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@@ -0,0 +1,3330 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Reminiscences of Tolstoy, by Ilya Tolstoy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Reminiscences of Tolstoy + By His Son + +Author: Ilya Tolstoy + +Posting Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #813] +Release Date: February, 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY + +BY HIS SON, + +Count Ilya Tolstoy + + +Translated By George Calderon + + + + +REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY (Part I.) + +IN one of his letters to his great-aunt, Alexandra Andreyevna Tolstoy, +my father gives the following description of his children: + +The eldest [Sergei] is fair-haired and good-looking; there is something +weak and patient in his expression, and very gentle. His laugh is not +infectious; but when he cries, I can hardly refrain from crying, too. +Every one says he is like my eldest brother. + +I am afraid to believe it. It is too good to be true. My brother's chief +characteristic was neither egotism nor self-renunciation, but a strict +mean between the two. He never sacrificed himself for any one else; but +not only always avoided injuring others, but also interfering with them. +He kept his happiness and his sufferings entirely to himself. + +Ilya, the third, has never been ill in his life; broad-boned, white and +pink, radiant, bad at lessons. Is always thinking about what he is told +not to think about. Invents his own games. Hot-tempered and violent, +wants to fight at once; but is also tender-hearted and very sensitive. +Sensuous; fond of eating and lying still doing nothing. + +Tanya [Tatyana] is eight years old. Every one says that she is like +Sonya, and I believe them, although I am pleased about that, too; I +believe it only because it is obvious. If she had been Adam's eldest +daughter and he had had no other children afterward, she would have +passed a wretched childhood. The greatest pleasure that she has is to +look after children. + +The fourth is Lyoff. Handsome, dexterous, good memory, graceful. Any +clothes fit him as if they had been made for him. Everything that others +do, he does very skilfully and well. Does not understand much yet. + +The fifth, Masha [Mary] is two years old, the one whose birth nearly +cost Sonya her life. A weak and sickly child. Body white as milk, curly +white hair; big, queer blue eyes, queer by reason of their deep, serious +expression. Very intelligent and ugly. She will be one of the riddles; +she will suffer, she will seek and find nothing, will always be seeking +what is least attainable. + +The sixth, Peter, is a giant, a huge, delightful baby in a mob-cap, +turns out his elbows, strives eagerly after something. My wife falls +into an ecstasy of agitation and emotion when she holds him in her arms; +but I am completely at a loss to understand. I know that he has a great +store of physical energy, but whether there is any purpose for which the +store is wanted I do not know. That is why I do not care for children +under two or three; I don't understand. + + +This letter was written in 1872, when I was six years old. My +recollections date from about that time. I can remember a few things +before. + + + + +FAMILY LIFE IN THE COUNTRY + +FROM my earliest childhood until the family moved into Moscow--that +was in 1881--all my life was spent, almost without a break, at Yasnaya +Polyana. + +This is how we live. The chief personage in the house is my mother. She +settles everything. She interviews Nikolai, the cook, and orders dinner; +she sends us out for walks, makes our shirts, is always nursing some +baby at the breast; all day long she is bustling about the house with +hurried steps. One can be naughty with her, though she is sometimes +angry and punishes us. + +She knows more about everything than anybody else. She knows that one +must wash every day, that one must eat soup at dinner, that one must +talk French, learn not to crawl about on all fours, not to put one's +elbows on the table; and if she says that one is not to go out walking +because it is just going to rain, she is sure to be right, and one must +do as she says. + +Papa is the cleverest man in the world. He always knows everything. +There is no being naughty with HIM. When he is up in his study +"working," one is not allowed to make a noise, and nobody may go into +his room. What he does when he is at "work," none of us know. Later on, +when I had learned to read, I was told that papa was a "writer." + +This was how I learned. I was very pleased with some lines of poetry one +day, and asked my mother who wrote them. She told me they were written +by Pushkin, and Pushkin was a great writer. I was vexed at my father not +being one, too. Then my mother said that my father was also a well-known +writer, and I was very glad indeed. + +At the dinner-table papa sits opposite mama and has his own round silver +spoon. When old Natalia Petrovna, who lives on the floor below with +great-aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna, pours herself out a glass of kvass, +he picks it up and drinks it right off, then says, "Oh, I'm so sorry, +Natalia Petrovna; I made a mistake!" We all laugh delightedly, and it +seems odd that papa is not in the least afraid of Natalia Petrovna. When +there is jelly for pudding, papa says it is good for gluing paper boxes; +we run off to get some paper, and papa makes it into boxes. Mama is +angry, but he is not afraid of her either. We have the gayest times +imaginable with him now and then. He can ride a horse better and run +faster than anybody else, and there is no one in the world so strong as +he is. + +He hardly ever punishes us, but when he looks me in the eyes he knows +everything that I think, and I am frightened. You can tell stories +to mama, but not to papa, because he will see through you at once. So +nobody ever tries. + +Besides papa and mama, there was also Aunt Tatyana Alexandrovna +Yergolsky. In her room she had a big eikon with a silver mount. We were +very much afraid of this eikon, because it was very old and black. + +When I was six, I remember my father teaching the village children. They +had their lessons in "the other house," [1] where Alexey Stepanytch, the +bailiff, lived, and sometimes on the ground floor of the house we lived +in. + +There were a great number of village children who used to come. When +they came, the front hall smelled of sheepskin jackets; they were taught +by papa and Seryozha and Tanya and Uncle Kostya all at once. Lesson-time +was very gay and lively. + +The children did exactly as they pleased, sat where they liked, ran +about from place to place, and answered questions not one by one, but +all together, interrupting one another, and helping one another to +recall what they had read. If one left out a bit, up jumped another +and then another, and the story or sum was reconstructed by the united +efforts of the whole class. + +What pleased my father most about his pupils was the picturesqueness and +originality of their language. He never wanted a literal repetition of +bookish expressions, and particularly encouraged every one to speak "out +of his own head." I remember how once he stopped a boy who was running +into the next room. + +"Where are YOU off to?" he asked. + +"To uncle, to bite off a piece of chalk." [2] + +"Cut along, cut along! It's not for us to teach them, but for them to +teach." + + + + +THE SERVANTS IN THE HOUSE + +WHEN my father married and brought home his young and inexperienced +bride, Sofya Andreyevna, to Yasnaya Polyana, Nikolai Mikhailovitch +Rumyantsef was already established as cook. Before my father's marriage +he had a salary of five rubles a month; but when my mother arrived, she +raised him to six, at which rate he continued the rest of his days; that +is, till somewhere about the end of the eighties. He was succeeded in +the kitchen by his son, Semyon Nikolayevitch, my mother's godson, and +this worthy and beloved man, companion of my childish games, still +lives with us to this day. Under my mother's supervision he prepared +my father's vegetarian diet with affectionate zeal, and without him my +father would very likely never have lived to the ripe old age he did. + +Agafya Mikhailovna was an old woman who lived at first in the kitchen +of "the other house" and afterward on the home farm. Tall and thin, with +big, thoroughbred eyes, and long, straight hair, like a witch, turning +gray, she was rather terrifying, but more than anything else she was +queer. + +Once upon a time long ago she had been housemaid to my +great-grandmother, Countess Pelageya Nikolayevna Tolstoy, my father's +grandmother, nee Princess Gortchakova. She was fond of telling about her +young days. She would say: + +I was very handsome. When there were gentlefolks visiting at the big +house, the countess would call me, 'Gachette [Agafya], femme de chambre, +apportez-moi un mouchoir!' Then I would say, 'Toute suite, Madame la +Comtesse!' And every one would be staring at me, and couldn't take their +eyes off. When I crossed over to the annex, there they were watching +to catch me on the way. Many a time have I tricked them--ran round the +other way and jumped over the ditch. I never liked that sort of thing +any time. A maid I was, a maid I am. + + +After my grandmother's death, Agafya Mikhailovna was sent on to the home +farm for some reason or other, and minded the sheep. She got so fond of +sheep that all her days after she never would touch mutton. + +After the sheep, she had an affection for dogs, and that is the only +period of her life that I remember her in. + +There was nothing in the world she cared about but dogs. She lived with +them in horrible dirt and smells, and gave up her whole mind and soul +to them. We always had setters, harriers, and borzois, and the whole +kennel, often very numerous, was under Agafya Mikhailovna's management, +with some boy or other to help her, usually one as clumsy and stupid as +could be found. + +There are many interesting recollections bound up with the memory of +this intelligent and original woman. Most of them are associated in +my mind with my father's stories about her. He could always catch and +unravel any interesting psychological trait, and these traits, which he +would mention incidentally, stuck firmly in my mind. He used to tell, +for instance, how Agafya Mikhailovna complained to him of sleeplessness. + +"Ever since I can remember her, she has suffered from 'a birch-tree +growing inside me from my belly up; it presses against my chest, and +prevents my breathing.' + +"She complains of her sleeplessness and the birch-tree and says: 'There +I lay all alone and all quiet, only the clock ticking on the wall: "Who +are you? What are you? Who are you? What are you?" And I began to think: +"Who am I? What am I?" and so I spent the whole night thinking about +it.' + +"Why, imagine this is Socrates! 'Know thyself,'" said my father, telling +the story with great enthusiasm. + +In the summer-time my mother's brother, Styopa (Stephen Behrs), who was +studying at the time in the school of jurisprudence, used to come and +stay with us. In the autumn he used to go wolf-hunting with my father +and us, with the borzois, and Agafya Mikhailovna loved him for that. + +Styopa's examination was in the spring. Agafya Mikhailovna knew about it +and anxiously waited for the news of whether he had got through. + +Once she put up a candle before the eikon and prayed that Styopa might +pass. But at that moment she remembered that her borzois had got out and +had not come back to the kennels again. + +"Saints in heaven! they'll get into some place and worry the cattle and +do a mischief!" she cried. "'Lord, let my candle burn for the dogs +to come back quick, and I'll buy another for Stepan Andreyevitch.' No +sooner had I said this to myself than I heard the dogs in the porch +rattling their collars. Thank God! they were back. That's what prayer +can do." + +Another favorite of Agafya Mikhailovna was a young man, Misha +Stakhovitch, who often stayed with us. + +"See what you have been and done to me, little Countess!" she said +reproachfully to my sister Tanya: "you've introduced me to Mikhail +Alexandrovitch, and I've fallen in love with him in my old age, like a +wicked woman!" + +On the fifth of February, her name-day, Agafya Mikhailovna received a +telegram of congratulation from Stakhovitch. + +When my father heard of it, he said jokingly to Agafya Mikhailovna: + +"Aren't you ashamed that a man had to trudge two miles through the frost +at night all for the sake of your telegram?" + +"Trudge, trudge? Angels bore him on their wings. Trudge, indeed! You +get three telegrams from an outlandish Jew woman," she growled, "and +telegrams every day about your Golokhvotika. Never a trudge then; but I +get name-day greetings, and it's trudge!" + +And one could not but acknowledge that she was right. This telegram, +the only one in the whole year that was addressed to the kennels, by +the pleasure it gave Agafya Mikhailovna was far more important of course +than this news or the about a ball given in Moscow in honor of a Jewish +banker's daughter, or about Olga Andreyevna Golokvastovy's arrival at +Yasnaya. + +Agafya Mikhailovna died at the beginning of the nineties. There were no +more hounds or sporting dogs at Yasnaya then, but till the end of her +days she gave shelter to a motley collection of mongrels, and tended and +fed them. + + + + +THE HOME OF THE TOLSTOYS + +I CAN remember the house at Yasnaya Polyana in the condition it was in +the first years after my father's marriage. + +It was one of the two-storied wings of the old mansion-house of the +Princes Volkonsky, which my father had sold for pulling down when he was +still a bachelor. + +From what my father has told me, I know that the house in which he was +born and spent his youth was a three-storied building with thirty-six +rooms. On the spot where it stood, between the two wings, the remains +of the old stone foundation are still visible in the form of trenches +filled with rubble, and the site is covered with big sixty-year-old +trees that my father himself planted. + +When any one asked my father where he was born, he used to point to a +tall larch which grew on the site of the old foundations. + +"Up there where the top of that larch waves," he used to say; "that's +where my mother's room was, where I was born on a leather sofa." + +My father seldom spoke of his mother, but when he did, it was delightful +to hear him, because the mention of her awoke an unusual strain of +gentleness and tenderness in him. There was such a ring of respectful +affection, so much reverence for her memory, in his words, that we all +looked on her as a sort of saint. + +My father remembered his father well, because he was already nine years +old when he died. He loved him, too, and always spoke of him reverently; +but one always felt that his mother's memory, although he had never +known her, was dearer to him, and his love for her far greater than for +his father. + +Even to this day I do not exactly know the story of the sale of the old +house. My father never liked talking about it, and for that reason I +could never make up my mind to ask him the details of the transaction. I +only know that the house was sold for five thousand paper rubles [3] by +one of his relatives, who had charge of his affairs by power of attorney +when he was in the Caucasus. + +It was said to have been done in order to pay off my father's gambling +debts. That was quite true. + +My father himself told me that at one time he was a great card-player, +that he lost large sums of money, and that his financial affairs were +considerably embarrassed. + +The only thing about which I am in doubt is whether it was with my +father's knowledge or by his directions that the house was sold, or +whether the relative in question did not exceed his instructions and +decide on the sale of his own initiative. + +My father cherished his parents' memory to such an extent, and had such +a warm affection for everything relating to his own childhood, that it +is hard to believe that he would have raised his hand against the house +in which he had been born and brought up and in which his mother had +spent her whole life. + +Knowing my father as I do, I think it is highly possible that he wrote +to his relative from the Caucasus, "Sell something," not in the least +expecting that he would sell the house, and that he afterward took the +blame for it on himself. Is that not the reason why he was always so +unwilling to talk about it? + +In 1871, when I was five years old, the zala [4] and study were built on +the house. + +The walls of the zala were hung with old portraits of ancestors. They +were rather alarming, and I was afraid of them at first; but we got +used to them after a time, and I grew fond of one of them, of my +great-grandfather, Ilya Andreyevitch Tolstoy, because I was told that I +was like him. + +Beside him hung the portrait of another great-grandfather, Prince +Nikolai Sergeyevitch Volkonsky, my grandmother's father, with thick, +black eyebrows, a gray wig, and a red kaftan. [5] + +This Volkonsky built all the buildings of Yasnaya Polyana. He was a +model squire, intelligent and proud, and enjoyed the great respect of +all the neighborhood. + +On the ground floor, under the drawing-room, next to the entrance-hall, +my father built his study. He had a semi-circular niche made in the +wall, and stood a marble bust of his favorite dead