfortunate affair with
Tolstoy. Passing through Petersburg I learned from certain
'reliable people' (Oh, those reliable people!) that copies of
Tolstoy's last letter to me (the letter in which he 'despises' me) are
circulating in Moscow, and are said to have been distributed by
Tolstoy himself. That enraged me, and I sent him a challenge to
fight when I return to Russia. Tolstoy has answered that the
circulation of the copies is pure invention, and he encloses
another letter in which, recapitulating that, and how, I insulted
him, he asks my forgiveness and declines my challenge. Of
course the matter must end there, and I will only ask you to tell
him (for he writes that he will consider any fresh communication
from me to him as an insult) that I myself repudiate any duel, etc.,
and hope the whole matter is buried for ever. His letter
(apologising) I have destroyed. Another letter, which he says he
sent me through the bookseller Davídof, I never received. And
now as to the whole matter—de profundis.
Tolstoy noted in his Diary one day in October:
Yesterday I received a letter from Tourgénef in which he accuses
me of saying he is a coward and of circulating copies of my letter.
I have written him that it is nonsense, and I have also sent him a
letter: 'You call my action dishonourable and you formerly wished
to punch my head; but I consider myself guilty, ask pardon, and
refuse the challenge.'

1862

Even then the matter was not at an end, for on 7th January [new style?]
Tourgénef writes to Fet:
And now a plain question: Have you seen Tolstoy? I have only to-
day received the letter he sent me in September through Davídof's
bookshop (how accurate are our Russian merchants!). In this
letter he speaks of his intention to insult me, and apologises, etc.

And almost at that very time, in consequence of some gossip
about which I think I wrote you, I sent him a challenge. From all
this one must conclude that our constellations move through
space in definitely hostile conjunction, and that therefore we had
better, as he himself says, avoid meeting. But you may write or
tell him (if you see him) that I (without phrase or joke) from afar
love him very much, respect him and watch his fate with
sympathetic interest; but that in proximity all takes a different
turn. What's to be done? We must live as though we inhabited
different planets or different centuries.
Tolstoy evidently took umbrage at Tourgénef's message, and visited his
wrath on Fet's innocent head. To be profoundly humble and forgiving at his
own command, was always, it seems, easier for Tolstoy than to let his
opponent have an opinion of his own. Tolstoy likes things to be quite clear-
cut and definite, and it complicates matters to have to reckon with any one
else's views. At any rate Tourgénef writes:

Paris, 14 Jan. [o.s.?] 1862.
Dearest Afanásy Afanásyevitch! [Fet's Christian name and
patronymic].—First of all I must ask your pardon for the quite
unexpected tile (tuile, as the French say) that tumbled on your
head as a result of my letter. The one thing which somewhat
consoles me is that I could not possibly have expected such a
freak on Tolstoy's part, and thought I was arranging all for the
best. It seems it is a wound of a kind better not touched at all.
To judge the relations between these two great writers fairly, one must
remember that Tourgénef was ten years the elder and, until War and Peace
appeared, ranked higher in popular esteem; yet Tolstoy showed him no
deference, but on the contrary often attacked him and his views with
mordant irony. Tourgénef was neither ill-natured nor quarrelsome. If
Tolstoy had treated him with consideration or had been willing to let him
alone, there would have been no question either of insult or of challenge.
But the younger man sought the elder's company, and then made himself
disagreeable; and this, not of malice prepense, but because it is his nature to

demand perfection from great men, and vehemently to attack those who fail
to reach the standard he sets up. This conduct was no doubt all the more
trying for Tourgénef, because Tolstoy neither co-operated with the Liberal
movement then current, nor lived more abstemiously with regard to food,
wine, women, and cards than others of his set whom he scolded; or if he did
so, he did it so spasmodically and with such serious lapses, as to be little
entitled to condemn others with the fervour he frequently displayed. On the
occasion of the great quarrel Tourgénef was certainly the aggressor, and his
prompt apology was not addressed to Tolstoy, whom he had chiefly
offended, but to Mrs. Fet. It is, however, plain that he acted, as he said, on
the irritable impulse of the moment. Tolstoy aggravated matters by sending
a challenge before receiving a reply to his first letter, and also by suggesting
that he despised Tourgénef and pardoned him for reasons 'he may himself
surmise.' Again, in relation to Fet, who merely wished to pour oil on the
troubled waters, Tolstoy showed a strange irritability. No one however can
read the Recollections Fet wrote thirty years later, without seeing that that
poet—who not only witnessed this affair, but had been the confidant of both
writers for years—respected Tolstoy far more than he respected Tourgénef.
In this whole story, one may detect traces of the qualities which have made
Tolstoy so interesting and so perplexing a personality. He cares intensely
about everything with which he is occupied. Tourgénef, and Tourgénef's
opinions and conduct, were of tremendous importance to him. So were his
own views of how young ladies should be brought up. So was the question
whether he ought to challenge his enemy; and, later on, the question
whether he ought to forgive him, and whether Fet should be allowed to act
as mediator. It is this fact—that he cares about things a hundred times more
than other people care about them—that makes Tolstoy a genius and a great
writer. What was admirable in his conduct was not that he acted well (as a
matter of fact he acted very badly) but that he wished to act well.
The same spirit which made him so intolerant with Tourgénef: his strong
feeling that 'To whom much is given, of him much shall be required'—had
something to do, later in life, with his fierce attacks on Governments, on
Shakespear, on Wagner, and on other great institutions and men. At the
same time, the incident throws light on that side of Tolstoy's character
which has brought it about that, despite the very real charm he possesses,
and despite the fact that many men and women have been immensely

