Chapter X: Nearing the Crisis (1)

Fet's poem. Franco-Prussian war. Studies Greek. Effect on health. Railways. Koumýs cure in Samára. Mouhamet-Dzhan. An expedition. 'Milk-loving Scythians.' Buys estate. Molokáns. Tourgénef's interest. _ABC_ Book. House enlarged. On future life. Re-starts school. Preparation of _ABC_ Book. Astronomy. _A Prisoner in the Caucasus._ _God Sees the Truth._ Ceremonial rites. Stráhof and the _ABC_ Book. Samára. Bull kills keeper. Teachers' Congress at Yásnaya. A letter in verse. Peter the Great. A suicide. _Anna Karénina._ Mouhamed Shah. Samára famine. Kramskóy's portrait. Death of son, Peter. Addresses Moscow Society of Literacy. A practical demonstration. Test schools. _The Fatherland Journal: On the Education of the People._ Mihaylóvsky. 'A University in bark shoes.' Toúla Zémstvo Education Committee. Tourgénef translates Tolstoy. Birth of a son. Death of Aunt Tatiána. _ABC_ Book approved. Wife's health. _Anna Karénina._ Death of a son. Tourgénef on Tolstoy's writings. Samára. Primitive agriculture. Fête and horse races. Bashkír life. Education of his children. Exercises and playfulness. Croquet. 'Numidian cavalry.' Birth and death of a daughter. Aunt P. I. Úshkof dies. Letters to Fet. Nirvana and Sansara. _Anna Karénina._ 'Summer condition.' Horse-breeding. Loss of Gouneba. Music. P. I. Tschaikóvsky. At the Conservatoire. Folk-songs. Beethoven. Tolstoy on art. Approach of war. Rupture with Katkóf. The Evangelicals. An epitaph. Professor Boutleróf. The Deity. Óptin Monastery. A folk-story teller. Turkish prisoners. Son, Andrew, born. Ill-health. _The Decembrists._ 'Martha is troubled.' Reconciliation with Tourgénef. Samára. Tourgénef at Yásnaya. Their relations still not cordial. Pilgrims. N. Tchaykóvsky. Mihaylóvsky's forecast. V. I. Alexéyef.

1870

As he grew older Tolstoy's love of outdoor exercise tended more towards activity serving a useful productive purpose, and one finds a hint of this in the following letter to Fet, dated 11th May 1870:

I received your letter, dear friend, when returning perspiring home
from work, with axe and spade, and when therefore I was a thousand
miles from things artistic in general, and from our business in
particular. On opening the letter I first read the poem and felt a
sensation in my nose. On coming home to my wife I tried to read it
to her, but could not do so for tears of emotion. The poem is one
of those rare ones in which not a word could be added or subtracted
or altered: it is a live thing, and admirable....

I have just served for a week as juryman, and found it very
interesting and instructive.

The next letter refers to the fact that Tolstoy did his best literary work in winter, when he often spent almost the whole day, and sometimes part of the night, at it; that was the time when his 'sap flowed':

_2 Oct. 1870._

It is long since we met, and in my winter condition, which I am now
entering, I am specially glad to see you. I have been shooting; but
the sap is beginning to flow, and I am collecting it as it drips.
Whether it be good or bad sap, it is pleasant to let it flow in
these long wonderful autumn evenings.... A grief has befallen me;
the mare is ill. The veterinary says her wind has been broken, but
I cannot have broken it.

The Franco-Prussian war, which commenced at this time, interested Tolstoy keenly. He had come into contact with the French, in the Crimea, before the Napoleonic autocracy had long held sway; and he had visited France in 1857 and 1860, before the effect of that putrescent influence had become fully apparent. Neither the idea of German national unity, nor Bismarck's and Moltke's ideal of efficient organisation and discipline, were things that much appealed to Tolstoy. So it happened that not only were all his sympathies on the side of the French, but he also felt assured of their triumph. His friend Prince Ouroúsof used to write letters to Katkóf's _Moscow Gazette_ demonstrating by analogies with games of chess, that the French were continually drawing the German armies into more and more desperate positions in which they must soon be quite destroyed. When, on the contrary, the French were utterly defeated, it came to him as a complete surprise; which all tends to illustrate the fact that men of great intellectual power, living isolated on their country estates, may at times go very considerably wrong in their estimate of the trend of some of the forces that influence the world.

On 12 February 1871 a daughter was born, who was christened Mary. In later life she, of all his children, was the one most deeply influenced by her father's teaching. The Countess, who, as already mentioned, made a point of nursing her own children, owing to the neglect of an attendant, became unable to do so in this instance before the child was many weeks old, and a wet-nurse was engaged; but as soon as the mother saw her child at a stranger's breast she burst into a flood of jealous tears, dismissed the nurse on the spot, and ordered the child to be fed with a bottle. Tolstoy, when he heard what had happened, declared that his wife had only shown the jealous affection natural to a true mother.

