Chapter XII (1)

SEVENTH PERIOD: DANILÉVSKY, SALTYKÓFF, L. N. TOLSTÓY, GÓRKY, AND OTHERS.

Under the influence of the romantic movement in western Europe, in the '30's of the nineteenth century, and in particular under the deep impression made by Sir Walter Scott's novels, historical novels and historical studies began to make their appearance in Russia, and in the '50's underwent two periods of existence, which totally differed from each other.

During the first period the romance-writers, including even Púshkin, treated things from a governmental point of view, and dealt only with such epochs, all more or less remote, as the censorship permitted. For example, Zagóskin, the best known of the historical novelists, wrote "Áskold's Grave," from the epoch of the baptism of the Russians, in the tenth century, and "Yúry Miloslávsky," from the epoch of the Pretender, early in the seventeenth century; while Lazhétchnikoff wrote "The Mussulman," from the reign of Iván III., sixteenth century, and "The Last Court Page," from the epoch of Peter the Great's wars with Sweden. The historical facts were alluded to in a slight, passing way, or narrated after the fashion of Karamzín, in lofty terms, with artificial patriotic inspiration. As the authors lacked archæological learning, the manners and accessories of the past were merely sketched in a general, indefinite way, and often inaccurately, while the pages were chiefly filled with the sentimental love-passages of two or three virtuous heroes of stereotyped patterns, who were subjected to frightful adventures, perished several times, and were resuscitated for the purpose of marrying in ordinary fashion at the end.

In the '50's people became far too much interested in the present to pay much heed to the past. Yet precisely at that time the two finest historians came to the front, Sergyéi M. Soloviéff and N. I. Kostomároff, and effected a complete revolution in historiography. Soloviéff's great history brings the narrative down to the reign of Katherine II. Kostomároff dealt with periods, giving a complete picture of each one; hence each study, while complete in itself, does not of necessity always contain the whole career of the personages who figure in it. But both writers are essentially (despite Kostomároff's not very successful attempts at historical novels) serious historians.

As we have already seen, the novels of the two Counts Tolstóy, "War and Peace" and "Prince Serébryany," stand quite apart, and far above all others.

But among the favorites of lesser rank are Grigóry Petróvitch Danilévsky (born in 1829), whose best historical novel is "Miróvitch," though it takes unwarrantable liberties with the personages of the epoch depicted (that of Katherine II.) and those in the adjacent periods. Less good, though popular, is his "Princess Tarakánoff," the history of a supposed daughter of the Empress Elizabeth.

Half-way between the historians and the portrayers of popular life, and in a measure belonging to both ranks, are several talented men. The most famous of them was Pável Ivánovitch Mélnikoff (1819-1883), whose official duties enabled him to make an exhaustive study of the "Old Ritualists"[33] along the middle Volga.

His two novels, "In the Forests" and "On the Hills" (of the eastern and western banks of the Volga, respectively), are utterly unlike anything else in the language, and are immensely popular with Russians. They are history in that they faithfully reproduce the manners and beliefs of a whole class of the population; they are _genre_ studies of a very valuable ethnographical character in their fidelity to nature. Long as they are, the interest never flags for a moment, but it is not likely that they will ever appear in an English translation. Too extensive and intimate a knowledge of national ways and beliefs (both of the State Church and the schismatics) are required to allow of their being popular with the majority of foreigners who read Russian; for the non-Russian reading foreigner an excessive amount of explanatory notes would be required, and they would resemble treatises. But they are two of the most delightful books of the epoch, and classics in their way. Mélnikoff wrote, for a long time, under the pseudonym of "Andréi Petchérsky."

Nikolái Seménovitch Lyeskóff (1837-1895), who long wrote under the pseudonym of "M. Stebnítzky," is another author famous for his portraits of a whole class of the population, his specialty being the priestly class. He was of noble birth, and was reared in luxury, but was orphaned and ruined at a very early age, so that he was obliged to earn a hard living, first in government service, then as traveler for a private firm. This extensive traveling afforded him the opportunity of making acquaintance with the life of all classes of the population. He began to write in 1860, but a few incautious words, in 1862, raised a storm against him in the liberal press, which accused him of instigating the police to their attacks upon young people. As Count Tolstóy remarked to me, this incident prevented Lyeskóff ever receiving the full meed of recognition which his talent merited; a large and influential section of the press was permanently in league against him. This, eventually, so exasperated and embittered Lyeskóff that he really did go over to the conservative camp, and the first result of his wrath was the romance "No Thoroughfare," published in 1865. Its chief characters are two ideal socialists, a man and a woman, recognized by contemporaries as the portraits of living persons. Both are represented as finding so-called socialists to be merely crafty nihilists. This raised another storm, and still further embittered Lyeskóff, who expressed himself in "To the Knife" (in the middle of the '70's), a mad production, wherein revolutionists (or "nihilists," as they were then generally called) were represented as condensed incarnations of the seven deadly sins. These works had much to do with preventing Lyeskóff from taking that high place in the public estimation which his other works (a mass of novels and tales devoid of political tendency) and his great talent would have otherwise assured to him. Of his large works, "The Cathedral Staff," with its sympathetic and life-like portraits of Archpriest Savély Tuberósoff and his athletic Deacon Achilles, and his "Episcopal Trifles" rank first. The latter volume, which consists of a series of pictures setting forth the dark sides of life in the highest ecclesiastical hierarchy, created a great sensation in the early '80's, and raised a third storm, and the author fell into disfavor in official circles. Perhaps the most perfect of his works is one of the shorter novels, "The Sealed Angel," which deals with the ways and beliefs of the Old Ritualists (though in the vicinity of Kíeff, not in Mélnikoff's province), and is regarded as a classic, besides being a pure delight to the initiated reader. Count L. N. Tolstóy greatly admired (he told me) Lyeskóff's "At the End of the World," a tale of missionary effort in Siberia, which is equally delightful in its way, though less great. Towards the end of his career, Lyeskóff was inclined to mysticism, and began to work over ancient religious legends, or to invent new ones in the same style.[34]