attracted by his writings, he has had very few intimate friends, and has
constantly been misunderstood.
V. P. Bótkin, who was in touch both with Tolstoy and Tourgénef, wrote to
Fet after hearing of the quarrel:
The scene between him [Tourgénef] and Tolstoy at your house,
produced on me a sad impression. But do you know, I believe that
in reality Tolstoy has a passionately loving soul; only he wants to
love Tourgénef ardently, and unfortunately his impulsive feeling
encounters merely mild, good-natured indifference. That is what
he cannot reconcile himself to. And then (again unfortunately) his
mind is in a chaos, i.e. I wish to say it has not yet reached any
definite outlook on life and the world's affairs. That is why his
conviction changes so often, and why he is so apt to run to
extremes. His soul burns with unquenchable thirst; I say
'unquenchable,' because what satisfied it yesterday, is to-day
broken up by his analysis. But that analysis has no durable and
firm reagents, and consequently its results evaporate ins blaue
hinein. Without some firm ground under one's feet it is impossible
to write. And that is why at present he cannot write, and this will
continue to be the case till his soul finds something on which it
can rest.
To any one acquainted with the history of Russia at that period, but not
acquainted with Tolstoy's idiosyncrasies, it must indeed seem strange that
the story of his life can be told with so little reference to the Emancipation
or the Reform movements of the years 1860-1864, to which allusion has
already been made. Two passages written by him in 1904 state his relation
to those movements with the sincerity which is so prominent and valuable a
feature of his character:
As to my attitude at that time to the excited condition of our
whole society, I must say (and this is a good and bad trait always
characteristic of me) that I always involuntarily opposed any
external, epidemic pressure; and that if I was excited and happy at
that time, this proceeded from my own personal, inner motives:

those which drew me to my school work and into touch with the
peasants.
I recognise in myself now the same feeling of resistance to the
excitement at present prevailing; which resembles that which, in a
more timid form, was then current.
When the Emancipation came, the peasants received freedom, and an
allotment of land, subject to a special land-tax for sixty years; while their
masters retained the rest of the land and received State Bonds for the
capitalised value of the peasants' land-tax. An expedient resorted to by
many a proprietor was, to allot land to the peasants in such a way that the
latter were left without any pasture, and (being surrounded by the owner's
estate) found themselves obliged to hire pasture land of him on his own
terms. There were, till the Emancipation, two ways of holding serfs: (1) the
primitive way of obliging them to work so many days a week for their
master, before they could, on the other days, provide for their own wants;
and (2) another way, which left the serf free to work for himself, provided
that he paid obrók, i.e. a certain yearly tribute to his owner. These
explanations will render intelligible the second passage referred to above
and quoted below:
Some three or four years before the Emancipation, I let my serfs
go on obrók. When complying with the Emancipation Decree I
arranged, as the law required, to leave the peasants in possession
of the land they were cultivating on their own behalf, which
amounted to rather less than eight acres per head, and (to my
shame be it said) I added nothing thereto. The only thing I did—
or the one evil I refrained from doing—was that I abstained from
obliging the peasants to exchange land (as I was advised to do)
and left them in possession of the pasture they needed. In general,
however, I did not show any disinterested feeling in the affair.
In the first edition of Tolstoy and his Problems I erroneously stated that
Tolstoy, before the Decree of Emancipation, voluntarily freed his serfs; and
though this was corrected in the second edition, it is necessary to repeat the
correction here, as the same mistake occurs in the article on Tolstoy in the

Encyclopædia Britannica. I therefore quote the following passage from a
letter he wrote me on the subject:
I have received your book and read it with pleasure. The short
biography is excellent, except the place where you, quoting the
words of Sophia Andréyevna, say that 'he liberated his peasants
before the Emancipation.' That is wrong: I placed them on obrók
instead of keeping them on bárstchina [i.e. the state in which the
peasants rendered labour dues]. It would not have been possible
to emancipate them....