brother Nikolai in +it. This bust was made abroad from a death-mask, and my father told us +that it was very like, because it was done by a good sculptor, according +to his own directions. + +He had a kind and rather plaintive face. The hair was brushed smooth +like a child's, with the parting on one side. He had no beard or +mustache, and his head was white and very, very clean. My father's +study was divided in two by a partition of big bookshelves, containing +a multitude of all sorts of books. In order to support them, the +shelves were connected by big wooden beams, and between them was a thin +birch-wood door, behind which stood my father's writing-table and his +old-fashioned semicircular arm-chair. + +There are portraits of Dickens and Schopenhauer and Fet [6] as a young +man on the walls, too, and the well-known group of writers of the +Sovremennik [7] circle in 1856, with Turgenieff, Ostrovsky, Gontcharof, +Grigorovitch, Druzhinin, and my father, quite young still, without a +beard, and in uniform. + +My father used to come out of his bedroom of a morning--it was in a +corner on the top floor--in his dressing-gown, with his beard uncombed +and tumbled together, and go down to dress. + +Soon after he would issue from his study fresh and vigorous, in a gray +smock-frock, and would go up into the zala for breakfast. That was our +dejeuner. + +When there was nobody staying in the house, he would not stop long in +the drawing-room, but would take his tumbler of tea and carry it off to +his study with him. + +But if there were friends and guests with us, he would get into +conversation, become interested, and could not tear himself away. + +At last he would go off to his work, and we would disperse, in winter to +the different school-rooms, in summer to the croquet-lawn or somewhere +about the garden. My mother would settle down in the drawing-room to +make some garment for the babies, or to copy out something she had not +finished overnight; and till three or four in the afternoon silence +would reign in the house. + +Then my father would come out of his study and go off for his +afternoon's exercise. Sometimes he would take a dog and a gun, sometimes +ride, and sometimes merely go for a walk to the imperial wood. + +At five the big bell that hung on the broken bough of an old elm-tree in +front of the house would ring and we would all run to wash our hands and +collect for dinner. + +He was very hungry, and ate voraciously of whatever turned up. My mother +would try to stop him, would tell him not to waste all his appetite on +kasha, because there were chops and vegetables to follow. "You'll have +a bad liver again," she would say; but he would pay no attention to +her, and would ask for more and more, until his hunger was completely +satisfied. Then he would tell us all about his walk, where he put up a +covey of black game, what new paths he discovered in the imperial +wood beyond Kudeyarof Well, or, if he rode, how the young horse he was +breaking in began to understand the reins and the pressure of the leg. +All this he would relate in the most vivid and entertaining way, so that +the time passed gaily and animatedly. + +After dinner he would go back to his room to read, and at eight we +had tea, and the best hours of the day began--the evening hours, when +everybody gathered in the zala. The grown-ups talked or read aloud or +played the piano, and we either listened to them or had some jolly game +of our own, and in anxious fear awaited the moment when the English +grandfather-clock on the landing would give a click and a buzz, and +slowly and clearly ring out ten. + +Perhaps mama would not notice? She was in the sitting-room, making a +copy. + +"Come, children, bedtime! Say good night," she would call. + +"In a minute, Mama; just five minutes." + +"Run along; it's high time; or there will be no getting you up in the +morning to do your lessons." + +We would say a lingering good night, on the lookout for any chance for +delay, and at last would go down-stairs through the arches, annoyed at +the thought that we were children still and had to go to bed while the +grown-ups could stay up as long as ever they liked. + + + + +A JOURNEY TO THE STEPPES + +WHEN I was still a child and had not yet read "War and Peace," I was +told that NATASHA ROSTOF was Aunt Tanya. When my father was asked +whether that was true, and whether DMITRY ROSTOF was such and such a +person and LEVIN such and such another, he never gave a definite answer, +and one could not but feel that he disliked such questions and was +rather offended by them. + +In those remote days about which I am talking, my father was very keen +about the management of his estate, and devoted a lot of energy to it. I +can remember his planting the huge apple orchard at Yasnaya and several +hundred acres of birch and pine forest, and at the beginning of the +seventies, for a number of years, he was interested in buying up land +cheap in the province of Samara, and breeding droves of steppe horses +and flocks of sheep. + +I still have pretty clear, though rather fragmentary and inconsequent, +recollections of our three summer excursions to the steppes of Samara. + +My father had already been there before his marriage in 1862, and +afterward by the advice of Dr. Zakharyin, who attended him. He took the +kumiss-cure in 1871 and 1872, and at last, in 1873, the whole family +went there. + +At that time my father had bought several hundred acres of cheap +Bashkir lands in the district of Buzuluk, and we went to stay on our new +property at a khutor, or farm. + +In Samara we lived on the farm in a tumble-down wooden house, and beside +us, in the steppe, were erected two felt kibitkas, or Tatar frame tents, +in which our Bashkir, Muhammed Shah Romanytch, lived with his wives. + +Morning and evening they used to tie the mares up outside the kibitkas, +where they were milked by veiled women, who then hid themselves from the +sight of the men behind a brilliant chintz curtain, and made the kumiss. + +The kumiss was bitter and very nasty, but my father and my uncle Stephen +Behrs were very fond of it, and drank it in large quantities. + +When we boys began to get big, we had at first a German tutor for two or +three years, Fyodor Fyodorovitch Kaufmann. + +I cannot say that we were particularly fond of him. He was rather rough, +and even we children were struck by his German stupidity. His redeeming +feature was that he was a devoted sportsman. Every morning he used to +jerk the blankets off us and shout, "Auf, Kinder! auf!" and during the +daytime plagued us with German calligraphy. + + + + +OUTDOOR SPORTS + +THE chief passion of my childhood was riding. I well remember the time +when my father used to put me in the saddle in front of him and we +would ride out to bathe in the Voronka. I have several interesting +recollections connected with these rides. + +One day as we were going to bathe, papa turned round and said to me: + +"Do you know, Ilyusha, I am very pleased with myself to-day. I have been +bothered with her for three whole days, and could not manage to make +her go into the house; try as I would, it was impossible. It never would +come right. But to-day I remembered that there is a mirror in every +hall, and that every lady wears a bonnet. + +"As soon as I remembered that, she went where I wanted her to, and did +everything she had to. You would think a bonnet is a small affair, but +everything depended on that bonnet." + +As I recall this conversation, I feel sure that my father was talking +about that scene in "Anna Karenina" where ANNA went to see her son. + +Although in the final form of the novel nothing is said in this scene +either about a bonnet or a mirror,--nothing is mentioned but a thick +black veil,--still, I imagine that in its original form, when he was +working on the passage, my father may have brought Anna up to the +mirror, and made her straighten her bonnet or take it off. + +I can remember the interest with which he told me this, and it now +seems strange that he should have talked about such subtle artistic +experiences to a boy of seven who was hardly capable of understanding +him at the time. However, that was often the case with him. + +I once heard from him a very interesting description of what a writer +needs for his work: + +"You cannot imagine how important one's mood is," he said. "Sometimes +you get up in the morning, fresh and vigorous, with your head clear, and +you begin to write. Everything is sensible and consistent. You read it +over next day, and have to throw the whole thing away, because, good +as it is, it misses the main thing. There is no imagination in it, +no subtlety, none of the necessary something, none of that only just +without which all your cleverness is worth nothing. Another day you +get up after a bad night, with your nerves all on edge, and you think, +'To-day I shall write well, at any rate.' And as a matter of fact, what +you write is beautiful, picturesque, with any amount of imagination. You +look it through again; it is no good, because it is written stupidly. +There is plenty of color, but not enough intelligence. + +"One's writing is good only when the intelligence and the imagination +are in equilibrium. As soon as one of them overbalances the other, it's +all up; you may as well throw it away and begin afresh." + +As a matter of fact, there was no end to the rewriting in my father's +works. His industry in this particular was truly marvelous. + +We were always devoted to sport from our earliest childhood. I can +remember as well as I remember myself my father's favorite dog in those +days, an Irish setter called Dora. They would bring round the cart, with +a very quiet horse between the shafts, and we would drive out to the +marsh, to Degatna or to Malakhov. My father and sometimes my mother or a +coachman sat on the seat, while I and Dora lay on the floor. + +When we got to the marsh, my father used to get out, stand his gun on +the ground, and, holding it with his left hand, load it. + +Dora meanwhile fidgeted about, whining impatiently and wagging her thick +tail. + +While my father splashed through the marsh, we drove round the bank +somewhat behind him, and eagerly followed the ranging of the dog, the +getting up of the snipe, and the shooting. My father sometimes shot +fairly well, though he often lost his head, and missed frantically. + +But our favorite sport was coursing with greyhounds. What a pleasure +it was when the footman Sergei Petrovitch came in and woke us up before +dawn, with a candle in his hand! + +We jumped up full of energy and happiness, trembling all over in the +morning cold; threw on our clothes as quickly as we could, and ran out +into the zala, where the samovar was boiling and papa was waiting for +us. + +Sometimes mama came in in her dressing-gown, and made us put on all +sorts of extra woolen stockings, and sweaters and gloves. + +"What are you going to wear, Lyovotchka?" she would say to papa. "It's +very cold to-day, and there is a wind. Only the Kuzminsky overcoat again +today? You must put on something underneath, if only for my sake." + +Papa would make a face, but give in at last, and buckle on his short +gray overcoat under the other and sally forth. It would then be growing +light. Our horses were brought round, we got on, and rode first to "the +other house," or to the kennels to get the dogs. + +Agafya Mikhailovna would be anxiously waiting us on the steps. Despite +the coldness of the morning, she would be bareheaded and lightly clad, +with her black jacket open, showing her withered, old bosom. She carried +the dog-collars in her lean, knotted hands. + +"Have you gone and fed them again?" asks my father, severely, looking at +the dogs' bulging stomachs. + +"Fed them? Not a bit; only just a crust of bread apiece." + +"Then what are they licking their chops for?" + +"There was a bit of yesterday's oatmeal left over." + +"I thought as much! All the hares will get away again. It really is too +bad! Do you do it to spite me?" + +"You can't have the dogs running all day on empty stomachs, Lyoff +Nikolaievich," she grunted, going angrily to put on the dogs' collars. + +At last the dogs were got together, some of them on leashes, others +running free; and we would ride out at a brisk trot past Bitter Wells +and the grove into the open country. + +My father would give the word of command, "Line out!" and point out the +direction in which we were to go, and we spread out over the stubble +fields and meadows, whistling and winding about along the lee side of +the steep balks, [8] beating all the bushes with our hunting-crops, and +gazing keenly at every spot or mark on the earth. + +Something white would appear ahead. We stared hard at it, gathered +up the reins, examined the leash, scarcely believing the good luck of +having come on a hare at last. Then riding up closer and closer, with +our eyes on the white thing, it would turn out to be not a hare at all, +but a horse's skull. How annoying! + +We would look at papa and Seryozha, thinking, "I wonder if they saw that +I took that skull for a hare." But papa would be sitting keen and alert +on his English saddle, with the wooden stirrups, smoking a cigarette, +while Seryozha would perhaps have got his leash entangled and could not +get it straight. + +"Thank heaven!" we would exclaim, "nobody saw me! What a fool I should +have felt!" So we would ride on. + +The horse's even pace would begin to rock us to sleep, feeling rather +bored at nothing getting up; when all of a sudden, just at the moment we +least expected it, right in front of us, twenty paces away, would jump +up a gray hare as if from the bowels of the earth. + +The dogs had seen it before we had, and had started forward already +in full pursuit. We began to bawl, "Tally-ho! tally-ho!" like madmen, +flogging our horses with all our might, and flying after them. + +The dogs would come up with the hare, turn it, then turn it again, the +young and fiery Sultan and Darling running over it, catching up again, +and running over again; and at last the old and experienced Winger, +who had been galloping on one side all the time, would seize her +opportunity, and spring in. The hare would give a helpless cry like a +baby, and the dogs, burying their fangs in it, in a star-shaped group, +would begin to tug in different directions. + +"Let go! Let go!" + +We would come galloping up, finish off the hare, and give the dogs +the tracks, [9] tearing them off toe by toe, and throwing them to our +favorites, who would catch them in the air. Then papa would teach us how +to strap the hare on the back of the saddle. + +After the run we would all be in better spirits, and get to better +places near Yasenki and Retinka. Gray hares would get up oftener. Each +of us would have his spoils in the saddle-straps now, and we would begin +to hope for a fox. + +Not many foxes would turn up. If they did, it was generally Tumashka, +who was old and staid, who distinguished himself. He was sick of hares, +and made no great effort to run after them; but with a fox he would +gallop at full speed, and it was almost always he who killed. + +It would be late, often dark, when we got back home. + + + + +"ANNA KARENINA" + +I REMEMBER my father writing his alphabet and reading-book in 1871 and +1872, but I cannot at all remember his beginning "Anna Karenina." I +probably knew nothing about it at the time. What did it matter to a boy +of seven what his father was writing? It was only later, when one kept +hearing the name again and again, and bundles of proofs kept arriving, +and were sent off almost every day, that I understood that "Anna +Karenina" was the name of the novel on which my father and mother were +both at work. + +My mother's work seemed much harder than my father's, because we +actually saw her at it, and she worked much longer hours than he +did. She used to sit in the sitting-room off the zala, at her little +writing-table, and spend all her free time writing. + +Leaning over the manuscript and trying to decipher my father's scrawl +with her short-sighted eyes, she used to spend whole evenings over it, +and often sat up late at night after everybody else had gone to bed. +Sometimes, when anything was written quite illegibly, she would go to +my father's study and ask him what it meant. But this was very rare, +because my mother did not like to disturb him. + +When it happened, my father used to take the manuscript in his hand, and +ask with some annoyance, "What on earth is the difficulty?" and would +begin to read it out aloud. When he came to the difficult place he would +mumble and hesitate, and sometimes had the greatest difficulty in making +out, or, rather, in guessing, what he had written. He had a very bad +handwriting, and a terrible habit of writing in whole sentences between +the lines, or in the corners of the page, or sometimes right across it. + +My mother often discovered gross grammatical errors, and pointed them +out to my father, and corrected them. + +When "Anna Karenina" began to come out in the "Russky Vyestnik," [10] +long galley-proofs were posted to my father, and he looked them through +and corrected them. + +At first the margins would be marked with the ordinary typographical +signs, letters omitted, marks of punctuation, etc.; then individual +words would be changed, and then whole sentences, till in the end the +proof-sheet would be reduced to a mass of patches quite black in places, +and it was quite impossible to send it back as it stood, because no +one but my