Chapter X: Nearing the Crisis (2)

A full account of what happened from the time the dispute passed into the press, has been given by that powerful and popular critic and essayest, N. K. Mihaylóvsky, who was at this time a colleague of Nekrásof. In 1866 the _Contemporary_ had been prohibited, as a punishment for its too Liberal tendencies. In 1868 Nekrásof and Saltykóf (Stchedrín) had taken over the management of the _Fatherland Journal_. Tolstoy, who had long dropped out of touch with Nekrásof, now addressed to him a request that the _Fatherland Journal_ should take a hand in his fight with the pedagogic specialists, and should interest a wider public in his educational reforms. As an inducement, he held out a prospect (never fulfilled) that he would contribute some of his works of fiction to their magazine. The outcome of his correspondence with Nekrásof was, that though the whole question of elementary education was somewhat foreign to a literary magazine such as the _Fatherland Journal_, a long article by Tolstoy (his letter to Shatílof) appeared in the September number, under the title of _On the Education of the People_.

Tolstoy's educational articles in 1862, when he issued them in his own magazine, had fallen quite flat and attracted no attention, but this article, by the author of _War and Peace_, in a leading Petersburg magazine, though expressing very similar views, received very much attention, and was criticised, favourably or adversely, in a large number of other publications. Though his views were only adopted to a small extent, yet the severe shock which he administered to the professional pedagogues who looked on school-children as 'a flock existing for the sake of its shepherds,' had a most healthy influence, and that it did not pass without some immediate practical effect is indicated by the rejection from the Moscow Teachers' Seminary of one of the text-books Tolstoy attacked most fiercely.

Following on the storm raised in the press by Tolstoy's article, Mihaylóvsky, in the _Fatherland Journal_ for January 1875, published a long article entitled _An Outsider's Notes_, in which he took Tolstoy's part against the pedagogues, and said: 'Though I am one of the profane in philosophy and pedagogics, and am writing simply a _feuilleton_, I nevertheless advise my readers to peruse this _feuilleton_ with great attention, not for my sake, but for Tolstoy's, and for the sake of those fine shades of thought on which I do but comment.'

Before this, however, Tolstoy had made another attempt to improve the state of elementary education, by promoting the establishment of that 'University in bark shoes' to which I have already alluded.

He had found some of the boys in the Yásno-Polyána school anxious to continue their studies after finishing the school course; and an experiment in teaching these lads algebra had been highly successful.

In his last article on Education, Tolstoy had pointed out that a great obstacle to the spread of efficient elementary instruction lay in the fact that the peasants could not afford the salaries (extremely modest as these sound to Western ears) demanded by Russian teachers of the non-peasant classes. It was therefore quite natural that he should now devise a scheme for preparing teachers from among the peasants themselves; and he drew up a project for a training college to be established at Yásnaya, under his own direction and control.

In the summer of this year Tolstoy paid a brief visit to his Samára estate to look after its management; and he took his son Sergius with him.

On 20th November 1874 the Countess wrote to her brother:

Our usual serious winter work is now in full swing. Leo is quite
taken up with popular education, schools, and colleges for
teachers, where teachers for the peasants' schools are to be
trained. All this keeps him busy from morning till night. I have my
doubts about all this. I am sorry his strength should be spent on
these things instead of on writing a novel; and I don't know in how
far it will be of use, since all this activity will extend only to
one small corner of Russia.

P. F. Samárin, the Marshal of the Nobility of Toúla Government, backed Tolstoy cordially, and pointed out that the Zémstvo (County Council) had a sum of Rs. 30,000 available for educational purposes, and that this might be devoted to starting a teachers' Training College. To attain this end Tolstoy, who heretofore had always refused to stand for election, consented to enter the Zémstvo, and after being returned to that body, was unanimously chosen to serve on its Education Committee.

He presented a report in the sense indicated above, which was at first favourably discussed; but unfortunately one of the oldest members rose, and alluding to the fact that a collection was being made all over Russia for a monument to Catherine the Great, and that it was the centenary of the decree by which she had created the Government of Toúla, proposed that the money should be devoted to the monument of their Benefactress. This loyal sentiment met with approval, and though Tolstoy did not at once abandon his plan, the means to carry it out were never forthcoming, and we do not hear much more of it.

If one did not know how stupidly reactionary the governing classes of Russia were at this period, it would seem extraordinary that the central and the local authorities alike should have so constantly balked and hindered Tolstoy's disinterested projects: forbidding the publication of his newspaper for soldiers, mutilating his stories, sending gendarmes to search his schools, looking askance at his school magazine, and defeating his project for a Training College. Can it be wondered at, that he came more and more to identify Government with all that is most opposed to enlightenment? We know that similar causes were, at that very time, driving men and women of a younger generation to undertake dangerous propaganda work, in more or less definite opposition to the existing order of society, among factory workmen and country peasants.

His devotion to educational matters did not entirely supersede, though no doubt it delayed, his activity as a novelist. In the spring of 1874 he had taken the commencement of _Anna Karénina_ to Moscow, but for some reason none of it appeared that year.

Tourgénef, in collaboration with Madame Viardot, was at this time translating some of Tolstoy's best stories into French. Writing to Fet in March 1874, he says:

The season is now almost over, but all the same I will try to place
his [Tolstoy's] _Three Deaths_ in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ or
in the _Temps_, and in autumn I will without fail get out _The
Cossacks_. The more often I read that story, the more convinced I
am that it is the _chef d'oeuvre_ of Tolstoy and of all Russian
narrative literature.