1861

Tolstoy's curious tendency to underrate the influence of the Liberal
reformers of that time, may be illustrated by an incident that occurred at a
dinner in Toúla. The local elections had taken place, and a public banquet
was given in honour of those Arbiters of the Peace who were visiting the
town. Tolstoy was at this dinner, and when the toast to the health of
Alexander II, the 'Tsar-Liberator,' was proposed, Tolstoy remarked to his
neighbour: 'I drink this toast with particular pleasure. No others are needed,
for in reality we owe the Emancipation to the Emperor alone.'
A yet more curious instance of the same tendency occurs in an article on
Progress, and the Definition of Education, which he published a year later,
and in which, arguing that printing has been of little use to the people, he
says that:
Even taking as an example the abolition of serfdom, I do not see
that printing helped the solution of the problem in a progressive
sense. Had the Government not said its decisive word in that
affair, the press would, beyond a doubt, have explained matters in
quite a different way to what it did. We saw that most of the
periodicals would have demanded the emancipation of the
peasants without any land, and would have produced arguments
apparently just as reasonable, witty and sarcastic [as they actually

produced in favour of the more Liberal solution ultimately
adopted]....
If, however, Tolstoy did not stand in the ranks of the Reformers, he was
much less of a partisan of his own class than many of his fellow-nobles
desired; and we find the Marshal of the Nobility of Toúla writing to
Valoúef, Minister of Home Affairs, complaining of Tolstoy's appointment as
Arbiter of the Peace on the ground that he was disliked by the neighbouring
landowners. In consequence of this complaint Valoúef made inquiries, and
received a 'confidential' reply from the Governor of the Province, stating
that:
Knowing Count Tolstoy personally, as an educated man warmly
sympathising with the matter in hand, and in view of a wish
expressed to me by some of the proprietors of the district that he
should be appointed Arbiter, I cannot replace him by some one I
do not know.
Tolstoy tried his best to act fairly between peasants and landowners; but
from the start his unsuitability for duties involving methodical care was
obvious.
The very first 'charter,' regulating the relations between a landlord and his
newly-liberated peasants, that he sent up to the Government Board for
Peasant Affairs, was signed as follows: 'At the request of such-and-such
peasants, because of their illiteracy, the house-serf so-and-so has signed this
charter for them.' Not a single name did the charter contain! As Tolstoy had
dictated the words, so his servant had written them down, and the charter
had been sealed and sent off without being read over.
He could at times be wonderfully patient in dealing with the peasants,
though they were exasperatingly pertinacious in demanding more than it
was possible to grant. An eye-witness tells how Tolstoy visited a
neighbouring estate on which differences had arisen between the peasants
and their former master, as to the land which should be allotted to them.
Tolstoy received a deputation, consisting of three of the leading peasants of
the village, and asked them:
'Well, lads, what do you want?'

They explained what land they wished to have, and Tolstoy replied, 'I am
very sorry I can't do what you wish. Were I to do so I should cause your
landlord a great loss'; and he proceeded to explain to them how the matter
stood.
'But you'll manage it for us somehow, bátushka' [literally, 'little-father'],
said the peasants.
'No, I can't do anything of the kind,' repeated Tolstoy.
The peasants glanced at one another, scratched their heads, and reiterated
their 'But somehow, bátushka!' and one of them added, 'If only you want to,
bátushka, you'll know how to find a way to do it!' at which the other
peasants nodded their heads approvingly.
Tolstoy crossed himself, as orthodox Russians are wont to do, and said: 'As
God is holy, I swear that I can be of no use at all to you.' But still the
peasants repeated: 'You'll take pity on us, and do it somehow, bátushka!'
Tolstoy at last turned vehemently to the steward, who was present, and said:
'One can sooner, like Amphion, move the hills and woods, than convince
peasants of anything!'
The whole conversation, says the steward, lasted more than an hour, and up
to the last minute the Count retained his patient and friendly manner
towards the peasants. Their obstinacy did not provoke him to utter a single
harsh word.
With the landowners Tolstoy had even more trouble than with the peasants.
He received many threatening letters, plans were formed to have him
beaten, he was to have been challenged to a duel; and denunciations against
him were sent to those in authority.
After some three months of the work, in July 1861, he jotted down in his
Diary: 'Arbitration has given me but little material [for literary work], has
brought me into conflict with all the landed-proprietors, and has upset my
health.'
Here is a sample of the cases he had to deal with. A Mrs. Artukóf
complained that a certain Mark Grigóref (who had been a house-serf, and

was therefore not entitled to land) had left her, considering himself to be
'perfectly free.'
Tolstoy, in his reply to the lady, said:
Mark, by my order, is at liberty to go immediately, with his wife,
where he likes; and I beg you (1) to compensate him for the three-
and-a-half months he has been illegally kept at work by you since
the Decree was published, and (2) for the blows still more
illegally inflicted on his wife. If my decision displeases you, you
have a right of appeal to the Magistrates' Sessions and to the
Government Sessions. I shall not enter into further explanations
on this subject.—With entire respect I have the honour to remain,
your humble servant,

Ct. L. Tolstoy.