1870-71

During that winter Tolstoy devoted himself strenuously to the study of Greek. On hearing of this, Fet felt so sure that Tolstoy would not succeed, that he announced his readiness to devote his own skin for parchment for Tolstoy's diploma of proficiency when the latter should have qualified himself to receive it. Accordingly, in December, Tolstoy wrote him as follows:

I received your letter a week ago, but have not answered because
from morning to night I am learning Greek. I am writing nothing,
only learning; and to judge by information reaching me through
Borísof, your skin (to be used as parchment for my diploma in
Greek) is in some danger. Improbable and astounding as it may seem,
I have read Xenophon, and can now read him at sight. For Homer,
a dictionary and some effort is still necessary. I eagerly await
a chance of showing this new trick to some one. But how glad I
am that God sent this folly upon me! In the first place I enjoy
it; and secondly, I have become convinced that of all that human
language has produced truly beautiful and simply beautiful, I knew
nothing (like all the others who know but do not understand); and
thirdly, because I have ceased to write, and never more will write,
wordy rubbish. I am guilty of having done so; but by God I won't
do it any more! Explain to me, for Heaven's sake, why no one knows
Esop's fables, or even delightful Xenophon, not to mention Plato
and Homer, whom I still have before me? In so far as I can as yet
judge, our translations, made on German models, only spoil Homer.
To use a banal but involuntary comparison: they are like boiled
and distilled water, while he is like water fresh from the spring,
striking the teeth with its sun-lit sparkle: even its specks only
making it seem still clearer and fresher.... You may triumph:
without a knowledge of Greek, there is no education. But what kind
of knowledge? How is it to be got? What is the use of it? To this I
have replies clear as daylight.

1871

S. A. Behrs tells us, 'I know for a fact that he learnt the language and read Herodotus in three months.' While in Moscow that winter, he visited Leóntief, then Professor of Greek at the Katkóf Lyceum, to talk about Greek literature. Leóntief did not wish to believe in the possibility of his having learnt Greek so rapidly, and proposed that they should read something at sight. It happened that they differed as to the meaning of three passages; but after a little discussion the Professor admitted that the Count's interpretations were right.

Tolstoy felt the charm of the literary art of the ancient world, and so keen was his power of entering into the minds of those of whom he read, and so different to his own was the Greek outlook upon life, that the contradiction produced in him a feeling of melancholy and apathy profound enough to affect his health.

What clash of ideals it was that produced this result we may guess when we consider how from his earliest years he had been attracted by the Christian ideal of meekness, humility, and self-sacrifice, and how little this accords with the outlook on life of the ancient Greeks. In a book written nearly forty years later, Tolstoy tells us that 'If, as was the case among the Greeks, religion places the meaning of life in earthly happiness, in beauty and in strength, then art successfully transmitting the joy and energy of life, would be considered good art' [good, that is, in its subject-matter of feeling conveyed] but art transmitting the opposite feelings would be bad art.[51] Again in the same work he says that the esthetic theory he is combating, seeks to make it appear 'that the very best that can be done by the art of nations after 1900 years of Christian teaching, is to choose as the ideal of life the ideal held by a small, semi-savage, slave-holding people who lived 2000 years ago, imitated the nude human body extremely well, and erected buildings pleasant to look at.'[52]

[51] _What is Art?_ p. 54: Constable, London, and Funk and
Wagnalls Co., New York.

[52] _Ibid._, p. 65.

To wean him from his absorption in Greek literature, his wife at first urged him to take up some fresh literary work; and finally, becoming seriously alarmed for his health, induced him to go eastward for a koumýs cure. He wrote to Fet at this time:

_10 June 1871._

DEAR FRIEND,--I have long not written to you, nor been to see you,
because I was, and still am, ill. I don't myself know what is the
matter with me, but it seems like something bad or good, according
to the name we give to our exit. Loss of strength, and a feeling
that one needs nothing and wants nothing but quiet, which one has
not got. My wife is sending me to Samára or Sarátof for two months
for a koumýs cure. I leave for Moscow to-day, and shall there learn
where I am to go to.

In Moscow it was decided that he should go to the part of Samára he had visited before.

Railways have always been an affliction to Tolstoy. Civilisation has forced them on him without his wish, and, as he argued in his educational articles, to the detriment of the peasant population. Personally, he complained of disagreeable sensations he experienced when travelling by rail, and compared these discomforts with the pleasure of riding on horseback. He objected both to the officious politeness of the conductors and to the way in which the passengers suspiciously shun one another. (This latter complaint is not one a Westerner would bring against Russians, for they appear to us the most friendly and sociable of fellow-travellers.) He used to insist on his wife always travelling first class. He himself went either first or third, but seldom second. To travel third is a more serious matter in Russia than in England; and he used purposely to choose a car in which there were peasants, and talked to all whom he met.

On this outward journey he went third class, by rail to Nízhni Nóvgorod and by steamer down the Vólga to the town of Samára. On the boat he took the opportunity to study the manners and customs of his fellow-passengers, natives of the Vólga district, and displayed his remarkable gift of making friends with people of all kinds. Before he had been two days on the boat he was on the friendliest terms with everybody, including the sailors, among whom he slept each night in the fore part of the vessel. Even when he met reserved or surly characters, it was not long before he drew them out of their shells, and set them chatting at their ease. One secret of this success was the unaffected interest he took in learning about other people's lives and affairs.