Meanwhile life and death pursued their course. In April a son was born and christened Nicholas; and before long, death, having a few months previously taken the youngest, returned to claim the oldest members of the household. The first of them to go was his dearly-loved Aunty Tatiána Alexándrovna, to whose good influence through life he owed so much. She died on 20th June, and next year his other aunt followed her.

Tolstoy never refers to his aunt Tatiána without letting us see how he cherishes her memory. Here for instance are one or two of his notes relating to her:

When already beginning to grow feeble, having waited her
opportunity, one day when I was in her room she said to us, turning
away (I saw that she was ready to cry), 'Look here, _mes chers
amis_, my room is a good one and you will want it. If I die in
it,' and her voice trembled, 'the recollection will be unpleasant
to you; so move me somewhere else, that I may not die here.' Such
she always was, from my earliest childhood, before I was able to
understand her goodness.

Again referring to her death, and to the love for his father which had played so large a part in her life, he adds:

She died peacefully, gradually falling asleep; and died as she
desired, not in the room that had been hers, lest it should be
spoilt for us.

She died recognising hardly any one. But me she always recognised,
smiling and brightening up as an electric lamp does when one
touches the knob, and sometimes she moved her lips trying to
pronounce the name Nicholas: thus in death completely and
inseparably uniting me with him she had loved all her life.

The opinion the peasants had of her, was shown by the fact that when her coffin was carried through the village, there was not one hut out of the sixty in Yásnaya Polyána, from which the people did not come out asking to have the procession stopped and a requiem sung for her soul. 'She was a kind lady and did nobody any harm,' said they. Tolstoy adds:

On that account they loved her, and loved her very much. Lao-Tsze
says things are valuable for what is not in them. So it is with a
life. It is most valuable if there is nothing bad in it; and in the
life of Tatiána Alexándrovna there was nothing bad.

Except in the case of his brother Nicholas, Tolstoy has usually not been greatly upset even by the deaths of those near and dear to him. The following letter to Fet shows how he took Tatiána's death:

_24 June 1874._

Two days ago we buried Aunt Tatiána Alexándrovna. She died slowly
and gradually, and I had grown accustomed to the process; yet her
death was, as the death of a near and dear one always is, a quite
new, isolated and unexpectedly-stirring event. The others are
well, and our house is full. The delightful heat, the bathing and
the fruit have brought me to the state of mental laziness I love,
with only enough mental life remaining to enable me to remember my
friends and think of them.

The next letter, dated the 22nd October, tells its own tale:

DEAR AFANÁSY AFANÁSYEVITCH,--I have planned to buy, and must buy,
some land at Nikólsky, and for that purpose must borrow Rs. 10,000
for one year on mortgage. It may be that you have money you want to
place. If so, write to Iván Ivánovitch Orlóf, Nikólsky village, and
he will arrange the affair with you independently of our relations
to one another.... How gladly would I come to see you, were I not
so overwhelmed with the school, family and estate business, that I
have not even time to go out shooting.... I hope to be free when
winter comes.

1875

A small second edition of Tolstoy's _ABC_ Book, in twelve paper-bound parts, was printed this year; but he did not yet feel quite satisfied with that work, and towards the close of the year he revised it, abbreviating, omitting the arithmetic, and introducing graduated reading exercises. As soon as the pupil has mastered a few of the most necessary letters and can put these together, Tolstoy contrives out of the very simplest syllables to construct sentences that have a meaning and an interest. The _New ABC_ Book, apart from the more advanced _Readers_, and consisting of ninety-two pages of elementary matter, was issued in 1875, at the low price of 14 copecks (about 4d.). Since Tolstoy's efforts have seldom been favoured by the Government, it is worth noting that this edition was 'Approved and recommended by the Scholarly Committee of the Ministry of Popular Education.' Between one and two million copies of it have since been sold. The reading matter from his first _ABC_ Book was subsequently graded into four cheap _Readers_ costing 3d. to 4d. each, and though not honoured by the Ministry of Education, they have from that time to this circulated in increasing quantities, being printed of late years in edition after edition of 50,000 at a time.

The Countess has in general enjoyed good health and worn her years and the cares of her large family very lightly; but during the winter of 1874-5 her condition gave her husband much concern. In January he was able to write to Fet: 'I have ceased to fear for my wife's health'; but in fact for some time longer she continued to be ailing.

The commencement of _Anna Karénina_, appeared in the first four monthly numbers of the _Russian Messenger_ for 1875.

By far the best English version of that novel (as also of _War and Peace_) is Mrs. Constance Garnett's, though I do not like her alteration of the title of the book to _Anna Karénin_, nor am I quite satisfied with her treatment of some of the conversations in it; but unquestionably we have much to thank her for.

In February the baby, Nicholas, died of inflammation of the brain, and on 4th March 1875[53] Tolstoy wrote to Fet:

[53] This letter evidently relates to the year 1875, though in
Fet's _Vospominániya_ it is given as belonging to 1874.

We have one grief after another; you and Márya Petróvna will
certainly be sorry for us, especially for Sónya. Our youngest son,
ten months old, fell ill three weeks ago with the dreadful illness
called 'water on the brain,' and after three weeks' terrible
torture died three days ago, and we have buried him to-day. I feel
it hard through my wife; but for her, who was nursing him herself,
it is very hard.