The lady appealed to the Magistrates' Sessions, and Tolstoy's decision was
annulled; but on the case being carried to the Government Sessions, his
view of the case prevailed.
Before he had been a year in office we find him writing to the Government
of the Toúla Board of Peasant Affairs as follows:
As the complaints [here follows a list of several cases] lodged
against my decisions have no legal justification, but yet in these
and many other cases my decisions have been and are being
repealed, so that almost every decision I give is subsequently
reversed; and as under such conditions—destructive both of the
peasants' and the landowners' confidence in the Arbiter—the
latter's activity becomes not merely useless but impossible, I
humbly request the Government Board to authorise one of its
members to hasten the examination of the above-mentioned
appeals, and I have to inform the Government Board that until
such investigations are completed I do not consider it proper that I
should exercise the duties of my office, which I have, therefore,
handed over to the senior Candidate.

The following month he resumed official work, but six weeks later, on 30th
April 1862, on the score of ill-health, he handed the duties over to a
substitute; and on 26th May—about a year after he had first assumed the
office—the Senate informed the Governor of Toúla that it 'had decided to
discharge the Lieutenant of Artillery, Count Leo Tolstoy, on the ground of
ill-health' from the post of Arbiter of the Peace.
His unsatisfactory experience of administrative work no doubt helps to
account for the anti-Governmental bias shown in his later works. Even at
this time, he quite shared the dislike of civil and criminal law expressed by
Rousseau when he wrote in his Confession:
The justice and the inutility of my appeals left in my mind a germ
of indignation against our stupid civil institutions, in which the
true welfare of the public, and veritable justice, are always
sacrificed to I know not what apparent order, really destructive of
all order, and which merely adds the sanction of public authority
to the oppression of the weak and the iniquity of the strong.
We may at any rate be sure that tiresome, petty administrative work, never
quite satisfactory, but at best consisting of compromises and of decisions
based on necessity rather than on such principles of abstract justice as are
dear to Tolstoy's soul, could never be an occupation satisfactory to him. He
has not the plodding patience and studious moderation that such work
demands; nor could his impulsive genius find scope in it. It has never been
easy for him to be checked by others, or to have to reckon with their
opinions and wishes. Like Rousseau, it suits him better to reform the world
on paper, or even to alter his own personal habits of life, than to concern
himself with the slow social progress, the bit-by-bit amelioration, which
alone is possible to those harnessed to the car that carries a whole society of
men.
Tolstoy used at this time to find recreation in hunting, and often went out
for days together with his friend and relation Prince D. D. Obolénsky, who
describes him as having been a bold and active hunter, leaping all sorts of
obstacles, and a wonderful man to talk to.
Concurrently with his duties as Arbiter, Tolstoy had been carrying on an
enterprise in which he had to deal with people younger and more easy to

mould than the peasants and proprietors whose quarrels he found it so hard
to adjust; and during the winter of 1861-1862 he devoted himself with
especial fervour to the task of educating the peasant children of Yásnaya
and the surrounding district.
As we have already seen, a chief aim of his travels abroad had been to study
the theory and practice of education; and not only did he now personally
devote himself to the school at Yásnaya, but in the surrounding
neighbourhood eleven similar schools were soon started, all more or less
inspired by his ideals and encouraged by his co-operation. The monthly
magazine, Yásnaya Polyána (now a bibliographical rarity) which he
produced and edited during 1862, aimed at propagating his theories of
education and making known the results attained in his school, and it also
contained an account of sums voluntarily contributed for its support. From
articles published in it (and republished in his collected writings) we get a
vivid description of the work carried on in November and December 1861.
[45]
Like many Russian magazines, Yásnaya Polyána always appeared late,
and, to begin with, the January number was several weeks behind time.
In this educational work, Tolstoy showed the qualities and limitations which
in later years marked all his propagandist activity. There was the same
characteristic selection of a task of great importance; the same readiness to
sweep aside and condemn nearly all that civilised humanity had
accomplished up to then; the same assurance that he could untie the
Gordian knot; and the same power of devoted genius enabling him really to
achieve much more than one would have supposed possible, though not a
tithe of what he set himself to do.
In later life Tolstoy laid no particular emphasis on what he wrote in these
educational articles: in fact, we shall find him sometimes speaking very
scornfully of them; but they throw so much light on his then state of mind,
and often come so near to the views he strongly advocated twenty or thirty
years later, that it will be worth devoting a good deal of attention to them.
Tolstoy, then, defines Education as: a human activity, aving for its basis a
desire for equality, and the constant tendency to advance in knowledge.
This he illustrates by saying that the aim of a teacher of arithmetic should
be to enable his pupil to grasp all the laws of mathematical reasoning he