From Samára Tolstoy went eastward for eighty miles on horseback, following the banks of the river Karalýk till he reached the village of that name. He had lived there in 1862, and was welcomed as an old acquaintance and friend by the Bashkírs, who always spoke of him as 'The Count.' The reader will remember that at the University Tolstoy had studied oriental languages. His knowledge of Tartar no doubt increased his popularity with the Bashkírs. He had with him a man-servant, and his brother-in-law, Stepán Andréyevitch Behrs, then a lad of about sixteen, who subsequently in his _Recollections_ gave many particulars about this outing. They lived, not in the 'winter village' of Karalýk, but about one-and-a-half miles away, in a _kotchévka_ on the open steppe. A _kotchévka_ is a conical tent, made of a collapsible wooden frame covered with large sheets of felt. It has a small painted door, and is usually carpeted with soft feather grass. The one in which Tolstoy's party lived, was a very large one which he hired from the Mullah (priest). It had formerly been used as a mosque, but had the practical disadvantage of not being rain-proof. There were four _kotchévki_ in the neighbourhood, one of which was occupied by the Mullah.

On first arriving at Karalýk, Tolstoy for some days felt very depressed and unwell. He complained that he lacked capacity to feel either mental or physical pleasure, and looked at everything 'as though he were a corpse': a characteristic usually most foreign to him, and which in other people always evoked his dislike. It was, however, not long before he recovered his spirits and energy.

There were other visitors at Karalýk, who had also come to benefit by a koumýs cure. They neither associated with the Bashkír nomads, nor adopted their customs; but Tolstoy was extremely fond of the Bashkírs, associated much with them, and strictly followed their diet: avoiding all vegetable foods and restricting himself to meat and animal products. Dinner every day consisted chiefly of mutton eaten with the fingers out of wooden bowls.

Some of the Russian visitors lived in one of the _kotchévki_, but most of them lodged in the 'winter village.' Tolstoy soon made friends with them all, and thanks to his genial influence the whole place grew gay and lively. A professor of Greek from a Seminary for the education of priests might be seen trying a skipping-rope match with him; a procureur's assistant discussed legal and other questions, and there was a young Samára farmer who became his devoted follower.

Among those who specially interested Tolstoy was Mouhamet-Dzhan, the Bashkír Elder, whom the Russian peasants called Michael Ivánovitch. This man was very nimble and active, full of humour, fond of a joke, and a very strong player at draughts.

Accompanied by Behrs and two of their new acquaintances, and taking a supply of guns and presents, Tolstoy went for a four days' drive through the neighbouring villages. The party had splendid duck-shooting by the lakes they passed; and they were entertained and treated to koumýs by the Bashkírs at the _kotchévkas_ in which they rested. As opportunity presented itself, they made suitable acknowledgment for their entertainment by giving presents to their hosts. One serious drawback to the hospitality they enjoyed was the fact that their hosts insisted on feeding them with mutton and fat with their own hands, without the intermediacy of fork or spoon, and it was out of the question to insult them by refusing such well-meant though quite undesired attentions.

On one occasion Tolstoy happened to admire a horse that had separated from its herd, and remarked to Behrs, 'See what a beautiful specimen of milking mare that is.' When, an hour later, they were taking leave, their host tied this animal to their conveyance, thus presenting it to his visitor. Of course, on the return journey, Tolstoy had to make an equivalent present in return.

Another incident of this stay in the Government of Samára, was a visit to the Petróvsky Fair, which is held once a year at Bouzouloúk, a small town some fifty miles from Karalýk. Here Russians, Bashkírs, Oural Cossacks, and Kirghiz mingled with one another; and Tolstoy was soon on a friendly footing with them all. He would chat and laugh with them even when they were drunk; but when one in that condition took it into his head to embrace the Count, Tolstoy's look was so stern and impressive that the fellow drew back his hands and let them fall, saying, 'No, never mind, it's all right!'

The following letter of 18th July 1871, to Fet, relates to Tolstoy's experience of the nomadic Bashkírs:

Thank you for your letter, dear friend! It seems that my wife
gave a false alarm when she packed me off for a koumýs cure and
persuaded me that I was ill. At any rate now, after four weeks, I
seem to have quite recovered. And as is proper when one is taking
a koumýs cure, I am drunk and sweat from morn to night, and find
pleasure in it. It is very good here, and were it not for family
home-sickness, I should be quite happy. Were I to begin describing,
I should fill a hundred pages with this country and my own
occupations. I am reading Herodotus, who describes in detail and
with great accuracy these same galactophagous [gluttonous-for-milk]
Scythians among whom I am living.

I began this letter yesterday, and wrote that I was well. To-day my
side aches again. I do not myself know in how far I am ill, but it
is bad that I am obliged to think--and cannot help thinking--about
my side and my chest. This is the third day that the heat has been
terrible. In the _kibítka_ [tent] it is as hot as on the shelf of a
Russian bath, but I like it. The country here is beautiful--in its
age just emerging from virginity, in its richness, its health, and
especially in its simplicity and its unperverted population. Here
as everywhere I am looking round for an estate to buy. This affords
me an occupation, and is the best excuse for getting to know the
real condition of the district.

After a six weeks' stay Tolstoy returned to Yásnaya, travelling first class on the return journey.

His search for an estate had been successful, and after persuading his wife that the investment was a sound one, he purchased two thousand acres on his return to Moscow.

The change of scene, or some other influence, weakened Tolstoy's absorption in Greek literature; and a huge dictionary he had taken with him, was used by his brother-in-law to press a collection of local wildflowers.

