Chapter LIV: Preface: To N. Orlov’s Album of “russian Peasants”

Tolstoy willingly called attention to pictures, as well as to
stories, of which he approved; and he was particularly ready
to do so if the artists’ subject was one that might interest
the peasants, for whom he considered that artists have done
too little.

Work such as Orlóv’s (himself of peasant origin) which, by
the disapproval it showed of the Government’s treatment of
the peasants, involved risk to the artist, was specially
calculated to attract his sympathy.

“Be not afraid of them which kill the body, but are not able
to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy
both soul and body.” (Matt. X. 28.)

The publication of Orlóv’s pictures in album form is an excellent thing. Orlóv is my favourite artist because the subject of his pictures is my favourite subject--the Russian people: the real Russian peasant-people, not that people which vanquished Napoleon and conquered and subdued other nations, not that people which unfortunately has so quickly learnt to make machines, railways, and revolutions as well as Parliaments with all conceivable sub-divisions of parties and tendencies, but that meek, hard-working, Christian, gentle, much-enduring people which has reared and bears on its shoulders all those who now torture and diligently corrupt it.

And what Orlóv and I love in these people is one and the same thing: namely, the meek, patient peasant-soul, enlightened by true Christianity, which promises so much to those who can understand it.

In all Orlóv’s pictures I see that soul, which like the soul of a child retains all possibilities and above all the possibility (while avoiding the depravity of western civilization) of following the Christian path which alone can lead Christendom out of that enchanted circle of sufferings in which, with torment to themselves, men now incessantly revolve.

Here in a smoky hut on a bed of straw lies a dying woman. A burning taper has, according to custom, been placed in her hands which are already growing cold. Near her, in solemn submissive calm, stands her husband; and by his side, in a coarse smock (her only garment), stands their eldest daughter, a thin little girl, crying. Beside a rude cradle, hanging from the ceiling, the grandmother soothes a crying infant. Neighbours stand talking near the door.

This picture evokes in me a wonderful and elevating feeling of tender pity and also, strange as it may seem to say so, a feeling of envy of that holy poverty and of the attitude towards it here revealed.

The same elevating feeling of consciousness of the vast spiritual strength of the people to whom not by my life but by my race I have the good fortune to belong, is produced in me by two other pictures of similar character, which always move me profoundly--_The Emigrants_ and _The Soldier’s Return_.

Apart from the fact that the departure of the emigrants, who are saying good-bye to those they are leaving behind, is important in its subject-matter (showing us as it does in vivid images what, in spite of the difficulties placed in their way by the Government and the landowners, the Russian people are accomplishing: populating and cultivating enormous tracts of country), this picture is rendered particularly touching not merely by the wonderful old man in the foreground, but by all the figures, full of movement and life, excited by the thoughts of departure or doubtful at being left behind.

_The Soldier’s Return_ is a picture I am particularly fond of. Having pined for years far from home in hard army service uncongenial to his soul, Pahóm or Sídor, a dutiful son, a loving husband and a good worker, has at last struggled back to liberty and home. And what does he find there? He has already heard the news before he reached his hut. During his absence his Matrëna has had a baby.

This is their first meeting: the wife kneels before her husband, and the child--the evidence of her fault--is also there. The mother-in-law is egging on her son (woman’s way) and telling how she had said, “Mind, Matrëna, your husband will return....” But the old father, still filled with that Christian spirit of forgiveness and love by which the best representatives of the Russian people have lived and still live, interrupts the old woman’s shrill speech and reminds them of that which settles all accounts and wipes out all offences and all anger: he reminds them of God--and all reckonings are at an end, all tangles straightened out.

However painful it may be to the son, however hurt he may feel, however he may have wished to avenge his shame on his wife, he is his father’s son and the same divine spirit lives in him: the spirit of mercy, forgiveness and love; and this spirit--so alien to the uniform he wears--awakes within him, and he waves his hand and experiences the touching joy of forgiveness. “God will forgive you! Rise, Matrëna, that will do!”

The other six pictures are equally important and beautiful. I have separated these six from the three first only because, besides the traits common to them all, in these six are vividly depicted the temptations and depraving influences against which the Christian soul of the Russian people has to contend and does contend, and by which it has not been subdued.