himself is master of; the aim of a teacher of French, or chemistry, or
philosophy, should be similar; and as soon as that aim is attained, the
activity will naturally cease. Everywhere and always, teaching which makes
the pupil the master's equal, has been considered good. The more nearly and
rapidly this is accomplished, the better; the less nearly and more slowly it is
accomplished, the worse. Similarly in literature (an indirect method of
teaching) those books are written best, in which the author succeeds in
transmitting his whole message most easily to the reader.
By 'the constant tendency to advance in knowledge,' Tolstoy meant that the
equality aimed at in education can only be obtained on the higher, and not
on the lower, level: that is to say, not by the teacher forgetting what he
knows, but by the pupil acquiring the teacher's knowledge. Much tuition
however is based not on the desire to equalise knowledge, but on quite false
foundations.
These are: (1) First and commonest, the child learns in order not to be
punished; (2) the child learns in order to earn a reward; (3) the child learns
in order to be better than others; (4) the child, or young man, learns in order
to obtain an advantageous position in the world....
With reference to the practice of sending boys to school, not for their
natural development, but that they may be moulded into a set form, Tolstoy
declares that 'Education, as a deliberate moulding of people into certain
forms, is sterile, illegitimate, and impossible.'
Of examinations he strongly disapproves, as tending to arbitrariness on the
side of the examiners, and deception on the side of the pupils.
Under what circumstances, asks Tolstoy, can a pupil acquire knowledge
most rapidly? 'A child or a man is receptive only when he is aroused; and
therefore to regard a merry spirit in school as an enemy or a hindrance, is
the crudest of blunders.
The pupil's state of mind is the most important condition of successful
education; and to secure good results, freedom is indispensable. No child
should be forced to learn what it does not want to, or when it does not wish
to.

One need only glance at one and the same child at home or in the
street, and at school. Here you see a vivacious, inquisitive being,
with a smile in his eye and on his mouth, seeking information
everywhere as a pleasure, and clearly, and often forcibly,
expressing his thoughts in his own way; while there you see a
weary, shrinking creature repeating, merely with his lips, some
one else's thoughts in some one else's words, with an air of
fatigue, fear and listlessness: a creature whose soul has retreated
like a snail into its shell. One need but glance at these two
conditions to see which of them is the more conducive to the
child's development. That strange physiological condition which I
call the 'School state of mind,' and which unfortunately we all
know so well, consists in all the higher capacities: imagination,
creative power and reflection, yielding place to a semi-animal
capacity to pronounce words without imagination or reflection.
When the pupils have been reduced to this 'School state of mind' we
encounter those 'not accidental, but often-repeated cases,' of the stupidest
boy being at the top of the class, and the cleverest boy at the bottom.
In short, a child's mental capacities are really active only when that child is
free; and the teacher's chief task lies 'in studying the free child' and
discovering how to supply him with knowledge. Therefore 'the only method
of education is experiment, and its only criterion is freedom.'
The attempts to enforce obedience and quiet in school-rooms, converts
schools into places of torture which have a stupefying effect, well called by
the Germans Verdummen.
In Germany nine-tenths of those who pass through the primary
schools leave them possessed of an ability to read and write
mechanically, but imbued with so strong a loathing for the
experience they have had of the paths of knowledge, that they
subsequently never take a book in their hands. Let those who
doubt what I say, point out to me what books are read by the
labourers.... No one who will seriously consider the education of
the people, not only in Russia but also in the rest of Europe, can
help coming to the conclusion that the people get their mental

development quite independently of a knowledge of reading and
writing, and that usually, except in a few cases of exceptional
ability, these rudiments remain a quite unapplied art—which is
even harmful, since nothing in life can remain indifferent....

Schools are not so arranged as to make it convenient for children
to learn, but so as to make it convenient for teachers to teach. The
voices, movements and mirth of the children, which form a
necessary condition of their studying successfully, incommode
the teachers, and therefore in the prison-like schools of to-day,
questions, conversation, and movement are forbidden.
Schools based on compulsion, supply 'not a shepherd for the flock, but a
flock for the shepherd.'

To deal successfully with any object, it is necessary to study it,
and in education the object is a free child; yet the pedagogues
wish to teach in their own way—the way that seems good in their
own eyes; and when this does not act, they want not to alter their
way of teaching but the nature of the child. ...Not till experiment
becomes the basis of the School, and every school is, so to say, a
pedagogic laboratory, will schools cease to lag behind the general
level of the world's progress.
For boarding-schools Tolstoy had scant respect:
At home all the comforts of life—water, fires, good food, a well-
cooked dinner, the cleanliness and comfort of the rooms—all
depended on the work and care of the mother and of the whole
family. The more work and care, the greater the comfort; the less
work and care, the less comfort. A simple matter this no doubt,
but more educational I think, than the French language or a
knowledge of Alexander the Great. In a boarding-school, this