During his wanderings on the steppe, Tolstoy met many Molokáns, members of a kind of Bible-Christian peasant sect. They base their faith on the Bible, reject the Greek Church with its traditions, priesthood, dogmas, ritual, sacraments, and icons. The name Molokán, or Milk-Drinker, probably arose from the fact that, not observing the Russian fasts, these people do not scruple to drink milk in Lent. They are said to be distinguished by an honesty and industry not found among their Orthodox neighbours; and they abstain from all intoxicants.

It interested Tolstoy to mix with these people, and he liked to discuss their beliefs, especially with a venerable leader of theirs, named Aggéy. It so happened that in the neighbouring village of Pátrovka there was a very worthy young Russian priest, who was eager to convert the Molokáns, and occasionally arranged debates with them on religious subjects. Tolstoy sometimes attended these debates: his object being not so much to convert the Molokáns, as to understand the points on which they differed from the Russo-Greek Church. He also took an interest in the Mohammedan faith of his Bashkír friends, and on his return to Yásnaya read through a French translation of the Koran.

A few years later Tolstoy associated much with the representatives of various sects and faiths, being then profoundly interested in their beliefs; but at this time, his interest in such matters was only beginning to make itself felt.

A letter of Tourgénef's written at this period, indicates how little he allowed his quarrel with Tolstoy the man, to warp his appreciation of Tolstoy the artist. Writing to Fet on 2nd July 1871, he says:

Your letter again grieves me--I refer to what you write about
L. Tolstoy. I have great fears on his account, for two of his
brothers died of consumption, and I am very glad he is taking a
koumýs cure, in the reality and efficacy of which I have faith. L.
Tolstoy is the only hope of our orphaned literature; he cannot and
must not vanish from the face of the earth as prematurely as his
predecessors: Poúshkin, Lérmontof and Gógol.

Again in November, writing from Paris, he says:

I am very glad that Tolstoy's health is now satisfactory and that
he is at work. Whatever he does will be good, if only he does not
himself mutilate his own handiwork. Philosophy, which he hates, has
revenged herself on him in a strange way: she has infected him,
and the enemy of rationalising has plunged head over ears into
rationalisation! But perhaps all _that_ has fallen away from him by
now, and left only the pure and powerful artist.

On returning home from Samára improved in health, Tolstoy turned his thoughts once more to matters educational: especially to the crying want of good primers for those beginning to read. We have seen how strongly, in 1862, he had felt the need of well-written books simple enough for beginners and peasant readers, and how he resented the monopolisation of knowledge by the cultured classes entrenched behind barriers of pedantry. We have seen, too, how under the influence of Homer he swore he would no more write 'wordy rubbish'; and the time had now come for this feeling to bear fruit. The task to which he devoted his powers at their zenith, was the production of an _ABC_ Book for beginners, which was to be as simple, sincere and perfect in form and in subject-matter as possible.

We know from the writings of the American Consul, Mr. Eugene Schuyler, who visited Tolstoy in 1868, and at his request obtained for him a collection of American school primers, that Tolstoy was even then meditating a work of the kind to which he now devoted himself ardently for a whole year. By September he was hard at work, the Countess as usual acting as his amanuensis.

Of her we hear that in an impulsive, kind-hearted way, she often rendered assistance to the poor, not merely among the Yásnaya Polyána peasants, but to others from a distance as well; and that the neighbouring peasants thought well of her.

The increase in the Tolstoy family was met this year by a considerable enlargement of their domicile. By way of a house-warming to celebrate the completion of the building, a masquerade was arranged at Christmas, at which Tolstoy evoked great enthusiasm by appearing as a goat.

About this time, at the age of sixteen, Behrs and a school friend of his became sorely troubled as to the state of their souls, and thought of entering a monastery. This is what he tells us of Tolstoy's relation to the matter:

His attitude towards my inclination was a most cautious one. I
often went to him with my doubts and questions, but he always
managed to avoid expressing his opinion, knowing how very great
an influence it would have with me. He left it to me to work out
my own convictions. Once, however, he spoke out with sufficient
plainness. We were riding past the village church where his parents
lie buried. Two horses were grazing in the churchyard. We had been
talking over the only subject that then interested me.

'How can a man live in peace,' I asked, 'so long as he has not
solved the question of a future life?'

'You see those two horses grazing there,' he answered; 'are they
not laying up for a future life?'

'But I am speaking of our spiritual, not our earthly life.'

'Indeed? Well, about that, I neither know nor can know anything.'

1872

Immediately after New Year he re-started his school; and the children (who often numbered thirty to thirty-five) met, not as formerly in another building, but in the hall of the Tolstoys' enlarged house. In the mornings the Countess taught her own children, and in the afternoon she, her husband, and even seven-year-old Tánya and eight-year-old Sergius, taught the peasant children, who came only then, but yet made satisfactory progress, being stimulated by the personal interest the Tolstoys took in them, by the pedagogic genius of the Count, and by a perception that education is a rare and valuable luxury, which seldom comes within the reach of Russian peasants.

In the _ABC_ Book Tolstoy gives several autobiographical stories of how he learned to ride, and of his dogs Milton and Boúlka. Easy as these are, they are admirably written, and combine brevity and simplicity with sincerity; though their sincerity lies not in telling the facts just as they occurred, but in the truth of the feeling conveyed to the reader. Besides these and other stories, popular historical sketches, and a number of translations and adaptations from _Esop's Fables_ and from Indian, Hebrew and Arabic sources, the work contains some popular ballads or folk-stories in verse. To get these poems as perfect as possible, he studied and collated all the versions of them he could collect.