The direct and immediate result of the democratic tendency on Russian thought and attraction to the common people during this era was the creation of a school of writers who devoted themselves almost exclusively to that sphere, in addition to the contributions from Turgéneff, Tolstóy, Dostoévsky. Among these was a well-known woman writer, Márya Alexándrovna Markóvitch, who published her first Little Russian Tales, in 1859, under the name of "Márko Vovtchék." She immediately translated them into Russian, and they were printed in the best journals of the day. I. S. Turgéneff translated one volume into Russian (for her Little Russian language was not of the supreme quality that characterized Shevtchénko's, which needed no translating), and Dobroliúboff, an authoritative critic of that period, expressed himself in the most flattering manner about them. But her fame withered away as quickly as it had sprung up. The weak points of her tales had been pardoned because of their political contents; in ten years they had lost their charm, and their defects--a too superficial knowledge of the people's life, the absence of living, authentic coloring in portraiture, its restriction to general, stereotyped types, such as might have been borrowed from popular tales and ballads, and excess of sentimentality--became too apparent to be overlooked by a more enlightened public.

The only other woman writer of this period who acquired much reputation may be mentioned here, although she cannot be classed strictly with portrayers of the people: Nadézhda Dmítrievna Khvóshtchinsky, whose married name was Zaióntchkovsky, and who wrote under the pseudonym of "V. Krestóvsky" (1825-1889). She published a great many short stories of provincial town life, rather narrow as to their sphere of observation. Her best work was "The Great Bear" (referring to the constellation), which appeared in 1870-1871.[35]

When literature entered upon a fresh phase of development in the '70's of the last century, the careful study of the people, two men headed the movement, Glyeb Ivánovitch Uspénsky and Nikolái Nikoláevitch Zlatovrátsky. Uspénsky (1840) took the negative and pessimistic view. Zlatovrátsky (1845) took the positive, optimistic view.[36]

Like many authors of that period, adverse conditions hindered Uspénsky's march to fame. Shortly after his first work, "The Manners of Rasteryáeff Street," began to appear in "The Contemporary," that journal was stopped. He continued it in another journal, which also was stopped before his work was finished, and that after he had been forced to cut out everything which gave a hint at its being a "continuation," so that it might appear to be an independent whole. He was obliged to publish the mangled remains in "The Woman's News," because there was hardly any other journal then left running. After the Servian War (generally called abroad "the Russo-Turkish War") of 1877-1878, Uspénsky abandoned the plebeian classes to descend to "the original source" of everything--the peasant. When he published the disenchanting result of his observations, showing to what lengths a peasant will go for money, there was a sensation. This was augmented by his sketch, "Hard Labor"; and a still greater sensation ensued on the publication of his "'Tis Not a Matter of Habit" (known in book form as "The Eccentric Master"). In "Hard Labor" he set forth, contrary to all theoretical beliefs, that the peasants of villages which had belonged to private landed proprietors prior to the emancipation, were incomparably and incontestably more industrious and moral than the peasants on the crown estates, who had always been practically free men.[37]

Readers were still more alarmed by the deductions set forth in his "An Eccentric Master." The hero is an educated man, Mikháil Mikháilovitch, who betakes himself to the rural wilds with the express object of "toiling there exactly like the rest, as an equal in morals and duties, to sleep with the rest on the straw, to eat from one pot with them" (the Tolstóyan theory, but in advance of him), "while the money acquired thus by general toil was to be the property of a group of people to be formed from peasants and from actually ruined former members of the upper classes." But the peasants, not comprehending the master's lofty aims, treated him as an eccentric fool, and began to rob him in all directions, meanwhile humoring him to the top of his bent in all his instincts of master. It ends in Mikháil Mikháilovitch becoming thoroughly disillusioned, dejected, and taking to drink after having expended the whole of his capital on the ungrateful peasants. This will serve to illustrate Uspénsky's pessimistic point of view, for which he certainly had solid grounds.

While Uspénsky never sought artistic effects in his work, and his chief strength lay in humor, in ridicule which pitilessly destroyed all illusions, Zlatovrátsky never indulges in a smile, and is always, whether grieving or rejoicing, in a somewhat exalted frame of mind, which often attains the pitch of epic pathos, so that even his style assumes a rather poetical turn, something in the manner of hexameters. Moreover, he is far from despising the artistic element. He established his fame in 1874 by his first large work, "Peasant Jurors."

