Recollections of Count Leo Tolstoy : together with a letter to the women of France on "The Kreutzer sonata"

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Recollections of Count Leo Tolsto

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RECOLLECTIONS OF
COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

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THE ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS. Catherine II. of
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THE STORY OF A THRONE. Catherine II. of Russia.

From the French of K. Waliszewski. With a Portrait.

NAPOLEON AND THE FAIR SEX. From the French
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ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. A Study of His Life and
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and Facsimile of Tennyson's MS.

MEMOIRS OF THE PRINCE DE JOINVILLE. Trans-
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THE NATURALIST OF THE SEA-SHORE. The Life
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THE FAMILY LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE. Illus-
trated by One hundred and twenty-two hitherto Unpublished Letters
addressed by him to different Members of his Family. Edited by his
Nephew, Baron Ludwig von Embden, and Translated by Charles
Godfrey Leland. With Four Portraits.

RECOLLECTIONS OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOY. By

C. A. Behrs. Translated from the Russian by C. E. Turner,
English Lecturer in the University of St. Petersburg. With a
PortrEut.

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.

RECOLLECTIONS OF

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

TOGETHER WITH

A LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE ON
"THE KREUTZER SONATA"

BY

C. A. BEHRS

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY

CHARLES EDWARD TURNER

ENGLISH LECTURER IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. PETERSBURG

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1896 '

\A.ll rights reserved']

First Published^ January i8gj

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

i. INTRODUCTORY . .... I

ii. BIOGRAPHY OF COUNT TOLSTOY UP TO THE DATE OF

HIS MARRIAGE ... . . 6

iii. FAMILYJlIFE of count TOLSTOY up TO THE YEAR

1878 ... . 25

iv. CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNT TOLSTOY BEFORE HE

BEGAN TO TEACH HIS CREED . . -SO

V. MY EXCURSIONS WITH COUNT TOLSTOY An6 HIS

FAMILY . . . 84

vi. COUNT TOLSTOY'S CREED. CHANGE EFFECTED BY IT
IN HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER. HOW HIS FAMILY
REGARD HIS TEACHING . . . lOj

A LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE ON
"THE KREUTZER SONATA."

i. INTRODUCTORY ... . 153

ii. HOW IS THE woman's QUESTION TO BE SOLVED ? . 165
iii. WHAT IS CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE ? . . 2l8

iv. WHAT THEN ARE WE TO DO ? . 230

RECOLLECTIONS

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

When Count Leo Nicholaevitch Tolstoy
began teaching his well-known creed, a
general interest was aroused in all that
concerned his personal and family life. We
all wished to know what kind of life he had
led before, how he lived now, and how his
family looked upon and regarded his creed.

For the most part all that has hitherto
been published on these points is made up
of erroneous and fragmentary information,
whilst numerous facts have been presented
in a false light, and his creed has been put

A*

2 ' COUNT, TOLSTOY.

before the world in a mutilated and distorted
shape.

Count L. N. Tolstoy is married to my
sister, and from 1866 to 1878 I was ac-
customed to spend each summer with him
and his family, he then being about fifty,
and myself a young man of from twenty to
twenty-three years of age.

His private life is in every respect irre-
proachable, and open to the world. All his
life he has practised and taught what he
believed to be the truth ; so that, with per-
fect justice, he has more than once said to
me, " I have nothing to hide from any one in
the world : all may know what I do."

Before giving in detail my reminiscences
of the Count, I should wish to say a few
words concerning our mutual relations.

It will be understood that, then a youth,
I not only loved and esteemed him, but
accepted him in everything as my guide.
Independently of the reverence I felt for
his genius, my devoted submission to him

INTRODUCTORY. 3

sprang mainly from a rare quality he pos-
sessed. A keen psychologist and a skilled
pedagogue, and moreover a man of excep-
tional cordiality and sincerity, he is endowed
with the power of attracting to him not
young men only, but all who are brought
into communication with him, and perhaps
his peculiar gift resides in his rich fund of
marvellous tact and delicacy.

When he was not at work, and of course
in summer he is always comparatively free
and at leisure, I was his constant companion,
and never failed to accompany him on his
journeys or excursions, in his walks, or when
he went shooting.

Like a young enthusiastic disciple, I prized
every minute of his society, and made his
every thought and word my own. Through
the long winter months I lived in the hope
and expectation of being again with him, and,
by corresponding with my sister, kept myself
informed of every little circumstance in their
lives, and was simply in raptures if by chance

4 COUNT TOLSTOY.

he favoured me with a letter from himself,
which he did, perhaps, once or twice in the
course of the year. In this way I passed my
youth and manhood either in the society or
under the direct influence of the Count, and
I still look back to this period as the best
and happiest time in my life.

It was in 1878 that, for the last time, I
spent a summer with him, as in that year
I commenced my government service in one
of the Trans-Caucasian districts.

Since that time I have seen Leo Nicholae-
vitch only once, in the autumn of 1887, when
I stayed two months with him at Clear
Streak- Yasnaya Poliana in the government
of Toula.

It was with trembling anticipation that I
met my guide and teacher, and, at the end
of my two months' visit, he parted coldly
from me, since both my life and views were
already in discord with his teaching. But
even if I had not ceased in my convictions
and mode of life to be the zealous follower

INTRODUCTORY. 5

of his creed, our once close intimacy must
itself have come to an end.

In my reminiscences of Leo Nicholaevitch
I propose to give a brief biography of the
Count up to the date of his marriage, his
life prior to the above-mentioned year, of
which I was a witness and sharer, and the
impressions produced on me by my last visit,
when the change was already effected in him
which was destined to give an entirely new
direction to his whole intellectual activity,
and a new shape and fashion to the outward
tenor of his life.

CHAPTER II.

BIOGRAPHY OF COUNT TOLSTOY UP TO THE
DATE OF HIS MARRIAGE.

Count Leo Nicholaevitch Tolstoy was
born August 28, 1828, on his estate, Clear
Streak- Yasnaya Poliana, in the government
of Toula. The founder of his family, Peter
Andreevitch Tolstoy, was a contemporary
and friend of Peter the Great, who conferred
upon him the title of Count. He was the
descendant of a Prussian emigrant, who later
was appointed ambassador to Turkey, where
he was confined by the Sultan in a seven-
towered castle, whenever any misunderstand-
ing arose between that country and Russia.
It is for this reason that there is a castle on
the coat of arms of the Tolstoy family.

For some generations marriages were con-
cluded between ancestors of Count Leo

> UNMARRIED LIFE. 7

Nicholaevitch Tolstoy and princesses who
could boast of direct descent from Rurick.
His mother was Princess Volkonsky, grand-
mother on the paternal side of Princess
Gortshacoff, and of Princess Troubetskoi on
the maternal side. In his personal figure
there is much that recalls his grandfather,
Prince Nicholas Andreevitch Volkonsky, as
may be seen from the portrait of the latter,
drawn at full length in oil-colours. Both
have the same high open forehead, the same
prominent organs of the creative faculty and
of musical talent, the same deep-set grey eyes
that seem to be gazing far into the distance,
and from under the thick overhanging brows
literally pierce the soul of man on whom
they are bent. To such an extent do they
possess this peculiarity that on many they
produce an unpleasing impression. From
the time of his grandfather there has been
preserved a genealogical tree drawn in oil
on linen. The founder of the Volkonsky
family, St. Michael, Prince of Montenegro,

8 COUNT TOLSTOY.

is represented as holding in his hand the
tree, on the branches of which are portraits,
in order of time, of all his descendants.
The likeness the Count and his grandfather
bear to the Montenegrin prince is most
striking, though the painter, of course, could
have had no knowledge of the then unborn
grandson.

The parents of Leo Nicholaevitch made
Clear Streak their principal place of resid-
ence, and the life they led, as my grand-
father, Alexander Michaelovitch Islenieff,
who was their neighbour and friend, has
told me, was extremely happy, if uneventful.
His father. Count Nicholas Hyine Tolstoy,
served in the Pavlograd regiment of hussars,
and in the campaign of 1812 was made
prisoner by the French. In the novel
"War and Peace" we are introduced to
him under the name of Nicholas Ilyitch
Rostofif, whilst the story of his imprisonment
is described in the chapters relating to the
captivity of Pierre Bezouchoff. I may further

UNMARRIED LIFE. 9

remark that, in his unfinished work, " The
Decembrists," the Count has, in the chapter
entitled, "What kind of Man my Father
was," given us a portrait, not of his father,
but of my grandfather, A. M. Islenieff, with
whom he was intimately acquainted in his
youth.

There is no doubt that, in " War and
Peace," Prince Nicholas Andreevitch Volkon-
sky and Count Elias Andreevitch Rostoff
are intended to represent the Count's grand-
fathers. Prince Volkonsky and Count Tolstoy,
the novelist having in both cases retained
their real names. And this is confirmed by
a single glance at their portraits, which are
hanging in the drawing-room of his country
house.

Though Leo Nicholaevitch lost his mother
when he was only three years old, he has
depicted her such as he imagined her to be
in the Princess Marie Volkonsky. After the
death of his father, when he was nine years
of age, he was, together with his brothers.

10 COUNT TOLSTOY.

all older than himself, and his younger sister,
put under the charge, first of his father's
sister, Countess Alexandra Ilynina Ostek-
Saken, and then of his aunt, Pelgia Ilynina
Youschkova, and another of his relations,
Tatiana Alexandrevna Eyelskaya, both of
whom died in his house at a ripe old age
during one of my visits to Yasnaya Poliana.

Yasnaya Poliana, the ancestral estate of
the Volkonskys, is situated close to the cross-
ing-point of three roads, the Moscow-Kursk
railway, the Toula-Kieff highway, and the
old Toula-Krapievinsk road, at about fifteen
versts' distance from Toula. Its name, Clear
Streak, sufificiently evidences the lively pic-
turesqueness of its site. Somewhat hilly, it
is surrounded on all sides by an immense
forest, that belongs to the imperial domains,
and is called Zaseika. The estate, with its
fine avenues of old lime-trees, that were
planted by the Count's great-grandfather,
its four ponds, and wild uncultivated grounds,
is shut in by a castellated rampart, whose

UNMARRIED LIFE. ii

lofty brick towers frown down on the road
near the entrance gates. These three towers,
as old folks relate, were in the time of the
Count's grandfather, who held the rank of
general under Paul the First, constantly
guarded by sentries.

According to the testimony of Leo Nicho-
laevitch's aunt, P. I. Youschkova, he was
as a child excessively frolicsome and playful,
and in his boyhood was distinguished by a
strange propensity for doing things the least
expected and most eccentric, being in char-
acter as lively as he was generous and
warm-hearted.

It was the same aunt who related to me
how once, being on a journey with post-
horses, they had already taken their places
in the carriage, when the boy was nowhere
to be found, and they began to search and
call for him, A minute later his head was
pushed out of the window of the little post-
station, as he cried, " Ma tante, I will come
directly," Half of his head was seen to be

12 COUNT TOLSTOY.

closely shaved. The fancy had taken him,
for some reason or other, to get his hair
clean cut during the short time in which
fresh horses were being put to.

My mother has told me that, in the descrip-
tion he gives of his first love in his earliest
story, "Childhood," the Count omits to relate
how, on one occasion, impelled by jealousy,
he angrily pushed the object of his affection,
who was no other than herself, then in her
ninth year, from off the balcony. This out-
burst of rage was due to the fact that she
dared to talk with others, instead of reserv-
ing her attentions exclusively to himself.

Leo Nicholaevitch received his first educa-
tion at home, and then entered the Kazan Uni-
versity, which at that time enjoyed consider-
able favour among the Russians, and where
his three brothers had taken their degrees.
Like most of our great writers and geniuses,
he did not finish his university studies, and
only concluded his third course in the
faculty of Oriental Languages, having pre-

UNMARRIED LIFE. 13

viously been entered in the Mathematical,
Medicinal, and Law faculties. His failure at
the university, to judge from what he has often
told me, would seem to have been a source
of great annoyance and disappointment to
him. But it may be attributed to his want
of steady application to any particular branch
of study, and his unwillingness to remain
permanently on one and the same faculty.
In spite of his failure, however, he later,
between the years 1870 and 1880, was
elected honorary member of the Academy
of the Sciences, a distinction conferred upon
him in recognition of the high merits of his
dissertation on the national war of 181 2, a
subject that always interested him, and which
he subsequently selected for the theme of his
great work, " War and Peace."

Nor was this by any means the only dis-
appointment Leo Nicholaevitch experienced
in his youth. But none the less he kept
constantly before him the desire to perfect
his nature, to obtain a complete mastery over

14 COUNT TOLSTOY.

himself, and to achieve all that is good, just,
honourable, and pure. He was urged to
this moral struggle by the consciousness of
his impulsive and passionate temperament.
Even as a boy he began to note down with
scrupulous accuracy, in a copy-book specially
reserved for that purpose, every little sin he
had committed since his last confession, in
order that he might repent such sins, and, if
possible, refrain from fresh relapses, and
particularly from any offence against the
seventh commandment.

Being the youngest of the brothers, he
would seem to have been most attached to
Nicholas Nicholaevitch, the eldest. The
latter died many years ago, and his bust in
marble may be seen in the Count's study at
Yasnaya Poliana. He also possessed no
ordinary talents, but was carried off by con-
sumption just when he was beginning his
literary career. Two or three of his produc-
tions appeared in the pages of the Con-
temporary. He was as kind-hearted as he

UNMARRIED LIFE. 15

was strangely absent-minded. On one occa-
sion he forgot to put on his student's uni-
form, and appeared in the university lecture-
room in his dressing-gown. Tourgenieff once
said of him that he possessed all the merits
and none of the shortcomings of a good
writer. He warmly returned his younger
brother's affection, and throughout his life
exercised on him a beneficial influence. He
served in the artillery in the Caucasus during
the war with the mountain tribes, and per-
suaded Leo Nicholaevitch, when he quitted
the university, to join the army; and he
accordingly set off with his brother to the
Caucasus as a non-commissioned officer.

In a tarantass, or travelling-coach, accom-
panied by one servant, they set out from
Kazan and made their way along the left
bank of the Volga. But they soon grew
tired of journeying in a coach, and, having
secured a large barge, put the tarantass into
it ; and, letting themselves float down with
the current, passed the days very pleasantly

i6 COUNT TOLSTOY.

in reading and enjoying the scenery. Their
voyage extended over three weeks, but at
last they arrived at Astrachan. More than
once, as they drew to shore in the lower
flats of the Volga, they came across half-
savage Calmucks grouped around huge piles
of blazing wood, the larger number of
the Calmucks being at that time still fire-
worshippers.

Leo Nicholaevitch was always very fond
of talking over his experiences in the Cau-
casus. Its rich and glorious scenery, the
magnificent sport it afforded, and the repeated
skirmishes in which he was engaged with the
mountaineers, all this delighted and inspired
the young writer. It was there, in his
twenty-third year, that he wrote his first
tales, "Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth."

It was also in the Caucasus that he met
with the following adventure, which forms
the subject of his story, "The Caucasian
Prisoner."

A certain Sod6, of the tribe of the Tchet-

UNMARRIED LIFE. 17

chenians, and with whom the Count was on
friendly terms, had bought a young horse,
and one day proposed to him to take a ride
into the country surrounding the fortress,
where the detachment of the Russian army
in which he then served was posted. Two
other officers of the artillery joined the party.
Though all such excursions had been strictly
forbidden by the military authorities in conse-
quence of the serious dangers with which
they were accompanied, not one of them,
except Sodo, was furnished with any other
weapon than the ordinary Circassian sabre.
Having tried his own horse, Sodo begged
his friend to mount it, and himself leaped on
the Count's trotter, which, of course, was no
good at a fast gallop. They were already
about five versts from the fortress when
suddenly they saw close before them a
band of Tchetchenians, some twenty in
number. The Tchetchenians began to pull
their guns from their covers, and divided
themselves into two parties. One half of

i8 COUNT TOLSTOY.

them set off in chase of the two officers, who
were already making what speed they could
back to the fortress, and soon overtook them.
One of the officers was pulled from his horse
and hacked to pieces ; the other was taken
prisoner. Sodo, followed by Leo Nicholae-
vitch, pushed off in another direction towards
a Cossack picket that was posted at about a
verst distant. Their pursuers were close
upon them, and there was nothing before
them but death or captivity, with its usual
accompaniment, to be put into a pit neck
high and left there to starve, for the moun-
taineers were noted for their cruel treatment
of the unlucky wretches who fell into their
hands. It was possible for Leo Nicholae-
vitch to escape on his friend's swift-footed
steed, but he would not abandon him. Sod6,
like a true mountaineer, had not failed to
bring his gun with him, but unfortunately it
was unloaded. He none the less aimed at
his pursuers, and with a wild cry of defiance
made as if he were on the point of firing.

UNMARRIED LIFE. 19

To judge from what followed, we may
presume that it was their intention; to take
them both prisoners, in order that they might
better revenge themselves on.Sodo. At any
rate, they none of them fired. It was this
alone that saved their lives. They managed
to get within sight of the picket, whence the
sharp-eyed sentry had from a distance seen
the danger they were in, and instantly gave
the alarm. The Cossacks sooti turned out,
and before long compelled the Tchetchenians
to cease their pursuit.

Sodo's love for his Russian friend was un-
selfish and sincere. On another occasion he
rendered a service of no little value to his
koumdk — the word which, in the language of
his tribe, signifies friend.

Leo Nicholaevitch had played at cards
and lost heavily. There was no possibility
of discharging his debt within the appointed
time, since he had been disappointed in the
receipt of some money he expected from
home. His position was by no means an

20 COUNT TOLSTOY.

enviable one. That Count Tolstoy, the rich
junker, should fail to pay a card-debt with
all due punctuality was, as we may suppose,
deeply wounding to his self-love, and likely
to lower him in the opinion of his fellow-
officers. In his despair, he shut himself up
in his room, and prayed to God that He
would save him from this disgrace. His
prayer was interrupted by the delivery of a
letter from Sod 6. He opened the envelope
and found in it the torn pieces of his note-
at-hand. He afterwards learned that Sodo
had that day won a large sum at cards,
and had made use of his winnings to pay
the debt his friend had incurred.

I may remark that the custom of making
presents is far more widely spread, and has
a stamp of greater sincerity, in the East
than with us in Europe. Our ideas of
politeness and self-respect frequently induce
us to decline the receipt of a present, whilst
any such refusal is regarded by Orientals as
a serious and intentional insult.

UNMARRIED LIFE. 21

In recompense for his service in the
Caucasus, Leo Nicholaevitch was very
anxious to receive the Cross of St. George,
and he was even recommended for it, but did
not obtain it in consequence of the personal
ill-feeling entertained towards him by one
of his superior officers. He was naturally
vexed, but the disappointment served to
change his ideas of true bravery. He
ceased to count those as brave who achieve
some rare act of boldness on the battlefield,
and thereby obtain a high rank or distin-
guished order. The man who does not fail
to preserve his reason, and act accordingly
in the presence of danger henceforth formed
his ideal of real courage. This view he
has taken care to insist on in several of
his works. Thus, in " The Raid," the
simple-minded Captain Chlopoff is put
forth as the true hero, and in " War and
Peace" the modest Captain Touschine is
represented as the type of real courage.

During the Crimean campaign Leo Nichol-

2 2 COUNT TOLSTOY.

aevitch was on active service, first under
Silistria, and, after the siege of that fortress
was raised, at Sevastopol, where, it may be
mentioned, in the fourth bastion, he was
under fire for three days.

Whilst he was at Sevastopol he was a
constant visitor at the house of his near
relation, Prince Gortshacoff, Commander-in-
Chief of the Russian forces ; but he de-
clined an appointment oh the staff that was
offered him, and continued serving in the
ranks of the army. The reason for his
preference for this service he has himself
explained in those portions of his works
where he contends that the influence exer-
cised by the staff with its plans on the
conduct of a war is invariably pernicious.

It was at this time he composed his
famous song, "The Eighth of September,"
which was sung not only in his own regiment,
but was caught up and became popular
among the soldiers of the whole army.

Wherever he went he was always ac-

UNMARRIED LIFE. 23

companied by his serf Alexis, whom ; he
has introduced into several of his novels
under the name of Aloscha. At Sevastopol
it was Alexis who carried the rations to
the bastion, a duty that frequently exposed
him to serious danger. I have often seen
this Alexis after he was appointed steward
of the estate at Yasnaya Polidna. He was
younger than his master, to whom he was
passionately devoted. Reserved and silent
by nature, I have never known him to give
any interesting details of the life and
military service of his master.

After the Crimean War Leo Nichol-
aevitch quitted the army with the rank of
lieutenant in the artillery. The period in-
tervening between his quitting the military
service and his marriage was spent partly
at St. Petersburg, partly abroad, and partly
in the steppes of Bashkir, where he went
to drink koumiss.

He had always an inveterate dislike for
St. Petersburg. He could never be at his

24 COUNT TOLSTOY.

ease in the so-called high society of the
capital ; he did not care to enter the civil
service ; he did not possess any very large
fortune, and had not as yet made for himself
a name in literature, since his two best
works, " War and Peace " and " Anna
Karenina," were still unwritten. He re-
mained in St. Petersburg a little over six
months. Whilst abroad, he chiefly in-
terested himself in studying the question
of education for the people, and in visiting
different schools. He had always a strong
preference for country life, and, accordingly,
on his return from the Continent, made
Yasnaya Poliana his habitual place of resi-
dence, and devoted himself to literary
occupations and to the school he established
there.

CHAPTER III.

FAMILY LIFE OF COUNT TOLSTOY UP TO
THE YEAR 1878.

A VERY slight acquaintance with the works
of Count Tolstoy is sufficient to show how
highly he rates the happiness of family life.
According to his own confession to have a
home of his own was the dream of his youth.

His marriage took place on September
23, 1862, when he was already thirty-four
years of age, his wife being then in her
eighteenth year.

He had long been on the most intimate
terms with our family, having known my
mother from her childhood.

My late father had no liking for our
educational institutes and gymnasiums for
girls, and my sister was therefore educated
and brought up at home ; but she went up

26 COUNT TOLSTOY.

for the examination at the university, and
obtained the diploma giving her the rights
of a private governess. During the whole
of her girlhood she kept a diary, and not
seldom tried her hand at writing tales and
novels, but chiefly showed a special talent
for painting.

How he sought and obtained her hand in
marriage he has described to us, with accurate
fidelity to the minutest detail, in his "Anna
Kardnina," in the chapter where Levine and
Kate make use of the initial letters of the
words in which they wish to express to each
other their mutual love.