The section on Arithmetic gave him an immense amount of work, for he would not content himself with the usual explanations of the various operations, but devised explanations of his own.

The book contains some elementary natural science, and for the preparation of this, Tolstoy, besides examining all sorts of text-books, consulted specialists on the various subjects, and himself carefully performed most of the experiments he described.

To select the readings in the Church-Slavonic language, he perused the monkish chronicles and the Lives of the Saints.

Intending to include some readings on astronomy, he took up that study himself, and became so interested in it that he sometimes sat up all night examining the stars.

When the news spread that Tolstoy was writing stories for his _ABC_ Book, the magazine editors besieged him with demands, and the first bits of the book to see the light were _A Prisoner in the Caucasus_, which appeared in one of the monthlies in February, and _God Sees the Truth_, which came out in another monthly in March.

Owing to some mismanagement, Tolstoy received nothing for the periodical rights of either of these stories, which in _What is Art?_ he names as the best of all his works. They (as well as _The Bear Hunt_, also from the _ABC_ Book) are given in English in _Twenty-three Tales_, previously referred to. In rendering them, I did my best to retain the brief simplicity of the originals; but where Russian customs were alluded to, some of that simplicity was inevitably lost.

With what pleasure Tolstoy looks back to this part of his life's work, was indicated by a remark he made to me in 1902. Speaking of the popularity of _A Prisoner in the Caucasus_ for public readings to the peasants, he added with evident satisfaction, that when _A Prisoner in the Caucasus_ is now mentioned, it is always taken for granted that it is his little story, and not Poúshkin's famous poem of the same name, that is referred to.

Since their first appearance, these two stories have sold by hundreds of thousands in separate editions at three to ten copecks (about a penny or twopence) each, besides appearing in the _Readers_ and among Tolstoy's collected works.

In the following letter to Fet we get a vivid glimpse of the thoughts on life's deepest problems, which were before long to fill Tolstoy's mind completely.

_30 Jan. 1872._

It is some days since I received your kind but sad letter, and not
till to-day do I settle down to answer it.

It is a sad letter, for you write that Tútchef is dying, and that
there is a rumour that Tourgénef is dead; and about yourself you
say the machine is wearing out and you want quietly to think of
Nirvana. Please let me know quickly whether this is a false alarm.
I hope it is, and that, in the absence of Márya Petróvna, you have
taken slight symptoms for a return of your terrible illness.

In Nirvana there is nothing to laugh at; still less is there
cause for anger. We all (I, at least) feel that it is much more
interesting than life; but I agree that however much I may
think about it, I can think of nothing else than that Nirvana
is nothingness. I only stand up for one thing: religious
reverence--awe of that Nirvana.

There is, at any rate, nothing more important than it.

What do I mean by religious reverence? I mean this: I lately
went to see my brother, and a child of his had died and was
being buried. The priests were there, and a small pink coffin,
and everything as it should be. My brother and I involuntarily
confessed to one another that we felt something like repulsion
towards ceremonial rites. But afterwards I thought, 'Well, but what
should my brother do to remove the putrefying body of the child
from the house? How is one to finish the matter decently?' There is
no better way (at least, I could devise none) than to do it with
a requiem and incense. How is it to be when we grow weak and die?
Is nature to take her course, are we to ... and nothing else? That
would not be well. One wishes fully to express the gravity and
importance, the solemnity and religious awe of that occurrence, the
most important in every man's life. And I also can devise nothing
more seemly for people of all ages and all degrees of development,
than a religious observance. For me at least those Slavonic words
evoke quite the same metaphysical ecstasy as one experiences when
one thinks of Nirvana. Religion is wonderful, in that she has for
so many ages rendered to so many millions of people these same
services--the greatest anything human can render in this matter.
With such a task, how can she be logical? Yes--there is something
in her. Only to you do I allow myself to write such letters; but
I wished to write, and I feel sad, especially after your letter.
Please write soon about your health.--Your

LEO TOLSTOY.

I am terribly dispirited. The work I have begun is fearfully hard,
there is no end to the preparatory study necessary. The plan of the
work is ever increasing, and my strength, I feel, grows less and
less. One day I am well, and three days I am ill.

The work here referred to as 'fearfully hard' was a study of the reign of Peter the Great, in preparation for a novel treating of that period.

On 20th February he again wrote to Fet:

I may not correspond with my friends for years at a time, but when
my friend is in trouble, it is terribly shameful and painful not
to know of it.... Now, being in Moscow, I wished to call on the
Bótkins to hear about you, but I fell ill myself, took to my bed,
and it was all I could do to get home. Now I am better. At home all
is well; but you will not recognise our house: we have been using
the new extension all winter. Another novelty is that I have again
started a school. My wife and children and I all teach and are all
contented. I have finished my _ABC_ Book and am printing it....

The next letter shows that his hope that he had finished the _ABC_ Book was premature:

_16 March 1872._

How I wish to see you; but I cannot come, I am still ill.... My
_ABC_ Book gives me no peace for any other occupation. The printing
advances on the feet of a tortoise, and the deuce knows when it
will be finished, and I am still adding and omitting and altering.
What will come of it I know not; but I have put my whole soul into
it.

In May 1872 the Countess gave birth to another boy, who was christened Peter.

