University of Virginia Library

3. PART III
Military Service (1851-1857)

7. Chapter VII
The Caucasus

The unsuccessful attempt to keep house, the impossibility of establishing good relations with the peasants, and the passionate, perilous life, full of all kinds of excesses, which was mentioned in the previous chapter, induced Tolstoy to search for a means of changing his mode of life.

According to his own testimony, his life was so insipid and dissipated that he was ready for any change in it. For instance, his brother-in-law, Valerian Petrovich Tolstoy, being engaged, was going back to Siberia to arrange some business matters there before his marriage, and, as he was leaving the house, Tolstoy jumped into his tarantas [Russian traveling cart], without a hat, and in his blouse only; and it seems as if the only reason why he did not join in the journey to Siberia was simply that he found there was no hat on his head.

At last a serious incident took place that induced a change of life. In April, 1951, Nikolay, Tolstoy's eldest brother arrived from the Caucasus; he was an officer in the Caucasian army and on leave of absence, and had shortly to return. Tolstoy seized this opportunity, and in spring, 1951, started with him for the Caucasus.

They left Yasnaya Polyana on April 20, and spent two weeks in Moscow, and from there he wrote to his aunt Tatyana at Yasnaya:

"I have been to the promenade at Sokolniki during detestable weather, and therefore have not met any of the society ladies I wish to see. As you assert that I am a man of resources, I went among the plebians in the gypsy tents. You can easily imagine the inner struggle which there took place for and against. However, I came out victorious, i.e., having given nothing but my blessing to the merry descendants of the illustrious Pharaohs. Nikolay has made the discovery that I should be a very agreeable traveling companion, were it not for my cleanliness. He gets irritated over my changing my underclothing, as he says, a dozen times a day. For my part I find him a very pleasant companion, were it not for his uncleanliness. I don't know which of us is right."

From Moscow they passed through Kazan, where they visited V. T. Yushkov, their guardian-aunt's husband, with whom they had lived in Kazan, and also saw Madame Zagoskin, a friend of this aunt's, the directress of the Kazan Institute, an eccentric and clever woman.

In Zagoskin's house Tolstoy met Z. M., an ex-pupil of the Institute, and conceived for her a sentimental kind of love, which, as usual, owing to his bashfulness, he could not make up his mind to express, and which he took away with him to the Caucasus.

In Madame Zagoskin's house, as that lady always secured the young men who were the most comme il faut, he met and almost made friends with a young lawyer, the procurator Ogolin, and took a journey with the latter into the country to pay a visit to V. [J.] Yushkov. Ogolin was a new type of the official of that late period.

Tolstoy used to relate how Yushkov was—being accustomed to see a procurator as a grave, respectable, and hoary personage in a uniform, with a cross on his breast and a star—when he beheld Ogolin, and got acquainted with him, under circumstances of ease and freedom.

"When Ogolin and I had arrived and approached the house, opposite which was a group of young birch trees, I suggested to Ogolin that, while the servant was announcing our arrival, we should compete as to which of us would climb these birches best and highest. When Yushkov came out and saw the procurator climbing up a tree, he could not recover himself for a long time."

Tolstoy, as he told me himself, was in his most stupid and worldly mood during this trip. He related to me how his brother made him feel his stupidity in Kazan. They were walking about the town when a gentleman drove past them in a dolgusha [a kind of jaunting-car on four wheels], leaning with ungloved hands on a stick resting on the step of the carriage.

"How evident it is that this man is some sort of `scallywag,'" said Lev Tolstoy, addressing his brother.

"Why?" asked Nikolay.

"Why, because he has not no gloves."

"Why should he be good-for-nothing because he has no gloves?" asked Nikolay, with his hardly noticeable, kind, clever, and mocking smile.

Nikolay always thought and did everything, not because others thought and did so, but because he himself believed it to be right, and he always thought and did what he believed to be right. Thus he planned to go to the Caucasus not via Voronezh and through the territory of the Don Cossacks, as was the rule, but on horseback to Saratov, from Saratov in a boat down the Volga to Astrakhan, and from Astrakhan in a post-chaise to the Stanitsa, and this plan he put in execution.