From people who knew nothing of my
relationship with the Count, I have heard it
suggested, when the conversation happened
to turn on " The Kreutzer Sonata," that, in
all probability, Leo Nicholaevitch himself had
gone through the experiences of Poduiescheff,
and thus the mere fantasies natural to great
talent and genius formed the ground of his
false suspicions of his wife.

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 27

I may, perhaps, be allowed to speak with
authority on this point, since there is no one
who has been a closer witness of their family
life than myself during my long and frequent
visits to Yasnaya Polidna ; but it ought to
be sufficient to recall the fact that my father
and mother, who, like all parents, were dis-
posed to be discontented with the lot of their
children, would often exclaim, " In our wildest
dreams we have never desired greater happi-
ness for our daughter."

And throughout her whole married life his
wife has never failed in deep admiration for
him as writer, and in equally deep love for
him as husband.

And on his side, Leo Nicholaevitch has
often said that he has found in his family life
the completest happiness, and in her not only
an affectionate wife and perfect mother, but
a help and an aid in his literary career. We
may also notice that in his written thoughts,
ideas, and sentiments he constantly renders
her every warm and loving eulogy.

28 COUNT TOLSTOY.

As both possess in a high degree a straight-
forwardness and frankness of character, I
have often fancied that each is aware of what
the other may be thinking of at any given
moment. But there is no need to dwell on
their mutual relations. These are plain and
evident, even to any stranger who may chance
to see them together.

As his help and aid in all his literary
labours, she has well merited the gratitude
of posterity.

In her conduct and bearing towards her
husband and his literary productions, she
always reminds me of a religious worshipper
and zealous guardian of some sacred well.
Her self-imposed task, owing to his careless-
ness and those unmethodical habits which
seem to be common to all geniuses, has
never been an easy one. In proof of this
I may state that the composition of his
novel "War and Peace" began immediately
after their marriage, and extended over a
period of eight years. During that time, in

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 29

addition to all her occupations as mother of
the four children who were born in the in-
terval, she copied out the romance no less
than seven times.

It was she who always collected and put
into order the scraps and bits of papers on
which he is wont to write his works. She
only is able to make out with comparative
ease his marvellously illegible handwriting,
to decipher his hastily scratched scrawls and
fantastic hieroglyphics, and to guess correctly
from his incompleted words and phrases,
which he had either not the time or the
patience to finish, the ideas and thoughts he
wished to express. Her faultless capacity
in this respect is a frequent theme of the
Count's astonishment and praise.

Nor should I forget to remark that she
has, with laudable accuracy and care, copied
out and preserved all the manuscripts of
those of his works which have never been
published,

I remember how, simultaneously with all

30 COUNT TOLSTOY.

this literary work, and all her household
cares, she still found time to suckle, and
later to teach and make clothes for, all her
children up to their tenth year.

At the actual moment, the children of
Leo Nicholaevitch are nine in number, the
eldest being twenty-eight and the youngest
three years of age.

With the exception of the second daughter,
all the children were suckled by the mother,
from which we perceive that, even before
the Count had made this a cardinal point
in his social creed, hired wet-nurses were
not admitted into his house.

I recollect how, after the birth of the
second daughter, the Count's wife, through
the carelessness of one of the servants, fell
dangerously ill, and it was necessary to have
recourse to the services of a wet-nurse. But
when the poor mother saw her child sucking
a stranger's breast, she burst into a torrent
of jealous tears, and then and there dismissed
the nurse, and ordered the child to be fed

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 31

with a bottle. When Leo Nicholaevitch
was told of what had happened, he said
that she had only shown the jealous affection
of a true mother for her child.

I shall now pass on to the system of
education practised by the Count in relation
to his children, long before he had published
any of his numerous essays and articles on
this subject.

Everything that concerned, however re-
motely, the bringing up and instruction of
his children was under his immediate direc-
tion, and the wife willingly confined herself
to a faithful and obedient execution of his
instructions and wishes.

His views on education were based for the
most part on the teaching of Jean Jacques
Rousseau. And if he did not carry out to
their fullest extent the ideas advocated in
" Emile," this was only because his wife
was unable to act upon them in every case,
and he himself was too occupied with his
literary labours.

32 COUNT TOLSTOY.

As we have seen, he counselled his wife
to suckle her children, and not to intrust
them to wet-nurses. In this she completely
sympathised with him. Toys and playthings
were rigorously banished from the nursery.
With the first child the trial was made to
dispense altogether with a nurse. But later
it was thought well to yield to the require-
ments of their social position and to the
habits of contemporary life, and the children
were put under the care of nurses, bonnes,
and governesses. The parents, however,
invariably exercised a strict and unremittent
surveillance over both the children and those
who had the care of them.

The greatest possible liberty was allowed
to the children, and all put in authority over
them were strictly forbidden to have resort
under any pretext to violent or severe punish-
ments.

Leo Nicholaevitch believed that these
principles were nowhere so generally ac-
cepted as in England ; and, accordingly,

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 33

from their third to their ninth year, the
children were placed under the charge of
young English governesses, engaged directly
from London.

They were extremely fortunate and happy
in their first choice. Their first English
governess remained with them for above
six years, and, when she had resigned her
duties, continued to be, and still is, in most
friendly relations with the family.

The one aim to which the governesses
constantly devoted themselves was to make
the children well acquainted with everything
in nature, and to inspire them with a love,
unmingled with fear, for all natural objects,
animals, and insects.

Leo Nicholaevitch liked to impress on

a child the consciousness of its powerlessness

in the presence of nature, and its dependence

on its elders, but, whilst discovering to it

the truth, he strictly refrained from inspiring

it with fear or dread.

When the children required the servants

c

34 COUNT TOLSTOY.

to do anything, they were forbidden to be
peremptory and were required to ask that a
thing should be done. And that the neces-
sary example might be set them, all in the
house were expected to do the same.

Independently of sympathy for their fellow-
creatures, a like feeling for all animals was
sedulously cultured.

A lie was never passed over. The
punishment, however, did not consist in the
actual infliction of pain or shame, such as
confinement of the offender to his room,
but simply in the withdrawal on the part
of the parents of all interest in or care for
anything the child said or did. Directly the
child showed genuine sorrow for what it had
done, the punishment was revoked.

But the children were never allowed to
get off by a mere promise that the ofTence
should not be repeated, or by simply praying
for pardon.

A full and frank confidence in their
parents was thus cultivated by just and

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 35

kindly treatment. It was they, and they
alone, who, when necessary, were permitted
to inflict a punishment.

All in the house were made to understand
that children are always disposed to copy
and imitate what they see or hear. They
were, therefore, never allowed to be alone
or to mix in any society, but were constantly
in the company of the grown-up members
of the household ; and for this reason, per-
haps, when eight o'clock struck, the hour for
them to go to bed, Leo Nicholaevitch would
at times give a sigh of relief and exclaim,
"Well, at last we are free !"

The elementary lessons in Russian and in
music were given by the mother, whilst those
in arithmetic were given by Leo Nicholae-
vitch himself

For "the foreign languages, besides the
English governess there were engaged at
different times during my visits to their house
a Swiss, a Frenchman, a German, and a
Swiss lady. Tutors and students, who were

36 COUNT TOLSTOY.

also lodged at Yasnaya Poliana, taught the
other subjects. For the music lessons a
master came over from Toula. After his
pupils had practised the finger exercises,
the Count insisted on their proceeding at
once to learn serious pieces, under which
term he did not include operas. Lessons in
painting were given only to those of the
children who showed a real capacity for it ;
though from their earliest years every effort
was made to foster and develop such talent.

The theory that no compulsion should be
exercised on a pupil, and that full liberty
should be accorded him in the choice of sub-
jects to be studied, of which Leo Nicholaevitch
is so stanch a partisan in his educational
articles, was adopted only to a certain extent.
In practice, the universal application of this
principle was found to be inconvenient and
even impossible.

Notwithstanding his contempt and dislike
for the programme of studies adopted in our
gymnasiums, the Count did not consider

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 37

himself justified in depriving his sons of the
possibility of entering the university. He,
therefore, made them follow these pro-
grammes. His eldest son each year passed
his examination together with the other stu-
dents at the Toula Classical Gymnasium.
In this way he was prepared at home for the
university, which he entered in his eighteenth
year.

The children were never punished for
having neglected to prepare their lessons,
or for repeating them badly, but were re-
warded whenever they had learned well.

These concessions in respect to the subject
of study being made compulsory, and the
engagement of strange tutors and masters,
were made in deference to the prevailing
rule and views of the social circle in which
his children would later have to move.

After the conclusion of the marriage
ceremony, the Count with his wife set off
for Ydsnaya Poliana. From that time up to
the year 1880 they lived there constantly

38 COUNT TOLSTOY.

winter and summer, with the exception of
two summers, which they spent on his estate
in the government of Samara, and a few
months one winter, which they passed at
Moscow, where our family constantly resided.
Leo Nicholaevitch has been his whole
life, in the strict sense of the word, a hard
worker. In nearly every letter I received
from my sister I find the words, "We are
all very busy. The winter is our busiest
time." It was chiefly during the winter
months that Leo Nicholaevitch wrote, often
a whole day at a sitting and late into the
night. It would seem that he never waited,
or acknowledged the wisdom of waiting, for
inspiration. Every morning he would take
his place before his desk and begin to work.
If he did not write anything, he was busy
making extracts and collecting materials for
the book on which he happened to be en-
gaged. Generally at dinner, before resuming
work, he would read an English novel.
Even in the summer, when the children

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 39

were having their holidays and his wife
would beg him to take a rest, it was not
always that he consented. I have never
discovered, even in the most conscientious
of men, such a strict and persistent devotion
to work as characterised Leo Nicholae-
vitch.

In the morning he used to come and
dress in his study, where a bed was put
up for me immediately under an engraved
portrait of the great Schopenhauer. Before
breakfast we either went out for a walk
together or took a ride to the baths. The
breakfast hour was the pleasantest and least
constrained time in the whole day at Yds-
naya Poliana. Then the whole family was
assembled. The conversation was always
lively, and rendered all the gayer by the
Count's jokes and quips, and by the different
proposals as to how the day should be spent.
And the chatting usually went on till Leo
Nicholaevitch got up with the words, "It
is time to work now," and went into his

40 COUNT TOLSTOY.

room, carrying with him a glass of strong
tea.

As long as he was occupied in his room, no
one dared to enter or interrupt him. Even
his wife had not boldness enough to think of
such a thing. It is true that at one time
his eldest daughter, then a mere child, was
privileged to set the rule at defiance.

To tell the truth, no one could welcome
more heartily than I did the days when it
chanced that he did not work, since in his
free time we were always together.

The circle of his acquaintances, as distinct
from relatives and friends, was extremely
limited.

Of his nearer relations, my younger sister
with her family spent regularly every summer
with him and his people. She is portrayed
in his novel "War and Peace " in the person
of Natasha Rostoff, and nearly all her youth
was passed at Yasnaya Poliana.

Among his friends who frequently visited
him may be mentioned N. Strachoff, well

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 41

known for his able and appreciative criticisms
of Count Tolstoi's principal productions,
who seldom let a summer go by without
coming to see him ; D. Diakoff, who had
known him from his boyhood ; and Prince
Ouronsoff, the mathematician. These make
up the list of those who were then on terms
of friendship with Leo Nicholaevitch.

I may be expected here to say a few
words concerning the relation in which he
stood towards Ivan Sergeivitch Tourgenieff.
When his stories " Childhood and Youth "
first appeared, Tourgenieff was one of the
earliest to recognise their rare merits, and to
predict a great future for their author. A
friendship soon sprang up between the two
writers ; but, for reasons with which I am
unacquainted, their friendship gradually
cooled into something like enmity and
aversion. Subsequently they again became
reconciled, and in the summer of 1874
Tourgenieff came over to Yasnaya Poliana
and spent a day there. I accompanied

42 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Leo Nicholaevitch to Toula, where he met
his literary rival and fellow-artist. At
dinner Tourgenieff talked much, and to
the delight of the younger folks not only
mimicked several persons of whom he was
speaking, but imitated different animals.
Thus, by a cunning manipulation of his
fingers, he made the figure of a fowl
waddling in the soup, and further gave an
admirable imitation of a hunting-dog at
loss. As I listened to him and watched
his tricks I couldn't help thinking that he
evidently inherited something of the talent
for which one of his ancestors under Peter
the Great enjoyed no little fame.

The acquaintances of the Count visited
Yasnaya Poliana very seldom.

The secluded life which he led may be
explained by a natural disinclination to be
hampered and interrupted in the literary work
that occupied so much of his time by the
ceremonious entertainments that necessarily
accompany the reception of visitors. His

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 43

large family, and the number of relatives
who made it a rule to spend each summer
at Yasnaya Polidna rendered it both un-
necessary and troublesome to receive
visitors.

The children were only too glad to be
in his company, and each was eager to
play on his side ; and they were never
more happy than when he taught them a
new game. Under his winning influence
and good humour they willingly and without
difficulty would go with him on foot to
Toula, a distance of at least fifteen versts.
The boys with gleeful pride and an utter
unconsciousness of fatigue accompanied him
when he went out shooting with his dogs.
There was no occasion for him to call
them a second time when he took them
to practise gymnastics, or to play at some
game, in which he showed as keen and
eager an interest as they did themselves.
In winter they often went skating with
him, but their greatest pleasure was when

44 COUNT TOLSTOY.

he invited them to help him in clearing
the snow from the skating-rink. Although
he himself never went mushrooming, a
favourite amusement at Yasnaya Poliana,
he encouraged others to do so. With me,
he liked to mow the lawn, to rake the
garden-beds, to practise gymnastics, to have
a running race, or a good game at leap-
frog or skittles. Though he was greatly
my superior in physical strength, for he
could lift with one hand a weight of 120
lbs., I could very easily beat him in a
running match, but seldom succeeded in
passing him, since, just as I was preparing
to make the necessary spurt, he would say
or do something that forced me to stop
from laughing. If, as sometimes happened
in our walk, we came across a group of
mowers, he liked to take the scythe from
the labourer who seemed to be most tired,
and would let him rest whilst he himself
worked. On such occasions he has more
than once asked me how it comes that, in

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 45

spite of our well-developed muscles, we
cannot mow for six days running, whilst a
common peasant who sleeps on the damp
ground and lives on black bread can easily
do it. And he generally wound up the
subject by exclaiming, " You just try it
and see ! " And as he left the meadow
he would pluck from the ricks a tuft of
hay and literally revel in its fragrant
smell.

I have spoken of Count Tolstoy's humour,
which was of an extremely varied kind. In
citing a few examples, I fear much that what
amused us will appear tame to the general
reader, who must necessarily remain ignorant
of the trifling incident that gave them point
and provoked our hearty laughter.

All the members of our family are deli-
cately built, and therefore none of us like
to sit on hard seats. One of my younger
brothers thought it necessary to explain to us
that he should take some soda, as he had bile
on the stomach. Leo Nicholaevitch broke

46 COUNT TOLSTOY.

into a loud laugh, and counselled him to take
a good walk of twenty versts, and afterwards,
if any of us complained of any little incon-
venience or discomfort, would cry out, " Ah,
you have got Boris's bile, and cannot sit
quiet." When Leo Nicholaevitch wished to
refrain from an extra cigar or from a second
helping to a favourite dish, he consoled him-
self by saying, "Wait till I am grown up,
and then I will have two helpings to that
dish;" or, "Will smoke two cigars." Once
my sister was getting ready to go to town
and make some purchases, and, before start-
ing, consulted with him as to what dresses
she should buy for the children and herself,
whereupon he replied, " There is business
cut out for four hundred linen-drapers." If
ever he proposed an excursion he would, be-
fore deciding on it, add, " But we must first
hear what our prime-minister has to say to
it," by which term he meant his wife, without
whose advice and approval he never allowed
anything to be done. If he noticed any of

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 47

the children making a wry or affected face,
he generally called out, " Now, then, no
grimacing, you will only spoil your phiz."
Leo Nicholaevitch was very fond of playing
duets with his sister, Marie Nicholaevna.
But the Countess was an admirable musician,
and to keep up with her through a long piece
was no easy task. He would, when in diffi-
culty, say something to make her laugh, which
caused her to play a little slower, and gave
him time to catch her up. And if that did
not answer, he would stop and solemnly take
off one of his boots, as if that must help him,
and then go on, as he exclaimed, " Now, it
will go all right ! " But what he called " the
Numidia:n cavalry charge" invariably evoked
our noisiest applause. It consisted in his
suddenly springing up from his place and,
with one hand raised in the air and the other
grasping an imaginary bridle, commencing
a wild gallop round the room, in which the
children, and not seldom we elder ones, liked
to join. He, was a good reader, and often

48 COUNT TOLSTOY.

read aloud to us. I still remember his read-
ing one evening Gogol's " Story of Captain
Kopeikine."

And so Leo Nicholaevitch's family life
was too full and complete to leave him a
care for distraction and amusement else-
where, beyond his own circle. And if he
were only with us, we required no other
company. Nor was this feeling peculiar to
myself or to be attributed to my youthful-
ness. It was shared by everbody, young or
old, who had the good fortune to be with
him.

After my last visit, before I left for my
new post in one of the Trans-Caucasian dis-
tricts, to judge from the letters I received
from my sister and her children, who were
then grown up, their circle of acquaintances
began to grow wider and wider, and from
the year 1880 they regularly spent each
winter in Moscow.

For himself, he never cared to leave his
family for however short a time. When it

FAMILY LIFE TO 1878. 49

was absolutely necessary for him to go to
Moscow, either to superintend the publica-
tion of his newest work or to engage a tutor
for his children, he used to grumble long
and terribly over his hard fate. And when
he came within sight of his home, as he
returned from a journey or from shoot-
ing, he would often express his anxiety by
exclaiming, " I only hope all is well at
home ! " On such occasions he never failed
to amuse and interest us with long accounts
of what he had seen and heard.

D

CHAPTER IV.

CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNT TOLSTOY BEFORE
HE BEGAN TO TEACH HIS CREED.

If we would form a just estimate of the
peculiar traits in the character and teaching
of Leo Nicholaevitch, we must not forget
the close relation they have to the views
and opinions of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
There is ' no doubt that the writings of
the French thinker had a great influence
on his own mode of thought. He was still
young when he first became acquainted
with them, and was immediately attracted
by them.

In their love of nature, and in their
preference for all that is simple, coupled
with a strong aversion to modern civilisa-
tion, we recognise the salient points of

CHARACTERISTICS. 51

resemblance that have been wont, and still
continue to characterise these two writers.
A hundred years have passed, and Rousseau
still speaks in the pages of our Russian
Tolstoi.

Most of us, if we remark the beauties
of nature, are rarely, if ever, moved to
raptures over them. It was not so with
Leo Nicholaevitch. Every day of his
life he showed and expressed his joyous
recognition of her charms. " What inex-
haustible wealth is enjoyed by God ! Each
new day reveals to Him some fresh beauty,
distinguishing it from all that have gone
before."

In his works we read that the agriculturist
and sportsman alone know nature ; and he
himself was a keen sportsman, and still is an
agriculturist.

No bad weather was allowed to interfere
with his daily walk. He could put up with
loss of appetite, from which he occasionally
suffered, but he could never go a day without

52 COUNT TOLSTOY.

a sharp walk in the pure open air. In
general, he was fond of active movement,
riding, gymnastics, but particularly walking.
If his literary work chanced to go badly, or
if he wished to throw off the effects of any
unpleasantness, a long walk was his sovereign
remedy. He could walk the whole day
without feeling fatigued ; and we have often
ridden for ten or twelve hours. In his study
he kept a pair of dumb-bells, and would
often busy himself with putting up or re-
pairing gymnastic appliances.

His aversion to modern civilisation is
mainly shown in his dislike of cities and
city life. He made his stay in any town as
short as possible, and lived almost uninter-
ruptedly in the country, where, he declared,
man alone can live. When he happened
to be with me in St. Petersburg or Moscow,
I noticed how, almost with our arrival, a fit
of dulness came over him, and how he
grew fidgety and even irritable.

In his dislike of anything like luxury in

CHARACTERISTICS. 53

the ordering of his house and surround-
ings he denied the reasonableness or charm
of comfort, whose influence he beHeved to
be prejudicial to the souls and bodies of
men. Nothing could be more simple than
the arrangement of his house at Yasnaya
Poliana.

He was in no wise fastidious or particular
as to what he ate, could not sleep on a
spring-mattress, did not like a soft bed, and
at one time always slept on a leather-covered
sofa.

He dressed extremely simply, and when
at home never wore starched shirts, or
what our peasants call German clothes.
His costume consisted of a grey flannel
blouse, which in summer he exchanged for
a canvas one, of a very original cut, as we
judge from the fact that there was in the
whole district only one old woman, a certain
Barbara, who could make it according to his
orders. In this blouse Leo Nicholaevitch
has sat for his portrait to Kramsky and

54 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Repine, the painters. His over-dress was
composed of a caftan and half-shouba, made
of the simplest materials, and, like the blouse,
eccentric in their cut, being made evidently
not for show but to stand bad weather.
For the latter reason, doubtless, they were
often borrowed and made use of by his
home-people or guests.

In spite, however, of his simple dress, he
preserved in it his striking and original look.
Kramsky several times expressed a wish to
paint a portrait of him in his caftan on
horseback.

Leo Nicholaevitch could never bear rail-
roads. His dislike for them he has over
and over again expressed in his different
works. He complained of the disagreeable
sensations he experienced in a railway
carriage. He stoutly maintained, as indeed
he does in his " Educational Papers " for
1862, that they had brought no good or
benefit to the people at large, and could
not tolerate either the officious politeness

CHARACTERISTICS. 55

of the conductor or the way in which pass-
engers suspiciously shunned one another.
Contrary to the majority of men, he Hked
few things better than to get into chat with
any chance fellow-passenger. He preferred
to travel by third class, and constantly chose
the carriage in which there happened to be
most moujiks.

He further resembled Rousseau in his
opinion and estimate of doctors and medi-
cine. In both "War and Peace" and in
" Anna Karenina" he indulg^es in a merciless
attack on the doctors who were called in to
attend Natasha Rostoff and Katie Scher-
batoff, declaring that, like all doctors, they
were completely ignorant of the causes or
rig-ht treatment of human maladies. Like
Rousseau, he held that the practice of
medicine should be made general and not
confined to one profession. Hence his pre-
ference for popular medicines and for mid-
wife remedies. None the less, when there
was illness in his family, he called in and

56 COUNT TOLSTOY.

consulted Professor Zacharine, and one
summer himself went through a course of
mineral waters.

Once more, like Rousseau, Leo Nicholae-
vitch has won to himself considerable fame
as a talented pedagogue.