mother could make head or tail of the tangle of conventional +signs, transpositions, and erasures. + +My mother would sit up all night copying the whole thing out afresh. + +In the morning there would lie the pages on her table, neatly piled +together, covered all over with her fine, clear handwriting, and +everything ready so that when "Lyovotchka" got up he could send the +proof-sheets off by post. + + +My father carried them off to his study to have "just one last look," +and by the evening it would be just as bad again, the whole thing having +been rewritten and messed up. + +"Sonya my dear, I am very sorry, but I've spoiled all your work again; I +promise I won't do it any more," he would say, showing her the passages +he had inked over with a guilty air. "We'll send them off to-morrow +without fail." But this to-morrow was often put off day by day for weeks +or months together. + +"There's just one bit I want to look through again," my father would +say; but he would get carried away and recast the whole thing afresh. + +There were even occasions when, after posting the proofs, he would +remember some particular words next day, and correct them by telegraph. +Several times, in consequence of these rewritings, the printing of the +novel in the "Russky Vyestnik" was interrupted, and sometimes it did not +come out for months together. + +In the last part of "Anna Karenina" my father, in describing the end of +VRONSKY'S career, showed his disapproval of the volunteer movement and +the Panslavonic committees, and this led to a quarrel with Katkof. + +I can remember how angry my father was when Katkof refused to print +those chapters as they stood, and asked him either to leave out part of +them or to soften them down, and finally returned the manuscript, and +printed a short note in his paper to say that after the death of the +heroine the novel was strictly speaking at an end; but that the author +had added an epilogue of two printed sheets, in which he related such +and such facts, and he would very likely "develop these chapters for the +separate edition of his novel." + +In concluding, I wish to say a few words about my father's own opinion +of "Anna Karenina." + +In 1875 he wrote to N. N. Strakhof: + +"I must confess that I was delighted by the success of the last piece +of 'Anna Karenina.' I had by no means expected it, and to tell you the +truth, I am surprised that people are so pleased with such ordinary and +EMPTY stuff." + +The same year he wrote to Fet: + +"It is two months since I have defiled my hands with ink or my heart +with thoughts. But now I am setting to work again on my TEDIOUS, VULGAR +'ANNA KARENINA,' with only one wish, to clear it out of the way as +soon as possible and give myself leisure for other occupations, but not +schoolmastering, which I am fond of, but wish to give up; it takes up +too much time." + +In 1878, when the novel was nearing its end, he wrote again to Strakhof: + +"I am frightened by the feeling that I am getting into my summer mood +again. I LOATHE what I have written. The proof-sheets for the April +number [of "Anna Karenina" in the "Russky Vyestnik"] now lie on my +table, and I am afraid that I have not the heart to correct them. +EVERYTHING in them is BEASTLY, and the whole thing ought to be +rewritten,--all that has been printed, too,--scrapped and melted down, +thrown away, renounced. I ought to say, 'I am sorry; I will not do +it any more,' and try to write something fresh instead of all this +incoherent, neither-fish-nor-flesh-nor-fowlish stuff." + +That was how my father felt toward his novel while he was writing it. +Afterward I often heard him say much harsher things about it. + +"What difficulty is there in writing about how an officer fell in love +with a married woman?" he used to say. "There's no difficulty in it, and +above all no good in it." + +I am quite convinced that if my father could have done so, he long ago +would have destroyed this novel, which he never liked and always wanted +to disown. + + + (To be continued) + + + + +REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY (Part II.) + +BY HIS SON, COUNT ILYA TOLSTOY + +TRANSLATED BY GEORGE CALDERON + +IN the summer, when both families were together at Yasnaya, our own +and the Kuzminsky's, when both the house and the annex were full of the +family and their guests, we used our letter-box. + +It originated long before, when I was still small and had only just +learned to write, and it continued with intervals till the middle of the +eighties. + +It hung on the landing at the top of the stairs beside the grandfather's +clock; and every one dropped his compositions into it, the verses, +articles, or stories that he had written on topical subjects in the +course of the week. + +On Sundays we would all collect at the round table in the zala, the +box would be solemnly opened, and one of the grown-ups, often my father +himself, would read the contents aloud. + +All the papers were unsigned, and it was a point of honor not to peep at +the handwriting; but, despite this, we almost always guessed the author, +either by the style, by his self-consciousness, or else by the strained +indifference of his expression. + +When I was a boy, and for the first time wrote a set of French verses +for the letter-box, I was so shy when they were read that I hid under +the table, and sat there the whole evening until I was pulled out by +force. + +For a long time after, I wrote no more, and was always fonder of hearing +other people's compositions read than my own. + +All the events of our life at Yasnaya Polyana found their echo in one +way or another in the letter-box, and no one was spared, not even the +grown-ups. + +All our secrets, all our love-affairs, all the incidents of our +complicated life were revealed in the letter-box, and both household and +visitors were good-humoredly made fun of. + +Unfortunately, much of the correspondence has been lost, but bits of +it have been preserved by some of us in copies or in memory. I cannot +recall everything interesting that there was in it, but here are a few +of the more interesting things from the period of the eighties. + + + + +THE LETTER-BOX + +THE old fogy continues his questions. Why, when women or old men enter +the room, does every well-bred person not only offer them a seat, but +give them up his own? + +Why do they make Ushakof or some Servian officer who comes to pay a +visit necessarily stay to tea or dinner? + +Why is it considered wrong to let an older person or a woman help you on +with your overcoat? + +And why are all these charming rules considered obligatory toward +others, when every day ordinary people come, and we not only do not ask +them to sit down or to stop to dinner or spend the night or render them +any service, but would look on it as the height of impropriety? + +Where do those people end to whom we are under these obligations? By +what characteristics are the one sort distinguished from the others? And +are not all these rules of politeness bad, if they do not extend to all +sorts of people? And is not what we call politeness an illusion, and a +very ugly illusion? + + LYOFF TOLSTOY. + + +Question: Which is the most "beastly plague," a cattle-plague case for a +farmer, or the ablative case for a school-boy? + + LYOFF TOLSTOY. + + +Answers are requested to the following questions: + +Why do Ustyusha, Masha, Alyona, Peter, etc., have to bake, boil, sweep, +empty slops, wait at table, while the gentry have only to eat, gobble, +quarrel, make slops, and eat again? + + LYOFF TOLSTOY. + +My Aunt Tanya, when she was in a bad temper because the coffee-pot had +been spilt or because she had been beaten at croquet, was in the habit +of sending every one to the devil. My father wrote the following story, +"Susoitchik," about it. + + +The devil, not the chief devil, but one of the rank and file, the one +charged with the management of social affairs, Susoitchik by name, was +greatly perturbed on the 6th of August, 1884. From the early morning +onward, people kept arriving who had been sent him by Tatyana Kuzminsky. + +The first to arrive was Alexander Mikhailovitch Kuzminsky; the second +was Misha Islavin; the third was Vyatcheslaf; the fourth was Seryozha +Tolstoy, and last of all came old Lyoff Tolstoy, senior, accompanied +by Prince Urusof. The first visitor, Alexander Mikhailovitch, caused +Susoitchik no surprise, as he often paid Susoitchik visits in obedience +to the behests of his wife. + +"What, has your wife sent you again?" + +"Yes," replied the presiding judge of the district-court, shyly, not +knowing what explanation he could give of the cause of his visit. + +"You come here very often. What do you want?" + +"Oh, nothing in particular; she just sent her compliments," murmured +Alexander Mikhailovitch, departing from the exact truth with some +effort. + +"Very good, very good; come whenever you like; she is one of my best +workers." + +Before Susoitchik had time to show the judge out, in came all the +children, laughing and jostling, and hiding one behind the other. + +"What brought you here, youngsters? Did my little Tanyitchka send you? +That's right; no harm in coming. Give my compliments to Tanya, and +tell her that I am always at her service. Come whenever you like. Old +Susoitchik may be of use to you." + +No sooner had the young folk made their bow than old Lyoff Tolstoy +appeared with Prince Urusof. + +"Aha! so it's the old boy! Many thanks to Tanyitchka. It's a long time +since I have seen you, old chap. Well and hearty? And what can I do for +you?" + +Lyoff Tolstoy shuffled about, rather abashed. + +Prince Urusof, mindful of the etiquette of diplomatic receptions, +stepped forward and explained Tolstoy's appearance by his wish to make +acquaintance with Tatyana Andreyevna's oldest and most faithful friend. + +"Les amis des nos amis sont nos amis." + +"Ha! ha! ha! quite so!" said Susoitchik. "I must reward her for to-day's +work. Be so kind, Prince, as to hand her the marks of my good-will." + +And he handed over the insignia of an order in a morocco case. The +insignia consisted of a necklace of imp's tails to be worn about the +throat, and two toads, one to be worn on the bosom and the other on the +bustle. + +LYOFF TOLSTOY, SENIOR. + + + + +SERGEI NIKOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOY + +I CAN remember my Uncle Seryozha (Sergei) from my earliest childhood. He +lived at Pirogovo, twenty miles from Yasnaya, and visited us often. + +As a young man he was very handsome. He had the same features as my +father, but he was slenderer and more aristocratic-looking. He had the +same oval face, the same nose, the same intelligent gray eyes, and the +same thick, overhanging eyebrows. The only difference between his face +and my father's was defined by the fact that in those distant days, +when my father cared for his personal appearance, he was always worrying +about his ugliness, while Uncle Seryozha was considered, and really was, +a very handsome man. + +This is what my father says about Uncle Seryozha in his fragmentary +reminiscences: + +"I and Nitenka [11] were chums, Nikolenka I revered, but Seryozha I +admired enthusiastically and imitated; I loved him and wished to be he. + +"I admired his handsome exterior, his singing,--he was always a +singer,--his drawing, his gaiety, and above all, however strange a thing +it may seem to say, the directness of his egoism. [12] + +"I always remembered myself, was aware of myself, always divined rightly +or wrongly what others thought about me and felt toward me; and this +spoiled the joy of life for me. This was probably the reason why I +particularly delighted in the opposite of this in other people; namely, +directness of egoism. That is what I especially loved in Seryozha, +though the word 'loved' is inexact. + +"I loved Nikolenka, but I admired Seryozha as something alien and +incomprehensible to me. It was a human life very beautiful, but +completely incomprehensible to me, mysterious, and therefore especially +attractive. + +"He died only a few days ago, and while he was ill and while he was +dying he was just as inscrutable and just as dear to me as he had been +in the distant days of our childhood. + +"In these latter days, in our old age, he was fonder of me, valued my +attachment more, was prouder of me, wanted to agree with me, but could +not, and remained just the same as he had always been; namely, something +quite apart, only himself, handsome, aristocratic, proud, and, above +all, truthful and sincere to a degree that I never met in any other man. + +"He was what he was; he concealed nothing, and did not wish to appear +anything different." + +Uncle Seryozha never treated children affectionately; on the contrary, +he seemed to put up with us rather than to like us. But we always +treated him with particular reverence. The result, as I can see now, +partly of his aristocratic appearance, but chiefly because of the fact +that he called my father "Lyovotchka" and treated him just as my father +treated us. + +He was not only not in the least afraid of him, but was always teasing +him, and argued with him like an elder person with a younger. We were +quite alive to this. + +Of course every one knew that there were no faster dogs in the world +than our black-and-white Darling and her daughter Wizard. Not a hare +could get away from them. But Uncle Seryozha said that the gray hares +about us were sluggish creatures, not at all the same thing as steppe +hares, and neither Darling nor Wizard would get near a steppe hare. + +We listened with open mouths, and did not know which to believe, papa or +Uncle Seryozha. + +Uncle Seryozha went out coursing with us one day. A number of gray +hares were run down, not one, getting away; Uncle Seryozha expressed +no surprise, but still maintained that the only reason was because they +were a poor lot of hares. We could not tell whether he was right or +wrong. + +Perhaps, after all, he was right, for he was more of a sportsman than +papa and had run down ever so many wolves, while we had never known papa +run any wolves down. + +Afterward papa kept dogs only because there was Agafya Mikhailovna to be +thought of, and Uncle Seryozha gave up sport because it was impossible +to keep dogs. + +"Since the emancipation of the peasants," he said, "sport is out of the +question; there are no huntsmen to be had, and the peasants turn out +with sticks and drive the sportsmen off the fields. What is there left +to do nowadays? Country life has become impossible." + +With all his good breeding and sincerity, Uncle Seryozha never concealed +any characteristic but one; with the utmost shyness he concealed the +tenderness of his affections, and if it ever forced itself into the +light, it was only in exceptional circumstances and that against his +will. + +He displayed with peculiar clearness a family characteristic which was +partly shared by my father, namely, an extraordinary restraint in the +expression of affection, which was often concealed under the mask of +indifference and sometimes even of unexpected harshness. In the matter +of wit and sarcasm, on the other hand, he was strikingly original. + +At one period he spent several winters in succession with his family in +Moscow. One time, after a historic concert given by Anton Rubinstein, at +which Uncle Seryozha and his daughter had been, he came to take tea with +us in Weavers' Row.[13] + +My father asked him how he had liked the concert. + +"Do you remember Himbut, Lyovotchka? Lieutenant Himbut, who was forester +near Yasnaya? I once asked him what was the happiest moment of his life. +Do you know what he answered? + +"'When I was in the cadet corps,' he said, 'they used to take down +my breeches now and again and lay me across a bench and flog me. They +flogged and they flogged; when they stopped, that was the happiest +moment of my life.' Well, it was only during the entr'actes, when +Rubinstein stopped playing, that I really enjoyed myself." + +He did not always spare my father. + +Once when I was out shooting with a setter near Pirogovo, I drove in to +Uncle Seryozha's to stop the night. + +I do not remember apropos of what, but Uncle Seryozha averred that +Lyovotchka was proud. He said: + +"He is always preaching humility and non-resistance, but he is proud +himself. + +"Nashenka's [14] sister had a footman called Forna. When he got drunk, +he used to get under the staircase, tuck in his legs, and lie down. One +day they came and told him that the countess was calling him. 