They hired a fishing-boat, placed the tarantas in it, and being assisted by a pilot and two oarsmen, sailed here and there, sometimes rowing, sometimes carried by the current. The trip lasted about three weeks, when they reached Astrakhan. From then, Lev wrote to his aunt:

"We are at Astrakhan, and on the point of leaving it, thus having still a journey of 400 versts to do. I have passed a most agreeable week at Kazan. My journey to Saratov was disagreeable, but, as compensation, the passage from there to Astrakhan in a little boat was very poetical and full of charm, owing to the novelty of the locality, and for me even from the very method of traveling. Yesterday I wrote a long letter to Marie, in which I tell her about my sojourn at Kazan. I do not tell you anything about it, for fear of repeating myself, although I am sure you will not confuse the two letters. So far as it has gone, I am exceedingly satisfied with my journey. There are many things which make me think, and then the very change of locality is pleasant. In passing through Moscow, I subscribed to a lending-library, so that I have plenty of reading, which I do even in the tarantas, and, besides, as you can well imagine, Nikolay's society greatly contributes to my enjoyment. I do not cease to think of you and of all ours; sometimes I even reproach myself for having abandoned the life which your affection rendered so sweet; but it is merely a postponement, and I shall have only the more pleasure in seeing you again. Were I not pressed, I would write to Sergey; but I put this off until I shall be quietly settled down. Embrace him on my behalf, and tell him that I greatly repent of the coldness which there was between us before my departure, and for which I blame myself alone."

A few words must be said as to what the Caucasus is, to make the reader understand the facts of Tolstoy's Caucasian life, as well as his Caucasian tales.

When the kingdom of Moscow became so strong as to be able to make head against the Tartar tribes, it gradually pushed them to the southeast, and, having conquered the kingdoms of Kazan and Astrakhan, it came into conflict with wild tribes of mountaineers, who inhabited the northern slopes of the Caucasian mountains. To keep them in check, the Russian Government had, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, erected a whole line of Cossack outposts on the left bank of the Terek and the right bank of the Kuban.

On the other hand, the Georgian kingdom, which lies on the southern slope of the Caucasian mountains, and which was up to that time independent, had, with its King Heraclius II, become subject to Russia in the beginning of the nineteenth century. The subjugation of the mountain tribes between Georgia and Russia became indispensable on political grounds, and the struggle went on for over fifty years.

From the Cossack posts along the banks of the Terek and the Kuban, the Russians gradually pushed on farther to the very edge of the mountains. But they confined themselves chiefly to making raids: a military detachment attacked the villages in the mountains, destroyed pastures, drove off cattle, captured as many inhabitants as possible, and with such booty returned to their posts. The mountaineers in their turn made reprisals: they pursued the detachments on their way back, and with their well-aimed carbine shots inflicted on them great losses; they would hide behind the ramparts in the woods and narrow ravines, and sometimes even appear suddenly at the very posts, where they massacred many, and carried off men and women to the mountains. From time to time the struggle abated, but became fiercer when, taking advantage of our ill fortune, there arose leaders who managed to unite under their command the more powerful and warlike tribes. The fanaticism of the latter was them kindled by the preaching of a holy war against the infidels. The Russians had to encounter great difficulties, and suffered heavy losses from the most warlike of the Caucasian tribes, the Chechens, who live on the forest-clad plains of the right bank of the Terek, near its tributaries Sunzha, Agurniy [sp], and others, and higher up in the mountain gorges of Ichkeriya [sp]. Our spirit of enterprise grew stronger or slackened, according to the talent and energy of the commander who happened to be directing the military operations.