I myself have proved his large-minded
experience as a pedagogue. I remember
how he never shirked discussing with me
and explaining any difficulty I might have
encountered in my scientific or philosophical
studies, never seeming to think it was a
condescension on his part to talk on such
subjects with an unripe youth. To all my
questions, his answers were simple, clear,
and to the point. Nor was he ashamed,
when necessary, to confess his ignorance
and to declare "Well, you see, I do not quite
understand that myself." At times, our
conversation assumed the shape of a debate,
in which I was always permitted to speak
out frankly, though I was never uncon-
scious of my incomplete knowledge in com-

CHARACTERISTICS. 57

parison with his wide grasp of nearly every
subject on which I had occasion to consult
him. All this made it easy and pleasant
to me to agree with him, and to accept im-
plicitly his views and opinions.

Leo Nicolaevitch was always fond of
children, and liked to have them around
him. He easily won their confidence, and
seemed to have found the key to their
hearts. He appeared to have no difficulty
in suiting himself to a strange child, and
with his first question set it completely at
ease, so that it began at once to chat away
with perfect freedom. Independently of
this, he divined with all the skill of a
trained pedagogue the thoughts of a child.
I remember his children one day ran up
to him, and told him they had a great
secret, and when they persisted in refusing
to divulge it, he quietly whispered in their
ears what it was. " Ah, what a papa ours
is! How did he find it out?" they cried,
in a chorus of bewilderment.

5 8 COUNT TOLSTOY.

In his "Educational Papers" for 1862,
he attacks the system, which by the way
obtains everywhere, of forcing a scholar to
study according to a fixed programme of
subjects. Every one who has read the
article entitled "Yasnaya Poliana School
in November and December, 1862," will
understand that the principle of liberty in
the choice of studies was fully carried out
and acted upon in this school. It must
be remembered by the opponents of this
theory that in the school were peasant
children who, scarcely able to write, soon
learned to compose short tales and stories
in prose. None but a practised pedagogue
could have succeeded, with these unpro-
mising materials, in effecting such pro-
gress.

Count Tolstoy's educational activity dates
from the time when he began to teach his
own children. This was soon after he had
finished his romance, "War and Peace."
It was then he wrote his "Alphabet Book,"

CHARACTERISTICS. 59

his "Tales for Children," and his "Manual
of Arithmetic."

His educational theories have a close
connection with, and explain his relation
to,, the peasantry.

He may with truth claim to himself the
title of the friend of the Russian people.
From his earliest years he knew and loved
them. His parents, like himself, were noted
for their humane treatment of their peasants,
and for their strict abstention from all
measures of arbitrary violence. I have
frequently heard the more aged moujiks
of Yasnaya Polidna speak of this with un-
affected gratitude. Long before the issue
of the manifesto of February 19, 1861,
which granted freedom to every serf in
Russia, and later, when he acted as Arbi-
trator of the Peace, Count Tolstoy, not-
withstanding his other numerous occupations,
found time to busy himself with the pro-
motion of the education of the poorer
classes. There is no occasion to cite or

6o COUNT TOLSTOY.

refer to his numerous essays on the subject.
As long as the family resided perpetually
on the Poliana estate, his children, from
their tenth year, were engaged, during the
winter months, in teaching the peasant
children.

In the articles I have just referred to
Count Tolstoy points out how, owing to their
idea that progress and civilisation are the
sole aim of education, the intelligent and
cultured classes of our society are incom-
petent and unfit to teach the people what
they require and wish to be taught. He
therefore proposed to form from among the
ranks of the people themselves teachers for
our national schools. For this purpose he
drew up the project of a College for
Teachers, which he wished to establish at
Yasnaya Poliana, and of which he should
have the direction and control. In carrying
his plan into execution he desired to have
the co-operation of the Yemstvo, or local
administration, and it may be said that from

CHARACTERISTICS. 6i

first to last he met with their warmest sym-
pathy and support. Although he had up to
that time always refrained from taking part
in any election, and refused to allow himself
to be nominated to a public place of office,
he was unanimously chosen to be a member
of the council of the proposed college, and
accepted the post. Unfortunately, the pro-
ject failed to obtain the approval of the
authorities at St. Petersburg, and the
scheme fell through. It would be invidious
to enter into the reasons of its rejection.
I only know that the Count's sole wish
and aim were to train teachers who were
born in the same rank and lived the same
life as the children whom they were to
instruct, and that the education to be re-
ceived by their scholars should not tend
to create in them new desires save those
of a spiritual nature, or render them unfit
for the performance of the duties to which
they were called by their position in life.
In a letter, dated November 20, 1874, the

62 COUNT TOLSTOY.

time when he was most actively occupied
with his new scheme, his wife wrote to me
as follows : —

" Our usual serious winter work goes on
with its accustomed regularity. Leo is
quite taken up with popular education,
schools and colleges for teachers, in which
model teachers for our national schools are
to be trained. All this keeps him busily
employed from morning till night. I can-
not say that I am pleased with all this. I
regret that he should waste on such schemes
time and talent that might be far better
devoted to writing a novel. Nor do I
see that it can bring any great profit,
since all his activity is restricted to one
little corner of Russia, the Krapievinsky
district."

Of Leo Nicholaevitch's religious opinions
I know little more than what all can gather
from his works.

From what I have already said of his
youth, we may conclude that he then

CHARACTERISTICS. 63

accepted the creed and faith of the Ortho-
dox Church, since he frequented her services
and went regularly to confession. As to
the years immediately preceding and follow-
ing his marriage, I can state that the
confession attributed to Levine in "Anna
Karenina" is in all points identical with
the confession he himself made before his
wedding in September 1862.

I was in my seventeenth or eighteenth
year when, together with one of my
school friends, I became sorely troubled
as to the state of our souls, and, under
the influence of the teaching of the Church,
we determined to enter a monastery.
Nothing could exceed the tact and caution
with which Leo Nicholaevitch received the
announcement of my intention. Whenever
I came to him with questions, or to lay
before him my doubts, he always managed
to avoid expressing his own opinion, as if
he knew what authority he had over me,
and did not wish to bias me or, in any

64 COUNT TOLSTOY.

way hamper my freedom. He left it to
me to work out my difficulties myself.
Once, however, he spoke out with sufficient
plainness. We were riding past the village
church wherein his parents lay buried.
Two horses were grazing in the church-
yard. We had been talking over the
only subject that then interested me.

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

" You see those two horses grazing
there," he answered; "are they not lay-
ing up for a future life ? "

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

" Indeed ? Well, concerning that I neither
know nor can know anything."

Some of Leo Nicholaevitch's ancestors
and relatives, his aunt, P. I. Youschkova,
among the number, had in their old age
embraced a monastic life. His aunt, I
may add, whilst a nun, paid more than

CHARACTERISTICS. 65

one visit to Yasnaya Poliana, and it was
there that, after a few days' illness, she
died.

It was in 1876 that a change came
over Leo Nicholaevitch's religious ideas
and mode of life. He then besfan to
attend punctually the services of the Church,
and every morning retired to his room,
in order that he might, to use his own
words, commune with God. He also
made a pilgrimage on foot to the famous
monastery Optunine, in the government
of Kalouga. He lost much of his former
gaiety, and evidently strove to cultivate
a gentler and humbler spirit. It was at
this period, in September 1878, that I
ceased to spend my summers with him.
My sister wrote to me, soon after I had
arrived in the Caucasus, telling me that he
had become a true Gospel Christian.

There is no need to enter into details on
the increasing zeal with which he surrendered
himself to a religious life. He himself has

66 COUNT TOLSTOY.

told the story in his "Confession: In what
consists my Faith," and " What is our Life ? "
Almost contemporaneously with these pro-
ductions appeared his " Commentary on the
Gospels," which book, as we all know, was
solemnly burned in public, by order of the
Synod.

If, as must be the case with men of genius,
the spiritual life and faculties were wider
and stronger with Leo Nicholaevitch than
others, we may form a faint idea how great
his sufferings were when religious doubts
began to torment him, and, in his own words,
all but drove him to suicide. Knowing him,
as I have for so many years, I confess I
read with shuddering the picture he gives in
his "Confession" of his spiritual agony and
sufferings. The storm these doubts raised
within him, if compared with the spiritual
struggles of ordinary men, was like the stir
of a tempestuous sea in contrast with the
rippling agitation of a small lake.

It is strange that, at the very time he

CHARACTERISTICS. 67

began to change his religious opinions, he
not only had the monuments erected in
memory of his parents, but the portraits of
his ancestors and family seals repaired and
cleaned. Of course the coincidence may be
nothing more than accidental.

If pride and vanity be common to all
men, we shall judge these traits in the
character of Leo Nicholaevitch with more
than ordinary indulgence.

He has in my presence acknowledged that
he was both proud and vain. He loved the
people, but his love for the aristocracy was
still stronger. He was a born aristocrat,
and had no sympathy with the middle class.
When, after his youthful failures, he suc-
ceeded in winning to himself fame as a
writer, he assured me that nothing had ever
brought him greater happiness than his suc-
cess. He acknowledged that he was pleased
to think he was both writer and aristocrat.
If he chanced to be told of the appointment
of an old colleague or acquaintance to some

68 COUNT TOLSTOY.

important post, he always reminded me, by
the remarks with which he invariably received
such news, of our famous Souvaroff. He
would speak of the life led in court circles,
with which he was well acquainted, owing to
his family connections, and affirmed that the
higher places were never given for good or
faithful service, but were rather conferred on
those who had the good fortune and cunning
to please and flatter the great. " For my-
self," he laughingly exclaimed, " I have never
merited the rank of general in the artillery,
but for all that I have won my generalship
in literature." I remember once we were
out shooting, when I told him that his novels,
and particularly his "War and Peace," were
our favourite reading at the Law School,
and that we preferred his works to those of
our other writers. With tears of joy in his
eyes, he declared he had never had his self-
love so pleasantly flattered, " since it is the
young who best appreciate beauty and
poetry." He then began to speak of Poush-

CHARACTERISTICS. 69

kin, and of the special features that distin-
guished his works from his own productions.
He beheved that Poushkin's best works
were those written in prose. The main
difference between his compositions and
those of Poushkin was that, when he intro-
duced any artistic detail, Poushkin did it
with the utmost ease, and never troubled
himself as to whether it would be noticed or
understood by the reader. He, as it were,
just put it before the reader, and then left it,
never caring to expound or interpret it.

For journalists and critics he entertained
a strong feeling of contempt, and was in-
dignant with any one who dared to class them
with writers, even of the lowest rank. He
believed that the true mission of the press
had been degraded and lost sight of in our
days by the publication of much that is un-
necessary, uninteresting, and, worst of all,
inartistic. Criticisms of his own works he
never read, nor did they seem to interest him.
One of the few exceptions he made was in

70 COUNT TOLSTOY.

favour of N. Strachoff, whose judgment he
highly esteemed, and with whom he has been
wont to consult throughout his literary career.
In the epilogue to his novel, "Anna
Karenina," he falls foul of the Russian volun-
teers who took part in the Servian war
against Turkey. When the manuscript of
the epilogue was sent to the editor of the
Russian Messenger, the journal in which the
novel originally appeared, M. Katkoff, who
had been advocating in his newspaper, the
Moscow Gazette, opinions diametrically op-
posed to the views of the Count, returned
the manuscript with numerous corrections in
the margin, accompanied by a note in which
he informed the novelist that it could not be
printed in his magazine unless these correc-
tions were accepted. Leo Nicholaevitch was
extremely angry at the idea that a mere
journalist should dare to change a word in
anything he had written, and at once dis-
patched a sharply written letter to the
offending editor. The result was a rupture

CHARACTERISTICS. 71

between the two, and the epilogue was issued
in a separate form.

Leo Nicholaevitch never read newspapers,
and considered them to be both useless and
injurious, since they constantly propagate
false news and erroneous ideas. He some-
times amused himself with writing essays in
parody, in which the newspaper style was
closely copied.

His feeling towards the periodical press
in general had for its source his intense
dislike to the exploitation of productions of
art. A contemptuous smile was the only
answer he ever deigned to make to any
insinuation that the creations of an artist
were produced for sale like common market
wares.

There is no doubt that Levine is the
portrait of the novelist himself, but this is
true only to a certain extent. On this point
he has explained to me that he had repre-
sented Levine to be extremely simple, in
order to bring him into still greater contrast

72 COUNT TOLSTOY.

with the representatives of high hfe in
Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Leo Nicholaevitch did not like photo-
graphs, and rarely allowed himself to be
taken, and, when he did so, immediately
destroyed the negative — he preferred the
poorest painting to the most finished photo-
graph.

When spiritism was beginning to come
into fashion with us, he chanced to pay a
visit to the late professor of chemistry,
Butleroff, and was surprised to find him a
firm believer in table-turning and the like
phenomena. This visit, probably, inspired
him with the idea of writing his comedy,
"The Fruits of Enlightenment," and in
"Anna Karenina" Levine is made to con-
demn spiritism in the exact terms employed
by the Count.

The popular saying, " a nobleman without
money is like a horse without oats," as he
has told me, led him to take all possible
means to provide for the future of his

CHARACTERISTICS. 73

children. In the management of his estate
he therefore adopted the widest and most
energetic measures. He had it well stocked
with thorough-bred cattle, laid out orchards,
planted whole tracts of timber, and also
commenced rearing bees. For the most
part he himself directed everything at Yas-
naya Poliana, whilst intrusting his other
estates to the care of experienced stewards.

Leo Nicholaevitch's favourite amusement
was shooting. All his life, till his religious
opinions effected a complete change in his
views and his conduct of life, he was a
keen and eager sportsman. Into nearly
all his novels he has introduced sporting
scenes. Thus, in his " Childhood," he gives
a minute and animated description of his
first experience in hare-hunting, and in his
" Tales for Children " he gives the full
history of his two dogs, Boulka and Milton,
having preserved their actual names. Besides
bear-hunting, deer-stalking, and pheasant-
shooting, during his stay in the Caucasus

74 COUNT TOLSTOY.

he took part in the original but high-
spirited sport known under the name of
strepet-shooting, the strepet being a steppe
grouse. Towards the middle of August
these birds, before the autumnal migration,
collect in enormous flocks, and are at that
time excessively w^ild and on the alert.
Even with the utmost caution it is only
possible to get within six or seven hundred
feet of a flock. The Count used to ride
out to the strepets on a horse expressly
trained for the purpose, and after riding
at foot pace two or three times round the
covey, taking care each time to narrow
the circle till he was at a distance of from
six to seven hundred feet, dashed forth at
a full gallop with loaded gun in readiness.
The instant the birds rose, he dropped
the reins on the neck of the horse, and
the animal, understanding the signal, pulled
up sharp, and thus enabled him to shoot.

His love of sport was the cause of two
serious accidents. Of the first he has given

CHARACTERISTICS. 75

an account in one of his shorter tales en-
titled "The Desire Stronger than Neces-
sity." He was attacked by a huge bear,
and it was only shot when he was already
under the beast. He still bears a trace of
the encounter in the shape of a scar on
his forehead. The skin of the animal is
carefully preserved at Yasnaya Poliana.
After his marriage he ceased bear-hunting.
He met with his second accident in the
third year of his marriage. He had gone
out hare-hunting, mounted on a thorough-
bred English horse. He had to jump a
ditch, but the horse stumbled and fell
heavily with his rider into the ditch. In
falling he dislocated his arm. The mishap
occurred at a distance of some versts from
home. For a time he dragged himself
along on foot, but then fell from exhaus-
tion and pain, though he still contrived to
crawl on, till a peasant with his cart happen-
ing to pass, he was put into it and brought
to the waggoner's home. The surgeon of

76 COUNT TOLSTOY.

the place set the arm so clumsily that within
a month an operation had to be performed.
I have been told that, though chloroform
was administered, it took no less than four
burly fellows to hold him down and bind
him to the table.

But, after all, the dominant and noblest
trait in the character of Leo Nicholaevitch
is his love of truth and his desire to be
truthful in all that he wrote. This he has
told us in the well-known passage with
which he concludes his narrative, " Seva-
stopol in May 1855." And we all know
that the personages and incidents of his
stories and novels are, with scarcely an
exception, taken from real life.

Gifted by nature with rare tact and
delicacy, he is extremely gentle in his
bearing and conduct to others. I never
remember him indulging in angry language
when speaking with any of his servants ;
but none the less they all loved him, and
seemed to fear displeasing him. Nor, with

CHARACTERISTICS. 77

all his zeal for sport, have I ever seen him
whip a dog or beat his horse.

But, lastly, I would mention his strangest
peculiarity. He could not bear to wake a
person from his sleep. And if, when we
were on a journey or at home, this had
to be done, he never failed to ask me to
do it for him.

I shall conclude this chapter with a brief
notice of two novels he planned, but which,
owing to the impossibility of treating his
subject freely, he was obliged to abandon.
The first of them related to the life and
times of Peter the Great, the second to
the Decembrists.

In a letter I received from my sister
in December 1872, she writes: "Our life
just now is very, very serious. All day
we are terribly busy. Leo sits in his room,
surrounded by a huge pile of portraits,
pictures, and books, engrossed in reading,
making notes, and comparing one book
with another. In the evening, when the

78 COUNT TOLSTOY.

children are gone to bed, he talks over
his plans with me, and discusses the scheme
of his new story. At times he is quite
discouraged, falls into despair, and declares
that nothing will ever come of it. At
other times he is inclined to set to work
in earnest, and is hopeful and interested.
But up to the present I can scarcely say
he has even begun."

In another letter, dated a month later,
she writes as follows : " As usual we are
all of us very busy. The winter is our
working time, just as the summer is the
busy season with our peasants. Leo is
still reading up the history of the times
of Peter the Great, and seems to be in-
terested in the subject. He has already
sketched the leading personages of the
age, as well as the daily life of the boyars
and the people, though he does not as
yet know what will come of it all. But it
seems to me that we shall have another
prose poem like 'War and Peace,' the

CHARACTERISTICS. 79

scene, of course, being laid in the time of
Peter the Great."

In a third letter, dated February 23,
1873, she once more writes: "Leo is still
busy reading and making numerous quota-
tions, but sadly complains that inspiration
fails him. Every day, however, he is more
and more taken up with the study of books
and memoirs, written for the most part
by contemporaries of Peter."

It was in the summer of 1873 that Leo
Nicholaevitch finally abandoned the sub-
ject. He declared that his estimate of the
personality and public acts of Peter was
diametrically at variance with the prevail-
ing opinion, and that he could find noth-
ing in Peter or his doings that excited his
interest or sympathy. I have no positive
knowledge that he ever actually commenced
writing his proposed work. If he did, we
may be sure that every scrap has been
preserved, and is in the keeping of his
wife. But I never heard anything, either

8o COUNT TOLSTOY.

from her or from himself, to justify me in
supposing that he did more than jot down
a few fragmentary and disconnected notes.

In preparing materials for his novel con-
cerning the Decembrists, he was more
favourably circumstanced, since he was able
to avail himself, not only of all that had
been published on the subject, but also of
a number of family diaries and journals
that were placed at his disposal. In the
winter of 1877 he went to St. Petersburg,
in order to go over the Petropavlovsk
Fortress ; but he was not allowed to visit
the Alexis dungeons, though it was exactly
that portion of the fortress in which he
was most interested. To obtain the neces-
sary permission he had applied to the
Commandant, under whom he had served
in the Crimean campaign. He was re-
ceived with the utmost politeness, but at
the same time was informed that, whilst
any one could obtain entrance to these
dungeons, only three persons in the whole

CHARACTERISTICS. 8i

empire, having once entered, could leave
them, namely, the Emperor, the Com-
mandant, and the Chief of the Gendarmes.
This, among other things, he told me
when he had taken his place in the
carriage in which I awaited his return
from the Commandant. He also related
to me several stories about the means of
communication invented by prisoners con-
fined in neighbouring cells, saying that it
was the Decembrists who first worked out
a regular alphabet of sounds, by which,
after a little practice, the signification of
taps on the wall was as easily compre-
hended as a printed book. It was with
tears in his eyes that Leo Nicholaevitch
also told me how a Decembrist, during
his confinement in the fortress once, bribed
a sentinel to buy an apple for him. The
sentinel returned with a superb basket of
fruit and with the money the prisoner had
given him to make the purchase. It
appeared that the shop-keeper had sent

82 COUNT TOLSTOY.

it as a present directly he knew it was
a Decembrist who wished to be his
customer. .He further cited the case of
Lounine, a colonel in the horse-guards,
as a proof of the astonishing energy of
spirit and sarcastic contempt with which
these Decembrists endured their heavy
punishment. In a letter to his sisters,
written from the galleys, Lounine had re-
ferred satirically to the appointment of
Count Kieselieff to a high post in one
of the ministries. The letter, of course,
passed through the hands of the overseer,
and its contents were made known at
St. Petersburg. Lounine was condemned
henceforth to work in chains. The over-
seer of the political convicts, a full major
by rank and a German by origin, was
thus able each evening to return home
from the galleys smiling and content. And
Lounine, chained in, his dark underground
cell, could also smile and despise him.
But suddenly Leo Nicholaevitch aban-

CHARACTERISTICS. 83

doned all idea of continuing the work.
He affirmed that the Decembrist insur-
rection was the result of the teaching of
the French nobles, who emigrated to Russia
in large numbers after the French Re-
volution. Many of them were glad to
serve as tutors in Russian aristocratic
families. It was thus he explained the
fact that most of the Decembrists were
Catholics. The belief that it was there-
fore not a national movement, but due to
foreign teaching and influence, was suffi-
cient to prevent Leo Nicholaevitch from
sympathising with it.

To judge from what my sister has told
me, the composition of this romance was
undertaken far more seriously and with
greater persistency than was the case with
the other novel. But whatever was actually
written, either of the one or [the other, is
still carefully kept under lock and key ;
nor have I ever been able to get a sight
of either of these manuscripts.

CHAPTER V.

MY EXCURSIONS WITH COUNT TOLSTOY
AND HIS FAMILY.

From the time I first visited Yasnaya
Poliana, Leo Nicholaevitch never made
any summer a single trip without taking
me with him, the one exception being
when he went to Moscow, where I could
be of no possible use or service to him.

But whenever he went out shooting with
his dogs and gun, I always accompanied
him as amateur sportsman and companion.
It was the same when he went out riding,
or paid a visit to his brother, who lived
about thirty-five versts from Yasnaya Poliana.
This he did, probably, not so much for
his own sake as for mine, since he knew
what pleasure it gave me to be in his
society.