As Zlatovrátsky (whose father belonged to the priestly class) regards as ideal the commune and the peasant guild (_artél_), with their individualistic, moral ideals of union in a spirit of brotherly love and solidarity, both in work and in the enjoyment of its products, his pessimism is directed against the Russian educated classes, not excepting even their very best representatives. This view he expresses in all his works which depict the educated classes: "The Golden Heart," "The Wanderer," "The Kremléff Family," "The Karaváeffs," "The Hetman," and so forth. In these he represents educated people--the better classes, called "intelligent" people by Russians--under the guise of sheep who have strayed from the true fold, and the only thing about them which he regards as a sign of life (in a few of the best of them) is their vain efforts to identify themselves with the common people, and thus, as it were, restore the lost paradise[38].

There are many others who have written sketches and more ambitious works founded on a more or less intimate study and knowledge of the peasants. On one of these we must turn our attention, briefly, as the author of one famous and heartrending book, "The Inhabitants of Podlípovo." Feódor Mikháilovitch Ryeshétnikoff (1841-1871) was one of three middle-class ("plebeian" is the Russian word) writers who made a name, the others being Alexánder Ivánovitch Levítoff and Nikolái Ivánovitch Naúmoff. For in proportion as culture spread among the masses of society, and the center of the intellectual movement was transferred from the noble class to the plebeian, in the literary circles towards the end of the '50's there appeared a great flood of new forces from the lower classes. The three writers above mentioned, as well as Uspénsky and Zlatovrátsky, belonged to the priestly plebeian class. Ryeshétnikoff's famous romance--rather a short story--was the outcome of his own hardships, sufferings, and experiences. He was scantily educated, had no æsthetic taste, wrote roughly, not always grammatically, and always in excessively gloomy colors, yet he had the reputation of being a passionate lover of the people, despite the fact that his picture of the peasants in his best known work is generally regarded as almost a caricature in its exaggerated gloom, and he enjoys wide popularity even at the present time.

* * * * *

The spirits of people rose during the epoch of Reform (after the Emancipation of the serfs in 1861) and the general impulse to take an interest in political and social questions was speedily reflected in literature by the formation of a special branch of that art, which was known as "tendency literature," although its more accurate title would have been "publicist literature." The peculiarity of most writers of this class was their pessimistic skepticism. This publicist literature was divided into three classes: democratic, moderately liberal, and conservative.

At the head of the democratic branch stood the great writer who constituted the pride and honor of the epoch, as the one who most profoundly and fully reflected it, Mikháil Evgráfovitch Saltykóff (1826-1889). He was the son of landed proprietors, of an ancient family, with a famous name of Tatár descent. He finished his education in the Tzárskoe Seló Lyceum, which, from the time of Púshkin on, graduated so many notable statesmen and distinguished men. The authorities of the Lyceum were endeavoring to exterminate the spirit of Púshkin, who had died only the year before, and severely repressed all scribbling of poetry, which did not in the least prevent almost every boy in the school from trying his hand at it and dreaming of future fame. Thus incited, Saltykóff, from the moment of his entrance, earned the ill-will of the authorities by his passionate love of verse writing and reading, and when he graduated, in 1844, it was in the lower half of his class, and with one rank lower in the civil service than the upper half of the class.

In 1847 he published (under the name of "M. Nepánoff") his first story, "Contradictions," and in 1848 his second, "A Tangled Affair," both in "The Annals of the Fatherland." When the strictness of the censorship was augmented during that same year, after "the Petrashévsky affair," all literary men fell under suspicion. When Saltykóff asked for leave of absence from the service to go home during the holidays, he was commanded to produce his writings. Although these early writings contained hardly a hint of the satirical talents which he afterwards developed, the person to whom was intrusted the task of making a report of them (and who was a sworn enemy to the natural school and "The Annals of the Fatherland") gave such an alarming account of them that the Count Tchérnysheff was frightened at having so dangerous a man in his ministerial department. The result was, that in May, 1848, a posting-tróïka halted in front of Saltykóff's lodgings, and the accompanying gendarme was under orders to escort the offender off to Vyátka on the instant.

In Saltykóff's case, as in the case of many another Russian writer, exile not only removed him from the distracting pleasures of life at the capital, but also laid the foundation for his future greatness. In Vyátka, Saltykóff first served as one of the officials in the government office, but by the autumn he was appointed the official for special commissions immediately attached to the governor's service. He was a valued friend in the family of the vice-governor, for whose young daughters he wrote a "Short History of Russia," and after winning further laurels in the service, he was allowed to return to St. Petersburg in 1856, when he married one of the young girls, and published his "Governmental Sketches," with the materials for which his exile had furnished him. Two years later he was appointed vice-governor of Ryazán, then transferred to Tver, where he acted as governor on several occasions. In 1862 he retired from the service and devoted himself to literature, but he returned to it a couple of years later, and only retired definitively in 1868. These items are of interest as showing the status of political exiles in a different light from that usually accepted as the unvarying rule.

As we have said, Saltykóff's exile was of incalculable service to him, in that it made him acquainted with the inward life of Russia and of the people. This knowledge he put to unsparing use in his famous satires. In order fully to understand his works, one must be thoroughly familiar with the general spirit and the special ideas of the different periods to which they refer, as well as with Russia and its life and literature in general. Saltykóff (who wrote under the name of "Shtchedrín") was very keen to catch the spirit of the moment, and very caustic in portraying it, with the result that very often the names he invented for his characters clove to whole classes of society, and have become by-words, the mere mention of which reproduces the whole type. For example, after the Emancipation, when the majority of landed proprietors were compelled to give up their parasitic life on the serfs, there arose a class of educated people who were seeking fresh fields for their easy, parasitic existence. One of the commonest expedients, in the '70's, for restoring shattered finances was to go to Tashként, where the cultured classes imagined that regular gold mines awaited them. Saltykóff instantly detected this movement, and not only branded the pioneers in the colonization of Central Asia with the name of "Tashkéntzians" (in "Gospodá Tashkéntzy" Messrs. Tashkéntzians), but according to his wont, he rendered this nickname general by applying it to all cultured classes who had nothing in their souls but an insatiable appetite. In other works he branded other movements and classes with equal ineffaceableness.