'She can +come and find me if she wants me,' he answered. + +"Lyovotchka is just the same. When Dolgoruky sent his chief secretary +Istomin to ask him to come and have a talk with him about Syntayef, the +sectarian, do you know what he answered? + +"'Let him come here, if he wants me.' Isn't that just the same as Forna? + +"No, Lyovotchka is very proud. Nothing would induce him to go, and he +was quite right; but it's no good talking of humility." + +During the last years of Sergei Nikolayevitch's life my father was +particularly friendly and affectionate with him, and delighted in +sharing his thoughts with him. + +A. A. Fet in his reminiscences describes the character of all the three +Tolstoy brothers with extraordinary perspicacity: + +I am convinced that the fundamental type of all the three Tolstoy +brothers was identical, just as the type of all maple-leaves is +identical, despite the variety of their configurations. And if I set +myself to develop the idea, I could show to what a degree all three +brothers shared in that passionate enthusiasm without which it would +have been impossible for one of them to turn into the poet Lyoff +Tolstoy. The difference of their attitude to life was determined by +the difference of the ways in which they turned their backs on their +unfulfilled dreams. Nikolai quenched his ardor in skeptical derision, +Lyoff renounced his unrealized dreams with silent reproach, and Sergei +with morbid misanthropy. The greater the original store of love in such +characters, the stronger, if only for a time, is their resemblance to +Timon of Athens. + +In the winter of 1901-02 my father was ill in the Crimea, and for a +long time lay between life and death. Uncle Seryozha, who felt himself +getting weaker, could not bring himself to leave Pirogovo, and in his +own home followed anxiously the course of my father's illness by the +letters which several members of our family wrote him, and by the +bulletins in the newspapers. + +When my father began to improve, I went back home, and on the way from +the Crimea went to Pirogovo, in order to tell Uncle Seryozha personally +about the course of the illness and about the present condition of my +father's health. I remember how joyfully and gratefully he welcomed me. + +"How glad I am that you came! Now tell me all about it. Who is with him? +All of them? And who nurses him most? Do you go on duty in turn? And at +night, too? He can't get out of bed. Ah, that's the worst thing of all! + +"It will be my turn to die soon; a year sooner or later, what does it +matter? But to lie helpless, a burden to every one, to have others doing +everything for you, lifting you and helping you to sit up, that's what's +so awful. + +"And how does he endure it? Got used to it, you say? No; I cannot +imagine having Vera to change my linen and wash me. Of course she would +say that it's nothing to her, but for me it would be awful. + +"And tell me, is he afraid to die? Does he say not? Very likely; he's a +strong man, he may be able to conquer the fear of it. Yes, yes, perhaps +he's not afraid; but still-- + +"You say he struggles with the feeling? Why, of course; what else can +one do? + +"I wanted to go and be with him; but I thought, how can I? I shall crack +up myself, and then there will be two invalids instead of one. + +"Yes, you have told me a great deal; every detail is interesting. It +is not death that's so terrible, it's illness, helplessness, and, above +all, the fear that you are a burden to others. That's awful, awful." + +Uncle Seryozha died in 1904 of cancer in the face. This is what my aunt, +Maria Nikolayevna, [15] the nun, told me about his death. Almost to the +last day he was on his legs, and would not let any one nurse him. He was +in full possession of his faculties and consciously prepared for death. + +Besides his own family, the aged Maria Mikhailovna and her daughters, +his sister, Maria Nikolayevna, who told me the story, was with him, too, +and from hour to hour they expected the arrival of my father, for whom +they had sent a messenger to Yasnaya. They were all troubled with the +difficult question whether the dying man would want to receive the holy +communion before he died. + +Knowing Sergei Nikolayevitch's disbelief in the religion of the church, +no one dared to mention the subject to him, and the unhappy Maria +Mikhailovna hovered round his room, wringing her hands and praying. + +They awaited my father's arrival impatiently, but were secretly afraid +of his influence on his brother, and hoped against hope that Sergei +Nikolayevitch would send for the priest before his arrival. + +"Imagine our surprise and delight," said Maria Tolstoy, "when Lyovotchka +came out of his room and told Maria Mikhailovna that Seryozha wanted +a priest sent for. I do not know what they had been talking about, but +when Seryozha said that he wished to take the communion, Lyovotchka +answered that he was quite right, and at once came and told us what he +wanted." + +My father stayed about a week at Pirogovo, and left two days before my +uncle died. + +When he received a telegram to say he was worse, he drove over again, +but arrived too late; he was no longer living. He carried his body +out from the house with his own hands, and himself bore it to the +churchyard. + +When he got back to Yasnaya he spoke with touching affection of his +parting with this "inscrutable and beloved" brother, who was so strange +and remote from him, but at the same time so near and so akin. + + + + +FET, STRAKHOF, GAY + +"WHAT'S this saber doing here?" asked a young guardsman, Lieutenant +Afanasyi Afanasyevitch Fet, of the footman one day as he entered the +hall of Ivan Sergeyevitch Turgenieff's flat in St. Petersburg in the +middle of the fifties. + +"It is Count Tolstoy's saber; he is asleep in the drawing-room. And Ivan +Sergeyevitch is in his study having breakfast," replied Zalchar. + +"During the hour I spent with Turgenieff," says Fet, in his +reminiscences, "we talked in low voices, for fear of waking the count, +who was asleep on the other side of the door." + +"He's like that all the time," said Turgenieff, smiling; "ever since he +got back from his battery at Sebastopol, [16] and came to stay here, he +has been going the pace. Orgies, Gipsies, and gambling all night long, +and then sleeps like a dead man till two o'clock in the afternoon. I did +my best to stop him, but have given it up as a bad job. + +"It was in this visit to St. Petersburg that I and Tolstoy became +acquainted, but the acquaintance was of a purely formal character, as I +had not yet seen a line of his writings, and had never heard of his +name in literature, except that Turgenieff mentioned his 'Stories of +Childhood.'" + +Soon after this my father came to know Fet intimately, and they struck +up a firm and lasting friendship, and established a correspondence which +lasted almost till Fet's death. + +It was only during the last years of Fet's life, when my father was +entirely absorbed in his new ideas, which were so at variance with +Afanasyi Afanasyevitch's whole philosophy of life, that they became +estranged and met more rarely. + +It was at Fet's, at Stepanovka, that my father and Turgenieff quarreled. + +Before the railway was made, when people still had to drive, Fet, on +his way into Moscow, always used to turn in at Yasnaya Polyana to see my +father, and these visits became an established custom. Afterward, +when the railway was made and my father was already married, Afanasyi +Afanasyevitch still never passed our house without coming in, and if he +did, my father used to write him a letter of earnest reproaches, and +he used to apologize as if he had been guilty of some fault. In those +distant times of which I am speaking my father was bound to Fet by a +common interest in agriculture as well as literature. + +Some of my father's letters of the sixties are curious in this respect. + +For instance, in 1860, he wrote a long dissertation on Turgenieff's +novel "On the Eve," which had just come out, and at the end added +a postscript: "What is the price of a set of the best quality of +veterinary instruments? And what is the price of a set of lancets and +bleeding-cups for human use?" + +In another letter there is a postscript: + +"When you are next in Oryol, buy me six-hundred weight of various ropes, +reins, and traces," and on the same page: "'Tender art thou,' and the +whole thing is charming. You have never done anything better; it is all +charming." The quotation is from Fet's poem: + +The lingering clouds' last throng flies over us. + + +But it was not only community of interests that brought my father and +Afanasyi Afanasyevitch together. The reason of their intimacy lay in +the fact that, as my father expressed it, they "thought alike with their +heart's mind." + +I also remember Nikolai Nikolayevitch Strakhof's visits. He was a +remarkably quiet and modest man. He appeared at Yasnaya Polyana in the +beginning of the seventies, and from that time on came and stayed with +us almost every summer till he died. + +He had big, gray eyes, wide open, as if in astonishment; a long beard +with a touch of gray in it; and when he spoke, at the end of every +sentence he gave a shy laugh. + +When he addressed my father, he always said "Lef Nikolayevitch" instead +of Lyoff Nikolaievich, like other people. + +He always stayed down-stairs in my father's study, and spent his whole +day there reading or writing, with a thick cigarette, which he rolled +himself, in his mouth. + +Strakhof and my father came together originally on a purely business +footing. When the first part of my father's "Alphabet and Reading-Book" +was printed, Strakhof had charge of the proof-reading. This led to a +correspondence between him and my father, of a business character at +first, later developing into a philosophical and friendly one. While he +was writing "Anna Karenina," my father set great store by his opinion +and valued his critical instinct very highly. + +"It is enough for me that that is your opinion," he writes in a letter +of 1872, probably apropos of the "Alphabet." + +In 1876, apropos of "Anna Karenina" this time, my father wrote: + +"You ask me whether you have understood my novel aright, and what I +think of your opinion. Of course you understood it aright. Of course I +am overjoyed at your understanding of it; but it does not follow that +everybody will understand it as you do." + +But it was not only his critical work that drew my father to Strakhof. +He disliked critics on the whole and used to say that the only people +who took to criticism were those who had no creative faculty of their +own. "The stupid ones judge the clever ones," he said of professional +critics. What he valued most in Strakhof was the profound and +penetrating thinker. He was a "real friend" of my father's,--my father +himself so described him,--and I recall his memory with deep affection +and respect. + +At last I have come to the memory of the man who was nearer in spirit to +my father than any other human being, namely, Nikolai Nikolayevitch +Gay. Grandfather Gay, as we called him, made my father's acquaintance +in 1882. While living on his farm in the Province of Tchernigoff, he +chanced to read my father's pamphlet "On the Census," and finding a +solution in it of the very questions which were troubling him at the +time, without delay he started out and hurried into Moscow. I remember +his first arrival, and I have always retained the impression that from +the first words they exchanged he and my father understood each other, +and found themselves speaking the same language. + +Just like my father, Gay was at this time passing through a great +spiritual crisis; and traveling almost the same road as my father in his +search after truth, he had arrived at the study of the Gospel and a new +understanding of it. My sister Tatyana wrote: + +For the personality of Christ he entertained a passionate and tender +affection, as if for a near and familiar friend whom he loved with +all the strength of his soul. Often during heated arguments Nikolai +Nikolayevitch would take the Gospel, which he always carried about with +him, from his pocket, and read out some passage from it appropriate to +the subject in hand. "This book contains everything that a man needs," +he used to say on these occasions. + +While reading the Gospel, he often looked up at the person he was +talking to and went on reading without looking at the book. His face +glowed at such moments with such inward joy that one could see how near +and dear the words he was reading were to his heart. + +He knew the whole Gospel almost by heart, but he said that every time he +read it he enjoyed a new and genuine spiritual delight. He said that not +only was everything intelligible to him in the Gospel, but that when +he read it he seemed to be reading in his own soul, and felt himself +capable of rising higher and higher toward God and merging himself in +Him. + + + + +TURGENIEFF + +I DO not mean to recount all the misunderstandings which existed between +my father and Turgenieff, which ended in a complete breach between them +in 1861. The actual external facts of that story are common property, +and there is no need to repeat them. [17] According to general opinion, +the quarrel between the two greatest writers of the day arose out of +their literary rivalry. + +It is my intention to show cause against this generally received +opinion, and before I come to Turgenieff's visits to Yasnaya Polyana, I +want to make as clear as I can the real reason of the perpetual discords +between these two good-hearted people, who had a cordial affection for +each other--discords which led in the end to an out-and-out quarrel and +the exchange of mutual defiance. + +As far as I know, my father never had any serious difference with +any other human being during the whole course of his existence. And +Turgenieff, in a letter to my father in 1865, wrote, "You are the only +man with whom I have ever had misunderstandings." + +Whenever my father related his quarrel with Ivan Sergeyevitch, he took +all the blame on himself. Turgenieff, immediately after the quarrel, +wrote a letter apologizing to my father, and never sought to justify his +own part in it. + +Why was it that, as Turgenieff himself put it, his "constellation" and +my father's "moved in the ether with unquestioned enmity"? + +This is what my sister Tatyana wrote on the subject in her article +"Turgenieff," published in the supplement to the "Novoye Vremya," +February 2, 1908: + + +All question of literary rivalry, it seems to me, is utterly beside the +mark. Turgenieff, from the very outset of my father's literary career, +acknowledged his enormous talents, and never thought of rivalry with +him. From the moment when, as early as 1854, he wrote to Kolbasina, "If +Heaven only grant Tolstoy life, I confidently hope that he will surprise +us all," he never ceased to follow my father's work with interest, and +always expressed his unbounded admiration of it. + + +"When this young wine has done fermenting," he wrote to Druzhenin in +1856, "the result will be a liquor worthy of the gods." In 1857 he wrote +to Polonsky, "This man will go far, and leave deep traces behind him." + +Nevertheless, somehow these two men never could "hit it off" together. +When one reads Turgenieff's letters to my father, one sees that from +the very beginning of their acquaintance misunderstandings were always +arising, which they perpetually endeavored to smooth down or to +forget, but which arose again after a time, sometimes in another form, +necessitating new explanations and reconciliations. + +In 1856 Turgenieff wrote to my father: + + +Your letter took some time reaching me, dear Lyoff Nikolaievich. Let me +begin by saying that I am very grateful to you for sending it to me. I +shall never cease to love you and to value your friendship, although, +probably through my fault, each of us will long feel considerable +awkwardness in the presence of the other.... I think that you yourself +understand the reason of this awkwardness of which I speak. You are the +only man with whom I have ever had misunderstandings. + +This arises from the very fact that I have never been willing to confine +myself to merely friendly relations with you. I have always wanted to go +further and deeper than that; but I set about it clumsily. I irritated +and upset you, and when I saw my mistake, I drew back too hastily, +perhaps; and it was this which caused this "gulf" between us. + +But this awkwardness is a mere physical impression, nothing more; and +if when we meet again, you see the old "mischievous look in my eyes," +believe me, the reason of it will not be that I am a bad man. I assure +you that there is no need to look for any other explanation. Perhaps +I may add, also, that I am much older than you, and I have traveled +a different road.... Outside of our special, so-called "literary" +interests, I am convinced, we have few points of contact. Your whole +being stretches out hands toward the future; mine is built up in the +past. For me to follow you is impossible. For you to follow me is +equally out of the question. You are too far removed from me, and +besides, you stand too firmly on your own legs to become any one's +disciple. I can assure you that I never attributed any malice to you, +never suspected you of any literary envy. I have often thought, if you +will excuse the expression, that you were wanting in common sense, but +never in goodness. You are too penetrating not to know that if either of +us has cause to envy the other, it is certainly not you that has cause +to envy me. + + +The following year he wrote a letter to my father which, it seems to me, +is a key to the understanding of Turgenieff's attitude toward him: + + +You write that you are very glad you did not follow my advice and become +a pure man of letters. I don't deny it; perhaps you are right. Still, +batter my poor brains as I may, I cannot imagine what else you are if +you are not a man of letters. A soldier? A squire? A philosopher? +The founder of a new religious doctrine? A civil servant? A man of +business?... Please resolve my difficulties, and tell me which of these +suppositions is correct. I am joking, but I really do wish beyond all +things to see you under way at last, with all sails set. + + +It seems to me that Turgenieff, as an artist, saw nothing in my father +beyond his great literary talent, and was unwilling to allow him the +right to be anything besides an artist and a writer. Any other line of +activity on my father's