EXCURSIONS. 8s

In the autumn of 1866, Leo Nicholae-
vitch went to Moscow with the intention
of visiting the field of Borodino, the
scene of the famous battle in 181 2. He
arrived in Moscow alone, and put up
at our house. He then asked that I
might be allowed to accompany him. My
parents consented, and I cannot describe
my delight. I was then only eleven jears
of age. We did the journey in one day
with post-horses, and took up our lodging
close to the field of battle, in the monastery
erected in memory of those who had fallen
in the fight.

For two days Leo Nicholaevitch wandered
over the spot where fifty years ago a
hundred thousand men had been slaughtered,
and where we were now confronted by a
memorial statue with its golden tablets and
inscriptions. He made the minutest Investi-
gations, and drew a plan of the fight, which
was afterwards published as a frontispiece to
one of the volumes of "War and Peace."

86 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Though he related to me several stories
connected with the battle, and pointed out
the places occupied by Napoleon and
Koutuzoff, I confess I did not attribute
much importance to them, and was far
more interested in playing with a little
dog that followed us from the house of
the guardian of the Borodino monument.
I remember that, both on the field and
on our way to it, the Count hunted up
the few old villagfers who had witnessed
or participated in the fight. We learned
that the late guardian of the monument
had fought in the battle, and in reward for
his services had received this post. It
was only a few months before our visit
that the sturdy veteran had died. The
old man's death was unfortunate, and, in
general, the Count was far from successful
in his inquiries and researches.

In the winter of 1869, immediately after
the completion of his novel "War and
Peace," Leo Nicholaevitch began learning

EXCURSIONS. 87

Greek, a language of which he was entirely
ignorant, and pursued his studies with such
zeal that he soon began reading the classical
writers. From my own knowledge I can
vouch that, within the' short space of three
months, he had made such progress that
he was able to read Herodotus with com-
parative ease. That winter he resided in
Moscow, and whilst there made the ac-
quaintance of M. Leontieff, then Professor
of Greek at the Katkoff Lyceum, whom
he consulted on certain difficulties and on
the history of Greek literature. M. Leontieff"
did not seem inclined to believe in the
possibility of his having learned Greek in
so short a period, and proposed that he
should translate a passage from one of the
tragedians at sight. It happened that they
differed as to the translation of two or
three lines. But after a little discussion
the professor was obliged to admit the
correctness of the Count's version.

If "War and Peace" presents a no less

88 COUNT TOLSTOY.

vivid picture of the epoch of the national
war than Poushkin's " Captain's Daughter "
gives of the age of the Pougatcheff rising in
1773, this only proves that both these writers
possess the marvellous gift of recreating
the past, and of throwing themselves into
the souls of bygone times and incidents.
We can, therefore, easily understand that
his studies in classical literature carried Leo
Nicholaevitch back to ages too remote and
too alien from our own, and called forth in
him a feeling of melancholy and despair seem-
ingly inexplicable, but none the less strong.

His wife, alarmed at the effect they pro-
duced on him, advised him to undertake
some new literary work to free himself from
these impressions.

His interest in the classics gradually
weakened, but his melancholy and apathy
had considerably undermined his health.
To restore his strength and bring back his
former energy it was decided that he should
drink koumis.

EXCURSIONS. 89

The Count's father had travelled to the
steppes of Bashkeria to undergo a cure by
drinking koumis, and he himself had been
there a short time before his marriage.

In the beginning of the summer of 1870
we arrived in the Nicholaieff district of
the government of Samara, and thence
struck off eastward, and, following along
the banks of the Karalieck, finally reached
the village bearing the name of the river.

Leo Nicholaevitch never travelled by
second class ; and during this journey we
went third class, first by rail as far as
Nijhni Novgorod, and then by the Volga
steamboat to Samara, from which point
we had a hundred and twenty versts to
make on horseback.

On the steamboat he was greatly in-
terested in observing the habits and learn-
ing the life of the pastoral tribes peopling
the flats of the Lower Volga.

Leo Nicholaevitch possesses a remark-
able talent for making himself agreeable to

90 COUNT TOLSTOY.

strange passengers ; and if, by chance,
he falls into the company of reserved or
surly persons, after a few attempts he is
always sure to succeed in winning them
over and inducing them to chat freely and
at their ease. He knows exactly how to
gain their confidence, and himself takes
an unaffected interest in all they may relate
of themselves and their affairs. And so
it was now. Before the^second day was over
he had got to be on the friendliest terms
with all on deck, not excepting the simple-
minded sailors, with whom we passed the
whole night in the fore-part of the vessel.

In Karalieck he was welcomed as an old
acquaintance. We put up in a tent belong-
ing to a mullah, who together with his family
lived in an adjoining tent.

It is not every one who has had the
chance to see one of these tents, or Kot-
chdvka, as it is called. It is like a wooden
cage of a longish hemispherical shape.
This cage is covered with thick felt, and

EXCURSIONS. 91

is provided with a tiny painted door. Soft
feather grass serves as a carpet. The tent
admits of being easily taken to pieces and
transported from place to place. It is
admirably suited for a summer residence
in the steppes.

Whilst undergoing the koumis treatment,
it is well to follow strictly the example of
the Bashkirs, and to refrain from all meal
and vegetable food, and restrict oneself to
meat. Leo Nicholaevitch was very particular
in observing the required diet, and con-
sequently derived no little good from the
treatment.

Besides ourselves, there were other
koumis drinkers at Karalieck, but they
had put themselves, as it were, in quaran-
tine, and refused to associate with, or in
any way to adopt the life of, Bashkir
nomads.

But very soon after his arrival Leo
Nicholaevitch struck up acquaintance with
them, and, thanks to his genial influence.

92 COUNT TOLSTOY.

the place grew gay and lively. A teacher
at one of our seminaries, in spite of his
age, tried skipping-rope matches with him ;
an attorney's chief clerk liked to debate
with him on questions of literature and
philosophy ; and a young farmer from the
government of Samara became one of his
devoted and attached followers.

We made up a party of four, and set
out for a long drive through the Bashkir
villages. We took our gun3, and furnished
ourselves with numerous presents. On our
way we had some first-rate duck shooting,
and generally passed our nights in a
kotchevka, where we were regaled with
koumis. If, by chance, Leo Nicholaevitch
admired any particular animal in a herd
of horses let loose on the steppe, or said
to me, " Look, what a splendid mare for
giving milk," when we took leave of the
good people an hour or so later, our
host would be seen putting the same
horse to our tarantass, and would force

EXCURSIONS. 93

US to accept it as a present. Of course
when we passed the tent on our way
back, we took care to make some suitable
present in return.

The Count found the simple easy life
of these Bashkirs to be full of real poetry.
He was well acquainted with their habits
and customs ; they had long known him,
and learned to love him, and always spoke
of him as "the Count," there being no
other Count for them. Among them all,
a certain Chadziemourat, whom we Russians
knew as Michael Ivanoff, was perhaps most
attached to him. He was fond of a joke,
was very nimble and active in his move-
ments, was full of dry humour, and was a
good player at draughts.

Our visit to the steppes extended alto-
gether over six weeks, during which time
the Count and myself went to the Petrov-
sky fair held at Bozoulouk, a small town
about seventy versts distant. The fair
attracted a strange motley of different

94 COUNT TOLSTOY.

nationalities and races, Russian moujiks,
Ural Cossacks, Bashkirs, and Khirgese.
As usual, and thanks to his natural affa-
bility, Leo Nicholaevitch was soon on the
best terms with them all. Some of the
frequenters of the fair were generally drunk,
but, for all that, the Count would chat and
laugh with them. Once a drunken moujik,
inspired by a superfluous excess of affection,
wished to embrace him, but a stern look
from the Count was sufficient to make him
draw back, as he muttered a kind of apology,
" No, pardon me, I pray you."

During our wanderings on the steppes,
Leo Nicholaevitch was, perhaps, most
interested in mixing with members of the
Molochan sect, and particularly their vener-
able chief and teacher, Aglaia. Together
with some of the clergy of the place, he
more than once had discussions with these
dissidents, his object being not so much
to convince them as to learn authoritatively
the points on which they differed from

EXCURSIONS. 95

the Orthodox Church. They acknowledge
no guide save the Scriptures, reject all
tradition, and observe none of the ordinary
rites and ceremonies of the Church. They
have no places set apart for public worship,
pay no reverence to images, and have no
priests or clergy of any kind. By fasting
they understand abstinence in general, and
not merely refraining from certain articles
of food. For this reason, they do not
keep from milk when fasting, and, as
some have supposed, they are therefore
called Molochanic, or Milk Drinkers. It
is worthy of note that these sectarians
are distinguished by an honesty and a
love of work which we do not remark
among their Orthodox neighbours. They
further abstain from all intoxicating
drinks. Their recruits are almost ex-
clusively made from the peasant and un-
cultured classes.

I was very pleased when I was allowed,
without a word from Leo Nicholaevitch,

96 COUNT TOLSTOY.

to make use of a huge Greek lexicon he
had brought with him for pressing between
its leaves a considerable collection of flowers
peculiar to the steppe districts of Samara.
It showed that his classical studies had
lost the absorbing interest they once pos-
sessed for him.

On our return home, evidently under
the influence of what he had seen and
heard among the Bashkirs, Leo Nichol-
aevitch read through the Koran in a French
translation.

Whilst drinking koumis, he had looked
over an estate of two thousand acres that
was for sale, and in the following winter
purchased it. A peasant was sent out
from Yasnaya Poliana to undertake its
management and to build a farmhouse.
Two years later, we all spent the summer
on his new estate.

A Bashkir from Karalieck, famous for
its herds of mares, was engaged for the
Yasnaya Poliana estate, and he soon arrived

EXCURSIONS. 97

in a small teleiga, together with his wife
and a removable tent.

Mahometschach, or as he was called
in Russian Romanovitch, was steady, civil,
and precise in character, and it was for
these qualities that he had been chosen.
The interior of the tent was kept cleanly
and even luxuriously, and we often went
to see him, not to drink koumis, but to
sit and chat with him. In the centre of
the tent a carpet was laid down with
some cushions, whilst at one of the sides
was placed a table with two chairs. These
latter accessories were intended expressly
for us. On one of the walls a highly
ornamented saddle was hung up. One
side of the tent was curtained with bright
chintz hangings, behind which his wife
retired whenever any male visitor appeared.
From behind them she used to hand her
husband bottles of koumis and glasses
on a wooden platter. Leo Nicholaevitch
jokingly named the kotch^vka our saloon.

98 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Romanovitch was very proud of our visits,
the more so as it was the only distraction
he had, since, like most well-to-do Bashkirs,
he never amused or interested himself with
any kind of occupation.

It was in the same year that for the first
time the whole estate was ploughed and
sown. Unfortunately the crops failed every-
where, and a famine, known as the Samara
famine, ensued. It is impossible to give an
adequate idea of the misery and sufferings
the poorer peasants had to endure. With
his wonted kindliness and energy, Leo
Nicholaevitch came to their aid, and was
the first to open a subscription fund for
the starving population. I accompanied
him to two of the neighbouring villages,
and helped him to make an inventory of
all the grain and property actually in their
possession. For this purpose we selected
every third village. Nothing could be more
piteous than the eagerness with which the
peasants prayed us to insert their names in

EXCURSIONS. 99

the inventory, imagining that only those
whose property was catalogued would re-
ceive any help. Leo Nicholaevitch wrote
an article in which he drew a truthful pic-
ture of the famine-stricken districts. The
article was sent to the editor of the Moscow
News, together with a hundred roubles as
a first subscription for the initiation of the
good work.

In 1878 we spent a second summer on
the Samara estate. An adjoining estate
of four thousand acres had been bought
by the Count during the preceding winter.
Romanovitch, with his mares and the
" saloon," was again engaged. Besides his
own tent, another was put up especially for
our use and accommodation. In the course
of the summer Leo Nicholaevitch arranged
a sporting festival that was quite a novelty
in these places. Romanovitch was autho-
rised to announce to the peasants and neigh-
bours that races were to be run on the
Count's estate, the principal one being fifty

loo COUNT TOLSTOY.

versts' distance. The neighbouring Bash-
kirs, Ural Cossacks, and Russian moujiks
all alike took interest in the coming races.
The prizes were an ox, a horse, a gun, a
clock, a dressing-gown, and other articles,
and invitations were sent out to all who
were likely to take part in the sport. We
ourselves levelled and cleared the course,
measured off a large circle five versts in
length, and erected the starting-post. For
the dinner that was to follow huge joints
of mutton and horse-flesh, and other dainties
were provided. On the appointed day
a crowd of several thousand people was
collected. The Bashkirs and Khirgese ar-
rived with their tents, plenty of koumis,
boiling - coppers, and sheep. The wild
steppe covered with high grass, the long
line of tents arranged on either side, and
the motley crowd of eager lively spectators,
combined to make a varied and interesting
picture. The summits of the hillocks, called
shieschkie, were spread with carpets and felt

EXCURSIONS. loi

mats, on which the wealthier Bashkirs were
to be seen squatting, with their legs tucked
under them. In the centre of the group a
young Bashkir was busy pouring out and
handing round to each in turn a cup of
koumis. From different points in the crowd
could be heard snatches of song to the ac-
companiment of reed-pipes, chanted in a
drawling tone that struck the European
ear somewhat sadly. Here and there were
to be seen wrestlers showing off their skill
and practice in an art in which the Bash-
kirs particularly excel. As I watched the
scene my mind went back to the long-dis-
tant days when Russia lay under the Tartar
yoke. The runners for the chief race
brought with them thirty trained horses.
The riders were boys of about ten years,
and they rode without saddles. The race
lasted exactly an hour and forty minutes.
Consequently it was run at the rate of two
minutes a verst. Of the thirty horses, ten
ran the whole distance, the others giving

I02 COUNT TOLSTOY.

up. The festival lasted two days, and
passed off very gaily, and in the most per-
fect order. What, probably, pleased the
Count most was the complete absence of
the police. All the guests seemed to be
heartily contented with the amusements
provided for them, and more than once
expressed their full gratitude to their host.

This was destined to be the last of my
summer vacations at Yasnaya Poliana, for
I now entered on my new service. When
I told Leo Nicholaevitch that I was going
to serve in the Caucasus, he exclaimed,
"You are too late for the Caucasus. The
whole country now stinks of tchinovniks ! "

The thought of a long separation from
those I loved so warmly, and the necessity
of soon bidding farewell to a family in
whose circle I had spent the happiest years
of my life, made me quite ill, and for some
days I was obliged to keep my bed. The
innocent cause of my malady instinctively
guessed its real origin, and did all that lay

EXCURSIONS. 103

in his power to cheer and console me. For
hours he would sit with me, and advise
me not to be too exacting when I found
myself in a strange country, but to accommo-
date myself, as far as possible, to its mode
of life, and to take interest in all that
concerned the people with whom I was
about to make my home. The better to
fit me for my new surroundings, he read
to me some chapters of his manuscript
reminiscences of the Caucasus.

On the eleventh of September 1878, I said
good-bye to them, and set off for my new post,
All who have so far read my reminiscences
of the Count will share my respect and
esteem for the man, and for the life he has
led. Nor must it be supposed that I have
purposely suppressed anything that might
not tell to his advantage. Such a supposi-
tion would be entirely erroneous. I am,
at least, aware of nothing in his life that
needs to be concealed from the knowledge
of the reader.

I04 COUNT TOLSTOY.

There is no doubt that all this time the
intellectual and moral life of the Count was
slowly tending in many respects to his life
of the actual moment.

His kindly relations with the peasant
classes, his denial of the benefits of civi-
lisation, his simplicity in the arrangement
and surroundings of his home, the exem-
plariness of his family life, his wide and
enlightened views on education, his de-
votion to truth and work, his desire to
attain, as far as possible, perfection (to
which desire he remained faithful all
his life), his corisiderateness and respect,
coupled with a disinterested and unselfish
love for his neighbour, and lastly, his
denial of the right to exercise force or
violence in our dealings with our fellow-
creatures — all these qualities of his moral
and intellectual character form the ground
and basis of his later teaching, and free
it entirely of anything that smacks of
eccentricity or affectedness.

CHAPTER VI.

COUNT TOLSTOY'S CREED. CHANGE EFFECTED
BY IT IN HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER. HOW
HIS FAMILY REGARD HIS TEACHING.

Nine years had passed. I had gradually-
become accustomed to my new sphere of
activity. It was only at rare intervals that
I had received any news from Yasnaya
Polidna, where all this time Leo Nicho-
laevitch was earnestly striving to work out
the common problem of humanity.

After my long sojourn in the extreme
frontier districts of European Russia, I
had, in 1887, the pleasure of once more
visiting Moscow, my native city, and in
the beginning of August was already in
Ydsnaya Poliana.

I arrived at the time when Leo Nicholae-

io6 COUNT TOLSTOY.

vitch was writing the concluding chapters
of his " Kreutzer Sonata," that is, when he
had already completed his ethical system.

My sister, with all the pride natural to
a mother, watched her children as they
noisily rushed out to meet me, and laugh-
ingly asked me, "Do you recognise her?"
or exclaimed, " Look, she is taller than
you now!" But Leo Nicholaevitch did
not as yet make his appearance, and I
began to ask after him. A few minutes
later his study door opened, and he came
into the ante-room to welcome me. His
greeting was friendly, but there was a
seriousness in his tone which made me
feel that my joy at being again in his
company would no longer be of the kind
it was in former days.

Although during these nine years he had
considerably aged, and his hair had grown
greyer, the change was by no means so
marked as might have been expected. But
at the same time his face wore marks of

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 107

the severe spiritual struggle he had under-
gone. I was most struck by the quiet
but sad expression his features bore. I re-
membered Jiis look of earlier years. Now
his face produced on me the same impres-
sion I experienced when I first read his
" Confession."

I spent nearly two months at Ydsnaya
Polidna, and whilst there, made myself
acquainted with the creed taught by Leo
Nicholaevitch, and had numerous oppor-
tunities of seeing how his relations regarded
his teaching, and how both he and his
family now lived.

All this it will be my object to relate
in this, the last chapter of my reminis-
cences.

As might be supposed, his teaching was
diversely received by the public at large.

I have been told that he received letters
from all quarters of the world, some written
by his followers, others by his opponents.
I can imagine his disciples wishing to ex-

io8 COUNT TOLSTOY.

change ideas with their teacher, but, I con-
fess, I do not understand why his opponents
troubled him with their letters. In many
cases, persons who have never read a line of
his works wrote simply to vent their dis-
approval of doctrines erroneously attributed
to him. Such correspondents, he has told
me, he regarded with pity, though he felt
sure that their opposition to his creed was
due entirely to their ignorance of what he
really taught. " The more men read my
books," he said, "the less inclined they will
be to reject my teaching."

To my surprise, I have never yet met
with a true and accurate exposition of his
creed ; even the so-called Tolstoists do not
seem to have thoroughly grasped its real
meaning.

The foundation of his creed is the Gospel
law of love to our neighbours. On this
law his entire system is constructed, and
is summed up in three general rules or
principles.

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 109

These three rules are set forth by Leo
Nicholaevitch as necessary to the welfare
and development of mankind, and any depar-
ture from them must involve the decadence
of the individual, and bring with it pain and
suffering.

They are the following : That we should
not oppose evil with force ; That we should
not consume more than we ourselves pro-
duce ; That men and women should equally
practise and aspire towards purity and
chastity.

Without entering into a close analysis or
estimate of his teaching, which does not
come within the province of my task, I
shall only discuss these principles so far
as Leo Nicholaevitch himself explained
them to me.

The chief and most serious objection to
the first rule is based on the proposition that
human life is a struggle for existence, a
struggle that has to be carried on not only
with nature, but with our fellow-creatures.

no COUNT TOLSTOY.

This struggle between man and man is
not only a condition, but a governing factor
in the development of humanity, that is, of
progress ; and, therefore, the rule laid down^
even if theoretically sound, cannot be put
into practice.

In reply to this objection, Leo Nicholae-
vitch proposed that each man should seriously
put to himself the question whether love or
antagonism to our neighbour be a quality
inherent in human nature. And, admitting
that we may find this truth hard to under-
stand, we should further ask ourselves how
is it that, if a kindly relation to our neigh-
bour, to our children, to our servants, and
even to our animals is more profitable and
also more pleasant to ourselves, force and
violence should be necessary in our relation
to all other men.

If the principle of love to our neighbour
be a self-proved truth, it is in vain that
men have created for themselves the law
of a struggle for existence with their neigh-

TOLSTOY'S CREED. iii

hour, when they cannot escape the struggle
with nature for that existence.

This, from his point of view, immoral
law of the right to practise violence, first
of all diverts men from the necessary
struggle with nature, and weakens their
strength for such struggle ; and, secondly,
it increases crime, contributes to divide
men and to oppose race to race, and in
general conduces to our moral and physical
degradation, whilst it can in no way aid
the progressive development of humanity.

With each year Leo Nicholaevitch has
become more decided and more vehement
in his hostility to progress, in the sense
in which that term is understood by his
contemporaries.

In his opinion, modern progress, availing
itself of economical theories, creates money
distractions and makes money the criterion
of worth and position. But by means of
money a man can reduce his neighbour to a
state of lower degradation than any to which

112 COUNT TOLSTOY.

mere ordinary slavery can ever bring him ;
for by aid of the almighty rouble this lower
form of enslavement is effected in an under-
hand way and with impunity, and conse-
quently without pity or remorse.

Further, this progress creates a necessity
for railways and easy ways of communica-
tion, together with rivalry and concurrence
in commerce and trade, and thus inevitably
leads to the rapid and unequal distribution
of wealth among men.

Once such a state of things exists, it is
wrong in us quietly to accept it, or to
allow its continuance, whilst all the time
we theoretically admit it is an evil, and
the outcome of an immoral struggle for
superiority over our neighbour. We should
rather seek some escape from it, and the
more so because such escape is within our
grasp and easy to be found.

" The time will come," he said to me,
"when men will be convinced of the
truthfulness of my teaching. And then,

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 113

without doubt, they will adopt a different
and a better formula of progress. Then
the struggle with nature, now so burden-
some, will be made lighter, and we shall
be able to attain a higher and more general
state of happiness."

Objections to the second rule are gene-
rally based on the supposed fact that men
naturally seek to gain the most they can for
themselves.

If the observance of the first rule must
bring with it a practical gain, Leo Nicholae-
vitch does not have recourse to any like
argument in his refutation of this objection
to the second rule, but contents himself
with simply declaring that an act of volun-
tary self-denial in favour of our neighbour
is always easier than those compulsory acts
of self-denial which the majority of men have
to make.

But it must not be supposed that Leo
Nicholaevitch bases his teaching on personal
and self-interested considerations of this kind.