His masterpiece (in his third and most developed period), the work which foreigners can comprehend almost equally well with Russians, is "Gospodá Golovlévy" ("The Messrs. Golovléff"[39]). It contains that element of the universal in humanity which his national satires lack, and it alone would suffice to render him immortal. The type of Iúdiushka (little Judas) has no superior in all European literature, for its cold, calculating, cynical hypocrisy, its miserly ferocity. The book is a presentment of old ante-reform manners among the landed gentry at their worst.

The following favorite little story furnishes an excellent example of Saltykóff's (Shtchedrín's) caustic wit and satire:

THE STORY OF HOW ONE PEASANT MAINTAINED TWO GENERALS.

Once upon a time there lived and flourished two Generals; and
as both were giddy-pated, by jesting command, at my desire,
they were speedily transported to an uninhabited island.

The Generals had served all their lives in some registry office
or other; they had been born there, reared there, had grown old
there, and consequently they understood nothing whatever. They
did not even know any words except, "accept the assurance of my
complete respect and devotion."

The registry was abolished as superfluous, and the Generals
were set at liberty. Being thus on the retired list, they
settled in Petersburg, in Podyátchesky (Pettifoggers) Street,
in separate quarters; each had his own cook, and received a
pension. But all of a sudden, they found themselves on an
uninhabited island, and when they awoke, they saw that they
were lying under one coverlet. Of course, at first they could
not understand it at all, and they began to talk as though
nothing whatever had happened to them.

"'Tis strange, your Excellency, I had a dream to-day," said one
General; "I seemed to be living on a desert island."

No sooner had he said this than he sprang to his feet. The
other General did the same.

"Heavens! What's the meaning of this? Where are we?" cried
both, with one voice.

Then they began to feel each other, to discover whether this
extraordinary thing had happened to them not in a dream, but in
their waking hours. But try as they might to convince
themselves that all this was nothing but a vision of their
sleep, they were forced to the conviction of its sad reality.

On one side of them stretched the sea, on the other side lay a
small plot of land, and beyond it again stretched the same
boundless sea. The Generals began to weep, for the first time
since the registry office had been closed.

They began to gaze at each other, and they then perceived that
they were clad only in their night-shirts, and on the neck of
each hung an order.

"How good a little coffee would taste now!" ejaculated one
General, but then he remembered what unprecedented adventure
had happened to him, and he began to cry again.

"But what are we to do?" he continued, through his tears; "if
we were to write a report, of what use would it be?"

"This is what we must do," replied the other General. "Do you
go to the east, your Excellency, and I will go to the west, and
in the evening we will meet again at this place; perhaps we
shall find something."

So they began their search to find which was the east and which
the west. They recalled to mind that their superior official
had once said, "If you wish to find the east, stand with your
eyes towards the north, and you will find what you want on your
right hand." They began to seek the north, and placed
themselves first in one position, then in another, and tried
all quarters of the compass in turn, but as they had spent
their whole lives in the registry office, they could decide on
nothing.

"This is what we must do, your Excellency; do you go to the
right, and I will go to the left; that will be better," said
the General, who besides serving in the registry office had
also served as instructor of calligraphy in the school for
soldiers' sons, and consequently had more sense.

So said, so done. One General went to the right, and saw trees
growing, and on the trees all sorts of fruits. The General
tried to get an apple, but all the apples grew so high that it
was necessary to climb for them. He tried to climb, but with no
result, except that he tore his shirt to rags. The General came
to a stream, the fish were swimming there in swarms, as though
in a fish-shop on the Fontánka canal. "If we only had such fish
in Pettifoggers Street!" said the General to himself, and he
even changed countenance with hunger.

The General entered the forest, and there hazel-hens were
whistling, blackcocks were holding their bragging matches, and
hares were running.

"Heavens! What victuals! What victuals!" said the General, and
he felt that he was becoming fairly sick at his stomach with
hunger.

There was nothing to be done; he was obliged to return to the
appointed place with empty hands. He reached it but the other
General was already waiting for him.

"Well, your Excellency, have you accomplished anything?"

"Yes, I have found an old copy of the 'Moscow News'; that is
all."

The Generals lay down to sleep again, but gnawing hunger kept
them awake. They were disturbed by speculations as to who
would receive their pension for them; then they recalled the
fruits, fish, hazel-hens, blackcock, and hares which they had
seen that day.

"Who would have thought, your Excellency, that human food, in
its original shape, flies, swims, and grows on trees?" said one
General.

"Yes," replied the other General; "I must confess that until
this day I thought that wheaten rolls came into existence in
just the form in which they are served to us in the morning
with our coffee."

"It must be that, for instance, if one desires to eat a
partridge, he must first catch it, kill it, pluck it, roast
it.... But how is all that done?"

"How is all that done?" repeated the other General, like an
echo. They fell into silence, and tried to get to sleep; but
hunger effectually banished sleep. Hazel-hens, turkeys,
sucking-pigs flitted before their eyes, rosy, veiled in a
slight blush of roasting, surrounded with cucumbers, pickles,
and other salads.