In the same letter he mentions _Anna Karénina_, and immediately afterwards he makes an allusion to the first idea of his _Confession_, which was not actually written till 1879:

It pleases me very much that you praise _Karénina_ and I hear that
she gets praised; but assuredly never was writer so indifferent to
his success as I am!

On the one hand what preoccupies me are the school affairs, and on
the other, strange to say, the subject of a new work, which took
possession of me just at the worst time of the boy's illness,--and
that illness itself and death....

From Tourgénef I have received the translation, printed in the
_Temps_, of my _Two Hussars_, and a letter written in the third
person asking to be informed that I have received it, and saying
that other stories are being translated by Madame Viardot and
Tourgénef,--both of which were unnecessary. [Tolstoy means that
they need neither have sent him the translation, nor informed him
of what they were doing.]

The commencement of _Anna Karénina_ did not find favour with Tourgénef, who on 14th March wrote from Paris to A. S. Souvórin, the novelist and proprietor of the _Nóvoye Vrémya_ (_New Times_):

His [Tolstoy's] talent is quite extraordinary, but in _Anna
Karénina_ he, as one says here, _a fait fausse route_; one feels
the influence of Moscow, Slavophil nobility, Orthodox old maids,
his own isolation, and the absence of real artistic freedom. Part
II is simply dull and shallow--that's what's the matter.

And writing in similar strains to Polónsky the poet, Tourgénef said:

_Anna Karénina_ does not please me, though there are some truly
splendid pages (the steeplechase, the mowing, and the hunt). But
it is all sour: smells of Moscow, holy oil, old maidishness,
Slavophilism, and the aristocracy, etc.

The cordiality of Tourgénef's appreciation of Tolstoy's writings in general, is sufficient guarantee that it was no personal prejudice that led him to speak in this way of a book which is one of Tolstoy's three most important novels, and which many people hold to be the best of them all. What really caused his harsh judgment, is a matter I will deal with later on.

This summer the whole Tolstoy family went to the Samára estates, which had already been considerably increased by the last purchase, and which ultimately exceeded 16,000 acres. Mouhamed Shah with his herd of mares and his _kotchévka_--which Tolstoy called 'our saloon'--again appeared on the scene. A second _kotchévka_ was set up for the use of the Tolstoys themselves, and was so much in favour that all the members of the family were eager to occupy it.

The novelty and the peculiarities of steppe farming interested Tolstoy, and he, as well as other members of his household, took an active part in harvesting and winnowing. How primitive were the Samára methods of agriculture may be shown by mentioning their manner of threshing. A ring of horses was formed, tied head to tail. In the centre of the ring stood a driver with a long lash, and the horses were set trotting round a corresponding circle of sheaves, out of which they trod the grain.

The virgin soil was ploughed up by five or even six pair of oxen, wearing round their necks deep-toned bells, sounding in a minor key. These things, together with the pipes of the boys who watched the herds, the sultry days, and the marvellously clear moonlit nights, had a wonderful charm for the whole party, and this charm was increased by Tolstoy's capacity to notice and direct attention to whatever was interesting or beautiful.

The whole family became interested, Behrs tells us, in their new farming, and some of them went with Tolstoy as far afield as Orenbourg to purchase cattle and horses.

He bought about a hundred Bashkír mares and crossed them with an English trotter and with horses of other breeds, hoping to obtain a good new type.

One evening his whole herd, and Mouhamed Shah's as well, were very nearly driven off by some Kirghiz nomads who were passing. The invaders were, however, pursued and driven off by two mounted Bashkír labourers.

Tolstoy declared farming in Samára to be a game of chance. It cost nearly three times as much to plough up the land, sow it, and gather in a harvest, as it did to purchase the freehold of the estate; and if during May and June there was not at least one good fall of rain, everything perished; whereas if it rained several times, the harvest yielded thirty to forty-fold.

One day, at harvest time, a poor wandering Tartar, drawing two little children in a tiny cart, came up to the balcony on which the Tolstoys were sitting, and asked to be hired as a labourer. He was allowed to set up his wigwam in a field close by, and the Tolstoy children used to go there every day to feed the little Tartars.

In the neighbouring village lived several well-to-do Russian peasants with whom Tolstoy was on very good terms. Either because they were economically independent and lived in a province where serfdom had not prevailed, or as a result of Tolstoy's tact and ability to set people at their ease, these peasants always behaved with dignity and self-respect. They shook hands when they said 'How do you do?' and seemed quite at home with the Count.

He used to notice with pleasure the good relations and complete religious toleration that existed in those parts between the Orthodox peasants and their Mohammedan neighbours; and he was also delighted that the priest at Pátrovka was on friendly terms with the Molokáns he was trying to convert.

One rainy night, after staying late at this priest's house, Tolstoy and his brother-in-law completely lost their way. It was so dark that they could not see their horses' heads. Behrs was riding an old working horse, which kept pulling to the left. Tolstoy, on hearing this, told him to let the horse follow its bent. Behrs therefore tied his reins so that they hung loose, and wrapping himself in his cloak from the drenching rain, allowed the horse to go where it liked. Carefully avoiding the ploughed land, it soon brought them out on to the road, and, curiously enough, to just the one part of it which was distinguishable from the extraordinary sameness of the rest, so that the riders knew just where they were.