H

114 COUNT TOLSTOY.

They are only used to show that the argu-
ments commonly advanced against his teach-
ing may be reasonably urged in its favour.
His creed is founded on the great moral
truth of love to our neighbour, which does
not require to be proved, since it is natural
to and inherent in us all.

This truth, in his opinion, still lives and
has not lost its force, but, in opposition to
economical progress, must daily gain in
strength. He has insisted on this idea in
his later productions, where he declares that
men live only by love.

The third rule that men and women
should equally practise and aspire towards
purity and chastity forms the theme of his
novel the " Kreutzer Sonata."

Although, by way of answer to the
questions put to him by numerous critics
and correspondents as to the view this
novel is designed to advocate, the Count
has appended to its later editions a "post-
preface," as he terms it, in which he

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 115

explains the object with which he wrote
his work, still most of his readers seem to
have failed to discover in it the first real
solution of the so-called woman's question.
On the contrary, they all cry out that it
preaches asceticism, and upholds a monastic
life as our ideal. Such an interpretation
can only proceed from an unwillingness or
an inability to understand his views on the
conception of morality current among the
men of our days.

In the " Kreutzer Sonata" he maintains
that modern society allows a man before
his marriage, and even after his marriage,
when his wife grows a little old, to take
other women, but at the same time requires
the wife to continue to be pure and chaste.

By thus demanding more of the woman
than of the man, we degrade women, and
they are made to be nothing more than the
slaves of men's physical desires.

The degrading enslavement of women in
contemporary society is shown in this, that

ii6 COUNT TOLSTOY.

the purest of girls are, as it were, exhibited
at our balls for sale to young men who, if
they have not already worn away their
health in vice and become thoroughly
corrupt, have at least no pretence to be
pure. And such a man is considered to
be conferring a great honour on any girl
he may choose to ask to be his wife.
And to tempt him to do this, she is
paraded for sale in an indecently low-cut
costume, whilst he is further enticed on
by having his vanity humoured in being
privileged to take the initiatory step in
choosing a wife. At the same time, that
too severe demands may not be made
upon him, houses of vice are tolerated
and allowed to exist for his pleasure and
amusement.

The complete enslavement of women is
also proved by the fact that nine-tenths of
our shops deal almost exclusively in articles
designed for the dressing up and adornment
of women.

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 117

From this inequality, and from this de-
gradation of our women, we reap the natural
result, and need not be astonished if so few
marriages bring happiness.

This idea underlies the picture he gives
of the seemingly gratuitous quarrels and
misunderstandings that are constantly aris-
ing between Posdniescheff and his wife.
In reality they are caused by nothing else
than the degradation of the woman and
the consequent inequality in the relations
between husband and wife.

In the " Kreutzer Sonata" the novelist
exposes the faulty organisation of con-
temporary family life, and attributes its
abnormal defects to the same cause, the
degrading position occupied by women.

When some thirty years ago, under the
influence of the liberal ideas then in vogue,
this question as to woman's true position
was first prominently brought forward, it
was solved, as Leo Nicholaevitch thinks,
not with the object of putting the woman

ii8 COUNT TOLSTOY.

on a level and equal rank with the man.
Her equality was supposed to be secured
by giving her the right to vote at elections,
to exercise the profession of doctor, to
serve in public offices — in a word, by
granting her full power to alienate herself
from all home duties, and to enjoy the
same liberty of vice as men have long
ago claimed for themselves. In this way
her equality with man, to use the Count's
own words, consists solely in that, inas-
much as men are free to lead depraved
lives, henceforth the same freedom shall
be extended to women.

In the opening pages of his •' Kreutzer
Sonata" the novelist has put these opinions
into the mouth of the lawyer and the
lady passenger in the railway carriage ;
and in the same scene we have the mer-
chant with his old-fashioned ideas on the
woman's question, in accordance with which
he claims full liberty to amuse himself,
whenever the fancy seizes him, with fallen

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 119

beauties, all the while naturally expecting
his wife to remain faithful and to observe
the strict moral law. We cannot read
this chapter without perceiving that, in
the opinion of the novelist, the merchant
is nearer to the truth than either the
lawyer or the lady traveller.

And thus, a full and real equality between
man and woman can only be secured — not
by the degradation of the woman, but
by the elevation of the man. The novel,
therefore, teaches that men, no less than
women, should lead pure lives before
marriage, and afterwards remain true and
faithful to one wife.

To prove the soundness of this principle,
the ideal held up for our achievement is
like purity and like chastity in all. And
in evidence of the justice of this view,
we are reminded of the feeling of shame
we all experience when for the first
time we have erred and lost our in-
nocence.

I20 COUNT TOLSTOY.

In his opinion, as set forth in the same
novel, it is not sufficient for us to preserve
our purity before marriage, and after
marriage to remain faithful to one wife.
To fulfil the higher law of our being, and
to attain the ideal set before us, we must
discourage all that, as society is now con-
stituted, is born of the rivalry and struggle
created by the actual inequality of the
sexes. For this reason we must abandon
the custom of dressing up women solely
with the aim of attracting men. By means
of a healthier education we must eradicate
the coquetry that has now become an in-
tuitive quality in women. In a word, in
all our social relations, we must discourage
everything that is calculated to excite
sexual passions or to awaken impure
desires. Only then can we hope for a
true and perfect equality between man and
woman. Only then will the inequality
that reigns now disappear of itself, even
in the sphere of abstract activity.

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 121

It is on this ground that many of his
critics have accused Leo Nicholaevitch of
teaching asceticism.

I shall now proceed to touch on the change
his creed has effected in the character and
life of Count Tolstoy.

Only a genial nature could submit to a
change so complete as that undergone by
Leo Nicholaevitch in obedience to the creed
he has finally accepted. The change that
has taken place in his entire personality
within these last ten years is in the true
sense of the word a full and radical change.
Not only has his life and his every relation
to men and creatures changed, but we re-
mark a similar change in his sphere and
mode of thought. And if he still remains
faithful to some of his earlier views, such
as his antagonism to progress and civilisa-
tion, these views have no longer the same
basis and foundation.

The whole individuality of the man has
been transformed into a personification of

122 COUNT TOLSTOY.

the idea of love to his neighbour. And,
if I may be pardoned the paradox, I should
say that his error consists in thinking it to
be a departure from his views, though he
does it for the sake of the idea itself, when
he sharply condemns another for liis ill
deeds.

As love to his neighbour is the funda-
mental axiom of his creed, in the same
way this idea now serves as the basis
of each of his separate and distinct con-
victions.

I do not wish to dwell on some of his
present opinions, and to point out how he
adapts them to life in general and to his
own surroundings in particular.

Literature and art, whilst continuing to
be the interpreters of beauty and poetry,
must in their works also remain true to
this idea of love. All his later productions
have, therefore this exclusive characteristic.
He now looks on all his earlier composi-
tions as being hurtful, because in them he

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 123

describes and portrays love only in its
lower and ordinary aspects.

His educational theories as to liberty in
the choice of subjects being allowed to
the pupil, and the complete absence of
all compulsory measures on the part of
the teacher, were formerly insisted on for
the sake of promoting culture and en-
lightenment, but are now advocated by
him solely in accordance with his denial
of the right to employ force or violence.
Instruction and the knowledge of nature,
of man, and of life are beneficial only so
far as they contribute to the good of our
neighbours ; but, as manifestations of pro-
gress and the cause of the enslavement of
our neighbour, they are on the contrary
prejudicial and hurtful. This evil he finds
to be the leading trait in our modern
system of education, since the only aim
it has in view is to secure for the learner
a higher position in society than that
occupied by his neighbour, to enable him

124 COUNT TOLSTOY.

to show his superiority, and to afford him
the means of forcing his neighbour to
serve and submit to him. He consequently
beheved it to be his duty to cease busying
himself with the education of his children,
and was displeased when his wife continued
to do so. When his eldest son, having just
finished his university studies, consulted him
as to what career in life he should adopt,
his father advised him to go and be a fellow-
worker with the moujik.

The aim of education should be to
awaken and develop sympathy and love for
our neighbour, and, in opposition to what is
generally done in modern society, to dull,
rather than foster, the sensual passions.
At the same time, education should culti-
vate a love of simplicity and an aversion
to luxury. True and well-timed courtesy
proves love to our neighbours, but courtesy
as too often practised in our days, with
its officious affectation, is to be condemned,
since it is but the outcome of calculating

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 125

egotism. Inasmuch as the moral culture
and instruction of his children had always
been conducted in accordance with these
principles, we cannot say that any change
has come over his views on education,
unless we take into account the fact that
Leo Nicholaevitch himself likes to employ
the language and style of the people in
testimony of that simplicity, the observance
of which he recommends in every act of our
lives.

Formerly he regarded civilisation as
hurtful, because it weakens and effeminates
men, thus rendering them unfit for the
struggle they have to wage with nature ;
but now he finds it to be chiefly pre-
judicial in that it necessarily involves the
exploitation of our neighbour's labour,
without which it is impossible for us to
possess comforts and luxuries. He goes
so far as to condemn not only comfort
and luxury, but even cleanliness, if it is
to be procured by the services and labour

126 COUNT TOLSTOY.

of others. How this principle is applied
to his own home-life we shall see a little
later on ; for the moment it is enough to
say that he always himself heats his bath
and fetches the water for it. The water
with which his washing-stand is daily sup-
plied is also fetched by himself.

It is on the same ground that he
denies the utility of railroads, and always
does his best to avoid making use of
them.

The former estimate of the aristocracy
is now replaced by pity for the peasantry.
The lower a man stands in the social scale,
the more keenly he should call forth our
love and pity. In this respect, it is worthy
of note that, in his drama, " The Power of
Darkness," the brightest of the personages
is Achime with his theories on money and
banks. The love he feels for the people,
and the interest he takes in their well-
being, have, if possible, become less re-
stricted and wider than before. For in

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 127

their mode of life, and in their conduct
towards their neighbour, they approach
nearest to his rule and standard. Instead
of shutting himself up from the world, as
he was once inclined to do, he is now ac-
cessible to all, and is freely visited by
persons of every kind and description. As
for the peasants, his house is always open
to them, and they come constantly, either
to consult him or to seek his help. He
believes that we do wrong to isolate our-
selves, since such a habit can only spring
from an unwillingness to see or to know
anything of the necessities and sufferings
of others.

He further teaches that property is an
evil, so long as it has to be kept and
protected by force and authority. Con-
cerning his own property, he told me that
he had wished to free himself from it, as
from a thing that was evil in itself, and
shackled him in living up to his convic-
tions. But he confessed he had acted

128 COUNT TOLSTOY.

wrongly in seeking to burden another with
the evil, that is, in trying to dispose of it.
By such means he only created another
evil, which took the form of a vehement
protest and serious disapproval on the part
of his wife. In consequence of this, he
proposed to make over to her the whole
property in her name ; and, when she re-
fused, he made a second equally unsuc-
cessful proposal in favour of the children.
True to his rule never to resist evil by
force, and unwilling to charge another with
the burden of the evil, he began to live
as if he had no estate or property, refused
to receive any income himself from it, or
to profit by it in any way, with the sole
exception of continuing to live under the
roof of his house at Yasnaya Poliana. He
refused all pecuniary help, on the principle
that every money transaction is but the
means of effecting the enslavement of our
neighbour, but found it difficult to put his
theory into practice, inasmuch as his family

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 129

continued to enjoy the profits of his pro-
perty. My sister has told me that they
never distributed less than from three to
four thousand roubles yearly among the
poor. And I remember how once a poor,
old, decrepit moujik came and asked him
to give him some timber with which he
could repair his tumble-down sheds. The
Count invited me to go with him into the
forest, and we two, having taken our axes
with us, cut down some trees, lopped off
the branches, and piled the logs in order
on the peasant's cart. I must confess I
worked with a hearty good-will, and ex-
perienced a pleasure in the work I had
never known before. This may have been
because I was so completely under the
influence of my brother-in-law, or simply
because I was working for a sick broken-
down fellow-creature. All the time we
worked, the poor peasant's face wore an ex-
pression of quiet gratitude. Leo Nicholae-
vitch, noting my frame of mind, purposely

130 COUNT TOLSTOY.

rewarded my zeal by allotting to me the
harder share of the work. And when we
had finished and sent the moujik away re-
joicing, he turned to me and said, " Is
it possible to doubt the necessity of help-
ing our neighbour in distress, or the joy
which such help brings with it ? "

Although accustomed from his youth to
smoke and to drink wine, he has now
abandoned both habits, and, as is well
known, has founded temperance leagues
in the villages neighbouring his estates.

The service of dependants he neither
requires nor permits, and seldom accepts
any from those of his household, who
would thereby wish to show rather their
attachment to him than any subordination
to the head of the family. At dinner, if
a servant hands a dish to him, he is evi-
dently displeased, though he carefully ab-
stains from refusing the proffered service,
and once more acts on his principle of
never enforcing his opinions on others, or

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 131

offending persons by making himself peculiar
and different to them. As I have already
remarked, he himself each day cleans up
and arranges his study.

From a feeling of pity for animals, he
has long abandoned hunting and shooting,
and has assured me that, not only has sport
lost all attraction for him, but he is now
unable to understand how it could ever
have afforded him pleasure. From the
same motive he has become a strict vege-
tarian, and ceased to ride on horseback.

As an example of how he carries out his
belief that we have no right to avail our-
selves of the services of men or animals,
I may remark that, whenever his family
removes from Yasnaya Polidna, to take
up their winter-quarters in Moscow, he
himself does the journey on foot, though
it is a distance of no less than a hundred
and ninety-five versts. He has assured
me that he accomplishes this distance with-
out excessive exertion or fatigue. On such

132 COUNT TOLSTOY.

occasions he always remains at Yasnaya
Poliana a few days longer than the rest
of the family, and, when once they are
gone, he becomes entirely his own cook
and servant. He delays his departure in
this way, lest his wife should be made
anxious about him, or know that he does
the journey on foot. Consequently, his
love for active exercise has remained un-
changed, except that he now indulges in
it for some useful end, such as plough-
ing a field, cutting down timber, or build-
ing a hut for some peasant.

His earlier aversion to doctors and medi-
cinal treatment has of late grown intenser
and more confirmed. Two years before
my last visit Leo Nicholaevitch accidentally
hurt his foot. The pain became so intense
as to make him for a while delirious. His
wife then determined to take upon herself
the responsibility of sending for a surgeon.
The latter was received by his patient with
scant affability, and was roughly told, pro-

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 133

bably in the hope of getting rid of him,
that he would not have come unless he
had hoped to get a good fee. To this the
surgeon quietly replied, that he wondered
the very man who preached love to his
neighbour should himself so flagrantly
violate the rule of love. In the end,
the surgeon was allowed to apply his
treatment, and before long the inflamma-
tion diminished, and the refractory patient
was restored to health. But the Count
remained unshaken in his belief; and I
remember that, during my last visit, when
he was suffering, I advised him to drink
Carlsbad waters, whereupon he declared,
that no one had ever proved these waters
to be of any use either for his illness or
any other. Nor could he be persuaded to
follow a regular cure.

His former gaiety of temper, which en-
livened all who were near him, has now
entirely disappeared. There is nothing
morose or unduly sad in his present tem-

134 COUNT TOLSTOY.

perameiit, but at the same time there is
no longer any trace of the boyish merriment
that was once so attractive in him. This
earher trait in his character has, if I may
so express myself, fallen to pieces, and is
now shared by his children. Unconstrained
by his presence, they freely indulge in their
romps and mirth, and this always seemed
to me to harmonise with his concentrated
seriousness, and to give a brighter colour-
ing to his stern views on social morality.
Though he takes no active part in their
chat, or when they sing or play at the
piano, he always seems to be interested
and pleased in what they do. On the day
of my arrival he appeared to make an
effort to throw off his seriousness, perhaps
having remarked the impression his changed
manner had produced on me, and I recol-
lect that, as I was walking up and down
the room, he suddenly leaped up from his
chair, and with a laugh, jumping on my
back, made me carry him round two or

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 135

three times. He still retains his love for
the society of children, but does not lay
himself out to amuse them, as he used to
do. His younger, sons and nephews are very
fond of playing draughts with him. But in
all this there is something- mechanical : he
listens to the conversation going on around
him, but does not, after his old fashion,
take part in it, particularly if it in any
wise touches the doctrines of his creed,
and preserves an all but absolute silence.
If he talks, it is invariably on some subject
of importance, something that has to be
done, and the subject is treated by him with
gravity and seriousness.

He advised me to quit the Government
service, and change my mode of life, and he
spoke to me of the joy which the practice
of the great law, love to our neighbour,
brings with it. Amongst others, he held
up to me as an example, young Prince Hiel-
koff. Tdie prince was long unacquainted
with Leo Nicholaevitch and his teaching.

136 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Almost at the same time as his teaching
was first made generally public, young
Hielkoff cut all his former ties, threw up
his rank as officer in the guards, and
gave over his estates to his peasants, leav-
ing for himself only ten acres of land, but,
previously to taking up his residence on
his little property, went to work with and
amongst the moujiks. He zealously occu-
pied himself with the commonest work,
and awaited with eagerness the time when
he should so far have improved that his
nearest neighbour, a Jew, would be glad
to engage him to come and work in his
fields for five roubles a month. Only then
would he allow himself to marry, probably
choosing a peasant girl for his wife, and
to settle with her on his ten acre estate.
His adoption of the new creed, as was to
be expected, brought upon him the ridicule
of most of his friends, and the bitterest
reproaches of his mother. I remember
meeting him in the Caucasus while he was

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 137

serving in the army. Notwithstanding the
slightness of our acquaintance, he left a
most favourable impression on me, and
appeared to be a kindly hearted man.

Leo Nicholaevitch complained to me that
women had especially hindered the spread
and application of his teaching, and attri-
buted this to the incapacity of women to
make or accept accurate and precise de-
finitions. When speaking once to him of
the traits peculiar to women, I told him
of one I had particularly remarked. The
peculiarity I referred to consists in this,
that a woman, when picking up anything
from the ground, never bends her back,
but first squats or makes a kind of courtesy
and then stoops down. A man, on the con-
trary, will most scrupulously bend his back.
I proved my assertion by getting all the
women of the house to go through the ex-
periment, and it succeeded most brilliantly,
even in the case of the old nurse and the
three-year-old daughter of the Count. He

138 COUNT TOLSTOY.

laughed heartily and loudly, whilst the ex-
periment was on foot, and each of them,
not knowing why we wished them to do
it, picked up my little pocket-brush from
the ground. We were all pleased to hear
him once more laugh so freely.

But, in spite of all the change that had
come over him, he continued to enjoy the
love and devotion of his whole family.
Their love was coupled with the deepest
respect for his genius. He is now a
grandfather ; and, adopting his favourite
way of employing the speech of the people,
they like to call him "ours" or "our old
man."

Nor is this reverence restricted to the
family alone, for, though at his own re-
quest his name has been struck off the
list of assessors of the peace, since he
believes it to be wrong to take an oath
or to judge a fellow-creature, he has often,
as a mark of esteem, been chosen to the
post of justice of the peace.

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 139

It now only remains to me to say a few
words as to how his family look on and
regard his teaching.

It has often been asserted in print that
his family do not share his opinions and
views. This would not in any case be
surprising, considering that among them
are his wife and four grown-up sons and
daughters, each of whom most naturally
has his or her peculiar convictions ; but in
fact such an idea is entirely erroneous.

In accordance with his rule not to oppose
error by force, Leo Nicholaevitch has always
endeavoured to give his children the fullest
liberty to accept or reject his teaching. He
has taught them what he believes to be
the truth, but neither in his tone nor in
his manner does he seek to impose upon
them his ideas. He sets forth his doc-
trines, leaving it to his hearers to exercise
their free judgment, but is none the less
convinced himself that they must prove
a blessing to those who adopt them.

I40 COUNT TOLSTOY.

assured that sooner or later they will be
generally acknowledged and accepted. He
can, therefore, only regret than men still
cling to error and forget that, unless they
be ruled by the law of love, there is and
can be no life in them. And in exactly a
similar way he regards his children. He
has told me that an insincere, or a sincere
but inoculated, adoption of his doctrines
on the part of his children is a thing he
has always feared. His children under-
stand this, and therefore preserve to them-
selves as their right the full and impartial
liberty of thought and belief.

With reference to his wife, however, I
have noticed that he is inclined to be
more exacting, and seems to be displeased
and hurt that she persists in opposing his
wish to abandon his worldly possessions,
and continues to educate her children after
the old fashion and spirit.

In her turn his wife believes that she
is right in so acting, and is grieved at

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 141

the hard necessity of having to thwart his
dearest wish.

She has been the secret witness of all
his spiritual struggle, and has with anxiety
watched the gradual development into full
growth of his religious and social creeds.
No wonder if, at times, they have filled her
with a feeling of disquietude, and she
has feared their baleful influence on the
health and well-being of her husband. This
feeling, in spite of herself, for a while
generated an aversion to his creed, and
a dread of its results. Conscious of her
powerlessness to change the current of his
thoughts, and thus render easier to him
the process of his spiritual conflict, she
felt that she could come to the aid of
her children, and therefore opposed her
husband's demands in all that threatened
their impoverishment, or required impractical
changes in their education. We may
literally apply to her the old saying, "be-
tween two fires." On the one hand, she

142 COUNT TOLSTOY.

was confronted by the spiritual sufferings
of her husband, and his demand to have
full freedom in carrying out his principles ;
on the other hand, she had to consult the
happiness and welfare of her children, and
consequently to acknowledge the impossi-
bility of yielding to that demand. Between
husband and wife an ever-widening dis-
cordance betrayed itself, and made itself
felt in mutual recriminations as to the
position each had taken up towards his
creed, the one point on which there ever
was the slightest disagreement or mis-
understanding. The wife, at one moment,
was disposed to appeal to the courts that
the estate should be put under wardship,
and the interests of the children be thus
preserved. And when the Count proposed
to make over all to her, she insisted on
his giving her a formal deed, whereby all
rights in his property, movable and im-
movable, should be conferred on her,
with the exception of his later literary

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 143

productions. These, as we know, are
written for the express purpose of incul-
cating his creed, and the Count has, there-
fore, renounced all his rights in them, and
they are public property, any one- who
chooses having the power to reprint them.
Within the last few years, she has learned
to look on his teaching more dispassion-
ately, and has even trained herself to
criticise it from an objective point of
view. But I can best explain her actual
state of mind by briefly summing up a
conversation I had with her during my
last visit in 1887.