These pictures are peculiarly attractive in that they depict the struggle without deciding whose the victory will be. Will the whole people follow the path of spiritual and mental depravity along which the so-called educated classes, wishing to make it like themselves, invite it, or will it hold to the Christian principles by which it has lived, and, in a vast majority of cases, still lives?

(_See illustration facing this page._) A picture of this kind is the one in which a village Elder--who has come to collect taxes from a poor man just returned from wage-work carried on far from home--is standing over the man awaiting an answer. Only the old father gives that answer, regardless of all consideration of the needs of the Government, speaking of God, and the sin of exploiting a worker barely able to support his family. Very pathetic in this picture, besides the master of the house, are the mistress who stands by the table on which she has just spread a meal, from which everyone has been torn away, and the child who gazes perplexed and full of sympathy at his excited grandfather.

Of similar kind are the remaining pictures of the series, which depict a struggle between good and evil in which men of the people, partly or completely depraved, side with evil.

Such is the picture _Arrears of Taxes_, depicting the sale of a poor widow’s cow--the support of her children. A rich peasant money-lender is buying, and the District Elder is selling, the cow, while the Village Elder notes down the transaction.

Similar pictures are the one, full of matter, in which a poor widow who lives by the illicit sale of vodka (thereby diminishing the State revenue) is caught in the act; and _No. 7_ (_see next page_), which depicts the consecration of one of the vodka-shops which are now (1908) a Government monopoly. This picture is specially remarkable for its technique, for the delicacy and exactitude with which the ideas are expressed, and for the accuracy of its types.

Yet another such picture is the one with the revolting theme, _Corporal Punishment_.

Besides a true portrayal of the still unperverted Russians, which is the chief subject of the whole series, in all these last six pictures, types are shown of that already depraved part of the nation which wishes, for its own profit, to pervert its still unperverted brothers.

The Village Elder who is collecting taxes from the man whose payments are in arrear has not yet broken all links uniting him to his fellows, and evidently suffers for his fellow-man as well as from his own participation in the cause of that suffering.

But the over-fed District Elder in the picture in which the cow is being taken, no longer feels any remorse at fulfilling his cruel duty, and the usurer buying the cow has no consideration for anything but his own profit. In the picture of the illicit vodka-seller, the policeman and the District Elder and the clerk are performing their task unabashed, and they even admire the cleverness of the man in disguise who has trapped the vodka-seller. Only the old man, a representative of the soul of the Russian people, disturbs the general complacency by his bold words.

In the picture of _The Monopoly_, besides the fat publican grieved at the loss of his business, the peasant crossing himself before the icon with evident hypocrisy is very striking, and so is the tattered fellow who has pushed inopportunely in at the door of the institution which has brought him to his present condition, and has so successfully corrupted--and continues for the State’s profit to corrupt--a large part of the population.

Again in the picture of _Corporal Punishment_, all those present, except the old man who is praying for the sins of men, and the little boy aghast at man’s cruelty, have reached the point at which they can regard their shameful deeds as necessary duties.

The last picture, expressing all that is said in the final six of the series, is particularly powerful and dreadful in that it shows in the simplest and most comprehensible way what lies at the bottom of the demoralization to which the people are subjected, and the chief danger that faces them.

“Go, go! God will help you!” says the girl, refusing to give to the beggar. “You see, his Reverence is here!”

Yes, it is a terrible picture!

The strength of a nation lies in the degree of truth in that religious understanding of the laws of life which guides its actions. I say the degree of truth, for a complete understanding of God is never possible to man. Man can but draw ever nearer and nearer to the one and the other. And the greatest amount of true religious understanding of life in our days has been and still is to be found among the illiterate, wise and holy Russian peasant-population. And in all kinds of ways: by Law Courts, taxation, conscription, and alcoholic poisoning for revenue’s sake, they are surrounded by terrible temptations, and the most awful of these is the religious fraud which claims greater importance for the Church and its ministers than for mercy and brotherly love.

All this is presented in Orlóv’s pictures, and so I think that I am not wrong in loving them.

These pictures show us the danger now menacing the spiritual life of the Russian people. And to realize a danger that was not noticed before is a step towards averting it.

_1908._