The most striking event of this year's stay in Samára was a horse race, arranged by Tolstoy. Mouhamed Shah was authorised to announce to the peasants and neighbours that races would be held on the Count's estate; and invitations were sent to all likely to take part. Bashkírs and Kirghiz assembled, bringing with them tents, portable copper boilers, plenty of koumýs, and even sheep. Oural Cossacks and Russian peasants also came from the whole surrounding neighbourhood. In preparation for the race, says Behrs:

We ourselves chose a level place, measured out a huge circle three
miles in circumference, marked it by running a plough round, and
set up posts. Sheep and even one horse were prepared with which
to regale visitors. By the appointed day some thousands of people
had collected. On the wild steppe, covered with feather grass,
a row of tents appeared, and soon a motley crowd enlivened it.
On the conical hillocks (locally called 'cones') felt and other
carpets were spread, on which the Bashkírs sat in circles, their
legs tucked under them. In the centre of the circle, out of a large
_toursouk_ [a leather bottle made of an animal's leg] a young
Bashkír poured koumýs, handing the cup to each of the company in
turn. Their songs, and the tunes played on their pipes and reeds,
sounded somewhat dreary to a European ear. Wrestling, at which the
Bashkírs are particularly skilful, could be seen here and there.
Thirty trained horses were entered for the chief race. The riders
were boys of about ten years, who rode without saddles.

This race was for thirty-three miles, and it took exactly an hour and forty minutes; consequently it was run at the rate of three minutes a mile. Of the thirty horses, ten ran the whole distance, the others giving up. The principal prizes were a horse, an ox, a gun, a clock, and a dressing-gown. The festival lasted two days, and passed off in perfect order and very gaily. To Tolstoy's delight no police were present. The guests all politely thanked their host and departed highly satisfied. 'Even in the crowd,' says Behrs, 'it seemed to me that Leo Nikoláyevitch knew how to evoke _entrain_ combined with respect for good order.'

Tolstoy visited the Petróvsky Fair, as was his yearly custom, and stayed at the Bouzouloúk Monastery, where a hermit resided who was 'saving his soul' by a solitary and ascetic life. This man lived in an underground catacomb. When he came out he walked about the garden and showed his visitors an apple-tree he had planted forty years before, under which it was his custom to sit when receiving pilgrims. He spoke to Tolstoy about the Scriptures, and showed him his catacomb-home, the coffin in which he slept, and the large crucifix before which he prayed.

Tolstoy considered that the respect paid to this man by pilgrims and other visitors, was the outcome of genuine religious feeling, and proved that the hermit, by giving the example of a pure, unworldly life, supplied a real want.

Readers of Tolstoy's short stories will be aware of the use to which he subsequently put his knowledge of the Bashkírs and of the hermit.

On 26th August, after reaching Yásnaya, he wrote to Fet:

Two days ago we arrived home safely....

We have had an average harvest, but the price of labour has been
enormous, so that finally ends only just meet. For two months I
have not soiled my hands with ink nor my heart with thoughts. Now I
am settling down again to dull, common-place _Anna Karénina_ with
the sole desire to clear a space quickly, and obtain leisure for
other occupations--only not for the educational work I love but
wish to abandon. It takes too much time.

His Samára experiences confirmed in him the feeling that not the civilisation and progress and political struggles of the Western world and of the small Westernised section of Russians, were really important, but the great primitive struggle of plain people to obtain a subsistence in healthy natural conditions; and he adds in the same letter:

Why fate took me there [to Samára] I do not know; but I know
that I have listened to speeches in the English Parliament,
which is considered very important, and it seemed to me dull and
insignificant; but there, are flies, dirt, and Bashkír peasants,
and I, watching them with intense respect and anxiety, became
absorbed in listening to them and watching them, and felt it all to
be very important.

One must live as we lived, in a healthy out-of-the-way part of
Samára, and see the struggle going on before one's eyes of the
nomadic life (of millions of people on an immense territory) with
the primitive agricultural life, in order to realise all the
importance of that struggle.

After their return from the Government of Samára, all the children got hooping-cough. The Countess caught it from them, and, being in the sixth month of pregnancy, was very ill. This resulted in the premature birth of a girl, Varvára, who lived less than two hours.

Tolstoy's eldest son, Sergius, had now reached the age of twelve. Besides their English governess and a Swiss lady, the children had at different times a Swiss, a Frenchman, and a German as tutors for modern languages. Tutors and students who acted as tutors, also lodged at Yásnaya and taught other subjects. A music master came over from Toúla. The eldest boy had considerable musical talent, and the family as a whole were musical. As soon as they had mastered their finger exercises, the Count insisted on their at once being allowed to learn serious pieces.

Every effort was made to awaken and foster the talent for drawing and painting which some of the children, and especially the eldest daughter, Tatiána, possessed; but lessons in these subjects were only given to those who showed real capacity for them.

Much as Tolstoy disliked the curriculum of the Grammar Schools ('Gymnasiums,' as they are called in Russia), he did, not wish to make it impossible for his sons to enter the University, and they followed the usual classical course. Sergius passed his examinations each year in Toúla Gymnasium, being carefully coached at home.

In his _Recollections_ Behrs tells us of Tolstoy's enlivening influence in the family:

I cannot sufficiently describe the joyous and happy frame of mind
that usually reigned at Yásnaya Polyána. Its source was always Leo
Nikoláyevitch. In conversation about abstract questions, about
the education of children, about outside matters--his opinion was
always most interesting. When playing croquet, or during our walks,
he enlivened us all by his humour and his participation, taking a
real part in the game or the walk.