The appointment in 1856 of Prince Baryatinskiy as governor of the Caucasus, events took a decisive turn. Profiting by his personal influence over the Emperor Aleksandr II, he summoned an army of 200,000 men, a greater one than was ever before seen in the Caucasus. A considerable part of this army he directed against Checheniya, Ichkeriya, and Dagestan, then under the leadership of the well-known Shamyl.

The talent and energy of this leader, and the fanaticism of the mountaineers, who recognized him as their Imaum, were all crushed under the weight of this powerful army led by Yevdokimov, whom nothing could stop. In 1857 Shamyl's residence, the village Vedeno in the center of Ichkeriya, capitulated, and in 1859, Shamyl himself surrendered to Prince Baryatinskiy in his new Dagestan stronghold—Guniba [sp].

At the beginning of the fifties, before his appointment as governor of the Caucasus, Prince Baryatinskiy appeared in the Northern Caucasus as commander of the left wing of the Russian army.

Just about this time Tolstoy arrived in the Caucasus, and the events described in his Caucasian tales, The Invaders, The Cossacks, a Wood-Cutting Expedition, and An Old Acquaintance, took place about this time and in this locality.

From Astrakhan both brothers traveled in a post-chaise through Lizliar to the village of Starogladovskaya, where the eldest brother was stationed. Tolstoy came to the Caucasus in a private capacity and settled down with his brother.

The first impression which the Caucasus made on him was not a profound one. Shortly after he reached the country he thus describes it in a letter to his aunt:

"I have arrived well and whole, but am now, toward the end of may, at the Starogladovskaya. I am feeling rather sad. I have here seen at close quarters the kind of life Nikolay is leading, and I have made the acquaintance of the officers who form the local society. The kind of life led here is not very attractive as it has at first presented itself to me, for the country, which I had expected to find very fine, is not at all so. As the village is situated on low land there is no outlook, and besides the lodgings are bad, as well as everything that constitutes the comfort of life. As to the officers, they are, as you can imagine, people without education, but at the same time very good fellows, and, above all, they are very much attached to Nikolay.

"Alekseyev, the commander, is a little chap, with light hair approaching red, with mustaches and whiskers, and a piercing voice, but an excellent Christian, somewhat reminding one of Volkov, but not canting like him. Then B—, a young officer, childish and good-natured, reminding one of Petrusha. Then an old captain, Bilkovskiy of the Ural Cossacks, an old soldier, simple but noble, brave and good. I will confess to you that at first many things in this society shocked me, but I have become accustomed to it, without, however, becoming intimate with the gentlemen. I have found a happy medium in which there is neither pride nor familiarity. In this, however, I had merely to follow Nikolay's example."

However, he did not stay very long in Starogladovskaya.

He and his brother moved to Stariy Yurt, a fortified camp, to shelter the sick in Goryachevodsk, where, shortly before, hot springs possessing strong healing virtues had been discovered. Again we quote the description of this place from Tolstoy's letter to his aunt, written on his arrival there in July 1851.

"Nikolay left a week after his arrival, and I followed him, so that we have been here for almost three weeks, and we live in a tent, but, as the weather is fine and I am somewhat adapting myself to this kind of life, I am feeling very well. Here there are beautiful views. To begin with the place where the springs are. It is an enormous mountain of rocks lying one upon the other, some of which have become detached, forming a sort of grotto, others remain suspended at a great at a great height. They are all intersected by torrents of warm water, which in some places fall with much noise, and, especially in the morning, cover all the elevated part of the mountain with a white vapor which is continually rising from this boiling water. The water is so hot they can boil eggs hard in it in three minutes. In the middle of the valley, on the chief torrent, there are three watermills, one above the other, constructed in a peculiar and very picturesque way. All day the Tartar women keep coming to wash their clothes above and beneath these mills. I should mention that they wash them with their feet. It's like an ant heap in continual motion. The women are for the most part handsome and well built. The costume of Oriental women is graceful, notwithstanding their poverty; the picturesque groups formed by the women, together with the savage beauty of the place, make a truly beautiful sight. I sometimes remain for hours admiring the landscape. Then the view from the top of the mountain is still finer and of quite another kind, but I am afraid of boring you with my descriptions.