constant vital reward for labour is so put out of sight, that not
only is the dinner no better or worse, the napkins no cleaner or
dirtier, and the floors no brighter or duller, because of the girl's
exertion or non-exertion, but she has not even a cell or corner of
her own to keep straight or leave untidy at her pleasure, and she
has no chance of making a costume for herself out of scraps and
ribbons.
His general charge against day-schools, boarding-schools and universities
alike is that:
At the base of them all lies one and the same principle: the right
of one man, or of a small group of men, to shape other people as
they like.
He adds that:
It is not enough for School to tear children away from real life for
six hours a day during the best years of their life: it wishes to tear
three-year-old children from their mother's influence. Institutions
have been contrived (Kleinkinderbervahranstalten, infant schools,
salles d'asile) about which we shall have to speak more in detail
later on. It only remains to invent a steam-engine which will
replace the nursing mother! All agree that schools are imperfect;
I, personally, am convinced that they are noxious.
He argues that no man or set of men has any right to force any particular
kind of education on any one else. The teacher has no right to do more than
offer such knowledge as he possesses, and he should respect the child's
right to reject it as indigestible, or as badly served up:
On what grounds does the School of to-day teach this and not
that, and in this and not that way?
Where, in our day, can we get such faith in the indubitability of
our knowledge as would give us a right to educate people
compulsorily? Take any medieval school, before or after Luther,
take the whole scholastic literature of the Middle Ages, what a
strength of belief and what a firm, indubitable knowledge of what
was true and what was false, we see in them! It was easy for them

to know that a knowledge of Greek was the one essential
condition of education; for Aristotle's works were in Greek, and
no one doubted the truth of his propositions till centuries later.
How could the monks help demanding the study of the Holy
Scriptures, which stood on an immovable foundation? It was well
for Luther to demand the compulsory study of Hebrew, being
sure, as he was, that in that language God himself has revealed
the truth to man. Evidently, as long as man's critical sense was not
aroused, the school had to be dogmatic; and it was natural for
pupils to learn by heart the truths revealed by God, as well as
Aristotle's science and the poetic beauties of Virgil and Cicero.
For centuries after, no one could imagine any truer truth, or more
beautiful beauty. But what is the position of the schools of our
time, which retain these same dogmatic principles, while in the
room next the class where the immortality of the soul is taught, it
is suggested to the pupils that the nerves common to man and to
the frog are what was formerly called 'the soul'; and where after
hearing the story of Joshua the son of Nun read to him without
explanations, the pupil learns that the sun never did go round the
earth; and when after the beauties of Virgil have been explained to
him, he finds the beauties of Alexandre Dumas (whose novels he
can buy for sixpence) much greater; when the only belief held by
the teacher is that nothing is true, but that whatever exists is
reasonable; and that progress is good and backwardness bad,
though nobody knows in what this progress, that is so generally
believed in, consists?
In another article he says:
Luther insists on teaching the Holy Scriptures from the originals,
and not from the commentaries of the Fathers of the Church.
Bacon enjoins the study of Nature from Nature, and not from the
books of Aristotle. Rousseau wants to teach life from life itself as
he understands it, and not from previous experiments. Each step
forward in the philosophy of pedagogics merely consists in
freeing the schools from the idea of teaching the younger
generations what the elder generations believed to be science, and

in substituting studies that accord with the needs of the younger
generations.
Again, he says
It is very usual to read and hear it said that the home conditions,
the coarseness of parents, field labour, village games and so forth,
are the chief hindrances to school-work. Possibly they really
interfere with the kind of school-work aimed at by the
pedagogues; but it is time we understood that those conditions are
the chief bases of all education, and far from being inimical to, or
hindrances of the School, are its first and chief motive power....
The wish to know anything whatever, and the very questions to
which it is the School's business to reply, arise entirely from these
home conditions. All instruction should be simply a reply to
questions put by life. But School, far from evoking questions,
fails even to answer those which life suggests.... To such
questions the child receives no reply; more especially as the
police regulations of the School do not allow him to open his
mouth, even when he wants to be let out for a minute, but obliges
him to make signs in order not to break the silence or disturb the
teacher.
The great questions, Tolstoy says, are: (1) What must I teach? and (2) How
must I teach it? He remarks that a couple of centuries ago, neither in Russia
nor in Western Europe could these questions have arisen. Education was
then bound up with religion, and to become a scholar meant to learn the
Scriptures. In Mohammedan countries this union of religion with education
still exists in full force. To learn, means to learn the Koran, and therefore to
learn Arabic. But as soon as the criterion of what to learn ceased to be
religion, and the School became independent of the Church, the question of
what to teach was bound to arise. That it did not arise suddenly, was due to
the fact that the emancipation of the School from the Church took place
gradually. But the day has at last come when the question must be faced;
and no clear guidance is given us either by philosophy or by any definite
consensus of opinion among those concerned with education. In the higher
schools some advocate a classical, others a scientific, education; while in
the primary schools, if the education is controlled by the priests it is carried