With me, he liked to mow, or use the rake; to do gymnastics, to
race, and occasionally to play leap-frog or _gorodkí_ [a game in
which a stick is thrown at some other shorter sticks placed in
a pattern], etc. Though far inferior to him in strength, for he
could lift 180 lbs. with one hand, I could easily match him in a
race, but seldom passed him, for I was always laughing. That mood
accompanied all our exercises. Whenever we happened to pass where
mowers were at work, he would go up to them and borrow a scythe
from the one who seemed most tired. I of course imitated his
example. He would then ask me, Why we, with well-developed muscles,
cannot mow six days on end, though a peasant does it on rye-bread,
and sleeping on damp earth? 'You just try to do it under such
conditions,' he would add in conclusion. When leaving the meadow,
he would take a handful of hay from the haycock and sniff it,
keenly enjoying its smell.

Children and grown-ups alike played croquet at Yásnaya. The game generally began after dinner in the evening, and only finished by candlelight. Behrs says that, having played it with Tolstoy, he considers croquet to be a game of chance. Tolstoy's commendation of a good shot always pleased the player and aroused the emulation of his opponents. The kindly irony of his comments on a miss, also acted as a spur. A simple word from him, uttered just at the right moment and in the right tone, produced that _entrain_ which makes any occupation interesting and infects all who come under its influence.

The sincerity of Tolstoy's nature showed itself in the frank expression of his passing mood. If, when driving to the station, he saw that they had missed the train, he would exclaim, 'Ach! we've missed it!' with such intensity that every one within earshot would first feel as though a calamity had occurred, and would then join in the hearty laughter which his own vehement exclamation evoked in Tolstoy. It was the same when he made a bad miss at croquet; and also if, when sitting at home, he suddenly remembered some engagement he had forgotten to keep. If, as sometimes happened, his exclamation alarmed his wife, he would half-jokingly add, like a scolded child, 'I'll never do it again!'

His laughter, which began on a high note, had something wonderfully infectious about it. His head would hang over on one side, and his whole body would shake.

His good-natured irony constantly acted as a stimulant to those about him. If, for instance, some one was in the dumps about the weather, Tolstoy would say: 'Is your weather behaving badly?' Or when Behrs was sitting comfortably listening to a conversation, he would say to him: 'As you are on the move, you might please bring me so-and-so.'

When he felt it wise to reject an extra cigar or a second helping of some favourite dish, he would remark to those present: 'Wait till I am grown up, and then I will have two helpings,' or 'two cigars,' as the case might be.

If, says Behrs, 'he noticed any of the children making a wry or affected face, he generally called out, "Now then, no grimacing; you'll only spoil your phiz."'

Behrs also tells us that.

What he called 'the Numidian cavalry' evoked our noisiest applause.
He would unexpectedly spring up from his place and, raising one
arm in the air with its hand hanging quite loose from the wrist,
he would run lightly through the rooms. All the children, and
sometimes the grown-ups also, would follow his example with the
same suddenness.

Tolstoy read aloud very well, and would often read to the family or to visitors.

His contempt for doctors and medicine is plainly indicated both in _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karénina_. Like Rousseau he considered that the practice of medicine should be general and not confined to one profession; and this opinion inclined him to approve of the folk-remedies used by the peasants. But he did not go the length of refusing to call in a doctor when one of the family was seriously ill.

Before the year closed, Tolstoy's aunt, Pelagéya Ilýnishna Úshkof, with whom he had lived in his young days in Kazán, also passed away. She had been separated from her husband before his death in 1869, and had long not even seen him, though they remained quite friendly towards one another. She was very religious in an Orthodox Church way, and after her husband's death retired to the Óptin nunnery. Subsequently she moved to the Toúla nunnery, but arranged to spend much of her time at Yásnaya; where in her eightieth year she fell ill and died. She was in general a good-tempered though not clever woman, and all her life long strictly observed the ceremonies of the Church and thought that she firmly believed its teaching about redemption and resurrection; yet she was so afraid of death that on her death-bed she was reluctant to receive the eucharist, because it brought home to her mind the fact that she was dying; and as a consequence of the sufferings caused by the fear of death, she became irritable with all about her.

A servant who lived in the house at the time, tells that while at Yásnaya she used, on the first of each month, to send for a priest. As soon as he arrived, and began the usual ceremony of blessing with holy water, Tolstoy would escape and hide himself. Not till the gardener, Semyón--whom he used to send into the conservatory to reconnoitre--brought him word that the priest had gone, would Tolstoy reappear in the house.

About that time, however, his attitude towards Church ceremonies altered. His man-servant Sergéy Arboúzof (who saw only the external signs of the complex inner struggle going on in Tolstoy) tells us:

Suddenly a wonderful change came over him, of which I was a
witness. In 1875 a priest, Vasíly Ivánovitch, from the Toúla
Seminary, used to come to teach theology to Tolstoy's children. At
first, Leo Nikoláyevitch hardly ever talked to him, but it once
happened that a snow-storm obliged Vasíly Ivánovitch to stop the
night at our house. The Count began a conversation with him, and
they did not go to bed till daylight. They talked the whole night.

From that day Leo Nikoláyevitch became very thoughtful, and always
talked with Vasíly Ivánovitch. When Lent came round, the Count
got up one morning and said, 'I am going to do my devotions,
and prepare to receive communion. You can go back to bed, but
first tell the coachman not to get up. I will saddle Kalmýk (his
favourite horse at that time) myself. Forgive me, Sergéy, if I have
ever offended you!' and he went off to church.