"I am very glad to be at the waters, as I benefit by them. I take mineral baths, and I no longer feel pain in my feet. I always have rheumatism, but during my journey on the water I think I took cold. I have seldom felt so well as now, and notwithstanding the great heat I take much exercise.

"Here the type of officers is the same as that of which I have already spoken to you. There are many of these, I know them all, and my relations with them are the same."

According to Tolstoy, Yurt was a large village with a population of 1,500 and remarkable for its beautiful mountain situation. In the mountains above the village rose a hot sulfur spring. Its temperature was so high that, according to Tolstoy, his brother's dog after falling into the spring scalded himself so much that he died from the effects. The spring divides itself into many small brooklets which run down the mountain-side. These brooklets were so small that it was easy to bank them up. The inhabitants of the village used them for working watermills. The properties of the spring are superior to those of Pyatigorsk.

From this village Tolstoy joined in a raid as a volunteer. Here he had glorious moments of youthful poetical enthusiasm.

Especially memorable to him was one night, which he has described in his diary in terms of unique spiritual beauty.

"Stariy Yurt, 11th June 1851.

"Yesterday I hardly slept all night. Having written in my diary, I began to pray to God. It is impossible to convey the sweetness of the feeling which I experienced during prayer. I repeated the prayers I generally say: Our Father, to the Virgin, to the Trinity, `the gates of mercy,' the appeal to the guardian angel, and then I still remained at prayer. If one were to define prayer as petition or thanksgiving, then I did not pray. I longed for something sublime and good, but what, I cannot convey, although I was clearly conscious that I desired it. I wished to blend into unity with the all-enfolding Being. I asked Him to pardon my crimes; yet no, I did not ask this, for I felt that He had given me this blissful moment. He had pardoned me. I asked and at the same time felt that I had nothing to ask, that I could not and did not know how to ask. I thanked Him, but not in words, not in thoughts. I combined all in one feeling, both petition and thanksgiving. The feeling of fear completely vanished. None of the feelings -Faith, Hope, and Love -could I have disengaged from the general feeling. No, here it is, the feeling which I experienced yesterday -it was love to God, an elevated love combining in itself all that is good, and repudiating all that is evil. How dreadful it was for me to look at all the trivial and vicious side of my life. I could not comprehend how it was this had attracted me. How I prayed God from a pure heart to accept me into His bosom. I did not feel the flesh, I was...but no, the carnal, trivial side again asserted itself, and an hour had not passed before I almost consciously heard the voice of vice, of vanity, and of the empty side of life. I knew whence this voice came, I knew it had ruined my bliss; I struggled, yet yielded to it. I fell asleep in dreams of fame and of women. But it was not my fault, I could not help it. Eternal bliss here is impossible. Suffering are necessary. Why? I do not know? But how dare I say, I do not know? How dared I think it was possible to knew the ways of Fate? It is the source of reason, and the reason wishes to fathom it!...

"The mind is lost in these depths of wisdom and emotion, and is afraid of insulting Him. I thank Him for the moment of bliss which showed me both my insignificance and my greatness. I wish to pray, but I do not know how. I wish to attain comprehension, but dare not -I surrender myself to Thy will.

"Why have I written all this? How flabbily, how lifelessly, even how senselessly have my feelings found expression; and yet they were so elevated."

These outbursts of religious emotion were often succeeded by periods of depression and apathy. Thus on the 2nd of July, while yet living in the Stariy Yurt, he put down the following thoughts:

"I am just now meditating, recalling all the unpleasant moments of my life, which in times of depression alone creep into one's mind....No, there is too little delight -man is too capable of imagining happiness and too often in one way or another Fate strikes him, painfully, very painfully catching his tender chord -for us to love life, and, besides, there is something specially sweet and great in indifference to life, and I delight in this feeling. In face of everything, how strong I appear to myself in this firm conviction that there is nothing to expect here except death....Yet at this very moment I am thinking with delight about a saddle I have ordered in which I will ride in Circassian attire, and about how I will flirt with Cossack girls, and feel despair that my left mustache is higher than the right one, and I shall spend two hours arranging it."