"It seems to me that I could eat my own boots now!" said one
General.

"Gloves are good also, when they have been worn a long time!"
sighed the other General.

All at once the Generals glanced at each other; an ominous fire
glowed in their eyes, their teeth gnashed, a dull roar forced
its way from their breasts. They began slowly to crawl toward
each other, and in the twinkling of an eye they were
exasperated to fury. Tufts of hair flew about, whines and
groans resounded; the General who had been a teacher of
calligraphy bit off his adversary's Order, and immediately
swallowed it. But the sight of flowing blood seemed to restore
them to their senses.

"The power of the cross defend us!" they exclaimed
simultaneously; "if we go on like this we shall eat each
other!"

"And how did we get here? What malefactor has played us this
trick?"

"We must divert our minds with some sort of conversation, your
Excellency, or there will be murder!" said the other General.

"Begin!" replied the other General.

"Well, for instance, what do you think about this, Why does the
sun rise first and then set, instead of acting the other way
about?"

"You are a queer man, your Excellency; don't you rise first,
then go to the office, write there, and afterward go to bed?"

"But why not admit this reversal of the order; first I go to
bed, have divers dreams, and then rise?"

"Hm, yes.... But I must confess that when I served in the
department I always reasoned in this fashion: now it is
morning, then it will be day, then supper will be served, and
it will be time to go to bed."

But the mention of supper plunged them both into grief, and
broke the conversation off short at the very beginning.

"I have heard a doctor say that a man can live for a long time
on his own juices," began one of the Generals.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, sir, it is; it appears that, the juices proper produce
other juices; these in their turn, engender still other juices,
and so on, until at last the juices cease altogether...."

"What then?"

"Then it is necessary to take some sort of nourishment."

"Tfu!"

In short, no matter what topic of conversation the Generals
started, it led inevitably to a mention of food, and this
excited their appetites still more. They decided to cease their
conversation, and calling to mind the copy of the "Moscow News"
which they had found, they began to read it with avidity.

"Yesterday," read one General, with a quivering voice, "the
respected governor of our ancient capital gave a grand dinner.
The table was set for one hundred persons, with wonderful
luxury. The gifts of all lands seemed to have appointed a
rendezvous at this magical feast. There was the golden sterlet
of the Sheksna, the pheasant, nursling of the Caucasian
forests, and strawberries, that great rarity in our north in
the month of February...."

"Tfu, heavens! Cannot your Excellency find some other subject?"
cried the other General in desperation, and taking the
newspaper from his companion's hand, he read the following: "A
correspondent writes to us from Túla: 'There was a festival
here yesterday at the club, on the occasion of a sturgeon being
caught in the river Upá (an occurrence which not even old
residents can recall, the more so as private Warden B. was
recognized in the sturgeon). The author of the festival was
brought in on a huge wooden platter, surrounded with cucumbers,
and holding a bit of green in his mouth. Doctor P., who was on
duty that day as presiding officer, saw to it carefully that
each of the guests received a piece. The sauce was extremely
varied, and even capricious.' ..."

"Permit me, your Excellency, you also seem to be not
sufficiently cautious in your choice of reading matter!"
interrupted the first General, and taking the paper in his
turn, he read: "A correspondent writes to us from Vyátka: 'One
of the old residents here has invented the following original
method of preparing fish soup: Take a live turbot, and whip
him as a preliminary; when his liver has become swollen with
rage.' ..."

The Generals dropped their heads. Everything on which they
turned their eyes--everything bore witness to food. Their own
thoughts conspired against them, for try as they would to
banish the vision of beefsteak, this vision forced itself upon
them.

And all at once an idea struck the General who had been a
teacher of calligraphy....

"How would it do, your Excellency," he said joyfully, "if we
were to find a peasant?"

"That is to say ... a muzhík?"

"Yes, exactly, a common muzhík ... such as muzhíks generally
are. He would immediately give us rolls, and he would catch
hazel-hens and fish!"

"Hm ... a peasant ... but where shall we find him, when he is
not here?"

"What do you mean by saying that he is not to be found? There
are peasants everywhere, and all we have to do is to look him
up! He is certainly hiding somewhere about because he is too
lazy to work!" This idea cheered the Generals to such a degree
that they sprang to their feet like men who had received a
shock, and set out to find a peasant.

They roamed for a long time about the island without any
success whatever, but at last the penetrating smell of
bread-crust and sour sheepskin put them on the track. Under a
tree, flat on his back, with his fists under his head, lay a
huge peasant fast asleep, and shirking work in the most
impudent manner. There were no bounds to the wrath of the
Generals.

"Asleep, lazybones!" and they flung themselves upon him; "and
you don't move so much as an ear, when here are two Generals
who have been dying of hunger these two days! March off, this
moment, to work!"

The man rose; he saw that the Generals were stern. He would
have liked to give them the slip, but they had become fairly
rigid when they grasped him.

And he began to work under their supervision.

First of all he climbed a tree and picked half a score of the
ripest apples for the Generals, and took one, a sour one, for
himself. Then he dug in the earth and got some potatoes; then
he took two pieces of wood, rubbed them together, and produced
fire. Then he made a snare from his own hair and caught a
hazel-hen. Last of all, he arranged the fire, and cooked such a
quantity of different provisions that the idea even occurred to
the Generals, "would it not be well to give the lazy fellow a
little morsel?"