The Moscow firm who were printing the book for Tolstoy were not able to give him satisfaction. Not only was the printing a matter of difficulty owing to the variety of type required for a school-book of this kind, but Tolstoy, in accord with his invariable practice, revised the work time after time while it was going through the press. At last, in May, he wrote to his trusty friend and admirer, N. Stráhof, saying that after four months' labour the printing was 'not only not finished, but had not even begun,' and begging Stráhof to have the book printed in Petersburg, and to take on himself for ample payment the whole task of revising the proofs. After some correspondence matters were arranged, though Stráhof declined to accept any payment for the help he rendered.

Tolstoy explained to his friend that he wanted to make a profit on the book if possible. As a rule, all Tolstoy's later teaching seems to grow out of his experience of life; but it would be hard for any one to work more conscientiously than Tolstoy laboured over this book, and yet in later life he speaks as though any admixture of mercenary motives is sure to be fatal to good literary work. We here seem, therefore, to come upon an exception to that rule.

Stráhof's assistance enabled Tolstoy (though he continued to give most careful instructions with regard to the treatment of the various sections of the book) to get a much needed change; and after having as usual worked during the winter and spring up to the very limit of his strength, he went for a short visit to his Samára estate, where he arranged about building, and about breaking up the virgin soil. A peasant from Yásnaya village was appointed steward of the new estate, and was instructed to see to the building of the house there. Being far away from home Tolstoy was anxious about his _ABC_ Book; so he cut short his stay, and returned to Yásnaya before the end of July. There he learned that a fine young bull of his had gored its keeper to death. The unpleasantness of such an occurrence and of the legal investigation consequent on the man's death, was greatly increased by the fact that the Investigating Magistrate, an incompetent and arrogant young official, wrongly held Tolstoy responsible for 'careless holding of cattle,' and, besides commencing criminal proceedings against him, obliged him to give a written undertaking not to leave Yásnaya. Prince D. D. Obolénsky tells how Tolstoy arrived one day at a meet at the Prince's estate of Schahovskóy (some thirty miles from Yásnaya) late and much upset, and told of an examination he had that morning undergone at the hands of the Investigating Magistrate, whose duties included those of Coroner. 'Being an excitable man,' says Obolénsky, 'Tolstoy was extremely indignant at the Magistrate's conduct, and told how the latter had kept a Yásno-Polyána peasant in prison for a year-and-a-half on suspicion of having stolen a cow, which then turned out to have been stolen by some one else. "He will confine me for a year," added Tolstoy. "It is absurd, and shows how utterly arbitrary these gentlemen are. I shall sell all I have in Russia and go to England, where every man's person is respected. Here every police-officer, if one does not grovel at his feet, can play one the dirtiest tricks!"'

P. F. Samárin, who had also come to the hunt, opposed Tolstoy with animation, arguing that the death or even the mutilation of a man, was so serious a matter that it could not be left without judicial investigation. After long argument Samárin more or less convinced Tolstoy, and the latter before retiring to rest remarked to Obolénsky, 'What a wonderful power of calming people Samárin has!'

The judicial proceedings dragged on for more than a month, and it was not till late in September that Tolstoy was again free to take a journey to Moscow. The proceedings, first against him and then against his steward, were abandoned; but not before the newspapers had taken the matter up and made a fuss about it.

At last, in November, the _ABC_ Book was published. It sold slowly, and was attacked by some of the papers. Tolstoy however was not discouraged, but held to his belief that (as he expressed it to Stráhof) he had 'erected a monument'--a conviction amply justified by the ultimate success of the work. He had indeed produced a reading-book far superior to anything that had previously existed in Russia, and that is probably unmatched in any language. With certain modifications to be mentioned later on, it continues to circulate throughout Russia to the present day.

In connection with his other efforts to popularise his system of instruction, Tolstoy, in October 1872, invited a dozen teachers from neighbouring schools to visit him for a week at Yásnaya. They were accommodated in his second house (called, as is customary in Russian when speaking of a subsidiary residence, 'the wing'); and a number of illiterate boys were collected from villages within reach, to be taught on Tolstoy's lines. He also formed a project of establishing a 'University in bark shoes' [the country peasants wear bark shoes] or in other words, a training college in which peasants could become teachers without ceasing to be peasants. This plan occupied his attention, off and on, for some years; but (owing to causes which will be related later) never came to fruition.

In December Tourgénef writes from Paris, to Fet:

I got a copy of L. Tolstoy's ABC, but except the beautiful story,
_A Prisoner in the Caucasus_, I did not find anything interesting
in it. And the price is absurdly dear for a work of that kind.

The price of the first edition of 3000 copies of the _ABC_ was Rs. 2 (about 5s. 6d.). Tourgénef probably had no idea of the immense labour, or of the typographical difficulties, involved in its production. The subsequent editions were much cheaper.

About this time Fet sent Tolstoy a letter in rhyme, to which the latter replied as follows:

_12 November 1872._

The causeless shame felt by the onion
Before the sweetly-scented rose,
My dearest Fet, I should be feeling,
Were I to answer you in prose.

And yet in maiden verse replying,
By sad misgivings I'm beset:
The when and where, yourself please settle--
But come and visit us, dear Fet.

Tho' drought may parch the rye and barley.
Yet still I shall not feel upset
If I but spend a day enjoying
Your conversation, dearest Fet!