From that day for a couple of years he always went to church,
seldom missing a Sunday. The whole village was surprised, and
asked, 'What has the priest told the Count, that has suddenly made
him so fond of church-going?'

It used to happen that the Count would come into my hut when I was
teaching my little boy religion.

'What are you teaching him?' he would ask.

And I used to say, 'To pray.'

'Ah!' said he, 'that is right. A man who does not pray to God is
not a real man.'

1876

The publication of _Anna Karénina_ was renewed in the first four numbers of the _Russian Messenger_ for 1876.

On 1st March Tolstoy writes to Fet:

Things are still not all right with us. My wife does not get over
her last illness, coughs, gets thin, and has first fever and then
headaches. And therefore the house lacks well-being, and I lack
mental tranquillity, which I now particularly need for my work. The
end of winter and beginning of spring is always my chief time for
work, and I must finish my novel, which now wearies me.... I always
hope a tooth will come loose in your jaw, or in your thrashing
machine, and cause you to go to Moscow. Then I shall spin a cobweb
at Kozlóvka [the nearest station to Yásnaya] and catch you.

In April Fet wrote to Tolstoy to say that he had been seriously ill, had thought he was dying, and 'wished to call you to see how I departed.' On 29th April Tolstoy replies in a letter notable because it gives us a glimpse of the progress he had made in the fierce five-year inner struggle with doubt which preceded the production of his _Confession_:

I am grateful to you for thinking of calling me to see your
departure, when you supposed it was near. I will do the same when
I get ready to go _thither_, if I am able to think. No one will
be so necessary to me at that moment as you and my brother. When
death draws near, intercourse with people who in this life look
beyond its bounds, is precious and cheering; and you and those
rare _real_ people I have met in life, always stand on the very
verge and see clearly, just because they look now at Nirvana--the
illimitable, the unknown--and now at Sansara; and that glance at
Nirvana strengthens their sight. But worldly people, however much
they may talk about God, are unpleasant to you and me, and must
be a torment when one is dying, for they do not see what we see,
namely the God who 'is more indefinite and distant, but loftier and
more indubitable,' as was said in that article.

You are ill and think of death, and I am alive and do not cease
thinking of and preparing for the same thing.... Much that I have
thought, I have tried to express in the last chapter of the April
number of the _Russian Messenger_ [_Anna Karénina_, Part I, Chap.
XX].

The passage referred to, telling of the death of Lévin's brother, is evidently based on the death of Tolstoy's own brother Demetrius; and it may here be mentioned that many characters in _Anna Karénina_ are drawn more or less closely from life. For instance, Agáfya Miháylovna, the servant, was a real person, and that was her real name. She died at Yásnaya only a few years ago. Yásnaya Polyána itself, in many of its details, is also described in the novel.

On 12th May Tolstoy again writes to Fet:

It is already five days since I received the horse, and every day
I prepare but never make time to write to you. Here the spring
and summer life has begun, and our house is full of guests and of
bustle. This summer life seems to me like a dream: it contains some
slight remains of my real, winter life, but consists chiefly of
visions, now pleasant and now unpleasant, from some absurd world
not ruled by sane sense. Among these visions came your beautiful
stallion. I am very much obliged to you for it. Where am I to send
the money to?...

An event which occupies me very much at present is Sergey's
examinations, which begin on the 27th.... What a terrible summer!
Here it is dreadful and mournful to look at the wood, especially at
the young trees. They have all perished.

On 18th May he wrote again:

I have been slow in answering your long and cordial letter because
I have been unwell and dispirited, as I still am, but I will
write at least a few lines. Our house is full of people: my niece
Nagórnaya with two children, the Kouzmínskys with four children;
and Sónya [the Countess] is still poorly, and I dejected and
dull-minded. Our one hope was for good weather, and that we have
not got. As you and I resemble one another, you must know the
condition in which one feels oneself to be, now a God from whom
nothing is hid, and now stupider than a horse. In that state I am
at present. So do not be exacting. Till next letter, yours,

L. TOLSTOY.

The Kouzmínskys referred to above were Tánya, her husband, and their family. They spent every summer at Yásnaya, in the 'wing' house. When discussing any excursion or other undertaking with Mr. Kouzmínsky, Tolstoy would often say, 'But we must hear what the Authorities have to say about it,' the Authorities being their wives.

Passing into his 'summer condition,' Tolstoy's attention to _Anna Karénina_ slackened; but before the end of the year he set energetically to work to finish it. The interest aroused by the book was extreme, and the story goes that Moscow ladies used to send to the establishment where the novel was being printed, to try to find out what the continuation would be.

On 21st July Tolstoy writes inviting Fet's brother, Peter Afánasyevitch, a great lover of horses, to accompany him to Samára; and in the same letter he makes an allusion to the troubles of the Slavs in Turkey, where fighting had already been going on for a twelvemonth with the Herzegovinians. Peter Afanásyevitch had gone as a volunteer, and had returned after the failure of the insurrection.

_21 July 1876._

I am very much to blame, dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch, for having
been so slow in writing to you. I prepare to write every day, but
cannot find time because I am doing nothing.... Stráhof was here a
week ago, and we philosophised to the point of weariness....

I press the hand of Peter Afanásyevitch. I should like to hear
his stories about Herzegovina, in the existence of which I do not
believe!

I am arranging to go to Samára in September. If Peter Afanásyevitch
has no plans for September, will not he go with me to see the
Kirghiz and their horses? How jolly it would be!