The Generals watched the peasant's efforts, and their hearts
played merrily. They had already forgotten that they had nearly
died of hunger on the preceding day, and they thought, "What a
good thing it is to be a general--then you never go to
destruction anywhere."

"Are you satisfied, Generals?" asked the big, lazy peasant.

"We are satisfied, my dear friend, we perceive your zeal,"
replied the Generals.

"Will you not permit me to rest now?"

"Rest, my good friend, only first make us a rope."

The peasant immediately collected wild hemp, soaked it in
water, beat it, worked it--and by evening the rope was done.
With this rope the Generals bound the peasant to a tree so that
he should not run away, and then they lay down to sleep.

One day passed, then another; the big, coarse peasant became so
skilful that he even began to cook soup in the hollow of his
hand. Our Generals became jovial, light-hearted, fat, and
white. They began to say to each other that, here they were
living with everything ready to hand while their pensions were
accumulating and accumulating in Petersburg.

"What do you think, your Excellency, was there really a tower
of Babel, or is that merely a fable?" one General would say to
the other, as they ate their breakfast.

"I think, your Excellency, that it really was built; because,
otherwise, how can we explain the fact that many different
languages exist in the world?"

"Then the flood must have occurred also?"

"The flood did happen, otherwise, how could the existence of
antediluvian animals be explained? The more so as it is
announced in the 'Moscow News'...."

"Shall we not read the 'Moscow News'?"

Then they would hunt up that copy, seat themselves in the
shade, and read it through from end to end; what people had
been eating in Moscow, eating in Túla, eating in Pénza, eating
in Ryazán--and it had no effect on them; it did not turn their
stomachs.

In the long run, the Generals got bored. They began to refer
more and more frequently to the cooks whom they had left behind
them in Petersburg, and they even wept, on the sly.

"What is going on now in Pettifoggers Street, your Excellency?"
one General asked the other.

"Don't allude to it, your Excellency! My whole heart is sore!"
replied the other General.

"It is pleasant here, very pleasant--there are no words to
describe it; but still, it is awkward for us to be all alone,
isn't it? And I regret my uniform also."

"Of course you do! Especially as it is of the fourth class,[40]
so that it makes you dizzy to gaze at the embroidery alone!"

Then they began to urge the peasant: Take them, take them to
Pettifoggers Street! And behold! The peasant, it appeared, even
knew all about Pettifoggers Street; had been there; his mouth
had watered at it, but he had not had a taste of it!

"And we are Generals from Pettifoggers Street, you know!" cried
the Generals joyfully.

"And I, also, if you had only observed; a man hangs outside a
house, in a box, from a rope, and washes the wall with color,
or walks on the roof like a fly. I am that man," replied the
peasant.

And the peasant began to cut capers, as though to amuse his
Generals, because they had been kind to him, an idle sluggard,
and had not scorned his peasant toil. And he built a ship--not
a ship exactly, but a boat--so that they could sail across the
ocean-sea, up to Pettifoggers Street.

"But look to it, you rascal, that you don't drown us!" said the
Generals, when they saw the craft pitching on the waves.

"Be easy, Generals, this is not my first experience," replied
the peasant, and began to make preparations for departure.

The peasant collected soft swansdown, and lined the bottom of
the boat with it; having done this, he placed the Generals on
the bottom, made the sign of the cross over them, and set sail.
The pen cannot describe, neither can the tongue relate, what
terror the Generals suffered during their journey, from storms
and divers winds. But the peasant kept on rowing and rowing,
and fed the Generals on herrings.

At last, behold Mother Nevá, and the splendid Katherine Canal,
and great Pettifoggers Street! The cook-maids clasped their
hands in amazement at the sight of their Generals, so fat,
white, and merry! The Generals drank their coffee, ate rolls
made with milk, eggs, and butter, and put on their uniforms.
Then they went to the treasury, and the pen cannot describe,
neither can the tongue relate, how much money they received
there.

But they did not forget the peasant; they sent him a wineglass
of vódka and a silver five-kopék piece.[41] "Make merry, big,
coarse peasant!"

While Turgéneff represented the "western" and liberal element (with a tinge of the "red") in the school of the '40's, and Gontcharóff stood for the bourgeois and opportunist ideals of the St. Petersburg bureaucrats, Count Lyéff Nikoláevitch Tolstóy penetrated more profoundly into the depths of the spirit of the times than any other writer of the period in the matter of analysis and skepticism which characterized that school, and carried them to the extremes of pitiless logic and radicalness, approaching more closely than any other to democratic and national ideals. But notwithstanding all his genius, Count Tolstóy was not able to free himself to any great extent from his epoch, his environment, his contemporaries. His special talents merely caused him to find it impossible to reconcile himself to the state of affairs existing around him; and so, instead of progressing, he turned back and sought peace of mind and a firm doctrine in the distant past of primitive Christianity. Sincere as he undoubtedly is in his propaganda of self-simplification and self-perfection--one might almost call it "self-annihilation"--his new attitude has wrought great and most regrettable havoc with his later literary work, with some few exceptions.

And yet, in pursuing this course, he did not strike out an entirely new path for himself; his youth was passed in an epoch when the ideal of personal perfection and self-surrender stood in the foreground, and constituted the very essence of Russian progress.