part offended Turgenieff, as it were, and he was +angry with my father because he did not follow his advice. He was much +older than my father, [18] he did not hesitate to rank his own talent +lower than my father's, and demanded only one thing of him, that he +should devote all the energies of his life to his literary work. And, lo +and behold! my father would have nothing to do with his magnanimity and +humility, would not listen to his advice, but insisted on going the road +which his own tastes and nature pointed out to him. Turgenieff's +tastes and character were diametrically opposed to my father's. While +opposition always inspired my father and lent him strength, it had just +the opposite effect on Turgenieff. + +Being wholly in agreement with my sister's views, I will merely +supplement them with the words uttered by his brother, Nikolai +Nikolayevitch, who said that "Turgenieff cannot reconcile himself to +the idea that Lyovotchka is growing up and freeing himself from his +tutelage." + +As a matter of fact, when Turgenieff was already a famous writer, no +one had ever heard of Tolstoy, and, as Fet expressed it, there was only +"something said about his stories from 'Childhood.'" + +I can imagine with what secret veneration a young writer, just +beginning, must have regarded Turgenieff at that time, and all the more +because Ivan Sergeyevitch was a great friend of my father's elder and +beloved brother Nikolai. + +I do not like to assert it positively, but it seems to me that just +as Turgenieff was unwilling to confine himself to "merely friendly +relations," so my father also felt too warmly toward Ivan Sergeyevitch, +and that was the very reason why they could never meet without +disagreeing and quarreling. In confirmation of what I say here is +a passage from a letter written by V. Botkin, a close friend of my +father's and of Ivan Sergeyevitch's, to A. A. Fet, written immediately +after their quarrel: + + +I think that Tolstoy really has a passionately affectionate nature +and he would like to love Turgenieff in the warmest way possible; but +unfortunately his impulsive feeling encounters nothing but a kindly, +good-natured indifference, and he can by no means reconcile himself to +that. + + +Turgenieff himself said that when they first came to know each other my +father dogged his heels "like a woman in love," and at one time he used +to avoid him, because he was afraid of his spirit of opposition. + +My father was perhaps irritated by the slightly patronizing tone which +Turgenieff adopted from the very outset of their acquaintance; and +Turgenieff was irritated by my father's "crankiness," which distracted +him from "his proper metier, literature." + +In 1870, before the date of the quarrel, Turgenieff wrote to Fet: + +"Lyoff Tolstoy continues to play the crank. It was evidently written in +his stars. When will he turn his last somersault and stand on his feet +at last?" + +Turgenieff was just the same about my father's "Confession," which he +read not long before his death. Having promised to read it, "to try to +understand it," and "not to lose my temper," he "started to write a long +letter in answer to the 'Confession,' but never finished it... for fear +of becoming disputatious." + +In a letter to D. V. Grigorevitch he called the book, which was based, +in his opinion, on false premises, "a denial of all live human life" and +"a new sort of Nihilism." + +It is evident that even then Turgenieff did not understand what a +mastery my father's new philosophy of life had obtained over him, and he +was inclined to attribute his enthusiasm along with the rest to the +same perpetual "crankinesses" and "somersaults" to which he had formerly +attributed his interest in school-teaching, agriculture, the publication +of a paper, and so forth. + + +IVAN SERGEYEVITCH three times visited Yasnaya Polyana within my memory, +in: August and September, 1878, and the third and last time at the +beginning of May, 1880. I can remember all these visits, although it is +quite possible that some details have escaped me. + +I remember that when we expected Turgenieff on his first visit, it was +a great occasion, and the most anxious and excited of all the household +about it was my mother. She told us that my father had quarreled with +Turgenieff and had once challenged him to a duel, and that he was now +coming at my father's invitation to effect a reconciliation. + +Turgenieff spent all the time sitting with my father, who during his +visit put aside even his work, and once in the middle of the day my +mother collected us all at a quite unusual hour in the drawing-room, +where Ivan Sergeyevitch read us his story of "The Dog." + +I can remember his tall, stalwart figure, his gray, silky, yellowish +hair, his soft tread, rather waddling walk, and his piping voice, quite +out of keeping with his majestic exterior. He had a chuckling kind of +laugh, like a child's, and when he laughed his voice was more piping +than ever. + +In the evening, after dinner, we all gathered in the zala. At that time +Uncle Seryozha, Prince Leonid Dmitryevitch Urusof, Vice-Governor of the +Province of Tula; Uncle Sasha Behrs and his young wife, the handsome +Georgian Patty; and the whole family of the Kuzminskys, were staying at +Yasnaya. + +Aunt Tanya was asked to sing. We listened with beating hearts, and +waited to hear what Turgenieff, the famous connoisseur, would say about +her singing. Of course he praised it, sincerely, I think. After the +singing a quadrille was got up. All of a sudden, in the middle of the +quadrille, Ivan Sergeyevitch, who was sitting at one side looking on, +got up and took one of the ladies by the hand, and, putting his thumbs +into the armholes of his waistcoat, danced a cancan according to the +latest rules of Parisian art. Everyone roared with laughter, Turgenieff +more than anybody. + +After tea the "grown-ups" started some conversation, and a warm dispute +arose among them. It was Prince Urusof who disputed most warmly, and +"went for" Turgenieff. + +Of Turgenieff's third visit I remember the woodcock shooting. This was +on the second or third of May, 1880. + +We all went out together beyond the Voronka, my father, my mother and +all the children. My father gave Turgenieff the best place and posted +himself one hundred and fifty paces away at the other end of the same +glade. + +My mother stood by Turgenieff, and we children lighted a bonfire not far +off. + +My father fired several shots and brought down two birds; Ivan +Sergeyevitch had no luck, and was envying my father's good fortune all +the time. At last, when it was beginning to get dark, a woodcock flew +over Turgenieff, and he shot it. + +"Killed it?" called out my father. + +"Fell like a stone; send your dog to pick him up," answered Ivan +Sergeyevitch. + +My father sent us with the dog, Turgenieff showed us where to look +for the bird; but search as we might, and the dog, too, there was no +woodcock to be found. At last Turgenieff came to help, and my father +came; there was no woodcock there. + +"Perhaps you only winged it; it may have got away along the ground," +said my father, puzzled. "It is impossible that the dog shouldn't find +it; he couldn't miss a bird that was killed." + +"I tell you I saw it with my own eyes, Lyoff Nikolaievich; it fell +like a stone. I didn't wound it; I killed it outright. I can tell the +difference." + +"Then why can't the dog find it? It's impossible; there's something +wrong." + +"I don't know anything about that," insisted Turgenieff. "You may take +it from me I'm not lying; it fell like a stone where I tell you." + +There was no finding the woodcock, and the incident left an unpleasant +flavor, as if one or the other of them was in the wrong. Either +Turgenieff was bragging when he said that he shot it dead, or my father, +in maintaining that the dog could not fail to find a bird that had been +killed. + +And this must needs happen just when they were both so anxious to avoid +every sort of misunderstanding! That was the very reason why they had +carefully fought shy of all serious conversation, and spent all their +time merely amusing themselves. + +When my father said good night to us that night, he whispered to us that +we were to get up early and go back to the place to have a good hunt for +the bird. + +And what was the result? The woodcock, in falling, had caught in the +fork of a branch, right at the top of an aspen-tree, and it was all we +could do to knock it out from there. + +When we brought it home in triumph, it was something of an "occasion," +and my father and Turgenieff were far more delighted than we were. It +turned out that they were both in the right, and everything ended to +their mutual satisfaction. + +Ivan Sergeyevitch slept down-stairs in my father's study. When the party +broke up for the night, I used to see him to his room, and while he was +undressing I sat on his bed and talked sport with him. + +He asked me if I could shoot. I said yes, but that I didn't care to go +out shooting because I had nothing but a rotten old one-barreled gun. + +"I'll give you a gun," he said. "I've got two in Paris, and I have no +earthly need for both. It's not an expensive gun, but it's a good one. +Next time I come to Russia I'll bring it with me." + +I was quite taken aback and thanked him heartily. I was tremendously +delighted at the idea that I was to have a real central-fire gun. + +Unfortunately, Turgenieff never came to Russia again. I tried afterward +to buy the gun he had spoken of from his legatees not in the quality of +a central-fire gun, but as Turgenieff's gun; but I did not succeed. + +That is all that I can remember about this delightful, naively cordial +man, with the childlike eyes and the childlike laugh, and in the picture +my mind preserves of him the memory of his grandeur melts into the charm +of his good nature and simplicity. + +In 1883 my father received from Ivan Sergeyevitch his last farewell +letter, written in pencil on his death-bed, and I remember with what +emotion he read it. And when the news of his death came, my father +would talk of nothing else for several days, and inquired everywhere for +details of his illness and last days. + +Apropos of this letter of Turgenieff's, I should like to say that my +father was sincerely annoyed, when he heard applied to himself the +epithet "great writer of the land of Russia," which was taken from this +letter. + +He always hated cliches, and he regarded this one as quite absurd. + +"Why not 'writer of the land'? I never heard before that a man could +be the writer of a land. People get attached to some nonsensical +expression, and go on repeating it in season and out of season." + +I have given extracts above from Turgenieff's letters, which show +the invariable consistency with which he lauded my father's literary +talents. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same of my father's attitude +toward Turgenieff. + +In this, too, the want of dispassionateness in his nature revealed +itself. Personal relations prevented him from being objective. + +In 1867, apropos of Turgenieff's "Smoke," which had just appeared, he +wrote to Fet: + + +There is hardly any love of anything in "Smoke" and hardly any poetry. +The only thing it shows love for is light and playful adultery, and +for that reason the poetry of the story is repulsive. ... I am timid in +expressing this opinion, because I cannot form a sober judgment about an +author whose personality I dislike. + +In 1865, before the final breach with Turgenieff, he wrote, again to +Fet: "I do not like 'Enough'!" A personal subjective treatment is never +good unless it is full of life and passion; but the subjectivity in this +case is full of lifeless suffering. + +In the autumn of 1883, after Turgenieff's death, when the family had +gone into Moscow for the winter, my father stayed at Yasnaya Polyana +alone, with Agafya Mikhailovna, and set earnestly about reading through +all Turgenieff's works. + +This is what he wrote to my mother at the time: + +I am always thinking about Turgenieff. I am intensely fond of him, and +sorry for him, and do nothing but read him. I live entirely with him. +I shall certainly give a lecture on him, or write it to be read; tell +Yuryef. + +"Enough"--read it; it is perfectly charming. + +Unfortunately, my father's intended lecture on Turgenieff never came +off. The Government forbade him to pay this last tribute to his dead +friend, with whom he had quarreled all his life only because he could +not be indifferent to him. + + + (To be continued) + + + + + +REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY (Part III.) + +BY HIS SON, COUNT ILYA TOLSTOY + +TRANSLATED BY GEORGE CALDERON + +AT this point I shall turn back and try to trace the influence which +my father had on my upbringing, and I shall recall as well as I can the +impressions that he left on my mind in my childhood, and later in the +melancholy days of my early manhood, which happened to coincide with the +radical change in his whole philosophy of life. + +In 1852, tired of life in the Caucasus and remembering his old home at +Yasnaya Polyana, he wrote to his aunt, Tatyana Alexandrovna: + +After some years, I shall find myself, neither very young nor very old, +back at Yasnaya Polyana again: my affairs will all be in order; I shall +have no anxieties for the future and no troubles in the present. + +You also will be living at Yasnaya. You will be getting a little old, +but you will be healthy and vigorous. We shall lead the life we led in +the old days; I shall work in the mornings, but we shall meet and see +each other almost all day. + +We shall dine together in the evening. I shall read you something that +interests you. Then we shall talk: I shall tell you about my life in the +Caucasus; you will give me reminiscences of my father and mother; you +will tell me some of those "terrible stories" to which we used to listen +in the old days with frightened eyes and open mouths. + +We shall talk about the people that we loved and who are no more. + +You will cry, and I, too; but our tears will be refreshing, +tranquilizing tears. We shall talk about my brothers, who will visit +us from time to time, and about dear Masha, who will also spend several +months every year at Yasnaya, which she loves, with all her children. + +We shall have no acquaintances; no one will come in to bore us with +gossip. + +It is a wonderful dream; but that is not all that I let myself dream of. + + I shall be married. My wife will be gentle, kind, and +affectionate; she will love you as I do; we shall have children who will +call you granny; you will live in the big house, in the same room on the +top floor where my grandmother lived before. + +The whole house will be run on the same lines as it was in my father's +time, and we shall begin the same life over again, but with a change of +roles. + + +You will take my grandmother's place, but you will be better still than +she was; I shall take my father's place, though I can never hope to be +worthy of the honor. + +My wife will take my mother's place, and the children ours. + +Masha will fill the part of both my aunts, except for their sorrow; +and there will even be Gasha there to take the place of Prashovya +Ilyinitchna. + +The only thing lacking will be some one to take the part you played +in the life of our family. We shall never find such a noble and loving +heart as yours. There is no one to succeed you. + +There will be three new faces that will appear among us from time to +time: my brothers, especially one who will often be with us, Nikolenka, +who will be an old bachelor, bald, retired, always the same kindly, +noble fellow. + + +Just ten years after this letter, my father married, and almost all his +dreams were realized, just as he had wished. Only the big house, with +his grandmother's room, was missing, and his brother Nikolenka, with the +dirty hands, for he died two years before, in 1860. In his family life +my father witnessed a repetition of the life of his parents, and in us +children he sought to find a repetition of himself and his brothers. We +were brought up as regular gentlefolk, proud of our social position and +holding aloof from all the outer world. Everything that was not us was +below us, and therefore unworthy of imitation. I knew that my father +felt very earnestly about the chastity of young people; I knew how much +strength he laid on purity. An early marriage seemed to me the best +solution of the difficult question that must harass every thoughtful boy +when he attains to man's estate. + +Two or three years later, when I was eighteen and we were living in +Moscow, I fell in love with a young lady I knew, my present wife, and +went almost every Saturday to her father's house. + +My father knew, but said nothing. One day when he was going out for a +walk I asked if I might go with him. As I very seldom went for walks +with him in Moscow, he guessed that I wanted to have a serious talk +with him about something, and after walking some distance in silence, +evidently feeling that I was shy about it and did not like to break the +ice, he suddenly began: + +"You seem to go pretty often to the F----s'." + +I said that I was very fond of the eldest daughter. + +"Oh, do you want to marry her?" + +"Yes." + +"Is she a good girl? Well, mind you don't make a mistake, and don't be +false to her," he said with a curious gentleness and thoughtfulness. + +I left him at once and ran back home, delighted, along the Arbat. I was +glad that I had told him