Too apt we often are to worry;
O'er future ills let us not fret:
Sufficient for the day, its evil--
It's best to think so, dearest Fet!

Joking apart, write quickly and let me know when to send horses to
the station to meet you. I want to see you terribly.

Having at last got his _ABC_ off his hands, Tolstoy resumed his preliminary labours for a large novel, which was to deal with the period of Peter the Great. On 19th November 1872 the Countess wrote to her brother:

Our life just now is very, very serious. All day we are occupied.
Leo sits surrounded by a pile of portraits, pictures and books,
engrossed in reading, marking passages and taking notes. In the
evening, when the children have gone to bed, he tells me his plans,
and what he means to write. At times he is quite discouraged, falls
into despair, and thinks nothing will ever come of it. At other
times he is on the point of setting ardently to work; but as yet I
cannot say he has actually written anything, he is still preparing.

A month later she wrote:

As usual we are all of us very busy. The winter is the working time
for us proprietors, just as much as summer is for the peasants. Leo
is still reading historical books of the time of Peter the Great,
and is much interested in them. He notes down the characters of
various people, their traits, as well as the way of life of the
boyars and the peasants, and Peter's activity. He does not yet know
what will come of it all, but it seems to me we shall have another
prose poem like _War and Peace_; but of the time of Peter the Great.

1873

A few months later he definitely abandoned the project. His opinion of Peter the Great ran directly counter to the popular one, and he felt out of sympathy with the whole epoch. He declared there was nothing great about the personality or activity of Peter, whose qualities were all bad. His so-called reforms, far from aiming at the welfare of the people, aimed simply at his own personal advantage. He founded Petersburg because the boyars, who were influential and consequently dangerous to him, disapproved of the changes he made, and because he wished to be free to follow an immoral mode of life. The changes and reforms he introduced were borrowed from Saxony, where the laws were most cruel, and the morals most dissolute--all of which particularly pleased him. This, Tolstoy holds, explains Peter's friendship with the Elector of Saxony, who was among the most immoral of rulers. He also considers that Peter's intimacy with the pieman Ménshikof and with the Swiss deserter Lefort, is explained by the contempt in which Peter was held by all the boyars, among whom he could not find men willing to share his dissolute life. Most of all, Tolstoy was revolted by the murder of Peter's son Alexis, in which crime Tolstoy's own ancestor had played a very prominent part.

Almost simultaneously with the abandonment of the project to which he had devoted so much time and attention, Tolstoy, without any special preparation, began to write his second great novel, _Anna Karénina_.

The year before, a lady named Anna who lived with Bíbikof, a neighbouring squire mentioned on a previous page, had committed suicide by throwing herself under a train, out of jealousy of Bíbikof's attentions to their governess. Tolstoy knew all the details of the affair, and had been present at the post-mortem. This supplied him with a theme; but it was not till March 1873, and then as it were by accident, that he actually began to write the book. One day a volume of Poúshkin happened to be lying open at the commencement of _A Fragment_, which begins with the words, 'The guests had arrived at the country house.' Tolstoy, noticing this, remarked to those present that these words, plunging at once into the midst of things, are a model of how a story should begin. Some one then laughingly suggested that he should begin a novel in that way; and Tolstoy at once started on _Anna Karénina_, the second sentence, and first narrative sentence, of which is, 'All was in confusion in the Oblónskys' house.'

In May Tolstoy and his whole family went for a three months' visit to Samára, where he had recently purchased some more land.

This summer he hired a Bashkír named Mouhamed Shah, who owned and brought with him a herd of milking mares. This Mouhamed Shah, or Románovitch as he was called in Russian, was polite, punctual, and dignified. He had a workman to drive the herd, and a wife (who retired behind a curtain in his _kotchévka_ when visitors came to see him) to wait upon him. In subsequent years this worthy man repeatedly resumed his engagement with the Tolstoys.

This was the first year the whole estate had been ploughed up and sown. It was fortunate for the district that some one who had the ear of the public, happened to be there; for the crops in the whole neighbourhood failed utterly, and a famine ensued. So out-of-the-world were the people and so cut off from civilisation, that they might have suffered and died without the rest of Russia hearing anything about it, had not Tolstoy been at hand to make their plight known in good time by an appeal for help, which the Countess prompted him to draw up, and which appeared on 17th August, in Katkóf's paper, the _Moscow Gazette_.

In this article on the Samára Famine, Tolstoy describes how the complete failure of the harvest, following as it did on two previous poor harvests, had brought nearly nine-tenths of the population to destitution and hunger.

To ascertain the real state of things Tolstoy took an inventory at every tenth house in the village of Gavrílovka--the one nearest his estate; and of the twenty-three families so examined, all but one were found to be in debt, and none of them knew how they were to get through the winter. Most of the men had left home to look for work, but the harvest being bad everywhere, and so many people being in search of work, the price of labour had fallen to one-eighth of what it had previously been.

Tolstoy visited several villages and found a similar state of things everywhere. Together with his article, he sent Rs. 100 (then equal to about £14) as a first subscription to a Famine Fund. This was only a small part of what he spent in relief of the impoverished peasants, for when Prougávin (well known for his valuable descriptions of Russian sects) visited the district in 1881, many of the inhabitants spoke to him of Tolstoy's personal kindness to the afflicted, and of his gifts of corn and money during the famine.