Count L. N. Tolstóy was born on August 28, O. S., 1828 (September 9th, N. S.), in the village of Yásnaya Polyána, in the government of Túla. His mother, born Princess Volkónsky (Márya Nikoláevna), died before he was two years old, and his father's sister, Countess A. T. Osten-Saken, and a distant relative, Madame T. A. Ergólsky, took charge of him. When he was nine years old the family removed to Moscow, and his father died soon afterwards. Lyéff Nikoláevitch, his brother Dmítry, and his sister Márya then returned to the country estate, while his elder brother Nikolái remained in Moscow with Countess Osten-Saken and studied at the University of Moscow. Three years later, the Countess Osten-Saken died, and another aunt on the father's side, Madame P. I. Yúshkoff, who resided in Kazán, became their guardian. Lyéff Nikoláevitch went there to live, and in 1843 he entered the University of Kazán in the philological course, but remained in it only one year, because the professor of history (who had quarreled with Tolstóy's relatives) gave him impossibly bad marks, in addition to which he received bad marks from the professor of German, although he was better acquainted with that language than any other member of his course. He was compelled to change to the law course, where he remained for two years. In 1848 he took the examination for "candidate" in the University of St. Petersburg. "I knew literally nothing," he says of himself, "and I literally began to prepare myself for the examination only one week in advance." He obtained his degree of candidate, or bachelor of arts, and returned to Yásnaya Polyána, where he lived until 1851, when he entered the Forty-fourth Battery of the Twentieth Brigade of Artillery as "yúnker" or supernumerary officer, with no official rank, but eligible to receive a commission as ensign, and thence advance in the service. This battery was stationed on the Térek River, in the Caucasus, and there Tolstóy remained with it until the Crimean War broke out. Thus during the first twenty-six years of his life he spent less than five years in towns, the rest in the country; and this no doubt laid the foundation for his deep love for country life, which has had so profound an effect upon his writings and his views of existence in general.

The dawning of his talent came during the four years he spent in the Caucasus, and he wrote "Childhood," "The Incursion," "Boyhood," "The Morning of a Landed Proprietor," and "The Cossacks." During the Turkish campaign he was ordered to the staff of Prince M. D. Gortchakóff, on the Danube, and in 1855 received the command of a mountain battery, and took part in the fight at Tchérnaya, and the siege of Sevastópol. The literary fruits of this experience were "Sevastópol," in December, May, and August, three sketches.

It is convenient to finish his statistical history at this point with the statement that in 1862 he married, having firmly resolved, two years previously, that he never would do so, and clinched the bargain with himself by selling the big manor-house at Yásnaya Polyána for transportation and re-erection elsewhere. Between that date and 1888 he had a family of fifteen[42] children, of whom seven are still alive.

In his very first efforts in literature we detect certain characteristics which continue to distinguish him throughout his career, and some of which, on attaining their legitimate and logical development seem, to the ordinary reader, to be of extremely recent origin. In "Childhood" and "Boyhood" ("Youth," the third section, was written late in the '50's) we meet the same keen analysis which is a leading feature in his later works, and in them is applied with such effect to women and to the tender passion, neither of which elements enters into his early works in any appreciable degree. He displays the most astounding genius in detecting and understanding the most secret and trivial movements of the human soul. In this respect his methods are those of a miniature painter. Another point must be borne in mind in studying Tolstóy's characters, that, unlike Turgéneff, who is almost exclusively objective, Tolstóy is in the highest degree subjective, and has presented a study of his own life and soul in almost every one of his works, in varying degrees, and combined with widely varying elements. In the same way he has made use of the spiritual and mental state of his relatives. For example, who can fail to recognize a self-portrait from the life in Levín ("Anna Karénin"), and in Prince Andréi Bolkónsky ("War and Peace")? And the feminine characters in these great novels are either simple or composite portraits of his nearest relations, while many of the incidents in both novels are taken straight from their experience or his own, or the two combined.

It is useless to catalogue his many works with their dates in this place. Unquestionably the finest of them (despite the author's present erroneous view, that they constitute a sin and a reproach to him) are his magnificent "War and Peace" and "Anna Karénin." Curiously enough, neither met with prompt or enthusiastic welcome in Russia when they first made their appearance.[43] The public had grown used to the very different methods of the other celebrated romance-writers of the '40's, with whom we have already dealt. Gontcharóff had accustomed them to the delineation of character by broad, sweeping strokes; Dostoévsky to lancet-like thrusts, penetrating the very soul; Turgéneff to tender touches, which produced soft, melting outlines. It was long before they could reconcile themselves to Tolstóy's original mode of painting a vast series of miniature portraits on an immense canvas. But the effect of this procedure was at last recognized to be the very acme of throbbing, breathing life itself. Moreover, it became apparent that Tolstóy's theory of life was, that great generals, statesmen, and as a whole, all active persons who seem or try to control events, do nothing of the kind. Somewhere above, in the unknown, there is a power which guides affairs at its own will, and (here is the special point) deliberately thwarts all the efforts of the active people. According to his philosophy, the self-contained, thoroughly egotistical natures, who are wedded solely to the cult of success, generally pass through this earthly life without any notable disasters; they attend strictly to their own selfish ends, and do not attempt to sway the destinies of others from motives of humanity, patriotism, or anything else in the lofty, self-sacrificing line. On the contrary, the fate of the people who are endowed with tender instincts, who have not allowed self-love to smother their humanity, who are guilty only of striving to attain some lofty, unselfish object in life, are thwarted and repressed, balked and confounded at every turn. This is particularly interesting in view of his latter-day exhortations to men, on the duty of toiling for others, sacrificing everything for others. Nevertheless, it must stand as a monument to the fidelity of his powers of analysis of life in general, and of the individual characters in whose lot he demonstrates his theory.