the truth, and his affectionate and cautious +way of taking it strengthened my affection both for him, to whom I was +boundlessly grateful for his cordiality, and for her, whom I loved +still more warmly from that moment, and to whom I resolved still more +fervently never to be untrue. + +My father's tactfulness toward us amounted almost to timidity. There +were certain questions which he could never bring himself to touch on +for fear of causing us pain. I shall never forget how once in Moscow +I found him sitting writing at the table in my room when I dashed in +suddenly to change my clothes. + +My bed stood behind a screen, which hid him from me. + +When he heard my footsteps he said, without looking round: + +"Is that you, Ilya?" + +"Yes, it's I." + +"Are you alone? Shut the door. There's no one to hear us, and we can't +see each other, so we shall not feel ashamed. Tell me, did you ever have +anything to do with women?" + +When I said no, I suddenly heard him break out sobbing, like a little +child. + +I sobbed and cried, too, and for a long time we stayed weeping tears of +joy, with the screen between us, and we were neither of us ashamed, but +both so joyful that I look on that moment as one of the happiest in my +whole life. + +No arguments or homilies could ever have effected what the emotion I +experienced at that moment did. Such tears as those shed by a father +of sixty can never be forgotten even in moments of the strongest +temptation. + +My father observed my inward life most attentively between the ages of +sixteen and twenty, noted all my doubts and hesitations, encouraged me +in my good impulses, and often found fault with me for inconsistency. + +I still have some of his letters written at that time. Here are two: + + +I had just written you, my dear friend Ilya, a letter that was true to +my own feelings, but, I am afraid, unjust, and I am not sending it. I +said unpleasant things in it, but I have no right to do so. I do not +know you as I should like to and as I ought to know you. That is my +fault. And I wish to remedy it. I know much in you that I do not like, +but I do not know everything. As for your proposed journey home, I think +that in your position of student, not only student of a gymnase, but +at the age of study, it is better to gad about as little as possible; +moreover, all useless expenditure of money that you can easily refrain +from is immoral, in my opinion, and in yours, too, if you only consider +it. If you come, I shall be glad for my own sake, so long as you are not +inseparable from G----. + +Do as you think best. But you must work, both with your head, thinking +and reading, and with your heart; that is, find out for yourself what is +really good and what is bad, although it seems to be good. I kiss you. + + L. T. + +Dear Friend Ilya: + +There is always somebody or something that prevents me from answering +your two letters, which are important and dear to me, especially the +last. First it was Baturlin, then bad health, insomnia, then the arrival +of D----, the friend of H---- that I wrote you about. He is sitting at +tea talking to the ladies, neither understanding the other; so I left +them, and want to write what little I can of all that I think about you. + +Even supposing that S---- A---- demands too much of you, [19] there is +no harm in waiting; especially from the point of view of fortifying your +opinions, your faith. That is the one important thing. If you don't, it +is a fearful disaster to put off from one shore and not reach the other. + +The one shore is an honest and good life, for your own delight and the +profit of others. But there is a bad life, too--a life so sugared, so +common to all, that if you follow it, you do not notice that it is a bad +life, and suffer only in your conscience, if you have one; but if you +leave it, and do not reach the real shore, you will be made miserable +by solitude and by the reproach of having deserted your fellows, and you +will be ashamed. In short, I want to say that it is out of the question +to want to be rather good; it is out of the question to jump into the +water unless you know how to swim. One must be truthful and wish to be +good with all one's might, too. Do you feel this in you? The drift of +what I say is that we all know what PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA [20] verdict +about your marriage would be: that if young people marry without a +sufficient fortune, it means children, poverty, getting tired of each +other in a year or two; in ten years, quarrels, want--hell. And in +all this PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA is perfectly right and plays the true +prophet, unless these young people who are getting married have another +purpose, their one and only one, unknown to PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA, and +that not a brainish purpose, not one recognized by the intellect, but +one that gives life its color and the attainment of which is more moving +than any other. If you have this, good; marry at once, and give the lie +to PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA. If not, it is a hundred to one that your +marriage will lead to nothing but misery. I am speaking to you from the +bottom of my heart. Receive my words into the bottom of yours, and weigh +them well. Besides love for you as a son, I have love for you also as a +man standing at the cross-ways. I kiss you and Lyolya and Noletchka and +Seryozha, if he is back. We are all alive and well. + + +The following letter belongs to the same period: + +Your letter to Tanya has arrived, my dear friend Ilya, and I see +that you are still advancing toward that purpose which you set up for +yourself; and I want to write to you and to her--for no doubt you tell +her everything--what I think about it. Well, I think about it a great +deal, with joy and with fear mixed. This is what I think. If one marries +in order to enjoy oneself more, no good will ever come of it. To set up +as one's main object, ousting everything else, marriage, union with the +being you love, is a great mistake. And an obvious one, if you think +about it. Object, marriage. Well, you marry; and what then? If you had +no other object in life before your marriage, it will be twice as hard +to find one. + +As a rule, people who are getting married completely forget this. + +So many joyful events await them in the future, in wedlock and the +arrival of children, that those events seem to constitute life itself. +But this is indeed a dangerous illusion. + +If parents merely live from day to day, begetting children, and have no +purpose in life, they are only putting off the question of the purpose +of life and that punishment which is allotted to people who live without +knowing why; they are only putting it off and not escaping it, because +they will have to bring up their children and guide their steps, but +they will have nothing to guide them by. And then the parents lose their +human qualities and the happiness which depends on the possession of +them, and turn into mere breeding cattle. + +That is why I say that people who are proposing to marry because their +life SEEMS to them to be full must more than ever set themselves to +think and make clear to their own minds for the sake of what each of +them lives. + +And in order to make this clear, you must consider the circumstances +in which you live, your past. Reckon up what you consider important and +what unimportant in life. Find out what you believe in; that is, what +you look on as eternal and immutable truth, and what you will take for +your guide in life. And not only find out, but make clear to your own +mind, and try to practise or to learn to practise in your daily life; +because until you practise what you believe you cannot tell whether you +believe it or not. + +I know your faith, and that faith, or those sides of it which can be +expressed in deeds, you must now more than ever make clear to your own +mind, by putting them into practice. + +Your faith is that your welfare consists in loving people and being +loved by them. For the attainment of this end I know of three lines of +action in which I perpetually exercise myself, in which one can never +exercise oneself enough and which are specially necessary to you now. + +First, in order to be able to love people and to be loved by them, one +must accustom oneself to expect as little as possible from them, and +that is very hard work; for if I expect much, and am often disappointed, +I am inclined rather to reproach them than to love them. + +Second, in order to love people not in words, but in deed, one must +train oneself to do what benefits them. That needs still harder +work, especially at your age, when it is one's natural business to be +studying. + +Third, in order to love people and to b. l. b. t., [21] one must train +oneself to gentleness, humility, the art of bearing with disagreeable +people and things, the art of behaving to them so as not to offend any +one, of being able to choose the least offense. And this is the hardest +work of all--work that never ceases from the time you wake till the time +you go to sleep, and the most joyful work of all, because day after day +you rejoice in your growing success in it, and receive a further reward, +unperceived at first, but very joyful after, in being loved by others. + +So I advise you, Friend Ilya, and both of you, to live and to think as +sincerely as you can, because it is the only way you can discover if +you are really going along the same road, and whether it is wise to +join hands or not; and at the same time, if you are sincere, you must be +making your future ready. + +Your purpose in life must not be the joy of wedlock, but, by your life +to bring more love and truth into the world. The object of marriage is +to help one another in the attainment of that purpose. + +The vilest and most selfish life is the life of the people who have +joined together only in order to enjoy life; and the highest vocation +in the world is that of those who live in order to serve God by bringing +good into the world, and who have joined together for that very purpose. +Don't mistake half-measures for the real thing. Why should a man not +choose the highest? Only when you have chosen the highest, you must set +your whole heart on it, and not just a little. Just a little leads to +nothing. There, I am tired of writing, and still have much left that I +wanted to say. I kiss you. + + + + +HELP FOR THE FAMINE-STRICKEN + +AFTER my father had come to the conclusion that it was not only useless +to help people with money, but immoral, the part he took in distributing +food among the peasants during the famines of 1890, 1891, and 1898 may +seem to have shown inconsistency and contradiction of thought. + +"If a horseman sees that his horse is tired out, he must not remain +seated on its back and hold up its head, but simply get off," he used to +say, condemning all the charities of the well-fed people who sit on the +back of the working classes, continue to enjoy all the benefits of their +privileged position, and merely give from their superfluity. + +He did not believe in the good of such charity and considered it a +form of self-hallucination, all the more harmful because people thereby +acquire a sort of moral right to continue that idle, aristocratic life +and get to go on increasing the poverty of the people. + +In the autumn of 1890 my father thought of writing an article on the +famine, which had then spread over nearly all Russia. + +Although from the newspapers and from the accounts brought by those who +came from the famine-stricken parts he already knew about the extent of +the peasantry's disaster, nevertheless, when his old friend Ivanovitch +Rayovsky called on him at Yasnaya Polyana and proposed that he should +drive through to the Dankovski District with him in order to see the +state of things in the villages for himself, he readily agreed, and went +with him to his property at Begitchovka. + +He went there with the intention of staying only for a day or two; but +when he saw what a call there was for immediate measures, he at once set +to work to help Rayovsky, who had already instituted several kitchens in +the villages, in relieving the distress of the peasantry, at first on +a small scale, and then, when big subscriptions began to pour in from +every side, on a continually increasing one. The upshot of it was that +he devoted two whole years of his life to the work. + +It is wrong to think that my father showed any inconsistency in this +matter. He did not delude himself for a moment into thinking he was +engaged on a virtuous and momentous task, but when he saw the sufferings +of the people, he simply could not bear to go on living comfortably at +Yasnaya or in Moscow any longer, but had to go out and help in order to +relieve his own feelings. Once he wrote: + + +There is much about it that is not what it ought to be; there is S. A.'s +money [22] and the subscriptions; there is the relation of those who +feed and those who are fed. THERE IS SIN WITHOUT END, but I cannot stay +at home and write. I feel the necessity of taking part in it, of doing +something. + +Six years later I worked again at the same job with my father in +Tchornski and Mtsenski districts. + +After the bad crops of the two preceding years it became clear by the +beginning of the winter of 1898 that a new famine was approaching in our +neighborhood, and that charitable assistance to the peasantry would be +needed. I turned to my father for help. By the spring he had managed to +collect some money, and at the beginning of April he came himself to see +me. + +I must say that my father, who was very economical by nature, was +extraordinarily cautious and, I may say, even parsimonious in charitable +matters. It is of course easy to understand, if one considers the +unlimited confidence which he enjoyed among the subscribers and the +great moral responsibility which he could not but feel toward them. So +that before undertaking anything he had himself to be fully convinced of +the necessity of giving aid. + +The day after his arrival, we saddled a couple of horses and rode out. +We rode as we had ridden together twenty years before, when we went out +coursing with our greyhounds; that is, across country, over the fields. + +It was all the same to me which way we rode, as I believed that all the +neighboring villages were equally distressed, and my father, for the +sake of old memories, wanted to revisit Spasskoye Lyutovinovo, which +was only six miles from me, and where he had not been since Turgenieff's +death. On the way there I remember he told me all about Turgenieff's +mother, who was famous through all the neighborhood for her remarkable +intelligence, energy, and craziness. I do not know that he ever saw +her himself, or whether he was telling me only the reports that he had +heard. + +As we rode across the Turgenieff's park, he recalled in passing how of +old he and Ivan Sergeyevitch had disputed which park was best, Spasskoye +or Yasnaya Polyana. I asked him: + +"And now which do you think?" + +"Yasnaya Polyana IS the best, though this is very fine, very fine +indeed." + +In the village we visited the head-man's and two or three other +cottages, and came away disappointed. There was no famine. + +The peasants, who had been endowed at the emancipation with a full share +of good land, and had enriched themselves since by wage-earnings, were +hardly in want at all. It is true that some of the yards were badly +stocked; but there was none of that acute degree of want which amounts +to famine and which strikes the eye at once. + +I even remember my father reproaching me a little for having sounded the +alarm when there was no sufficient cause for it, and for a little while +I felt rather ashamed and awkward before him. + +Of course when he talked to the peasants he asked each of them if he +remembered Turgenieff and eagerly picked up anything they had to say +about him. Some of the old men remembered him and spoke of him with +great affection. + + + + +MY FATHER'S ILLNESS IN THE CRIMEA + +IN the autumn of 1901 my father was attacked by persistent feverishness, +and the doctors advised him to spend the winter in the Crimea. Countess +Panina kindly lent him her Villa Gaspra, near Koreiz, and he spent the +winter there. + +Soon after his arrival, he caught cold and had two illnesses one after +the other, enteric fever and inflammation of the lungs. At one time his +condition was so bad that the doctors had hardly any hope that he would +ever rise from his bed again. Despite the fact that his temperature +went up very high, he was conscious all the time; he dictated some +reflections every day, and deliberately prepared for death. + +The whole family was with him, and we all took turns in helping to nurse +him. I look back with pleasure on the nights when it fell to me to be on +duty by him, and I sat in the balcony by the open window, listening +to his breathing and every sound in his room. My chief duty, as the +strongest of the family, was to lift him up while the sheets were being +changed. When they were making the bed, I had to hold him in my arms +like a child. + +I remember how my muscles quivered one day with the exertion. He looked +at me with astonishment and said: + +"You surely don't find me heavy? What nonsense!" + +I thought of the day when he had given me a bad time at riding in the +woods as a boy, and kept asking, "You're not tired?" + +Another time during the same illness he