Mention has already been made of the fact that Tolstoy, who understood horses very well, was at this time interested in horse-breeding as a source of revenue. To buy them he visited Orenbourg, where he met General Kryzhanóvsky, a friend who had been one of his superior officers in Sevastopol and was now Governor-General of this northern Province. They spent the time together very pleasantly recalling their past experiences.

To his wife, who had found it hard to consent to his absence, he wrote in September:

I know that it is hard for you, and that you are afraid; but I saw
the effort you made to control yourself and not to hinder me and,
were it possible, I loved you yet more on that account. If only God
grants you to spend the time well, healthily, energetically and
usefully!... Lord have mercy on me and on thee!

In a letter of 13th November Tolstoy writes to Fet:

Pity me for two things: (1) a good-for-nothing coachman took the
stallions to Samára and, wishing to take a short cut, drowned
Gouneba in a bog within ten miles of the estate; (2) I sleep and
cannot write; I despise myself for laziness and do not allow myself
to take up any other work.

Twenty-eight years after the loss of Gouneba, the Countess, in speaking to me of her husband's qualities as a man of affairs, remarked that his schemes were very good, but that he generally spoilt them by lack of care in details. 'For instance,' she remarked, 'it was quite a good idea of his to send a very fine stallion which cost Rs. 2000 [about £260] to our estate in Samára. There were no such horses in the district; but he must needs entrust it to a drunken Tartar who made away with it and said he had lost it.'

On 7th December 1876 Tolstoy wrote to Fet acknowledging a poem, 'Among the Stars,' which the latter had sent him:

That poem is not only worthy of you, but is specially, specially
good, with that philosophic-poetic character which I expect from
you. It is excellent that it is said by the stars.... It is also
good, as my wife remarked, that on the same sheet on which the poem
is written, you pour out your grief that the price of kerosene has
risen to 12 copecks. That is an indirect but sure sign of a poet.

The reader is by this time well aware of Tolstoy's devotion to music. Though it was at times crowded out of his life by other interests, he always returned to it with ardour when opportunity offered. Behrs tells us that Tolstoy generally, when playing, chose serious music.

He often sat down to the piano before beginning to work.... He
always accompanied my youngest sister [Tánya] and enjoyed her
singing very much. I noticed that the sensation music evoked in
him expressed itself by a slight pallor and a scarcely perceptible
grimace, suggestive of something like terror. Hardly a day passed
in summer without my sister singing and without the piano being
played. Occasionally we all sang together, and he always played the
accompaniments.

As Tolstoy's spiritual crisis approached, the attraction of music for him seemed to increase, and it was about this period, that is to say in December 1876, that he made acquaintance with the composer P. I. Tschaikóvsky, who had held the post of Director of the Moscow Conservatoire, the first seeds of which Tolstoy had helped to plant nearly twenty years before.

Tschaikóvsky had from his youth up been a devoted admirer of Tolstoy, whose skill in reading the human heart appeared to him almost superhuman. He was therefore highly gratified when Tolstoy of his own accord sought his acquaintance. At first their personal intercourse did not appear to lessen the composer's reverence for the author, for on 23rd December 1876 he wrote to a friend:

Count L. N. Tolstoy spent some time here recently. He visited
me several times and spent two whole evenings with me. I am
tremendously flattered, and proud of the interest I have inspired
in him, and for my part am completely enchanted by his ideal
personality.

Tschaikóvsky induced Nicholas Rubinstein, then Director of the Moscow Conservatoire, to arrange a musical evening solely for Tolstoy, and at this concert, Rubinstein, Fitzenhagen, and Adolph Bródsky, who is now Principal of the Manchester College of Music, were among the chief performers.

One of the pieces performed by a quartet was Tschaikóvsky's 'Andante in D Major,' which so affected Tolstoy that he wept. 'Never, perhaps, in my life,' says Tschaikóvsky, 'was I so flattered, or my vanity as a composer so touched, as when Leo Nikoláyevitch, sitting next to me and listening to the quartet performing my Andante, burst into tears.'

After Tolstoy had returned to Yásnaya he wrote to Tschaikóvsky, sending him a collection of folk-songs, and saying:

I send you the songs, dear Peter Ilyítch. I have again looked them
through. They will be a wonderful treasure in your hands. But for
God's sake work them up and use them in a Mozart-Haydn style, and
not in a Beethoven-Schumann-Berlioz, artificial way, seeking the
unexpected. How much I left unsaid to you. I really said nothing
of what I wanted to say. There was no time. I was enjoying myself.
This last stay of mine in Moscow will remain one of the best of my
reminiscences. Never have I received so precious a reward for my
literary labours as on that wonderful evening.

Tschaikóvsky replied:

Count, I am sincerely grateful to you for sending the songs. I must
tell you candidly that they have been taken down by an unskilful
hand, and bear only traces of their pristine beauty. The chief
defect is that they have been artificially squeezed and forced into
a regular, measured form. Only Russian dance music has a rhythm and
a regular and equally accentuated beat; but folk-ballads have of
course nothing in common with dance songs. Moreover, most of these
songs are, arbitrarily it seems, written in a solemn D Major, which
again does not suit a real Russian song, which almost always has an
indefinite tonality approximating nearest of all to ancient Church
music. In general, the songs you have sent me cannot be worked up
in a regular and systematic way: that is to say, one cannot make a
collection of them, because for that they would have to be taken
down as nearly as possible in the way in which the people perform
them. That is an extremely difficult matter, demanding fine musical
feeling and great historico-musical erudition. Except Balakíref,
and to some extent Prokoúnin, I do not know any one competent for
the task. But as material for symphonic treatment, your songs can
be of use, and are even very good material, which I certainly will
avail myself of in one way or other.