The subscription proved a success. Tolstoy's aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy (who had charge of the education of Marie Alexándrovna, subsequently Duchess of Edinburgh), mentioned the matter to the Empress, who was one of the first to contribute. Her example was largely followed, and altogether, in money and in kind, something like Rs. 2,000,000, or about £270,000, was contributed during 1873-4. Within a year or two, good harvests again completely changed the whole appearance of the district.

This was the first, but neither the last nor the worst, of the famines in which Tolstoy rendered help.

Before the end of August 1873 he was back at Yásnaya, and wrote to Fet:

On the 22nd we arrived safely from Samára.... In spite of the
drought, the losses and the inconvenience, we all, even my wife,
are satisfied with our visit, and yet more satisfied to be back in
the old frame of our life; and we are now taking up our respective
labours....

A month later he writes again, referring to Kramskóy's portrait of himself, a photogravure of which forms the frontispiece of this volume, and shows the blouse which even in those days, before his Conversion, he wore when at home, instead of a tailor-made coat:

_25 September 1873._

I am beginning to write.... The children are learning; my wife is
busy and teaches. Every day for a week Kramskóy has been painting
my portrait for Tretyakóf's Gallery, and I sit and chat with him,
and try to convert him from the Petersburg faith to the faith of
the baptized. I agreed to this, because Kramskóy came personally,
and offered to paint a second portrait for us very cheaply, and
because my wife persuaded me.

Up to this time Tolstoy, sensitive about his personal appearance, and instinctively disliking any personal advertisement, had always had an objection to having his portrait painted; and if he ever allowed himself to be photographed, was careful to have the negative destroyed that copies might not be multiplied. This prejudice he abandoned in later life; and after Kramskóy had broken the ice, portraits and photographs of Tolstoy became more and more common.

Kramskóy's acquaintance with the Tolstoys came about in this way. He was commissioned to paint a portrait of the great novelist, for the collection of famous Russians in Tretyakóf's picture gallery in Moscow; but sought in vain in that town for his photograph, and was too modest to ask Tolstoy (who, he knew, was living a secluded life at Yásnaya) to give him sittings. He therefore hired a _dátcha_, some three miles from Yásnaya, with the intention of painting Tolstoy, who often rode past on horseback. His intention, however, became known, and the Tolstoys at once sent him a friendly invitation to visit them. Of the two very similar portraits of Tolstoy which Kramskóy painted, one has remained at Yásnaya.

Before Tolstoy's next letter to Fet, the angel of death had crossed the threshold of his house for the first time in his married life. On 11th November he wrote:

We are in trouble: Peter, our youngest, fell ill with croup and
died in two days. It is the first death in our family in eleven
years, and my wife feels it very deeply. One may console oneself
by saying that if one had to choose one of our eight, this loss is
lighter than any other would have been; but the heart, especially
the mother's heart--that wonderful and highest manifestation of
Divinity on earth--does not reason, and my wife grieves.

1874

During the whole of 1874 Tolstoy made strenuous efforts to get his system of education more generally adopted. On 15th January, overcoming his dislike of speaking in public, he addressed the Moscow Society of Literacy on the subject of the best way to teach children to read. The details of his argument need not here detain us, as it will fall to the lot of few of my readers to teach Russian children to read Russian; but briefly, the German _Lautiermethode_ had been adopted by Russian pedagogues in a way that Tolstoy considered arbitrary and pedantic, and his appeal, which in the main has not carried conviction to the educationalists, was against that method.

The large hall in which the meeting took place was crowded. The President of the Society, Mr. Shatílof, invited Tolstoy to open the debate, but Tolstoy preferred to reply to what questions and remarks the other speakers might put. In the course of the animated proceedings, in which several men well known in the Russian educational world took part, the discussion widened out till it covered the question of the whole direction of elementary education; and Tolstoy, from the standpoint of his belief that it is harmful to force upon the people a culture they do not demand and are not prepared for--and much of which, though considered by us to be science, may yet turn out to be no better than the alchemy and astrology of the Middle Ages--denounced the education forced upon the children in elementary schools, and declared that this should be confined in the first place to teaching the Russian language and arithmetic, leaving natural science and history alone. To prove the advantage of his way of teaching reading, Tolstoy offered to give a practical demonstration in one of the schools attached to some of the Moscow mills. Accordingly it was arranged that this should take place the next day and the day after, at the mills owned by Mr. Ganéshin, on the Devítche Pólye just outside Moscow. On the morrow Tolstoy was unwell, and did not appear; but he gave his demonstration on the evening of the following day, with the result that, on the suggestion of Mr. Shatílof, the Society of Literacy decided to start two temporary schools for the express purpose of testing the rival methods during a period of seven weeks. The one school was taught by Mr. M. E. Protopópof, an expert in the _Lautiermethode_, while in the other school Tolstoy's method was taught by Mr. P. V. Morózof. After seven weeks the children were examined by a Committee, which had to report to the Society at a meeting held on 13th April. The members of the Committee however could not agree, and handed in separate and contradictory reports. At the meeting of the Society there was again a great divergence of opinion; and Tolstoy, who considered that the test had not been made under proper conditions (most of the pupils being too young, and the continual presence of visitors preventing the teacher from holding the children's attention), but that nevertheless his method had shown its superiority, decided to appeal to a wider public, and did so in the form of a letter addressed to Mr. Shatílof.