on in one way, and if it is controlled by the anti-clericals it is carried on in
another. Under these circumstances the only possible criterion must be the
wish of the pupils or of their parents. Tolstoy then goes on to maintain that
the demand of the mass of the Russian people is for tuition in the Russian
and Ecclesiastico-Slavonic languages, and for mathematics.
As to how to teach, he contends that this resolves itself into the question,
How to establish the best possible relations between those who want to
learn and those who want to teach, and he says:
No one, probably, will deny that the best relation between a
teacher and his pupils is a natural one, and that the opposite to a
natural one is a compulsory one. If that be so, then the measure of
all scholastic methods consists in the greater or lesser naturalness,
and consequently in the less or more compulsion employed. The
less the children are compelled, the better is the method; the more
they are compelled, the worse is the method. I am glad that it is
not necessary for me to prove this obvious truth. All are agreed
that it cannot be good for health to employ foods, medicines, or
exercises which create disgust or pain; and so also in learning,
there can be no need to compel children to grind at anything dull
or repugnant to them; and if it seems necessary to use
compulsion, that fact can merely prove the imperfection of the
methods employed. All who have taught children have probably
noticed that the worse the teacher knows the subject he is dealing
with and the less he likes it, the more he has to be stern and the
more compulsion he has to use; while on the contrary, the better
the teacher knows and loves his subject, the more free and natural
will be his tuition.
If history be closely examined, it will be found that every advance
in pedagogics has consisted merely in a diminution of
compulsion, a facilitation of study, and a greater and greater
approach to naturalness in the relations between teacher and
pupil.
People have asked, How can we find the degree of freedom to be
allowed in school? To which I reply that the limit of that freedom

is naturally defined by the teacher, by his knowledge, and by his
capacity to manage the school. Such freedom cannot be dictated;
its measure is merely the result of the greater or lesser knowledge
and talent possessed by the master. Freedom is not a rule, but it
serves as a gauge when comparing one school with another, or
when judging of new methods. The school in which there is less
compulsion, is better than the one in which there is more. That
method is good which, when introduced into a school, does not
necessitate any increase of discipline; while that is certainly bad
which necessitates greater severity.
From his main subject of Education, Tolstoy digresses in these articles into
a discussion of other problems, in a way which reminds one of those
wonderful essays he began to pour forth a quarter of a century later.
That he had been somewhat influenced by the Slavophils is indicated by his
readiness to assume that Russia may advance along a line of her own,
entirely different to that the Western nations have travelled. 'Progress,' in
which like almost all his contemporaries he had believed, he now questions;
and he indulges in a sharp attack on Macaulay for the third chapter of his
History, which he says contains no proof that any real progress has been
achieved. Buckle, similarly, is roughly handled for the assumption of
progress that underlies his History of Civilisation; but most scathing of all is
his onslaught upon Hegel, who (till Darwin appeared) was the rock on
which many of the intellectual Liberals took their stand.
From the time of Hegel and his famous aphorism: 'What is
historic is reasonable,' a very queer mental hocus-pocus has
prevailed in literary and in verbal disputes, especially among us,
under the name of 'the historic view.' You say, for instance, that
man has a right to freedom, or to be tried on the basis of laws of
which he himself approves; but the historic view replies that
history evolves a certain historic moment conditioning a certain
historic legislation and a people's historic relation thereto. You
say you believe in a God; and the historic view replies that history
evolves certain historic views and humanity's relation to those
views. You say the Iliad is the greatest of epic works; and the
historic view replies that the Iliad is merely the expression of the

historic consciousness of a people at a certain historic moment.
On this basis, the historic view does not dispute with you as to
whether man needs freedom, or whether there is or is not a God,
or whether the Iliad is good or bad: it does nothing to establish
the freedom you desire; to persuade or dissuade you of the
existence of a God or of the beauty of the Iliad; it merely points
out to you the place your inner need or your love of truth or
beauty, occupy in history. It merely recognises—and recognises
not by direct cognition, but by historic ratiocination.
Say that you love or believe anything, and the historic view tells
you: 'Love and believe, and your love and faith will find their
place in our historic view. Ages will pass and we shall find the
place you are to occupy in history. Know however in advance,
that what you love is not absolutely beautiful, and what you
believe in is not absolutely true; yet amuse yourselves, children:
your love and faith will find their place and application.'
It is only necessary to add the word 'historic' to any conception
you like, and that conception loses its real vital meaning, in an
artificially-formed historic world-conception.
Of the introduction of telegraphs and railways he remarks that people
attribute great importance to these inventions, and boast of the progress that
is being made, declaring that:
'Man is mastering the forces of Nature. Thought, with the rapidity
of lightning, flies from one end of the world to the other. Time is
vanquished.'
This, says Tolstoy, is excellent and touching.
But let us see who gains by it. We are speaking of the progress of
the electric telegraph. Evidently the advantage and use of the
telegraph is reserved for the upper, so-called 'educated' class;
while the people, nine-tenths of the whole, only hear the droning
of the wires and are hampered by the strict laws made for the
protection of the telegraph.