So far from denying his doctrines in
principle, she is, theoretically, in complete
accord with them, and regards him as a
man greatly in advance of his age. She,
therefore, acknowledges his authority and
reverences his ideal, but considers it would
be unjust to cease to educate her younger
children, as she was wont to educate the
elder ones, so long as the new ideas of

144 COUNT TOLSTOY.

her husband on education continue to be
unrecognised by society. In the same way,
to divide their property among strangers,
and to cast her children penniless on the
world, when no one else is ready or willing
to do the same, she not only considers
impossible, but believes it to be her duty
as mother to oppose any such scheme
to the uttermost. When speaking to me
on this subject, she exclaimed, with tears
in her eyes, " It is hard for me now, since
I have now to do all myself, whereas before
I needed to be only his aid and helper.
The education of the children, the care of
the property, all has fallen on my shoulders.
And then I am blamed for transgressing
Christ's law of love and charity ! As if I
would not readily do all he wishes if I
had no children; but he forgets all and
everything for the sake of his creed." Nor
was it only in reference to the question of
education that she had to take a firm stand
in opposition to her husband. A natural

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 145

fear of the ill effect it might produce on
the health of the children forced her to
oppose him, when he desired that they,
like himself, should observe a strict vege-
tarian diet.

As we might suppose, his views are dif-
ferently judged by his children.

The eldest son, as far as I know, does
not agree with the opinions of his father.
When the latter surrendered all personal
claims on his property, the son, in obedi-
ence to his mother's wish, undertook the
management of the estate, and at the same
time began his service in the chancery of
the county zemstvo.

The second son expressed a wish to
follow the rules laid down in his father's
religious and social creed. He quitted the
gymnasium, and three years ago, as I have
been informed, married a young girl of
twenty-two, with whom he settled on one
of the smaller estates, and where, notwith-
standing that his wife belongs to the higher

K

146 COUNT TOLSTOY.

class of society, they lead a strictly simple
life, and have no servants of any kind to
aid them in keeping house.

The third son continued his course of
education, but told me that he was per-
fectly in accord with his father as to the
necessity of men leading a life of purity,
and that he should do his best to observe
the moral laws of the Count.

In general, I remarked in all the members
of the family a desire to lead lives of the
strictest simplicity, to make as little use as
possible of the services of others, to help
in every way the needy and suffering ; and
in all their acts they unostentatiously followed
and adopted the teaching of their father.

But it is the second daughter more than
all the rest who is devoted to her father,
and, so far as is allowed her, she rigorously
observes his every rule and maxim.

My younger sister, who spent her whole
youth at Yasnaya Polidna, and now passes,
together with her family, every summer

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 147

with the Countess, is also one of Leo
Nicholaevitch's sincerest admirers. But,
whilst she has a profound reverence for
the purity of his creed, and understands
the spirit of his teaching, she acknowledges
its lack of practicability, and is not afraid
openly to express her opinions. Leo
Nicholaevitch, in his turn, is wont to
answer her objections in that sarcastic
tone of his which, I may say, has replaced
the lively humour that formerly constituted
the great charm of his conversation. I
may, perhaps, be allowed to give a trifling,
but at the same time significant, example
of my sister's mocking attack, and the
quiet sarcasm with which it was parried.

In the olden days, Leo Nicholaevitch
was particularly fond of a certain sweet
dish, which we were accustomed to call
"ankovsky pie," after the name of the
orood doctor who had given us the
recipe.

During my last visit I soon learned

148 COUNT TOLSTOY.

that the term had assumed a different
meaning, and that it was now employed
by Leo Nicholaevitch, when he happened
to be in a sarcastic mood, to express his
discontent with us for undue hankering
after comfort and luxury. I once happened
to be with Leo Nicholaevitch whilst he
was clearing up and dusting the things
in his study. I helped him, and we had
thoroughly swept the room out, and were
standing on the balcony, brooms in hand,
when my younger sister chanced to pass
by. A little later, in presence of them
all, she was laughingly congratulating me
on my conversion, and declared she had
never seen a more zealous disciple. She
went on to relate how she saw me and
the Count standing with brooms in hand,
and how the latter made the sign of the
cross over me, and, raising his eyes,
solemnly asked me, " Dost thou renounce
ankovsky pie and all its evil works ? " upon
which I as solemnly replied, " I do."

TOLSTOY'S CREED. 149

I also remember how, when we were
getting ready to celebrate the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the Count's marriage, he,
evidently wishing to show his displeasure
at the festivities with which we proposed
to honour the event, inquired of us, " Is
to-morrow really the jubilee of my wedding-
day, or is it not rather the jubilee of
ankovsky pie ? "

And now, in bringing my reminiscences
of Count Tolstoy to an end, I purposely
refrain from pronouncing any verdict of
my own on his life or his teaching. I
content myself with putting two questions
that, no doubt, have already suggested
themselves to the reader. Has Leo Nichol-
aevitch done all in his power to fulfil in
his own life and conduct the rules he has
laid down for others ; and is he right
to deprive his family of their claims to
inherit his property ? For myself, I cannot
imagine how any one, unless he be actuated
by envy or malice, will venture to deny

150 COUNT TOLSTOY.

that, in every minutest point, he has, so far
as was possible, practised in his life what
he preaches in his books. To have de-
prived his children of their property would
have been, probably, in the opinion of
most men, an act of cruel and unjustifiable
violence.

How far the teaching of Count Tolstoy
is true appears to me to be a question
that must be decided, not by us, but by
posterity.

A LETTER

TO THE

WOMEN OF FRANCE

A LETTER

TO THE

WOMEN OF FRANCE

ON "THE KREUTZER SONATA."

I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Nothing is more difficult than to do good
and at the same time to bring ill to no
one.

In addressing this letter to you, I am
actuated by this single desire, and shall
be more than glad if I can, if only in part,
attain that desire. It may be, the task
is beyond my feeble power ; but I shall
be content if my letter affords you some
moral satisfaction.

Let me at once come to the subject-
matter of my letter.

154 COUNT TOLSTOY.

The compositions of a great genius are
like the sun that suddenly pours its full
light into a dark place — at first our eyes
are blinded with its dazzling rays, and we
can see nothing.

So it was with Count Tolstoy's story,
the " Kreutzer Sonata."

Most of the critics who have fallen foul
of the novel are in exactly a like position
to the bewildered inhabitants of a dark
cave who have been startled by the sudden
inburst of sunlight.

Some declare that they can see nothing
because the sun shines too brightly: these
are the critics who try to show that man
is unfitted by nature to live singly and
alone. Others affirm that it is impossible
and dangerous to the sight to gaze on
the sun : these are the critics who suppose
that Tolstoy calls on us one and all to gaze
straight on the sun instead of making a
proper and reasonable use of its light,
that is, as if he represented virginity to be

LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE. 155

universally compulsory. A third group of
critics declare that men cannot avail them-
selves directly of the sunlight, but are
obliged to have recourse to artificial light
that flows from the natural light : these are
the teachers of the Church, who assert that
union in marriage is not only sinless but
is recommended in the Gospels. And,
lastly, we find critics who are in reality
displeased at the light being introduced
into dark places, merely because they are
thus prevented from doing in the light
what they were able to do with impunity
in the darkness. Their opinion is at one
with the belief of the ordinary reprobate,
who jauntily assures us that men are en-
dowed by nature with certain instincts,
and that they have, in common with animals,
the full sanction of nature to satisfy these
desires. They thus decline to lay down
any limit within which the passions of men
should be confined. The only conclusion,
therefore, that we can draw is that men in

156 COUNT TOLSTOY.

their relations to women are to have the\
same lawless liberty as is enjoyed by
animals.

In a word, these critics, blinded by the
light, have failed to seize the true mean-
ing of Tolstoy's work, and have unwit-
tingly attributed to him opinions directly
the opposite to those which he in reality
maintains.

On the contrary, women, with a keen pre-
sentiment that his work is a healthy and
sound defence of their individual and social
rights, have been able to keep themselves
undazed by the new light which it throws
upon the subject. They have been exhausted
and worn out by the long struggle of ages
to obtain their independence, and to secure
their full protection against the coarse and
sensual tyranny of men, that threatened in
the end to crush their moral and physi-
cal strength. And if hitherto they have
forborne to press their claims openly or in
print, it is because they haye long despaired

LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE. 157

of the appearance of a genius who would
come to their aid with sufficient power to
judge fairly this question of the rule of
men over women, and pronounce a final
and righteous verdict.

That decisive moment in the history of
civilisation has now dawned. Count Tolstoy,
whilst proclaiming woman's independence,
has exposed the rude barbarous feeling by
which men have always been guided, and
still continue to be ruled, in their conduct
and relation to women.

He has discovered the means by which,
without violence or wrong to any one,
the needful reform in our marriage laws
and customs can be effected, and a com-
plete but noiseless revolution be accom-
plished in the social and family life of
Europe. And, when once this has been
achieved, women will have the possibility
of exercising their mild and useful activity
in the different spheres of intellectual and
moral labour.

158 COUNT TOLSTOY.

But it may be asked, "Why have I not
addressed this letter to my own country-
women ? "

There are two reasons. Firstr we do
not enjoy full liberty of the press. This
same novel, the " Kreutzer Sonata," was
not published in Russian till the second
year after it had been written. It has
already made the round of the civilised
world in Europe and America, during all
which time it could circulate among our-
selves only in manuscript, when, at last, the
fame of its author and the success achieved
by his novel were considered to justify its
publication in Russia. But anything like
a fair criticism of the work is for us all
but impossible, and would be entirely use-
less.

But I have a second and more urgent
reason for addressing this letter to the
women of France.

If this novel, the " Kreutzer Sonata,"
is destined to produce a radical reform in

\

LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE. 159

our married and social life, and to secure
for women their rightful position in the
world, this reform will first be carried out
in France, because France has always been
the leading nation, and Frenchwomen the
leading women of Europe.

Nowhere has a tenderer sound and mean-
ing been given to the word "mother" than
in France. French women always have
been and still are the lawgivers of fashion.
The women of no other country can rival
them in attractiveness and in grace. It is
in France that women have exercised the
greatest influence on the political life of a
people. At the same time, nowhere is the
law more stern or severe towards illegiti-
mate children, and nowhere has the increase
of population been brought to a lower rate.
In one word, the better the women of a
country are found to be, the more clearly
and the more sharply will their merits and
failings be brought out. It is in such a
country that the first reaction will take place

i6o COUNT TOLSTOY.

against actual family life and the actual posi-
tion of women.

It is this that induces me to go over and
review with you the grand truths enunciated
by Count Tolstoy in the " Kreutzer Sonata"
and in his " Post-prefatory Remarks" to the
story.

In spite of its difficulties, I hope to accom-
plish the task I have set myself. From my
twelfth year I have lived for a continuous
number of summers with the author as a
member of his family. I have thus been a
witness of his family life, have seen how
these ideas gradually grew upon him, and
know the source and origin from which they
sprang. Their gradual development, it is
true, may be traced in his works, but they
are mainly the necessary outcome of his
own life.

In many of his tales he has sung the
praises of family life. In one of his later
productions, he has declared that woman's
highest vocation is to give birth to, and to

LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE. i6i

suckle children, that is, to be a mother.
But in the " Kreutzer Sonata" he exalts
the virgin above the mother. At first sight,
these two views appear to be contradictory ;
but, in fact, they prove nothing more than a
gradual and regular development in his
thoughts and in his conception of the ideal.
The seeming contradiction disappears di-
rectly we investigate and make ourselves
acquainted with the real cause and reason
of its composition.

The story is a revelation of the author's
own experience. It is not the result of
despair, or of disappointment at the failure of
promised happiness ; but it is the result of
his experience of the fullest happiness family
life can afford.

His experience has taught him its insuffi-
ciency to satisfy man's highest needs, and he
therefore could not content himself with it,
but sought out a new and higher form of
happiness. The ordinary opinion that genius
and talent are unfitted for the narrow circle

L

1 62 COUNT TOLSTOY.

of family life is consequently once more
proved to be erroneous ; and, more than in
anything else, Count Tolstoy has in this
shown his originality and independence of
mind and character. For herein lies the
whole gist of the matter, that the composi-
tion of the " Kreutzer Sonata" is due to
the happiness he has found in his family
life.

He was, moreover, prompted to write it
by that love for his neighbour which forms
the guiding rule of his life, and which he has
constantly set forth, not only in his writings,
but in his daily practice and conduct.

Before entering on a critical analysis of
the story, I ought perhaps to warn my
readers that they are not justified in con-
demning the author for his sharp exposure
of the shortcomings of women. These are
to be regarded as the sad but natural
result of the long-continued struggle be-
tween the two sexes, for which men, rather
than women, are really answerable. Such,

LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF FRANCE. 163

at any rate, is evidently the view taken by
the author himself.

If this struggle has always existed and
is still going on, and if men have always
regarded, and still regard, women as mere
objects to satisfy their passions, the failings
and errors of men must always have been,
and will long continue to be, fatal to the
purity of family life, and to the true happi- i
ness of women in general.

An adequate solution of this question,
the restoration of women to their natural
rights, their emancipation from work that
is beyond their physical strength, and their
final rescue from the position of slaves to
the passions of men — all this has nothing
in common with the simpering flatteries
that are paid to women in drawing-rooms,
but constitutes the sole security and guaran-
tee for the future weal, not only of women,
but of men themselves.

In the " Kreutzer Sonata" we have for
the first time a righteous solution of the

1 64 COUNT TOLSTOY.

woman's question, and the definition of
Christian marriage as deduced from the
teaching of the Gospels. By making mar-
riage Christian, we can alone escape the
many evils and tragic horrors that now
too often sully and poison our family life.

II.

HOW IS THE WOMAN'S QUESTION TO BE
SOLVED?

In nothing, perhaps, does the history of the
human race present such striking changes
as in the position occupied by women at
different periods and in different countries.
But just as we verify the temperature
of the thermometer, so we may verify the
degree to which sensuality prevails at any
particular period. If we follow out the
history of the woman's question, we shall see
that the more sensualism obtains at any
epoch, the worse will be the position of
women at that time. For this reason, where
polygamy prevails we find the despotism of
man ; where polyandry prevails, we find
woman supreme.

i6s

1 66 COUNT TOLSTOY.

It is still within a comparatively recent
date that widows were sacrificed in India
to appease the spirits of their departed hus-
bands, and new-born children were wont
to be put to death in Northern Siberia,
for no other reason than that it was con-
sidered a superfluous and embarrassing
luxury to let them live. I myself, whilst
occupying the post of examining magistrate
in the Trans-Caucasus, had occasion some
nine years ago to investigate several cases in
which young girls had been violently carried
off in order to compel them to conclude a
forced marriage. This custom is still in
force among those Georgian tribes who
have been converted to the Christian faith.

It is not, however, of such races or tribes
that I would speak now, but rather of what
is done among the more polished peoples
of the world, among those who boast of
being the pioneers of civilisation. I have
to speak of Christian Europe, where the
equality of men and women is professed.

THE SOLUTION. 167

and where the woman has the right to with-
hold her consent to any proposal of marriage
that may be made to her.

But, in reality, according to the opinion
of Count Tolstoy, as expressed in the
" Kreutzer Sonata," European women are
in the position of degraded slaves, just be-
cause they are held by men to be nothing
more than the objects of sensual passion.

Throughout the story the author has
made Posdniescheff the spokesman and
mouthpiece of his ideas.

The story opens in a railroad carriage,
where the passengers have got into a chat
on the woman's question, and in the course
of the dispute the two extremest views
as to the rights of women are main-
tained.

First of all, we have the old merchant,
with his old-fashioned views about women.
He holds that the head of the house cannot
be called to account by the family for any-
thing he does or says, and that he is

1 68 COUNT TOLSTOY.

therefore free, notwithstanding any tie of
marriage, to indulge in what revelry, and
to form what connections he may think
fit. From the wife he demands moral
purity, and wifely obedience and fidelity.
She must obey her husband implicitly, and,
to secure such obedience, he recommends
that she should be ruled with exemplary
severity. He justifies his opinions by re-
minding us that Eve was created from one
of Adam's ribs, and refers us to the words
in the marriage-service, "the wife shall fear
her husband." He winds up his argument
by quoting the popular saying, "Do not
trust your horse in the field, and do not
trust your wife out of sight."

He is thus the exponent of what we call
in Russia the patriarchal creed. It is plain
that such a theory of the rights of men over
women would reduce the latter to the grade
of slaves.

A lawyer and his fellow-ti'aveller, a lady,
are the champions of the opposite creed,

THE SOLUTION. 169

and they uphold the newer and more
popular views on marriage. The former
asserts that the right of divorce is not
sufficiently extended in Russia ; and his
lady-friend declares that a woman should
be guided exclusively by the feeling of
love. The dress and manners of this lady,
as well as her evidently close intimacy
with the lawyer, proclaim her to be a
thoroughly emancipated woman. From the
tone of her speech we may conclude that
she does not regard marriage as a sacra-
ment, nor does she allow that marriage
can have any other foundation than " true
love ; " and by this term she understands
" the exclusive preference for one man or
woman above all others."

The groundlessness of such a theory is
at once exposed by the author, who makes
the old merchant exclaim, " Ah, madam,
all you say is not to the purpose. You
foreet that a law has been given to man."

And then the author introduces his hero,

I70 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Posdniescheff, who takes part in the dispute
with the lawyer and his lady-friend, and
shows them that such love can never serve
as the basis of marriage, inasmuch as this
is not love, but simply sexual attraction,
that may be felt for any pretty woman or
handsome man, and which consequently
cannot be felt throughout life for one and
the same person.

The discussion soon comes to an end, and
Posdniescheff is left alone with the supposed
narrator of the tale.

He tells him the whole story of his life,
explains his earlier ideas of and relation to
women, and describes all the tragic circum-
stances connected with the murder of his
unhappy wife. In the course of his narra-
tive, he criticises and condemns the present
position of women, the modern conception
of marriage, and finally sets forth his own
views and ideas on these two questions of
the day.

"If the story is to be told, it must be

THE SOLUTION. 171

told from the beginning," says Posdnieschefif ;
and he commences to relate what kind of
life our young men are wont to lead before
their marriage.

In this way Posdnieschefif systematically
works out his thesis, that in Europe men
have degraded women to a state of slavery,
merely to satisfy their own passions. The
equality, of which we talk so loudly and
write so fluently, does not really exist, and
we only lie when we declare women to be
free and to have the same rights as men.

He begins by describing his own life.
" I lived up to my marriage," he says, " as
others lived, that is, I led an immoral Hfe ;
but all the time I was convinced that I was
living as I ought to live."

Consequently, the life of Posdnieschefif is
to be accepted as the model by which all
men live, and they are all convinced that
such a life is regular and correct.

Posdniescheff lost his purity when he was
fifteen. But before that he had been cor-

172 COUNT TOLSTOY.

rupted in mind and corrupted in deed,
since " his very abstentions were impure."
" Women were to him a sweet forbidden
fruit, and his desires gave him no
rest."

He suffered from and struggled against
these desires. At last, one of his com-
panions took him to a house, " where he
fell," and ceased to be any longer pure.

But we must not condemn the young
lad because he fell. He had suffered
much and struggled hard ; and his fall
filled him with horror. Nothing can be
more truthful or more touching than the
language in which he describes his grief
at the bitter thought of his moral degra-
dation : —

" I remember how at once, even there,
before I had left the room, I was filled with
grief, with such grief that I longed to weep,
to weep for the loss of my purity, for the ir-
revocable change that had henceforth come
over my relationship to women. I could no

THE SOLUTION. 173

longer be to them, they could no longer
be to me as before."

He sinned as all his young friends had
sinned. He had been led away under the
influence of the circle in which he lived
and moved. On this point Posdniescheff
speaks out with his usual blunt clearness :

" The fact is that, in my case, as in the
case of nine-tenths, if not more, not only
of our class, but of the whole people, even
the peasantry included, the horrible thing
was that I had not fallen a victim to the
seductive charms of one particular woman :
no, it was not any woman who had seduced
me ; but I fell because those who sur-
rounded me looked upon what in reality
was a sin as something perfectly lawful,
something necessary for my health, or, at
the worst, as a very natural and pardon-
able distraction in a young man."

And so all our young men, with very
few exceptions, have ceased to be pure
in body before they marry. In the mean-

174 COUNT TOLSTOY.

time a girl is expected to remain pure.
She must be chaste and innocent up to
the date of her marriage.

But why is this difference made between
a young man and a young girl ? Is
not a woman as jealous as a man of
her future partner for life ? If it is so
necessary for the man, whose life is already
sullied and corrupt, that his wife should be
innocent and chaste, why is it not equally,
and even more, necessary for a woman
whose life is still pure, that her husband
should be alike pure and of unblemished
reputation ?

But it is not with merely one offence
against morality that most men have to ac-
cuse themselves. And Posdniescheff frankly
confesses this : —

" I avoided those women who, by the
birth of a child or by their attachment to
me, might in any way try to bind me. For
all I know, there may have been children,
and there may have been sincere attach-

THE SOLUTION. 175

ment, but I always acted as if there were
neither the one nor the other. And I not
only counted such conduct to be thoroughly
honourable, but I was proud of it. And
this is the blackguardism of the whole affair.
The depravity is not in anything physical ;
it is not in the debasement of the body
that the depravity consists ; but the de-
pravity, the real depravity, consists in the
denial of all moral obligations to the woman
with whom we have been on the most
intimate terms. And I considered it a
duty to make myself thus free. I remember
how terribly I once felt ashamed because
I could not pay a woman who, it may be,
loved me, and who, at any rate, had given
herself to me, and how I only regained
my peace of mind when I had sent her
some money, and thereby given her to
understand that I did not consider myself
under any further obligation to her."

In these words there is a profound truth,
whether we choose to recognise it or not.

176 COUNT TOLSTOY.

For no one ever blames a man for freeing
himself from the moral obligation arising
from his intimate connection with a woman.
He buys his freedom with money. Of
course it is easier for him to find money
than it is for the woman, seeing that nearly
all the spheres of industry are open to him
and closed to her. And in this resides their
inequality. He knowingly and placidly re-
signs himself to the moral ruin of the woman
who has sacrificed herself to his pleasure, and
risked for him the loss of all that is most
precious to her.

We naturally ask, why do the same acts
that bring no shame to the man involve
the woman in lasting shame and in dis-
grace that can never be wiped out ? Why
is not the same law applied equally to
both?

But this is not all. The question is not
so much about the man, who easily and
without loss of character frees himself from
all moral responsibility. The real question

THE SOLUTION. 177

is, what is to become of the woman, who has
to bear the whole fault, and on whom alone
the shame falls.