wanted me to carry him +down-stairs in my arms by the winding stone staircase. + +"Pick me up as they do a baby and carry me." + +He had not a grain of fear that I might stumble and kill him. It was all +I could do to insist on his being carried down in an arm-chair by three +of us. + +Was my father afraid of death? + +It is impossible to answer the question in one word. With his tough +constitution and physical strength, he always instinctively fought not +only against death, but against old age. Till the last year of his life +he never gave in, but always did everything for himself and even rode on +horseback. + +To suppose, therefore, that he had no instinctive fear of death is out +of the question. He had that fear, and in a very high degree, but he was +constantly fighting to overcome it. + +Did he succeed? + +I can answer definitely yes. During his illness he talked a great deal +of death and prepared himself for it firmly and deliberately. When he +felt that he was getting weaker, he wished to say good-by to everybody, +and he called us all separately to his bedside, one after the other, and +gave his last words of advice to each. He was so weak that he spoke in a +half-whisper, and when he had said good-by to one, he had to rest for a +while and collect his strength for the rest. + +When my turn came, he said as nearly as I can remember: + +"You are still young and strong and tossed by storms of passion. You +have not therefore yet been able to think over the chief questions of +life. But this stage will pass. I am sure of it. When the time comes, +believe me, you will find the truth in the teachings of the Gospel. I +am dying peacefully simply because I have come to know that teaching and +believe in it. May God grant you this knowledge soon! Good-by." + +I kissed his hand and left the room quietly. When I got to the front +door, I rushed to a lonely stone tower, and there sobbed my heart out +in the darkness like a child. Looking round at last, I saw that some one +else was sitting on the staircase near me, also crying. + +So I said farewell to my father years before his death, and the memory +of it is dear to me, for I know that if I had seen him before his death +at Astapova he would have said just the same to me. + +To return to the question of death, I will say that so far from +being afraid of it, in his last days he often desired it; he was +more interested in it than afraid of it. This "greatest of mysteries" +interested him to such a degree that his interest came near to love. How +eagerly he listened to accounts of the death of his friends, Turgenieff, +Gay, Leskof, [23] Zhemtchuzhnikof [24]; and others! He inquired after +the smallest matters; no detail, however trifling in appearance, was +without its interest and importance to him. + +His "Circle of Reading," November 7, the day he died, is devoted +entirely to thoughts on death. + +"Life is a dream, death is an awakening," he wrote, while in expectation +of that awakening. + +Apropos of the "Circle of Reading," I cannot refrain from relating a +characteristic incident which I was told by one of my sisters. + +When my father had made up his mind to compile that collection of the +sayings of the wise, to which he gave the name of "Circle of Reading," +he told one of his friends about it. + +A few days afterward this friend came to see him again, and at once told +him that he and his wife had been thinking over his scheme for the new +book and had come to the conclusion that he ought to call it "For Every +Day," instead of "Circle of Reading." + +To this my father replied that he preferred the title "Circle of +Reading" because the word "circle" suggested the idea of continuous +reading, which was what he meant to express by the title. + +Half an hour later the friend came across the room to him and repeated +exactly the same remark again. This time my father made no reply. In +the evening, when the friend was preparing to go home, as he was saying +good-by to my father, he held his hand in his and began once more: + +"Still, I must tell you, Lyoff Nikolaievich, that I and my wife have +been thinking it over, and we have come to the conclusion," and so on, +word for word the same. + +"No, no, I want to die--to die as soon as possible," groaned my father +when he had seen the friend off. + +"Isn't it all the same whether it's 'Circle of Reading' or 'For Every +Day'? No, it's time for me to die: I cannot live like this any longer." + +And, after all, in the end, one of the editions of the sayings of the +wise was called "For Every Day" instead of "Circle of Reading." + +"Ah, my dear, ever since this Mr. ---- turned up, I really don't know +which of Lyoff Nikolaievich's writings are by Lyoff Nikolaievich and +which are by Mr. ----!" murmured our old friend, the pure-hearted and +far from malicious Marya Alexandrovna Schmidt. + +This sort of intrusion into my father's work as an author bore, in the +"friend's" language, the modest title of "corrections beforehand," and +there is no doubt that Marya Alexandrovna was right, for no one will +ever know where what my father wrote ends and where his concessions to +Mr. ----'s persistent "corrections beforehand" begin, all the more as +this careful adviser had the forethought to arrange that when my father +answered his letters he was always to return him the letters they were +answers to.[25] + +Besides the desire for death that my father displayed, in the last years +of his life he cherished another dream, which he made no secret of +his hope of realizing, and that was the desire to suffer for his +convictions. The first impulse in this direction was given him by +the persecution on the part of the authorities to which, during his +lifetime, many of his friends and fellow-thinkers were subjected. + +When he heard of any one being put in jail or deported for disseminating +his writings, he was so disturbed about it that one was really sorry +for him. I remember my arrival at Yasnaya some days after Gusef's +arrest.[26] I stayed two days with my father, and heard of nothing but +Gusef. As if there were nobody in the world but Gusef! I must confess +that, sorry as I was for Gusef, who was shut up at the time in the local +prison at Krapivna, I harbored a most wicked feeling of resentment at +my father's paying so little attention to me and the rest of those about +him and being so absorbed in the thought of Gusef. + +I willingly acknowledge that I was wrong in entertaining this +narrow-minded feeling. If I had entered fully into what my father was +feeling, I should have seen this at the time. + +As far back as 1896, in consequence of the arrest of a doctor, Miss +N----, in Tula, my father wrote a long letter to Muravyof, the Minister +of Justice, in which he spoke of the "unreasonableness, uselessness, +and cruelty of the measures taken by the Government against those who +disseminate these forbidden writings," and begged him to "direct the +measures taken to punish or intimidate the perpetrators of the evil, +or to put an end to it, against the man whom you regard as the real +instigator of it... all the more, as I assure you beforehand, that I +shall continue without ceasing till my death to do what the Government +considers evil and what I consider my sacred duty before God." + +As every one knows, neither this challenge nor the others that followed +it led to any result, and the arrests and deportations of those +associated with him still went on. + +My father felt himself morally responsible toward all those who suffered +on his account, and every year new burdens were laid on his conscience. + + + + +MASHA'S DEATH + +As I reach the description of the last days of my father's life, I must +once more make it clear that what I write is based only on the personal +impressions I received in my periodical visits to Yasnaya Polyana. + +Unfortunately, I have no rich shorthand material to rely on, such as +Gusef and Bulgakof had for their memoirs, and more especially +Dushan Petrovitch Makowicki, who is preparing, I am told, a big and +conscientious work, full of truth and interest. + +In November, 1906, my sister Masha died of inflammation of the lungs. +It is a curious thing that she vanished out of life with just as little +commotion as she had passed through it. Evidently this is the lot of all +the pure in heart. + +No one was particularly astonished by her death. I remember that when I +received the telegram, I felt no surprise. It seemed perfectly natural +to me. Masha had married a kinsman of ours, Prince Obolenski; she lived +on her own estate at Pirogovo, twenty-one miles from us, and spent half +the year with her husband at Yasnaya. She was very delicate and had +constant illnesses. + +When I arrived at Yasnaya the day after her death, I was aware of an +atmosphere of exaltation and prayerful emotion about the whole family, +and it was then I think for the first time that I realized the full +grandeur and beauty of death. + +I definitely felt that by her death Masha, so far from having gone away +from us, had come nearer to us, and had been, as it were, welded to us +forever in a way that she never could have been during her lifetime. + +I observed the same frame of mind in my father. He went about silent and +woebegone, summoning all his strength to battle with his own sorrow; but +I never heard him utter a murmur of a complaint, only words of tender +emotion. When the coffin was carried to the church he changed his +clothes and went with the cortege. When he reached the stone pillars +he stopped us, said farewell to the departed, and walked home along the +avenue. I looked after him and watched him walk away across the wet, +thawing snow with his short, quick old man's steps, turning his toes out +at a sharp angle, as he always did, and never once looking round. + +My sister Masha had held a position of great importance in my father's +life and in the life of the whole family. Many a time in the last few +years have we had occasion to think of her and to murmur sadly: "If only +Masha had been with us! If only Masha had not died!" + +In order to explain the relations between Masha and my father I must +turn back a considerable way. There was one distinguishing and, at first +sight, peculiar trait in my father's character, due perhaps to the fact +that he grew up without a mother, and that was that all exhibitions of +tenderness were entirely foreign to him. + +I say "tenderness" in contradistinction to heartiness. Heartiness he had +and in a very high degree. + +His description of the death of my Uncle Nikolai is characteristic in +this connection. In a letter to his other brother, Sergei Nikolayevitch, +in which he described the last day of his brother's life, my father +tells how he helped him to undress. + +"He submitted, and became a different man.... He had a word of praise +for everybody, and said to me, 'Thanks, my friend.' You understand the +significance of the words as between us two." + +It is evident that in the language of the Tolstoy brothers the phrase +"my friend" was an expression of tenderness beyond which imagination +could not go. The words astonished my father even on the lips of his +dying brother. + +During all his lifetime I never received any mark of tenderness from him +whatever. + +He was not fond of kissing children, and when he did so in saying good +morning or good night, he did it merely as a duty. + +It is therefore easy to understand that he did not provoke any display +of tenderness toward himself, and that nearness and dearness with him +were never accompanied by any outward manifestations. + +It would never have come into my head, for instance, to walk up to my +father and kiss him or to stroke his hand. I was partly prevented also +from that by the fact that I always looked up to him with awe, and his +spiritual power, his greatness, prevented me from seeing in him the mere +man--the man who was so plaintive and weary at times, the feeble old man +who so much needed warmth and rest. + +The only person who could give him that warmth was Masha. + +She would go up to him, stroke his hand, caress him, and say something +affectionate, and you could see that he liked it, was happy, and even +responded in kind. It was as if he became a different man with her. Why +was it that Masha was able to do this, while no one else even dared to +try? If any other of us had done it, it would have seemed unnatural, but +Masha could do it with perfect simplicity and sincerity. + +I do not mean to say that others about my father loved him less than +Masha; not at all; but the display of love for him was never so warm and +at the same time so natural with any one else as with her. + +So that with Masha's death my father was deprived of this natural source +of warmth, which, with advancing years, had become more and more of a +necessity for him. + +Another and still greater power that she possessed was her remarkably +delicate and sensitive conscience. This trait in her was still dearer to +my father than her caresses. + +How good she was at smoothing away all misunderstandings! How she always +stood up for those who were found any fault with, justly or unjustly! It +was all the same to her. Masha could reconcile everybody and everything. + +During the last years of his life my father's health perceptibly grew +worse. Several times he had the most sudden and inexplicable sort +of fainting fits, from which he used to recover the next day, but +completely lost his memory for a time. + +Seeing my brother Andrei's children, who were staying at Yasnaya, in the +zala one day, he asked with some surprise, "Whose children are these?" +Meeting my wife, he said, "Don't be offended, my dear; I know that I am +very fond of you, but I have quite forgotten who you are"; and when he +went up to the zala after one of these fainting fits, he looked round +with an astonished air and said, "Where's my brother Nitenka." Nitenka +had died fifty years before. + +The day following all traces of the attack would disappear. + +During one of these fainting fits my brother Sergei, in undressing my +father, found a little note-book on him. He put it in his own pocket, +and next day, when he came to see my father, he handed it back to him, +telling him that he had not read it. + +"There would have been no harm in YOUR seeing it," said my father, as he +took it back. + +This little diary in which he wrote down his most secret thoughts and +prayers was kept "for himself alone," and he never showed it to any one. +I saw it after my father's death. It is impossible to read it without +tears. + +It is curious that the sudden decay of my father's memory displayed +itself only in the matter of real facts and people. He was entirely +unaffected in his literary work, and everything that he wrote down to +the last days of his life is marked by his characteristic logicalness +and force. It may be that the reason he forgot the details of real life +was because he was too deeply absorbed in his abstract work. + +My wife was at Yasnaya Polyana in October, and when she came home she +told me that there was something wrong there. "Your mother is nervous +and hysterical; your father is in a silent and gloomy frame of mind." + +I was very busy with my office work, but made up my mind to devote my +first free day to going and seeing my father and mother. + +When I got to Yasnaya, my father had already left it. + +I paid Aunt Masha a visit some little time after my father's funeral. We +sat together in her comfortable little cell, and she repeated to me once +more in detail the oft-repeated story of my father's last visit to her. + +"He sat in that very arm-chair where you are sitting now, and how he +cried!" she said. + +"When Sasha arrived with her girl friend, they set to work studying this +map of Russia and planning out a route to the Caucasus. Lyovotchka sat +there thoughtful and melancholy. + +"'Never mind, Papa; it'll be all right,' said Sasha, trying to encourage +him. + +"'Ah, you women, you women!' answered her father, bitterly. 