This contrast between the two conflicting principles, a haughty individualism and peaceable submission to a higher power, of which the concrete representative is the mass of the population, is set forth with especial clearness in "War and Peace," where the two principal heroes, Prince Andréi Bolkónsky and Pierre Bezúkoff, represent individualism.

In "Anna Karénin," in the person of his favorite hero, Konstantín Levín, Tolstóy first enunciates the doctrine of moral regeneration acquired by means of physical labor, and his later philosophical doctrines are the direct development of the views there set forth. He had represented a hero of much earlier days, Prince Nekhliúdoff, in "The Morning of a Landed Proprietor," as convinced that he should make himself of use to his peasants; and he had set forth the result of those efforts in terms which tally wonderfully well with his direct personal comments in "My Confession," of a date long posterior to "Anna Karénin." "Have my peasants become any the richer?" he writes; "have they been educated or developed morally? Not in the slightest degree. They are no better off, and my heart grows more heavy with every passing day. If I could but perceive any success in my undertaking; if I could descry any gratitude--but no; I see false routine, vice, distrust, helplessness! I am wasting the best years of my life in vain."

But Nekhliúdoff--Tolstóy was not alone in devoting himself to his peasants; before he withdrew to the country he had led a gay life in St. Petersburg, after resigning from the army, and in writing his fine peasant story, "Polikúshka," setting up peasant-schools on his estate, and the like, he was merely paying his tribute to the spirit of the time (which reached him even in his seclusion), and imitating the innumerable village schools and Sunday schools in the capitals (for secular instruction of the laboring classes who were too busy for education during the week) in which the aristocratic and educated classes in general took a lively interest.[44] But the leisure afforded by country life enabled him to compose his masterpieces. "War and Peace," which was begun in 1864, was published serially in "The Russian Messenger," beginning in 1865, and in book form in 1869, and "Anna Karénin," which was published serially in the same journal, in 1875-1876. His style is not to be compared to that of Turgéneff, with its exquisite harmony, art, and sense of proportion. Tolstóy writes carelessly, frequently repeats himself, not infrequently expresses himself ambiguously or obscurely. But the supreme effect is produced, nevertheless.

At last came the diametrical change of views, apparently, which led to this supreme artist's discarding his art, and devoting himself to religious and philosophical writings for which neither nature nor his training had fitted him. He himself dates this change from the middle of the '70's, and it must be noted that precisely at this period that strong movement called "going to the people," i. e., devoting one's self to the welfare of the peasants, became epidemic in Russian society. Again, as fifteen or twenty years previously, Count Tolstóy was merely swept onward by the popular current. But his first pamphlet on his new propaganda is ten years later than the date he assigns to the change. Thereafter for many years he devoted his chief efforts to this new class of work, "Life," "What Is to Be Done?" "My Confession," and so forth, being the more bulky outcome. Some of the stories, written for the people during this interval, are delightful, both in tone and artistic qualities. Others are surcharged with "morals," which in many cases either directly conflict with the moral of other stories in the same volume, or even with the secondary moral of the same story. Even his last work--"in my former style," as he described it--"Resurrection," has special doctrines and aims too emphatically insisted upon to permit of the reader deriving from it the pure literary pleasure afforded by his masterpieces. In short, with all due respect to the entire sincerity of this magnificent writer, it must be said that those who would enjoy and appreciate him rightly, should ignore his philosophico-religious treatises, which are contradictory and confusing to the last degree. As an illustration, let me cite the case of the famine in Russia of 1891-92. Great sums of money[45] were sent to Count Tolstóy, chiefly from America, and were expended by him in the most practicable and irreproachable manner--so any one would have supposed--for the relief of the starving peasants. Count Tolstóy and his assistants lived the life of the peasants, and underwent severe hardships; the Count even fell ill, and his wife was obliged to go to him and nurse him. It would seem that his conscience had no cause for reproach, and that the situation was an ideal one for him. But before that famine was well over, or the funds expended, he wrote a letter to a London newspaper, in which he declared that helping people by means of money was all wrong--positively a sin. He felt that collecting and distributing money was not the best thing of which he was capable, and called it "making a pipe of one's self," personal service with brains, heart, and muscles being the only right service for God or man. This service he certainly rendered, and without the money he could not have rendered it.

Nothing could more perfectly illustrate this point of view than the following little story, written in 1881, called "The Two Brothers and the Gold."

In ancient times there lived not far from Jerusalem two
brothers, the elder Afanásy, the younger Ioánn. They dwelt on a
hill not far from the town, and subsisted on what people gave
them. Every day the brothers spent in work. They did not toil
at their own work, but at the work of the poor. Wherever there
were men overwhelmed with work, wherever there were sick
people, orphans and widows, thither went the brothers, and
there they toiled and nursed the people, accepting no
remuneration. In this wise did the brothers pass the whole week
apart, and met only on Saturday evening in their abode. Only on
Sunday did they remain at home, praying and chatting together.
And the angel of the Lord descended to them and blessed them.
On Monday they parted and each went his way. Thus the two
brothers lived for many years, and every week the angel of the
Lord came down and blessed them.