Is it convenient or necessary that I
should speak here of prostitution ? All the
horror of this evil, which, it would seem,
has taken deepest root in civilised Europe,
is too patent to require to be pointed out.
Count Tolstoy, better than elsewhere, has
alluded to this subject in his " Post-prefatory
Remarks " : —

" It cannot be right that certain people
should be allowed, on the plea that it is
necessary for their health, to destroy others,
body and soul, any more than we should
think of allowing a privileged class to drink
the blood of their poorer neighbours on
the pretext that it was necessary for their
health."

But is there really any great difference
between the position assigned to these
wretched creatures and that forced on the
woman who has once fallen ? With what

M

178 COUNT TOLSTOY.

shame is she banned from society, and
left to bear alone the consequences of her
weakness in yielding to a passionate im-
pulse, left alone with the money, by means
of which the man, her seducer, becomes
free of her and free from all responsibility
and obligation ?

And all this flagrant injustice is generally
justified on the plea that man's nature is
such that he absolutely needs this distrac-
tion, and that to deny it to him would in-
volve the ruin of his bodily health. The
prime upholders of this opinion, according
to Posdniescheff, are our doctors. Thanks
to them, the idea has become so univer-
sally accepted, that even mothers consider
it well to tacitly encourage their sons when
they begin to lead such a life, and our
municipalities take care that convenient
houses of debauchery are provided for
them.

I do not find it necessary to dwell upon
this question. I believe with Count Tolstoy

THE SOLUTION. 179

that "temperate restraint is less dangerous
and less injurious to the health than incon-
tinency, and that we can find around us
examples, however few in number, to prove

our case."

For this our doctors cannot be too
severely censured. How few of them ever
think of busying themselves with insisting
on the observance of those hygienic and
sanitary rules in our family life which
would obviate the dangers and temptations
that now beset young people. A doctor
is attached to each of our educational
establishments, but in which of them are
our youths, much less our girls, taught any
of those lessons of physiology which would
give them the necessary knowledge to
escape evils into which they now fall
through ignorance and thoughtlessness .''

Further on I shall have occasion to
quote Fosdniescheff on the importance of
hygiene and a scientific education in the
due ordering of family life. By a proper

i8o COUNT TOLSTOY.

attention to these two conditions we can
easily ensure continency in our youths,
without risking any danger to their health,
and thus shield them from vice and
shame.

But if the belief that men's health can
be preserved only at the expense of women
were to a certain degree well founded, we
should be confronted with an awkward
dilemma. Either a small number of men
must be physically ruined, owing to their
forced continency, or a large number of
women must be ruined, both physically and
morally. It is hard to believe that this
<;an be a law of nature. I am convinced
that the question would long ago have
been settled in the sense Count Tolstoy
has solved it, if it had not been for the
immoral support given to the opinion by
society and the doctors. Once more I quote
the words of Posdniescheff ; " What in reality
is a sin is regarded, at the worst, as a
very natural and pardonable distraction in

THE SOLUTION. i8i

a young man." Ask any man to tell you
conscientiously and frankly how men speak
and think of women. Of what is their
confidential chat made up beyond cynical
witticisms, inuendos, and jokes at the ex-
pense of women ? Count Tolstoy has not
failed to notice this common trait, as when
in the railroad carriage the merchant, already
an old man, laughingly whispered in the
ear of the clerk the story of one of his
love adventures.

There are many who propose early
marriages as the surest means of pre-
serving social morality, but at the same
time they are obliged to admit the incon-
venience of such marriages from a material
point of view.

But here again we are met with a diffi-
culty. We must either put up with the
inadequacy of our pecuniary means, or re-
concile ourselves to the unchecked preva-
lence of immorality, and to the further
degradation of women. If the rich man,

1 82 COUNT TOLSTOY.

under the pretence of preserving the health
of his sons, causes the ruin of several
women, their ruin, in its turn, will have
a disastrous effect on his sons and their
descendants. For it surely is not necessary
to prove that immorality invariably leaves
its indelible traces, and not seldom leads
to crime.

The genius and originality of Count
Tolstoy are conclusively shown in those
portions of his tale in which he dissects and
analyses the actual position girls are made
to occupy in contemporary society. He
has thrown such light on to this dark
spot in our social organisation, that not a
single critic has ventured to question his
facts or dispute his conclusions.

In modern society women lay themselves
out and are eager to become the slaves of
men's sensual passions. It is in reference
to this that Posdniescheff directs our atten-
tion to the defective and dishonest character
of the education we give our daughters.

THE SOLUTION. 183

Under the pretext of preserving their inno-
cence, we carefully conceal from them all
knowledge of the lives their husbands were
wont to lead up to the time of their marriage.
"In nearly every romance the feelings
of the hero are portrayed in detail, the
ponds and copses round which he walks
in pensive thought are described, but, whilst
dwelling on his great love for the heroine,
the novelist tells us nothing .about the life
he led before, nor is there a word said of
his visits to certain disreputable houses, or
his gay adventures with ladies'-maids, cooks,
and strange women. Or if there be such
indelicate novels, where we are told all
this, the greatest care is taken to keep
them out of the hands of those to whom
such knowledge is most necessary — un-
married girls. And they are so well trained
in this hypocrisy,, that at last, like the
English, they begin actually to believe that
we are all moral people, and that we live
in a moral world."

i84 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Most, probably many, of my readers will
not agree that we ought to let young
unmarried women know anything of the
darker side of human life. But I hope
that this letter may induce them to prefer
the lesser evil — a knowledge of the truth
— to the still greater evil that later awaits
unmarried women — when they are awakened
from their illusion.

Posdniescheff's indignation is further, and
with perfect justice, aroused against men
when they come into society in order to
look around them and choose a bride.
With his habitual frankness he confesses
what his conduct was : —

" I wallowed in every dissipation of the
lowest kind, and at the same time was
busy seeking out a girl whose purity
of mind should make her worthy to
be my bride. Many I rejected, simply
because their moral reputation was not
sufficiently good to justify me in marrying
them."

THE SOLUTION. 185

And this is the conclusion to which he
comes : —

"This is what ought to happen, when
a gentleman of this kind approaches my
sister or daughter at a ball, I, knowing
the life he leads, ought to go up to him,
take him aside, and quietly say, " My dear
fellow, you forget, I know, how you live,
where you pass your nights, and with
whom. This is no place for you. The
girls here are pure and innocent. Go
elsewhere." This is what I ought to do
and say ; but, as it is, when the gentleman
appears, dances with my sister or daughter,
and puts his arm round her waist, I rub
my hands with joy, as I think how
well connected and how rich he is."

The recollections of the ball fill up the
cup of Posdnieschefif's indignation :—

" The girls sit in a row, and the men,
as if they were at a slave-mart, stroll round,
and inspect what is on sale. They walk
up and down, smirking with pleasure to

1 86 COUNT TOLSTOY.

think that all has been so admirably
arranged for them."

And, in truth, the right to invite the
girl to dance belongs to the man ; and
to the man belongs the right to take
the initiative step in choosing a bride.
But, at this point, Posdniescheff's com-
panion, who had hitherto seemed to agree
with all he said, was roused to exclaim
somewhat testily, "Well, and how can it
be otherwise ? Would you, then, have
women make the proposal of marriage .'' "
And not a few of my fair readers will
in the same way cry out, " What a
horrible idea ! "

But it evidently is not the idea of
granting to woman the right to choose
husbands for themselves that is horrible ;
but what is horrible is the startling plain-
ness with which Count Tolstoy put the
truth before us. Once more we see what
a light he throws on the dark ways of
society, and how thorough is his exposure

THE SOLUTION. 187

of the hypocrisies and pretences of a
debauched world.

Which, after all, is worse and more im-
moral — that an experienced and arrant
rake should choose for himself from among
pure and innocent girls a rich and beautiful
bride, or that a pure-minded girl should
openly avow her affection for the man to
whom she is willing to give her hand,
especially when her choice is made from
among youths who have led lives as stain-
less as her own ?

But why does a man demand that the
woman he makes his wife should be pure in
mind and body.-* If it is on the broad prin-
ciple that we ought all to be pure in life,
that is all Count Tolstoy insists on. But we
know that this requirement of morality is
made by the man and refused to the woman.
And this is, if I may use the expression, the
very gastronomy of debauchery.

We must not, however, suppose that Count
Tolstoy recognises the right of women to

1 88 COUNT TOLSTOY.

make the proposal of marriage. And if he
has alluded to the subject at all, it is only
as an additional proof of the existing in-
equality of the sexes.

No one, of course, will deny that man is
superior to woman in physical strength. It
is for this reason that our social organisation,
social customs, and social principles have
been developed rather under the influence
of man than under that of woman. To this
he owes his pre-eminence and those nume-
rous laws of society which humour and satisfy
his sensual desires and instincts.

Posdniescheff shows most clearly that it is
the bodily charms and attractions of a woman
that mainly interest a man both before and
after his marriage. However galling this
may be to us all, and however reluctant we
may be to admit it, this is the simple truth
and fact. Nor can it be otherwise, so long
as the carnal pleasures of men are as varied
as those in which men of modern society
indulge, at least up to the time of their

THE SOLUTION. 189

marriage. And the like phenomenon is to
be remarked among our fallen women.

"We all know," Posdniescheff exclaims,
" the estimate men form of women. ' Wein,
Weib, und Gesang' is the favourite refrain
of all poets and singers."

And this low estimate of women, as ex-
pressed in the German song, is encouraged
and approved by women themselves. This
is the natural result of the education they
receive, and Posdniescheff shrewdly exposes
the tricks of coquetry they are taught to
practise : —

" Mothers know what men really are, they
learn it from their husbands, and know it
only too well. But, whilst they pretend to
believe in the purity of men, they act as if
they really believed the contrary. They
know with what bait men are to be caught
for their daughters. It is only we men
who are so innocently ignorant, and we are
ignorant because we find it convenient to be
so; but women know very well that the

I90 COUNT TOLSTOY.

most exalted poetical love, as we like to
call it, will be blind to moral worth, and is
mainly excited by physical beauty and by
the adventitious attractions of a woman's
head-dress, the colour and fashion of her
dress. Ask a practised coquette which of
these two dangers she would prefer to risk,
to appear in the presence of her suitor con-
victed of a flagrant falsehood, heartless con-
duct, even some act of moral turpitude, or
to come before him in an ugly ill-made
dress, and there is not one of her class who
will not choose the first. She understands
that when her noble suitor gets eloquent
about the moral virtues, it is mere talk ;
what attracts him are her bodily charms,
and to become their possessor he is ready
to pardon any slips in morality ; but there is
one thing no suitor will forgive, and that is
a tasteless ill-fashioned abortion of a dress.
A coquette knows this from experience ; an
innocent girl knows it instinctively, in the
same way as animals know it."

THE SOLUTION. 191

And I would venture to ask, Why is it
that most of us only care to marry good
looks and handsome faces ? How many
girls there are, whom we cannot call pretty,
but who are endowed with excellent hearts
and lofty minds, and how politely we men
cut them !

It is not then surprising if dress plays the
chief part in a woman's life. The natural
object of dress is to protect the body from
the weather ; but its proper use is entirely
ignored and quite forgotten by the followers
of fashion.

" This is why women," Posdniescheff petu-
lantly exclaims, "wear those abominable
jerseys and detestable tournures, and why
they go about with bare shoulders, naked
arms, and exposed breasts. Women,
especially those who know what men
are, understand perfectly well what value
they are to give to their loud talk about
virtue and modesty, and experience has
taught them that the only thing men care

192 COUNT TOLSTOY.

about is the body, and whatever sets it
off in a false but attractive form ; and
they humour their tastes."

For my own part, I am inclined to
criticise present fashions exclusively from
a hygienic point of view, and I think it
is only fair to remember that the doctors,
whom Posdniescheff condemns so harshly,
being mere caterers to women's fancies
and caprices, have long vainly protested
against stays, high-heeled boots, garters,
long trains, and other deformities of modern
fashion. I would add that of late attention
has been turned to the weight of a woman's
dress, and it has been found that the average
weight exceeds that of a man's suit.

No one, I suppose, will dispute that the
dresses now in fashion are uncomfortable
and injurious to the wearer. And all this
inconvenience is endured for the sake of
outward look and show. Many pay still
more dearly for external appearance. But
the low dresses in which women are pleased

THE SOLUTION. 193

to flaunt their immodesty are an unanswer-
able proof that Count Tolstoy is not far
wrong when he asserts that women dress
solely to tempt men by showing off their
bodily charms.

This is what Posdniescheff has to say on
the subject : —

" Even in earlier days I felt awkward and
confused when I saw a lady in a full ball-
dress ; but now the sight is something
terrible, something dangerous to people
and contrary to the law, and I am always
inclined to call for the police, summon pro-
tection against the danger, and demand that
the dangerous object should be got rid of
and turned out as speedily as possible."

I should like to ask a mother how she
felt the first time she was compelled to put
on a low dress, and how she feels now when
she forces her daughter to wear such a
dress. She naturally felt the dress to be
an offence against womanly modesty. But
if then she wept tears of shame, what is

N

194 COUNT TOLSTOY.

it she now whispers into her daughter's
ear ? " Never mind ; you will get used
to it. Every woman dresses like that now,
and you do not know how it pleases the
men."

The only conclusion we can draw from
the inquiry we have just made as to the
kind of life led by the greater number
of our young men and women before
marriage is, that modern society has been .
organised with one single aim — to satisfy
the sexual passions of men. The conse-
quence is, these passions are more and
more developed, and we have so managed
things that, as Posdniescheff justly remarks,
"from the highest work of art down to
the trumpery picture on a match-box," all
is so got up as to pander to the lower
instincts of man's nature.

All this tends to humiliate and weaken
women. We must, therefore, all the more
admire the constant efforts made by women
to acquire a footing in different spheres

THE SOLUTION. 195

of activity, without abandoning their im-
mediate home duties, and the success with
which those efforts have been attended.

The increased activity of women has,
however, produced a corresponding laxity
in work on the part of men, though to
labour in the sweat of his brow is the
original command laid on man. They
have grown effeminate and lackadaisical
through long abandonment to their favourite
vices. With an easy conscience they con-
tinue to take advantage of the immunity
afforded them by the unjust bearing of
the laws of inheritance on women. They
are twenty times stronger than women,
and more capable of physical labour ; but
they have succeeded in usurping to them-
selves the administration of affairs, and have
made their position a means of exploiting
women. We have only to turn to France,
and ask ourselves who are the principal
monopolists, even in branches of industry
for which women are especially suited, to

196 COUNT TOLSTOY.

be convinced that men form the large
majority of this privileged class.

Indeed, most of us admit that the position
occupied by women is nujust and unfair.
But we are satisfied with having made the
admission. Little or nothing has been
done by the law-giver or by society to
ameliorate the wrong.

The ordinary and popular view of the
rights and true position of women, the
representatives of which in the " Kreutzer
Sonata" are the lawyer and his lady friend, |
is essentially dishonest and immoral. With-j
out taking a single step to redress the!
vexations and humiliating restrictions wel
have imposed on women, the upholders
of this view noisily proclaim the equality
of men and women, and are never tired
of crying out, " We must educate our
women. We must give them political
rights. Women are no longer slaves, but
are free."

They act, in short, like the man who

THE SOLUTION. 197

dangles a piece of meat before the mouth
of a starving creature, and then, instead of
giving it to him, complacently swallows
it himself.

It is cruel hypocrisy and mere cant to
propose these rights to women, unless at
the same time we afford them the means
of exercising them.

In fact, women are offered the right to
compete with men in the different branches
of labour, but all the while have to bear,
give birth to, and suckle children, and have
to suffer from the injustice of the laws of
inheritance.

There is no doubt that when these men
proclaim the equality of women, they adopt
the cry as a convenient means of maintaining
man's pre-eminence over woman.

" We talk," says Posdniescheff, " about
the new education of women ; but it is all
talk. The education women now receive is
exactly what it should be, so long as we
keep true to our present opinion of women.

198 COUNT TOLSTOY.

in which, at least, we are honest and sincere.
The education of women always corresponds
with the opinion men form of them. Take
all our poems, paintings, statues, beginning
with our love songs, and naked Venuses
or Phrynes, and we see how women are
considered to be nothing more than toys
of men's pleasures. It is the fashion now
to declare that we respect woman, because
we give up to her our place in an omnibus,
or pick up her handkerchief if she lets it
fall ; and some of us go so far as to
maintain that she has a right to occupy
any public post and to take her place in a
government bureau. We talk in this way,
but we keep to our old estimate of women,
and she remains a pretty toy to amuse our-
selves with. And women know this, and
feel that they are slaves. The mere fact
that we make no scruple to treat them as
convenient objects of our lust is sufficient
to prove the slavery of women. We are
ready to emancipate them, to give them

THE SOLUTION. 199

all kinds of rights, make them in name
our equals ; but we continue to regard them
as before, and bring them up in such a
way that they can play the part at home
and in society. And so, women remain
humiliated corrupted slaves, and men re-
main lewd corrupted slaveholders. No
higher classes, no gymnasia, no courses
can change this. A change in their position
can be effected only by a change in the
way men look on women, and in the way
women look on themselves. As it is, the
ideal of every girl, however brilliantly
educated she may be, is to attract the
largest number of men. She may be well
versed in mathematics, and another may
be an admirable musician ; but this will
make no difference. The only lesson a
woman really cares about learning is how
to fascinate men."

Putting aside the false character of this
pretended equality, it has in many cases
led to the fatal result of allowing men full

200 COUNT TOLSTOY.

freedom to indulge in debauchery, and
affording women a like undesirable liberty.
Of this we have an example in the lawyer's
lady-friend, and a proof in the opinions she
maintains.

Reverence for marriage as a sacrament
has thus disappeared from among us, to-
gether with other venerable beliefs and
customs of the old patriarchal times.

It is not easy to over-estimate the service
Count Tolstoy has rendered in discovering
a just solution of the woman's question.
He puts the old ideas of the open slavery
of women, which the merchant admires, and
defends with such warmth, in opposition to
the newer ideas of our social reformers,
who, however, have nothing better to
offer women than a fictitious freedom, and
whose ideas, if carried out, must contribute
to the spread of social demoralisation. He
condemns alike the slavery of women as
it existed in the olden times, and the im-
morality that is engendered by more modern

THE SOLUTION. 201

ideas, and shows how, in both cases, the
degradation of woman is the necessary con-
sequence. The equality of men and women
for which he pleads consists in the elevation
of men to that level of purity which men
still require and exact from the women they
choose for their wives.

" The slavery of women," says Posdnie-
scheff, "does not consist in the denial of
their right to give a vote, or to fill the
post of magistrate — such privileges confer
no rights — but it consists in their enjoying
the same freedom as men enjoy ; the right
to refuse to be the puppet of man's animal
desires just as often and just when he
chooses ; the right to choose for herself
the man she wishes to make her husband, '
instead of being chosen. You will say,
that would be indecent and unbecoming.
Well, then, do not give these indecent and
unbecoming rights to men. As it is, you
deprive women of the right you confer on
men."

202 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Count Tolstoy, it will be seen, proposes,
not to give women the right of choosing
partners for life, but to deprive men of
the right. He speaks more fully of this
in the eighth chapter of his story, when
Posdniescheff angrily declaims against this
right being conferred exclusively on men.
"If we found," he says, "the old Russian
custom of employing professional match-
makers to be degrading, our present mode
of arranging marriages is a thousand times
more degrading. At any rate, under the
old system, the chances for both were
equal."

Without dwelling on the question how
marriage should be concluded, and with-
out expressing any positive opinion on the
subject. Count Tolstoy makes it an absolute
condition of marriage that the bridegroom
should have led a pure life up to the
time of marriage, and should afterwards
cleave to one woman.

Only then, when the wife ceases to be

THE SOLUTION. 203

the puppet of man's passion, can she
hope to breathe freely and to enjoy true
liberty. Only then can her mental and
moral powers be legitimately developed,
because only then will she have the
possibility of profiting by education, by
the political rights that may be given
her, and by the profession or occupation
she chooses to adopt. Only then will she
be really placed on an equal footing with
her husband.

Posdniescheff is quite right when he
declares that under the actual order of
things such equality does not exist.

"Tell any mother," he says, "or any
girl, the truth, namely, that the whole
occupation of her life is, and must be, to
catch men, and she, of course, will be
offended. But this is the be-all and
end-all of her existence. And what is
most horrible is when we see poor young
innocent girls engaged in this chase after
men."

204 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Having in this way solved the woman's
question, Count Tolstoy proceeds with his
usual clearness of argument and brilliancy
of illustration to discuss the consequences
of woman's enslavement.

We cannot enslave an animal, much less
a human being, except against the will of
the creature or individual enslaved. If
I were to give an historical sketch of the
position occupied by women at different
epochs and in different countries, we should
see that throughout there has been a
struggle, and that the struggle is still
going on. There have been instances
when the all but complete extermina-
tion of women has marked their revolt
against the tyrannous and cruel unsurpa-
tion of authority by men. Sometimes, but
rarely, victory has remained on the side
of women. The struggle as carried on in
our own days is naturally of a milder
character.

Posdniescheff warns us how women "play

THE SOLUTION. 205

on the sensual feelings of man, and in
this way so completely subdue him that,
whilst in form he chooses one of them
as his bride, in reality it is the bride who
chooses him. And once having obtained
this influence over him, women begin to
make an ill use of their advantage, and
end by easily securing power over men
in general."

If we study the history and organisation
of polygamy, we invariably find that it is
based on an excessive culture of all that
is tender and delicate in woman. For this
purpose a life of idle inactivity is adopted,
as well as a luxurious table, costly furnished
houses, and elaborate dresses. And these
are exactly what the women of our day
most hanker after. By making them the
principal pursuit of their existence, women
have made themselves the slaves of men
in all the economical relations of life.

Posdnieschefif gives us the explanation
of this when he says, " Go into the shops

2o6 COUNT TOLSTOY.

of any of our larger towns. In these
shops you will find goods worth millions ;
but, instead of trying to value the pro-
ducts of human labour that are stored up
in there, look and see if in one shop out
of ten there is a single article for men's
use. All the luxuries of life are used by
women, and it is they who keep up the
demand for them. Count over our fac-
tories. The larger number of them pro-
duce useless ornaments, carriages, furniture,
jewellery for women. Millions of people
and whole generations of slaves wear their
lives out in convict labour in our factories
to supply the fancies of women, who, like
empresses, keep in slavery and hard work
nine-tenths of the human race ; and all
because women have been degraded and
deprived of equal rights with men. And
they take their revenge on us, and deftly
catch us in their nets."

There can be no occasion to show that
in such a condition of things it is ridiculous

THE SOLUTION. 207

to expect that the intellectual and physical
powers of women or of men will be pro-
perly and fully developed.