Thus Tolstoy often had to change his abode. The headquarters and the staff-battery, where his brother served, were at Starogladovskaya, but he was often sent to the outposts, to which Tolstoy accompanied him.

These wild Cossack and Caucasian villages were destined to become historic. Here the artistic forms of Tolstoy's works were conceived, and the first fruit of his creative power came forth. The wonderful scenery of the Northern Caucasus, its mountains, the river Terek, and the Cossack bravery, and the almost primitive simplicity of life -all this in one harmonious whole served to cradle these early creations, and to point out the work of the world-wide genius, who was to struggle for an ideal, to search for truth and the meaning of human life.

Here we give a description of Tolstoy's arrival at Stariy Yurt, taken from his novel The Cossacks, in which he so very vividly depicts the impression made on him by the majesty of the Caucasian Mountains.

"It was a very clear morning. Suddenly he saw, some twenty steps from him, as he thought at first, pure white masses, with their delicate contours, and the fantastic and sharply defined outline of their summits, against the distant sky. And when he became aware of the great distance between him and the mountains and the sky, and of the immensity of the mountains, and felt the immeasurableness of that beauty, he was frightened, thinking that it was a vision, a dream. He shook himself, in order to be rid of his sleep. The mountains remained the same.

"`What is this? What is it?' he asked the driver.

"`The mountains,' the Nogay answered, with indifference.

"`I have been looking at them myself for a long time,' said Vanyusha. `It is beautiful! They will not believe it at home!'

"in the rapid motion of the vehicle over the even road, the mountains seemed to be running along the horizon, gleaming in the rising sun with their rosy summits. At first they only surprised Olenin, but later they gave him pleasure. And later, as he gazed longer at this chain of snow-capped peaks, which were not connected with other black ones, but rose directly from the steppe, he began by degrees to understand their full beauty, and to `feel' them.

"From that moment everything he saw, everything he thought, everything he felt, assumed for him a new severely majestic character, that of the mountains. All the Moscow reminiscences, his shame and remorse, all the trite dreams of the Caucasus, everything disappeared, and never returned again. `Now it has begun,' a solemn voice said to him. And the road, and the distant line of the Terek, and the villages, and the people, all that appeared to him no longer so many trifles.

"He looked at the sky, and he thought of the mountains. He looked at himself, and at Vanyusha -and again at the mountains. There, two Cossacks rode by, and their muskets in cases evenly vibrated on their backs, and their horses intermingled their chestnut and gray legs -and the mountains. Beyond the Terek was seen the smoke in a native village -and the mountains.

"The sun rose and glistened on the Terek beyond the reeds -and the mountains. From the Cossack village came a native cart, and women, beautiful women, walking -and the mountains. `Abreks [mountain braves] race through the steppes, and I am traveling, and fear them not: I have a gun, and strength, and youth' -and the mountains."

In August he is again at Starogladovskaya.

From the story The Cossacks, which bears an autobiographical character, we can form an approximate idea of how he passed his time in the Cossack Village. His attempt to come more in touch with the people -Cossacks, sport, the contemplation of the beauties of nature, and the incessant inner strife which never abandoned this man, and is vividly expressed in his works, such was Tolstoy's life of that period.

"`Why am I happy, and why have I lived before?' he thought. `How exacting I used to be! How I concocted and caused nothing but shame and woe for myself!' And suddenly it seemed that a new world was open to him. `Happiness is this,' he said to himself: `happiness consists in living for others. This is clear. The desire for happiness is inborn in man; consequently it is legitimate. In attempting to satisfy it in an egotistical manner, that is, by seeking wealth, glory, comforts of life, and love, the circumstances may so arrange themselves that it is impossible to satisfy these desires. Consequently these desires are illegitimate, but the need of happiness is not illegitimate. Now, what desires are these that can always be satisfied, in spite of external conditions? What desires? Love, self-sacrifice!"