Along the wires flies the thought that the demand for such-and-
such an article has increased, and that the price must therefore be
raised; or the thought that I, a Russian landed proprietress, living
in Florence, have, thank God, recovered from my nervous
prostration, and that I embrace my adored husband and beg him
to send me 40,000 francs as quickly as possible.
Without going into exact statistics of the messages sent, one may
be quite sure that they all belong to the kind of correspondence of
which the above are samples. No peasant of Yásnaya Polyána in
the Government of Toúla, or any other Russian peasant (and let it
not be forgotten that the peasants form the mass of the people
whose welfare 'progress' is supposed to secure) ever has sent or
received, or for a long time to come will either send or receive, a
single telegram. All the messages that fly above his head add no
jot to his welfare, because all he needs he gets from his own fields
and his own woods, and he is equally indifferent to the cheapness
or dearness of sugar or cotton, to the dethronement of King Otho,
the speeches of Palmerston and Napoleon III, or the feelings of
the lady in Florence. All those thoughts that fly with the rapidity
of lightning round the world, do not increase the fertility of his
fields nor diminish the strictness of the keepers in the squire's or
the Crown's forests, nor do they add to his or his family's working
power, or supply him with an extra labourer. All these great
thoughts may impair his welfare, but cannot secure or further it,
and can have but a negative interest for him. To the True-
Believers in progress, however, the telegraph wires have brought
and are bringing immense advantages. I do not deny those
advantages: I only wish to prove that one must not think, or
persuade others, that what is advantageous for me, is a great
blessing to all the world....
In the opinion of the Russian people what increases their welfare
is an increase of the fertility of the soil, an increase in the herds of
cattle, an increase of the quantity of grain and its consequently
becoming cheaper, an increase of working power, an increase in
woods and pastures, and the absence of town temptations. (I beg
the reader to observe that no peasant ever complains of the

cheapness of bread; it is only the political economists of Western
Europe who soothe him with the prospect that bread will become
dearer and render it more possible for him to purchase
manufactured articles, in which he is not interested.)
Which of these benefits does the railway bring to the peasant? It
increases the temptations; it destroys the woods; it draws away
labourers; it raises the price of grain....
The real people, that is to say those who themselves work and live
productively—nine-tenths of the whole nation—without whom
no progress is conceivable, are always hostile to the railway. And
so what it comes to is this: that the believers in 'progress,' a small
part of society, say that railways increase the welfare of the
people; while the larger part of the nation say that the railways
decrease it.
Interesting, stimulating and suggestive as Tolstoy's articles were, and
valuable as was the experience gained in his school, his magazine had very
few subscribers and only existed for one year: the twelfth number was the
last.
In an article written thirteen years later, he says of his attempts in 1861-2:
At that time I met with no sympathy in the educational journals,
nor even with any contradiction, but only with the completest
indifference to the question I was raising. There were, it is true,
some attacks on a few insignificant details, but the question itself
evidently interested no one. I was young at that time, and this
indifference galled me. I did not understand that I with my
question: How do you know what and how to teach? was like a
man who, in an assembly of Turkish Pachas discussing how to
collect more taxes from the people, should say to them:
Gentlemen, before discussing how much to take from each man,
we must first consider what right we have to collect taxes at all?
Obviously, the Pachas would continue to discuss the methods of
collecting, and would ignore the irrelevant question.

Before passing on to tell of the actual working of the Yásnaya Polyána
school, there is one matter to be noted, small indeed in itself, but
characteristic, and helpful for the understanding of Tolstoy's later
development.
Tolstoy's personal honour has never been questioned, and the reader will
remember that at Sevastopol he flatly refused to touch money which,
according to the long-standing regimental custom, was at his disposal. Well,
in his magazine he printed a story written by one of the boys in the school,
and appraised it with enthusiasm. The hero of the story, who had been
wretchedly poor, returns from the army with money to spare, and explains
the matter to his wife by saying: 'I was a non-commissioned officer and had
Crown money to pay out to the soldiers, and some remaining over, I kept it.'
Commenting on this, Tolstoy says:
It is revealed that the soldier has become rich, and has done so in
the simplest and most natural manner, just as almost everybody
does who becomes rich—that is, by other people's, the Crown's,
or somebody's, money remaining in his hands owing to a
fortunate accident. Some readers have remarked that this incident
is immoral, and that the people's conception of the Crown as a
milch cow should be eradicated and not confirmed. But not to
speak of its artistic truth, I particularly value that trait in the story.
Does not the Crown money always stop somewhere? And why
should it not, once in a way, stop with a homeless soldier like
Gordéy?
In the views of honesty held by the peasants and the upper class, a
complete contrast is often noticeable. The peasants' demands are
specially serious and strict with regard to honesty in the nearest
relations of life; for instance, in respect to one's family, one's
village, or one's commune. In respect to outsiders: the public, the
Crown, or foreigners, or the Treasury especially, the applicability
of the rules of honesty seems to them obscure. A peasant who
would never tell a lie to his brother peasant, and who would bear
all possible hardships for the sake of his family, and not take a
farthing from a fellow-villager or neighbour without having fully