The consequences of the enslavement of
women are not less grave in their reaction
on the relation between husband and wife,
and parents and children. It is not easy
to imagine anything more touching or more
instructive than the story of Posdniescheff's
married life. In this portion of his nar-
rative he does not try to hide anything
or to make excuses for himself, but is per-
fectly open and frank. At the time he
was quarrelling with his wife he imagined
that these disagreements were peculiar to
them, and never disturbed the peace of
other homes. But later experience dis-
covered to him that similar scenes occur
in every family. " For a time I was tor-
tured with the thought that it was only I
who lived so badly and so differently to
what I had expected with my wife, and
that quarrels like ours never took place

2o8 COUNT TOLSTOY.

in other families. I did not then know
that it was the fate common to us all."
And thus the life of Posdniescheff and his
wife is but an example of ordinary life.
And the source and cause of the misunder-
standings and disputes that arose between
the two was nothing else than the enslave-
ment and inferior position of the wife.

If what has been just said concerning
the false relation in which women stand to
men be true, it is evident that Posdniescheff,
whilst imagining it was her mind and heart
and soul that attracted him, in reality loved
his wife for her outward bodily charms.
His was what we call a marriage of love ;
but his love was essentially sensual, with
a slight mixture of poetical sentiment to
give it a proper colouring. - What he sought
in marriage was the satisfaction of his
desires. In the meantime, his wife in her
innocence sought something higher and
purer in marriage.

Posdniescheff justly attributes all these

THE SOLUTION. 209

quarrels to the difference in feeling and
sentiment which, on the very first day of
marriage, a pure wife will experience, in
opposition to the man, who does his best
to juggle himself into the belief that he is
moved, not by sensual desire, but by love.
We must not forget that Posdniescheff him-
self has told us how he felt on the night
when he first fell. But, under the influence
of passion, he forgets that his wife will be
tortured by a feeling like to that from which
he himself then suffered. It is consequently
in vain that he expects from her a passion,
of which her as yet pure nature makes her
feel ashamed.

Such was the origin of the discord that
sprang up between the two, but, as Posdnie-
scheff reminds us, it became the more intense
in proportion as their mutual sensual pas-
sion grew in force.

" The novelty of love was already spent
when it had already received its satisfac-
tion, and we remained in our real relation

o

210 COUNT TOLSTOY.

one to the other, that is to say, we were
two egoists, each desirous to get from the
other the fullest possible amount of pleasure.
I used to wonder why there was this con-
stant feeling of irritated antagonism between
us, but now it is plain and patent to me :
it was nothing else than the protest of our
human nature against our animal nature,
which had got the mastery of us."

We need seek no other reason for the
quarrels between Posdniescheff and his wife.
There was no mesalliance in their marriage ;
they were both wealthy, and belonged to
the same class of society. Posdniescheff had
married "from love, and not for money."
He had resolved to lead a moral life after
his marriage, and even in his youth was
often ridiculed by his comrades because
his conduct was less irregular than theirs. It
■is plain that Count Tolstoy had purposely
surrounded the marriage of his hero with
every outwardly favourable circumstance, to
make us feel the more strongly that it

THE SOLUTION. 211

was nothing else than an undue abandon-
ment to sensuality, the crowning character-
istic of contemporary life, that brought
misery into their homes, and finally led
Posdniescheff himself to commit the most
horrible of crimes.

It is this same sensual feeling that before
long engendered jealousy. But Posdnie-
scheff's jealousy is not so much the out-
come of his natural disposition as the re-
sult of the education that had been given
to the wife, in common with all women of
our day.

She had been educated in accordance
with the " requirements of the position
occupied by women in our society." She,
therefore, believed her whole worth to
reside in physical beauty. To preserve
that beauty, she first refused to suckle
her children, and then had recourse to
artificial means to prevent her again be-
coming a mother.

At a first glance, we might be tempted

212 COUNT TOLSTOY.

to think this would serve to foster the
sensual attachment of a husband. But
Posdniescheff, with marvellous simplicity and
clearness, points out how completely this
excited within him a feeling of jealousy.

"When I saw how lightly she freed
herself from the moral responsibility of
a mother, I very justly, though uncon-
sciously, concluded that she might, with
like ease, free herself from wifely re-
sponsibility."

Under such circumstances there could
be no trust or faith between the two.
And the absence of all trust completed
the discord. But Count Tolstoy does not
represent Posdniescheff as being unfaithful
to his marriage vow. He only hints at
the possibility, and even more than possi-
bility, that such would be the case. And
this possibility arises from the same cause,
the enslavement of woman, which prevents
her from being a wife-companion, and makes
her only a wife-concubine. Posdniescheft

THE SOLUTION. 215

very well explains this, when he is drawing
for us the portrait of Trouacheffsky : —

" He was a pitiful fellow. There was
nothing manly in him, at least in my
eyes, and as I estimated him. I do not
say this because he played an important
part in my family life, but because he
really was such as I describe him. Besides,
the fact that there was nothing in him
only proves how unexacting my wife was.
If it had not been he, it would have been
some one else."

In all and in everything we recognise
the harmful results of the humiliating posi-
tion to which we have reduced women,
involving as it does an unnatural eager-
ness on their part to avoid, at any cost,
whatever may cause them pain or grief.
Take but one instance. We have all
agreed to declare that children are a joy
and a blessing sent by God, yet, as Posdnie-
scheff reminds us, among the higher classes
of society, "children are a plague and a

214 COUNT TOLSTOY.

torment, and nothing else. Ask mothers
in our class of society, and there is scarcely
one among them who will not tell you that,
from the fear lest their children should fall
ill and die, they would prefer to have had
none ; nor will they suckle their babe lest
they should become too attached to it and
suffer too terribly from its loss. That is,
these women do not sacrifice themselves for
any beloved object, but are ready to sacri-
fice the beloved object, to save themselves
pain and sorrow."

In measure as Count Tolstoy, in the
course of his story, reveals the existing
struggle between man and woman, the'
moral enslavement of the latter, and the
economical enslavement of the former, I
the feeling it produces on the mind ofj
his reader becomes intenser and morel
sad.

Why this mutual enslavement of one
another ? And why this revelation of the
sores of modern society ? Is not the

THE SOLUTION. 215

writer after all only adding fuel to the
flame ?

There is but one answer to questions
like these. The struggle is so patent and
undoubted, and its consequences are so
terrible and injurious, that it is a duty to
tell the truth, and if possible, uproot and
destroy the evil.

In what were the Posdniescheffs guilty ?
They had both indulged in dreams of a
happy family life. And yet, she meets
with a horrible death, and his whole life
is wrecked and ruined. Were they, then,
both unworthy of having their dream of
happiness realised ?

But sensuality has taken a deep root
throughout the civilised world. It has
poisoned our ideas of honour. How often
we hear of mere youths challenging one
another to mortal duel for the sake of a
girl, to whom they have both paid their
addresses, and who, in most cases, is
equally indifferent to one and the other ?

2i6 COUNT TOLSTOY.

Nothing but a radically false idea of honour
could have made us accept for sacred the
rule that, if a wife betrays her husband,
the latter must wipe out the disgrace in
blood. And the woman ? What part
does she play in this last scene of the
family drama."* Though the guilty cause
of the whole tragedy, she quietly keeps
aloof, and no one expects that she should
do otherwise. From her the world only
demands personal beauty. And he who
proves the boldest and most cunning can
possess that beauty.

Need we be surprised, then, if the moral
development of women being thus checked
and thwarted, their only possible mission,
as society is now constituted, is "to hinder
and shackle the progress of humanity
in its struggle towards truth and happi-
ness f

All this will continue so long as woman
herself does not recognise the evil, and
does not herself strive to weaken the

THE SOLUTION. 217

power of sensuality over men. She alone
can act as mother and as wife. And she
alone is able to save him from being in-
veigled by those charms of which she is
the sole possessor and disposer.

III.

WHAT IS CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE?

It cannot be denied that ecclesiastical mar-
riages are gradually diminishing in number.
In Western Europe civil marriages are in
habitual use. According to statistics, the
number of divorces in countries professing
the Christian faith amounts to 43,000 a
year. Of these, 23,000 are to be assigned
to America. We must not forget that among
Catholics divorce is not allowed. We can,
therefore, form a tolerably distinct idea of
the actual state of married life. In Russia,
also, we remark a decrease in the number of
ecclesiastical marriages.

" But with us," says Posdniescheff in refer-
ence to the steps generally taken preparatory
to marriage, "out of ten who marry it is

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 219

certain that nine have no beHef in marriage
as a sacrament, and do not even believe that
the ceremony in which they are taking part
imposes any obligation on them. And when
out of a hundred men there is scarcely one
who in the strict sense of the word is not
already married, and out of fifty perhaps one
who has not determined beforehand to betray
his wife at the first convenient opportunity,
when the majority of men look upon marriage
as a formality, the observance of which gives
right to the possession of a certain woman,
only think what a terrible significance all
this gives to marriage."

Consequently, neither religion, nor habitua-
tion to one's wife nor children, have proved
to have sufficient force to preserve the sacred-
ness of marriage. And this involves the
decadence of family life, the best and surest
guarantee of social prosperity and otder.
For sad as are the surroundings of modern
married life, we have proofs that the moral
influence of the family is as necessary as

220 COUNT TOLSTOY.

ever. Statistics teach us that bachelors form
the principal contingent of suicides.

Count Tolstoy, whilst insisting so earnestly
on the degraded position of women, and the
struggle going on between the two sexes in
Europe, takes care to point out at least one
of the remoter causes of the evil.

He finds that the cause lies in the
erroneous doctrines held by the Churches
on marriage.

The Churches teach that marriage is a
state of perfection not inferior to that of
monasticism, and that marriage was founded
by Christ. In opposition to this doctrine,
Count Tolstoy writes in his " Post-prefatory
Remarks," " Christ established no institu-
tions, and never instituted marriage." To
support this opinion, he quotes numerous
texts from the gospels, the principal being
the verses he has selected as a motto for his
story. " But I say unto you. That whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 221

heart." " His disciples say unto Him, If the
case of the man be so with his wife, it is not
good to marry. But He said unto them, All
men cannot receive this saying, save they to
whom it is given." The other texts which
he quotes are, Matt. v. 28, 29, 31, 32 ; xix. 8 ;
and xix. 10-12, to which I accordingly refer
my readers.

The conclusion drawn from these texts
is that Christ held up virginity as an ideal
for our guidance, but that He did not in-
stitute marriage. He holds that the teach-
ing of the Churches is at variance with the
gospels, inasmuch as they acknowledge co-
habitation in marriage to be sinless, and to
a certain extent obligatory, since our courts
of law regard physical debility as an adequate
ground for divorce.

Most probably some of my readers will
cry out with the critics, " Then Count
Tolstoy teaches and recommends celi-
bacy."

Count Tolstoy understands by celibacy

2 22 COUNT TOLSTOY.

the ideal of that chastity which Christ re-
commended for our guidance. But neither
he nor any one else pretends that it should
be universally practised in life, and Christ
Himself has said, "All men cannot receive
this saying."

But it will be asked, What is marriage
according to the teaching of Count Tol-
stoy ? Basing his doctrine on the spiritual
teaching of the Gospel, he gives no exact
definition of marriage, but for all practical
purposes of human life he understands by
marriage monogamy. Thus, there is no
outward difference between marriage as in-
terpreted by the Churches, and marriage as
understood by Tolstoy. But, on the other
hand, the spiritual distinction is enormous.
The difference consists in chastity, as re-
commended by Christ, being proposed as
an ideal to all of us, married or unmarried,
in teaching that aspiration towards such an
ideal sanctifies life in general, and therefore
also married life. The married, according

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 223

to the teaching of Tolstoy, do not look on
the intimate relation between man and wife
as the Churches look on it. Regarding the
satisfaction of passion, even in marriage,
as a sin, an offence, an almost unavoidable
evil, they can continually aspire to contin-
ency, and even to perpetual continency,
and thereby strive to attain to true perfec-
tion.

Not a few of Count Tolstoy's critics,
particularly his clerical critics, have severely
attacked him for having dared to propose
Christ's ideal of chastity for our guidance
in life. They have argued as if he had
insisted on the obligatory fulfilment of an
ideal, that is, as if he had required that
all men should be celibates. They have
further proposed by way of objection a most
ill-placed and irrelevant question as to the
consequence of the universal adoption of
his doctrines, which, as they assert, would
simply be the disappearance of the human
race. And with what propriety can such

2 24 COUNT TOLSTOY.

a question be put whilst the world is still
the slave of sensual passion ? Why not
defer it till men have learned to practise
such restraint that they threaten the con-
tinuance of their race ? There is, of course,
no occasion to raise the question, as there
is no reason to suppose that the time is
near at hand when "all men shall receive
this saying."

But Count Tolstoy is throughout perfectly
logical. He justly remarks that when people
shall have attained to the full Christian ideal,
they will have no longer anything to live
for.

Moreover, his critics forget that he who
aspires to complete chastity, and attains it,
will undoubtedly experience the highest
moral satisfaction.

But if we need a proof that Count
Tolstoy does not preach celibacy, but only
instances complete continency as a neces-
sary guidance in life, and an unattainable
ideal, we may refer to his " Post-prefatory

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 225

Remarks," where he writes, " Chastity is
not a rule, or an instruction, but an ideal,
or rather one of its conditions. But an
ideal is only an ideal so long as its
existence is possible but in idea, in thought,
when it is represented as being attainable
only in the infinite, and consequently our
approach towards it is also infinite."

The consequences arising from these two
different views of marriage are so numerous
and so varied that it would need a whole
volume to enumerate them, I shall content
myself with one that is most evident. It
is counted almost a disgrace to a girl if
she remains a maid. We have, it is true,
done our little best to mitigate the un-
natural harshness of this general opinion
by calling them "the brides of Christ."
But when we take a healthier view of
marriage and chastity, it will be to the
virgin that we shall give the place of
honour. And at the same time coquetry,,

which has now become an instinct with

p

226 COUNT TOLSTOY.

women, will cease. Excessive luxury in
dress and the ordering of our houses will
no longer be the fule, and thereby a com-
plete change will be effected in the con-
stitution of society. But, as Posdnieschefif
says, "this change will only come when
women count virginity to be their highest
honour, instead of regarding it, as they
now do, as a humiliation and a disgrace."

And this change in our view of marriage
and virginity will bring a change in our
systems of education. To what end do
we now train our daughters .-* To lay them-
selves out from their earliest years with
the single purpose of marrying, in our
false sense of the word. Almost before
she can walk, a girl will already have
learned to dawdle and grimace before a
looking-glass.

The best instruction we can give is by
example. What example can contemporary
family life give young persons, and what
a healthy example it might give them, if

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 227

we would but regard marriage from Count
Tolstoy's point of view.

Whilst marriage, as we now understand it,
is considered to be perfection, the slightest
departure from such perfection is an act of
depravity. And this is the reason why
depravity reigns supreme in Europe.

Remember what Posdniescheff says of his
first fall, of the lives young people lead
before marriage, and how intrigues with
married women are thought to be the
"right thing," and bring with them no
shame.

The significance of the ideal he proposes
for our acceptance as a guidance to us in
life is admirably set forth by Count Tolstoy
in his " Post-prefatory Remarks."

He first points out the distinctive supe-
riority of the Christian religion over all
other religions. It consists in this, that
Christ in Himself presented the ideal of
love, one of the conditions of which is
chastity, whilst other religions give only

2 38 COUNT TOLSTOY.

rules and instructions. In the first, there
is an inward spiritual side, but in the last
all is outward, and not seldom without
any moral basis ; as, for example, Mahomet's
precept concerning frequent daily ablu-
tions.

Later on, he compares this ideal with
the compass, and declares that contempo-
rary society, in ceasing to reverence virginity,
has acted like a crew of navigators who
wantonly throw their compass overboard.

He further observes that, the more widely
immorality is spread, the greater is our need
of a sure guidance, and the more dangerous
it is to ignore that which of all things is
most indispensable.

Finally, he sums up the whole matter in
the following happy illustration : —

" People tell us that man is weak, and that
the task we give him should be within his
strength. This Is exactly the same as if I
were to say. My hands are weak, and I
am unable • to draw a line that shall be

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. 229

Straight, that is, the shortest possible Hne
between two points. And so, to make it
easier, I take as my model a crooked or
broken line, all the while wishing, to draw
a perfectly straight line.

" The weaker my hands, the more I stand
in need of a perfect model."

IV.

WHAT, THEN, ARE WE TO DO?

This question, I presume, will already have
been asked by my readers. And, in truth,
how are we to struggle against an evil
that is the growth of ages ? How can we
extirpate an evil that has spread over
the whole civilised world ? And what
remedy can we propose to raise women
from their humiliating position, and to
counteract the extravagant luxury of
modern society ?

Even if we find individual persons and
families who are imbued with the ideas
of Count Tolstoy, they will only prove
rare exceptions, and the evil will continue
to flourish as before. Let us suppose
that the daughters of these families volun-

WHAT ARE WE TO DO? 231

tarily choose a life of virginity. The
evil is not thereby eradicated. For the
life, pleasures, and pursuits of society,
beginning with the highest works of art,
as Posdniescheff says, down to the trumpery
picture on a match-box are so constituted
as to excite and foster man's sensual pas-
sion, and this order of things would still
remain the same. And it is impossible to
admit that people knew nothing of the evil
till recently, or could not have prevented its
continual spread when once they knew of it.
The principal thing is to recognise that
the evil exists, and to loathe it : what
we have to do will then become plain.
Nay more, no hindrances or obstacles
will have force to stop mankind in their
efforts to wipe it from off the face of the
earth. For this reason, the first who
comes to the front and sets the example
must have a great influence on the rest
of men, and will give a powerful incentive
to the movement.

232 COUNT TOLSTOY.

It is only women, I repeat, who can
uproot this evil. Men are corrupted to
such an extent in all that concerns the
control of their passions, that they are
absolutely incapacitated from struggling
against sensualism. The doctors are right
when they assert that the sensual instinct
exists in man, but they are wrong ' when
they declare it to be normal. We must
learn to look upon it as a malady, and to
treat it as such.

If only women will acknowledge the
evil, and open their hearts to a feeling of
deep pity for posterity, they will of them-
selves begin the work, and will soon find
the means of bringing their work to a
successful issue.

I could mention many such means, but
it might easily happen that, under certain
circumstances, the most rational of these
means would turn out to be superfluous,
and the least promising prove to be the
best and the most necessary.

WHAT ARE WE TO DO? 233

On the one hand, you must act; on
the other hand, you must protest. You can
easily influence fathers, husbands, brothers,
and sons, so that they shall submit their
lives to the law of reason. And it often
happens that individual efforts prove more
fruitful than any legislative exactment.

It is very possible that the present genera-
tion will not abate in one iota its abandon-
ment to sensual pleasure ; and it is plain
that it cannot retrieve its past.

Our greatest care should be for our chil-
dren and for posterity. It is, therefore, in
the family that the most effectual stand can
be made against the evil. Only in the family
circle can the reaction take its rise. And
in this reaction, time and education are the
leading factors, motherly love and endur-
ance the two chief agents.

In educating our children we must mainly
direct our attention to the abatement and
gradual extinction of sensual passion, and
to fill their minds with a lively fear and

234 COUNT TOLSTOY.

horror of its pernicious nature. It is so
strong and insidious that, in spite of our-
selves, it will make its power felt whilst they
are still too young to marry. But we have
no need to despair of success. Though our
medical men and teachers in general interest
themselves but little in this question, every
mother knows how the moral growth of a
child may be injured by excessive food,
unwise tenderness, the example of its
elders, the atmosphere of home life, and
the lack of that physical bodily exercise
which is so necessary to its healthy de-
velopment.

Together with the regeneration of family
life an equally desirable change will little
by little be effected in the life of the outer
world. The general tone of society will
become purer. Where there is no demand
there will be no supply. To give but one
instance, our so-called humorous publica-
tions will no longer find it profitable to
publish cartoons of a questionable char-

WHAT ARE WE TO DO? 235

acter, and our popular literature will cease
to pander to vice.

With you and in France the free every
healthy movement is sure to spread quickly,
and is certain to meet with ready sympathy.
It is in this belief that I have ventured to
address this letter to you, and endeavoured
to explain to you the character and ten-
dencies of the social reform advocated by
Count Tolstoy. We have long been accus-
tomed to look to Western Europe for
example and encouragement. I would fain
hope that, on the present occasion, you will
not refuse to extend your support to that
reform, and thereby prove that, unlike the
larger majority of his fellow-countrymen,
you are able and willing to value at its true
worth the high teaching of the greatest of
our writers.

Printed by ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh attd LondoK

21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.

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MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 3

THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON.

Edited ey WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

IN TEN VOLUMES,
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To be followed by
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LIFE OF NELSON.

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

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38 MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST.

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IV. THE FISHER LASS.
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AND A DAY.

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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 29

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IN GOD'S WAY. From the Norwegian of BjOrnstjerne
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PIERRE AND JEAN. From the French of Guy de Mau-
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THE CHIEF JUSTICE. From the German of Karl Emil
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WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT. From the
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FANTASY. From the Italian of Matilde Serao.

FROTH. From the Spanish of Don Armando Palacio-

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WOMAN'S FOLLY. From the Italian of Gemma Ferruggia.

SIREN VOICES (NIELS LYHNE). From the Danish of
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30 MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST.

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ELI'S DAUGHTER. By J. H. Pearce, Author of "Incon-
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INCONSEQUENT LIVES. A Village Chronicle. By J. H.
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HER OWN FOLK. (En Famille.) By Hector Malot,
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CAPT'N DAVY'S HONEYMOON, The Blind Mother,
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A MARKED MAN: Some Episodes in his Life. By Ada
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A LITTLE MINX. By Ada Cambridge.

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A KNIGHT OF THE WHIfE FEATHER. By Tasma,
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UNCLE PIPER OF PIPER'S HILL. By Tasma.

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NOR WIFE, NOR MAID. By Mrs. Hungerford, Author
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MAMMON. A Novel. By Mrs. Alexander, Author of " The

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DAUGHTERS OF MEN. By Hannah Lynch, Author of

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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 31

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•TWEEN SNOW AND FIRE. A Tale of the Kafir War o£
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THE HEAD OF THE FIRM. By Mrs. RiDDELL, Author
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A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE. By G. Colmore,
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ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. By Am^lie Rives, Author
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KITTY'S FATHER. By Frank Barrett, Author of
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A QUESTION OF TASTE. By Maarten Maartens,
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IN THE DWELLINGS OF SILENCE. A Romance
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32 MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST.

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