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 PG 3385.B53 1896 
 
 Recollections of Count Leo Tolsto 
 
 3 1924 027 466 832 
 

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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027466832 
 
(5reat Xives & lEvents 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 COUNT LEO TOLSTOY 
 
(Breat %i\>c8 & levents 
 
 Uniformly bound in cloth, 6s. each volume. 
 
 A FRIEND OF THE QUEEN. Marie Antoinette and 
 Count Fersen. From the French of Paul Gaulot. Two Portraits. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF AN EMPRESS. Catherine II. of 
 Russia. From the French of K. Waliszewski. With a Portrait. 
 
 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 
 of FrSd^eic Masson. With a Portrait. 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. A Study of His Life and 
 Work. By Arthur Waugh, B.A. Oxon. With Twenty lUustra- 
 tionp from Photographs specially taken for this Work. Five Portraits , 
 and Facsimile of Tennyson's MS. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF THE PRINCE DE JOINVILLE. Trans- 
 lated from the French by Lady Mary Loyd. With 78 Illustrations 
 from Drawings by the Author. 
 
 THE NATURALIST OF THE SEA-SHORE. The Life 
 of Philip Henry Gosse. By his Son, Edmund Gosse, Hon. M.A. 
 Trinity College, Cambridge. With a Portrait. 
 
 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 trated by One hundred and twenty-two hitherto Unpublished Letters 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 
 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 3 
 
 THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 Edited ey WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. 
 
 IN TEN VOLUMES, 
 Volume L LETTERS, 1804-1813. 
 
 To be followed by 
 Volumes II.-IV. LETTERS AND SPEECHES. 
 
 Volume V. HOURS OF IDLENESS. ENGLISH 
 BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 Volume VI. CHILDE HAROLD. 
 
 Small cr. 8vo, price 5s. each. 
 
 Also an Edition limited to 150 sets for sale in Great 
 Britain, printed on Van Gaidar's handmade paper, price 
 Five Guineas the set net. 
 
 It is agreed that Byron's Letters, public and private, 
 with their abounding ease and spirit and charm, are 
 among the best in English. It is thought that Byron's 
 poetry has been long, and long enough, neglected, so that 
 we are on the eve of, if not face to face with, a steady 
 reaction in its favour : that, in fact, the true pubUc has had 
 enough of fluent minor lyrists and hide-bound (if superior) 
 sonnetteers, and is disposed, in the natural course of 
 things, to renew its contact with a great English poet, who 
 was also a principal element in the sesthetic evolution of 
 that Modern Europe which we know. 
 
 Hence this new Byron, which will present — for the first 
 time since the Seventeen Volumes Edition (1833), long 
 since out of print — a master- writer and a master-influence 
 in decent and persuasive terms. 
 
 It is barely necessary to dwell on Mr. Henley's special 
 qualifications for the task of editing and annotating the 
 works of our poet. 
 
4 MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 THE PAGET PAPERS. 
 
 DIPLOMATIC AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 The Right Hon. SIR ARTHUR PAGET, G.C.B. 
 1794-1807. 
 
 [WITH TWO APPENDICES, 1808 AND 1828-1829]. 
 ARRANGED AND EDITED BY HIS SON 
 
 The Right Hon. SIR AUGUSTUS B. PAGET, G.C.B., 
 
 I.a/e Her Majesty s Avthassador in Vienna, 
 
 With Notes by Mrs. J. R. Green. 
 In Two Volumes, Demy 8vo, with Portraits, 32J. net. 
 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. $ 
 
 LIFE OF NELSON. 
 
 By ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 ^ iVSW EDITION 
 
 Edited by DAVID HANNAY. 
 
 Crown 8vo, Gilt, with Portrait. 
 
 Southey's Life of Nelson is an acknowledged masterpiece of litera- 
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 ing Pitt, Sir John Moore, or Paoli. Emma Hamilton, of whom Southey 
 said only the little which was necessary to preserve his book from 
 liownright falsity, will have her history told at what is now adequate 
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 biographies with necessary additions and corrections, as well as with 
 some comment on bis qualities as a commander in naval warfare. 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE LATE 
 SIR JOSEPH BARNBY. 
 
 W. H. SONLEY JOHNSTONE. 
 
 In One Volume, with Portraits, 8vo. 
 
 Sir Joseph Barnby was a personality and an influence ; music was 
 only a part of him. He was an arduous worker, a brilliant talker, a 
 raconitur of merit, a good speaker, and a popular favourite in society. 
 The period through which he lived was one of the most important and 
 fruitful in the annals of English music, and Mr. Johnstone will receive 
 the assistance of composers and others in making this work as compre- 
 hensive as possible. 
 
 The main divisions will be : Music in England Half-a-Century Ago — 
 Early Life of Barnby — His Eton Career — His Albert Hall Career — As 
 Composer and Conductor — His Social and General Life — The Academy 
 and Guildhall. 
 
MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
 
 Xiteratures of tbe Wlorib, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EDMUND GOSSE. 
 
 TVyTR. HEINEMANN begs to announce a Series of 
 Short Histories of Ancient and Modern Literatures 
 of the World, Edited by Edmund Gosse. 
 
 The following volumes are projected, and it is probable that 
 they will be the first to appear : — 
 
 FRENCH LITERATURE. 
 
 By EDWARD DOWDEN, D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of English 
 Literature at the University of Dublin. 
 
 ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE. 
 
 By gilbert G. a. MURRAY, M.A., Professor of Greek in the 
 University of Glasgovir. 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 By the editor. 
 
 ITALIAN LITERATURE. 
 
 By RICHARD GARNETT, C.B., LL.D., Keeper of Printed Books 
 in the British Museum. 
 
 MODERN SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE 
 
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 JAPANESE LITERATURE. 
 
 By WILLIAM GEORGE ASTON, M.A., C.M.G., late Acting 
 Secretary at the British Legation at Tokio. 
 
 SPANISH LITERATURE. 
 
 By J. FITZ MAURICE-KELLY, Member of the Spanish Academy. 
 
MR. HEINEMANN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS. 7 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 A CRITICAL STUDY. 
 
 By GEORG BRANDES. 
 
 Translated from the Danish by William Archer. 
 
 In Two Volumes, demy 8vo. 
 
 Dr. Georg Brandes's " William Shakespeare '* may best be called, perhaps, 
 an exhaustive critical biography. Keeping fully abreast of the latest English 
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 spiritual history. Dr. Brandes has achieved German thoroughness without 
 German heaviness, and has produced what must be regarded as a standard 
 work. 
 
 ROBERT, EARL NUGENT: 
 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 13 
 
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MR. HEINEMANN'S LIST. 31 
 
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