'How can it +ever be all right?' + +"I so much hoped that he would settle down here; it would just have +suited him. And it was his own idea, too; he had even taken a cottage in +the village," Aunt Masha sadly recalled. + +"When he left me to go back to the hotel where he was staying, it seemed +to me that he was rather calmer. + +"When he said good-by, he even made some joke about his having come to +the wrong door. + +"I certainly would never have imagined that he would go away again that +same night." + +It was a grievous trial for Aunt Masha when the old confessor Iosif, +who was her spiritual director, forbade her to pray for her dead brother +because he had been excommunicated. She was too broad-minded to be able +to reconcile herself to the harsh intolerance of the church, and for a +time she was honestly indignant. Another priest to whom she applied also +refused her request. + +Marya Nikolayevna could not bring herself to disobey her spiritual +fathers, but at the same time she felt that she was not really obeying +their injunction, for she prayed for him all the same, in thought, if +not in words. + +There is no knowing how her internal discord would have ended if her +father confessor, evidently understanding the moral torment she was +suffering, had not given her permission to pray for her brother, but +only in her cell and in solitude, so as not to lead others astray. + + + + +MY FATHER'S WILL. CONCLUSION + +ALTHOUGH my father had long since renounced the copyright in all his +works written after 1883, and although, after having made all his real +estate over to his children, he had, as a matter of fact, no property +left, still he could not but be aware that his life was far from +corresponding to his principles, and this consciousness perpetually +preyed upon his mind. One has only to read some of his posthumous works +attentively to see that the idea of leaving home and radically altering +his whole way of life had presented itself to him long since and was a +continual temptation to him. + +This was the cherished dream that always allured him, but which he did +not think himself justified in putting into practice. + +The life of the Christian must be a "reasonable and happy life IN +ALL POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES," he used to say as he struggled with the +temptation to go away, and gave up his own soul for others. + +I remember reading in Gusef's memoirs how my father once, in +conversation with Gusoryof, the peasant, who had made up his mind +to leave his home for religious reasons, said, "My life is a hundred +thousand times more loathsome than yours, but yet I cannot leave it." + +I shall not enumerate all the letters of abuse and amazement which +my father received from all sides, upbraiding him with luxury, with +inconsistency, and even with torturing his peasants. It is easy to +imagine what an impression they made on him. + +He said there was good reason to revile him; he called their abuse "a +bath for the soul," but internally he suffered from the "bath," and saw +no way out of his difficulties. He bore his cross, and it was in this +self-renunciation that his power consisted, though many either could not +or would not understand it. He alone, despite all those about him, knew +that this cross was laid on him not of man, but of God; and while he was +strong, he loved his burden and shared it with none. + +Just as thirty years before he had been haunted by the temptation to +suicide, so now he struggled with a new and more powerful temptation, +that of flight. + +A few days before he left Yasnaya he called on Marya Alexandrovna +Schmidt at Ovsyanniki and confessed to her that he wanted to go away. + +The old lady held up her hands in horror and said: + +"Gracious Heavens, Lyoff Nikolaievich, have you come to such a pitch of +weakness?" + +When I learned, on October 28, 1910, that my father had left Yasnaya, +the same idea occurred to me, and I even put it into words in a letter I +sent to him at Shamerdino by my sister Sasha. + +I did not know at the time about certain circumstances which have since +made a great deal clear to me that was obscure before. + +From the moment of my father's death till now I have been racking my +brains to discover what could have given him the impulse to take that +last step. What power could compel him to yield in the struggle in which +he had held firmly and tenaciously for many years? What was the last +drop, the last grain of sand that turned the scales, and sent him forth +to search for a new life on the very edge of the grave? + +Could he really have fled from home because the wife that he had lived +with for forty-eight years had developed neurasthenia and at one time +showed certain abnormalities characteristic of that malady? Was that +like the man who so loved his fellows and so well knew the human heart? +Or did he suddenly desire, when he was eighty-three, and weak and +helpless, to realize the idea of a pilgrim's life? + +If so, why did he take my sister Sasha and Dr. Makowicki with him? +He could not but know that in their company he would be just as well +provided with all the necessaries of life as he would have been at +Yasnaya Polyana. It would have been the most palpable self-deception. + +Knowing my father as I did, I felt that the question of his flight was +not so simple as it seemed to others, and the problem lay long unsolved +before me until it was suddenly made clear by the will that he left +behind him. + +I remember how, after N. S. Leskof's death, my father read me his +posthumous instructions with regard to a pauper funeral, with no +speeches at the grave, and so on, and how the idea of writing his own +will then came into his head for the first time. + +His first will was written in his diary, on March 27, 1895. [27] + +The fourth paragraph, to which I wish to call particular attention, +contains a request to his next of kin to transfer the right of +publishing his writings to society at large, or, in other words, to +renounce the copyright of them. + +"But I only request it, and do not direct it. It is a good thing to do. +And it will be good for you to do it; but if you do not do it, that is +your affair. It means that you are not yet ready to do it. The fact that +my writings have been bought and sold during these last ten years has +been the most painful thing in my whole life to me." + +Three copies were made of this will, and they were kept by my sister +Masha, my brother Sergei, and Tchertkof. + +I knew of its existence, but I never saw it till after my father's +death, and I never inquired of anybody about the details. + +I knew my father's views about copyright, and no will of his could have +added anything to what I knew. I knew, moreover, that this will was not +properly executed according to the forms of law, and personally I was +glad of that, for I saw in it another proof of my father's confidence +in his family. I need hardly add that I never doubted that my father's +wishes would be carried out. + +My sister Masha, with whom I once had a conversation on the subject, was +of the same opinion. + +In 1909 my father stayed with Mr. Tchertkof at Krekshin, and there for +the first time he wrote a formal will, attested by the signature of +witnesses. How this will came to be written I do not know, and I do not +intend to discuss it. It afterward appeared that it also was imperfect +from a legal point of view, and in October, 1909, it had all to be done +again. + +As to the writing of the third we are fully informed by Mr. F. Strakhof +in an article which he published in the St. Petersburg "Gazette" on +November 6, 1911. + +Mr. Strakhof left Moscow at night. He had calculated on Sofya +Andreyevna, [28] whose presence at Yasnaya Polyana was highly +inexpedient for the business on which he was bound, being still in +Moscow. + +The business in question, as was made clear in the preliminary +consultation which V. G. Tchertkof held with N. K. Muravyof, +the solicitor, consisted in getting fresh signatures from Lyoff +Nikolaievich, whose great age made it desirable to make sure, without +delay, of his wishes being carried out by means of a more unassailable +legal document. Strakhof brought the draft of the will with him, and +laid it before Lyoff Nikolaievich. After reading the paper through, he +at once wrote under it that he agreed with its purport, and then added, +after a pause: + +"All this business is very disagreeable to me, and it is unnecessary. To +insure the propagation of my ideas by taking all sorts of measures--why, +no word can perish without leaving its trace, if it expresses a truth, +and if the man who utters it believes profoundly in its truth. But all +these outward means for insuring it only come of our disbelief in what +we utter." + +And with these words Lyoff Nikolaievich left the study. + +Thereupon Mr. Strakhof began to consider what he must do next, whether +he should go back with empty hands, or whether he should argue it out. + +He decided to argue it out, and endeavored to explain to my father +how painful it would be for his friends after his death to hear people +blaming him for not having taken any steps, despite his strong opinion +on the subject, to see that his wishes were carried out, and for having +thereby helped to transfer his copyrights to the members of his family. + +Tolstoy promised to think it over, and left the room again. + +At dinner Sofya Andreyevna "was evidently far from having any +suspicions." When Tolstoy was not by, however, she asked Mr. Strakhof +what he had come down about. Inasmuch as Mr. Strakhof had other affairs +in hand besides the will, he told her about one thing and another with +an easy conscience. + +Mr. Strakhof described a second visit to Yasnaya, when he came to attest +the same will as a witness. + +When he arrived, he said: "The countess had not yet come down. I +breathed again." + +Of his departure, he said: + + +As I said good-by to Sofya Andreyevna, I examined her countenance +attentively. Such complete tranquillity and cordiality toward her +departing guests were written on it that I had not the smallest doubt +of her complete ignorance of what was going on.... I left the house with +the pleasing consciousness of a work well done--a work that was destined +to have a considerable historic consequence. I only felt some little +twinge within, certain qualms of conscience about the conspiratorial +character of the transaction. + + +But even this text of the will did not quite satisfy my father's +"friends and advisers"; it was redrafted for the fourth and last time in +July, 1910. + +This last draft was written by my father himself in the Limonovski +Forest, two miles from the house, not far from Mr. Tchertkof's estate. + +Such is the melancholy history of this document, which was destined to +have historic consequences. "All this business is very disagreeable to +me, and it is unnecessary," my father said when he signed the paper that +was thrust before him. That was his real opinion about his will, and it +never altered to the end of his days. + +Is there any need of proof for that? I think one need know very little +of his convictions to have no doubt about it. + +Was Lyoff Nikolaievich Tolstoy likely of his own accord to have recourse +to the protection of the law? And, if he did, was he likely to conceal +it from his wife and children? + +He had been put into a position from which there was absolutely no way +out. To tell his wife was out of the question; it would have grievously +offended his friends. To have destroyed the will would have been worse +still; for his friends had suffered for his principles morally, and some +of them materially, and had been exiled from Russia. He felt himself +bound to them. + +And on the top of all this were his fainting fits, his increasing loss +of memory, the clear consciousness of the approach of death, and the +continually growing nervousness of his wife, who felt in her heart +of hearts the unnatural estrangement of her husband, and could not +understand it. If she asked him what it was that he was concealing from +her, he would either have to say nothing or to tell her the truth. But +that was impossible. + +So it came about that the long-cherished dream of leaving Yasnaya +Polyana presented itself as the only means of escape. It was certainly +not in order to enjoy the full realization of his dream that he left his +home; he went away only as a choice of evils. + +"I am too feeble and too old to begin a new life," he had said to my +brother Sergei only a few days before his departure. + +Harassed, ill in body and in mind, he started forth without any object +in view, without any thought-out plan, merely in order to hide himself +somewhere, wherever it might be, and get some rest from the moral +tortures which had become insupportable to him. + +"To fly, to fly!" he said in his deathbed delirium as he lay at +Astapova. + +"Has papa considered that mama may not survive the separation from him?" +I asked my sister Sasha on October 29, when she was on the point of +going to join him at Shamerdino. + +"Yes, he has considered all that, and still made up his mind to go, +because he thinks that nothing could be worse than the state that things +have come to here," she answered. + +I confess that my explanation of my father's flight by no means exhausts +the question. Life is complex and every explanation of a man's conduct +is bound to suffer from one-sidedness. Besides, there are circumstances +of which I do not care to speak at the present moment, in order not to +cause unnecessary pain to people still living. It may be that if those +who were about my father during the last years of his life had known +what they were doing, things would have turned out differently. + +The years will pass. The accumulated incrustations which hide the truth +will pass away. Much will be wiped out and forgotten. Among other things +my father's will will be forgotten--that will which he himself looked +upon as an "unnecessary outward means." And men will see more clearly +that legacy of love and truth in which he believed deeply, and which, +according to his own words, "cannot perish without a trace." + +In conclusion I cannot refrain from quoting the opinion of one of my +kinsmen, who, after my father's death, read the diaries kept both by my +father and my mother during the autumn before Lyoff Nikolaievich left +Yasnaya Polyana. + +"What a terrible misunderstanding!" he said. "Each loved the other with +such poignant affection, each was suffering all the time on the other's +behalf, and then this terrible ending!... I see the hand of fate in +this." + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: The name we gave to the stone annex.] + +[Footnote 2: The instinct for lime, necessary to feed their bones, +drives Russian children to nibble pieces of chalk or the whitewash off +the wall. In this case the boy was running to one of the grown-ups in +the house, and whom he called uncle, as Russian children call everybody +uncle or aunt, to get a piece of the chalk that he had for writing on +the blackboard. "Us," he said to some one when the boy was gone. Which +of us would have expressed himself like that? You see, he did not say +to "get" or to "break off," but to "bite off," which was right, because +they did literally "bite" off the chalk from the lump with their teeth, +and not break it off.] + +[Footnote 3: About $3000.] + +[Footnote 4: The zala is the chief room of a house, corresponding to +the English drawing-room, but on a grand scale. The gostinaya--literally +guest-room, usually translated as drawing-room--is a place for more +intimate receptions. At Yasnaya Polyana meals were taken in the zala, +but this is not the general Russian custom, houses being provided also +with a stolovaya, or dining-room.] + +[Footnote 5: Kaftan, a long coat of various cuts, including military +and naval frock-coat, and the long gown worn by coachmen.] + +[Footnote 6: Afanasyi Shenshin, the poet, who adopted his mother's +name, Fet, for a time, owing to official difficulties about his +birth-certificate. An intimate friend of Tolstoy's.] + +[Footnote 7: "Sovremennik," or "Contemporary Review," edited by the poet +Mekrasof, was the rallying-place for the "men of the forties," the new +school of realists. Ostrovsky is the dramatist; Gontcharof the novelist, +author of "Oblomof"; Grigorovitch wrote tales about peasant life, and +was the discoverer of Tchekhof's talent as a serious writer.] + +[Footnote 8: The balks are the banks dividing the fields of different +owners or crops. Hedges are not used for this purpose in Russia.] + +[Footnote 9: Pazanki, tracks of a hare, name given to the last joint of +the hind legs.] + +[Footnote 10: A Moscow monthly, founded by Katkof, who somehow managed +to edit both this and the daily "Moskovskiya Vyedomosti," on which +"Uncle Kostya" worked at the same time.] + +[Footnote 11: Dmitry. My father's brother Dmitry died in 1856; Nikolai +died September 20, 1860.] + +[Footnote 12: That is to say, his eyes went always on the straightest +road to attain satisfaction for himself.] + +[Footnote 13: Khamsvniki, a street in Moscow.] + +[Footnote 14: Maria Mikhailovna, his wife.] + +[Footnote 15: Tolstoy's sister. She became a nun after her husband's +death and the marriage of her three daughters.] + +[Footnote 16: Tolstoy was in the artillery, and commanded a battery in +the Crimea.] + +[Footnote 17: Fet, at whose house the quarrel took place, tells all +about it in his memoirs. Tolstoy dogmatized about lady-like charity, +apropos of Turgenieff's daughter. Turgenieff, in a fit of nerves, +threatened to box his ears. Tolstoy challenged him to a duel, and +Turgenieff apologized.] + +[Footnote 18: Turgenieff was ten years older than Tolstoy.] + +[Footnote 19: I had written to my father that my fiancee's mother would +not let me marry for two years.] + +[Footnote 20: My father took Griboyehof's PRINCESS MARYA ALEXEVNA as +a type. The allusion here is to the last words of Griboyehof's famous +comedy, "The Misfortune of Cleverness," "What will PRINCESS MARYA +ALEXEVNA say?"] + +[Footnote 21: Be loved by them.] + +[Footnote 22: His wife's.] + +[Footnote 23: A novelist, died 1895.] + +[Footnote 24: One of the authors of "Junker Schmidt."] + +[Footnote 25: The curious may be disposed to trace to some such +"corrections beforehand" the remarkable discrepancy of style and matter +which distinguishes some of Tolstoy's later works, published after his +death by Mr. Tchertkof and his literary executors.] + +[Footnote 26: Tolstoy's private secretary, arrested and banished in +1908.] + +[Footnote 27: Five weeks after Leskof's death.] + +[Footnote 28: The Countess Tolstoy.] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Reminiscences of Tolstoy, by Ilya Tolstoy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY *** + +***** This file should be named 813.txt or 813.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/813/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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