It is rather disappointing to find that the intercourse between these two men, each so great in his own way, and each such an admirer of the other's genius, was not continued.

Tschaikóvsky's expectations had been pitched too high, and he felt a certain disappointment that his 'demigod' was, after all, but human. He had dreaded to meet the novelist lest the latter should penetrate the secret recesses of his soul; but, says Tschaikóvsky:

He who in his writings was the deepest of heart-seers, proved in
personal contact to be a man of simple, whole, and frank nature,
showing very little of the omniscience I had feared.... It was
plain he did not at all regard me as a subject for his observation,
but simply wanted to chat about music, in which he was then
interested. He took a pleasure in denying Beethoven, and plainly
expressed doubts of his genius. This was a trait not at all worthy
of a great man. To pull down a universally acknowledged genius to
the level of one's own intelligence, is characteristic of small
people.

Feeling thus, Tschaikóvsky purposely avoided meeting Tolstoy again, and even took a temporary aversion to _Anna Karénina_, though eventually he returned to his former admiration of Tolstoy's novels.

Tschaikóvsky was not aware of the reasons Tolstoy had for the unorthodox position he held on art generally and music in particular: reasons which it will be more in place to deal with later on, and which I have in fact already treated of at some length in a previous work, _Tolstoy and his Problems_. Here let it suffice to say that there is plenty of evidence to show that Tolstoy can enjoy Beethoven, and enjoy even the works of Beethoven's last period, which are the ones he criticises. There is, for instance, the episode with Mlle. Oberlender, which will be recounted later on, and we have his own statement in _What is Art?_:

I should mention that whatever other people understand of the
productions of Beethoven's later period, I, being very susceptible
to music, equally understand. For a long time I used to attune
myself so as to delight in those shapeless improvisations which
form the subject-matter of the works of Beethoven's later period;
but I had only to consider the question of art seriously, and to
compare the impression I received from Beethoven's later works with
those pleasant, clear, and strong musical impressions which are
transmitted, for instance, by the melodies of Bach (his arias),
Haydn, Mozart, Chopin (when his melodies are not overloaded with
complications and ornamentation), and of Beethoven himself in his
earlier period, and above all, with the impressions produced by
folk-songs,--Italian, Norwegian, or Russian,--by the Hungarian
_tzardas_, and other such simple, clear, and powerful music, and
the obscure, almost unhealthy excitement from Beethoven's later
pieces that I had artificially evoked in myself was destroyed.

His work among peasant children has convinced him that the normal human being possesses capacities for the enjoyment of art; and that in most unexpected places the capacity to produce admirable art is now lying latent. That is why he sets up Brevity, Simplicity, and Sincerity as the criterions of art, and why he believes that folk-tales and folk-songs and folk-dances, the Gospel parables, such Old Testament stories as the history of Joseph, the Arabian Nights and the Christmas Carol; and music such as the _tzardas_, the _Swanee River_, the _Old Hundredth_, and Bach's arias, are infinitely more important to the life and well-being of humanity than _King Lear_ or the _Ninth Symphony_.

Tolstoy--who had boasted of not reading newspapers, and who had lived so detached from politics and the events of contemporary history--began at this time to feel keenly interested in a question closely connected with Russia's foreign policy.

Following the insurrection in Herzegovina, another had broken out in Bulgaria in May 1876, but had been quickly suppressed by the Turks, who burnt some sixty-five villages; the Bashi-Bazouks committing unspeakable atrocities on the defenceless inhabitants. At the commencement of July, Servia and Montenegro declared war against Turkey; but, in spite of help rendered by numerous Russian volunteers, they were soon crushed by the Turks, and would have been completely at their mercy had not Russia, on 31st October, issued an ultimatum demanding an armistice, which Turkey conceded. On 10th November Alexander II made a speech in the Moscow Krémlin, in which he declared that he would act independently of the other powers unless satisfactory guarantees of reform were obtained forthwith from the Sultan. These events gradually led to the war which broke out between Russia and Turkey in April 1877.

Before this, however, in the letter of 13th November 1876, already quoted, Tolstoy wrote to Fet:

I went to Moscow to hear about the war. This whole affair agitates
me greatly. It is well for those to whom it is clear; but I am
frightened when I begin to reflect on all the complexity of the
conditions amid which history is made, and how some Madame A.--with
her vanity--becomes an indispensable cog in the whole machine!

The Russo-Turkish imbroglio led, early in 1877, to a split between Tolstoy and Katkóf. Tolstoy, at bottom and in his own original way, was certainly a reformer; and his alliance with Katkóf, who was quite reactionary, had always been rather like the yoking of an ox with an ass. At this time Katkóf was ardent for the liberation of the Slavs from Turkish tyranny, laudatory of those who volunteered for the war, and eager for the aggrandisement of Russia. Tolstoy, with his knowledge of the realities of war and his insight into the motives that actuate the men who fight, had his doubts about the heroic and self-sacrificing character of the volunteers and the purity of the patriotism of the press; and he expressed these doubts very plainly in some of the concluding chapters of _Anna Karénina_: as, for instance, where he makes Lévin say of 'the unanimity of the press':

'That's been explained to me: as soon as there's a war their
incomes are doubled. So how can they help believing in the
destinies of the people and the Slavonic races ... and all the rest
of it?'