He was so rejoiced and excited when he discovered this truth, which seemed to be new, that he leaped up and impatiently began to look around for some one to sacrifice himself for, to do good to, and to love. "I do not need anything for myself," he proceeded in his thought; "then why should I not live for others?"

Already then the voice of love touched a powerful chord in the soul of the young man, who had hardly entered the life of social activity.

But outward events were still running their course, carrying the strong animal nature of man along its customary path.

The life of the passionate young man in the Cossack village was not devoid of romance. The story of his love is described in the tale The Cossacks.

All the stages of this unreturned affection are vividly pictured in that story, and even still better presented in a letter to his Moscow friends. That letter shows the author's love of wild nature, his passionate desire to live in perfect harmony with her, and his sufferings from inability to do so. He knew his life in civilized surroundings had torn him away from nature and created between them an abyss impossible to overcome. Here is the most striking and essential part of this letter:

"How contemptible and pitiable you all appear to me! You do not know what happiness nor what life is! You have first to taste life in all its artless beauty; you must see and understand what I see before me each day: the eternal, inaccessible snows of the mountains, and majestic woman in her pristine beauty, as the first woman must have issued from the hands of her Creator -and then it will be clear who it is that is being ruined, and who lives according to the truth, you or I.

"If you only knew how detestable and pitiable you are to me in your delusions! The moment there rise before me, instead of my cabin, my forest, and my love, those drawing-rooms, those women with pomaded hair, through which the false locks appear, those unnaturally lisping lips, those concealed and distorted limbs, and that prattle of the drawing-rooms, which pretends to be conversation, but has no right to be called so -an insufferable feeling of disgust comes over me. I see before me those dull faces, those rich, marriageable girls, with an expression on the face which says, `That's all right, you may—. Just come up to me, even thought I am a rich, marriageable girl'; that sitting down and changing of places; that impudent pairing of people, and that never-ending gossip and hypocrisy; those rules -to this one your hand, to that one a nod, and with that one a chat; and finally, that eternal ennui in the blood, which passes from generation to generation (and consciously even then, with the conviction of its necessity). You must understand, or believe it. You must see and grasp what truth and beauty are, and everything which you say and think, all your wishes for your own happiness and for mine, will be dispersed to the winds. Happiness consists in being with Nature, in seeing it, and holding converse with it. `The Lord preserve him, but he will, no doubt, marry a Cossack woman, and will be entirely lost to society,' I imagine them saying about me, with genuine compassion, whereas it is precisely this that I wish; to be entirely lost, in your sense of the word, and to marry a simple Cossack woman; I dare not do it, because that would be the acme of happiness, of which I am unworthy.

"Three months have passed since I for the first time saw the Cossack maiden, Maryanka. The conceptions and prejudices of the society from which I had issued were still fresh in me. I did not believe then that I could fall in love with this woman. I admired her, as I admired the beauty of the mountains and of the sky, nor could I help admiring her, for she is as beautiful as they. Then I felt that the contemplation of this beauty had become a necessity of my life, and I began to ask myself whether I did not love her; but I did not find in myself anything resembling the feeling such as I had imagined it to be. This sentiment resembled neither the longing for solitude nor the desire for matrimony, not platonic love, still less carnal love, which I had experienced. I had to see and hear her, to know that she was near, and I was not exactly happy, but calm. After an evening party which I had attended with her, and at which I had toucher her, I felt that between this woman and myself existed an indissoluble, thought unacknowledged bond, against which it would be vain to struggle. But I did struggle. I said to myself: `Is it possible for me to love a woman who will never comprehend the spiritual interests of my life? Can I love a woman for her mere beauty, and I love a statue of a woman?' I asked myself, and I was loving her all the time, though I did not trust my own sentiment.

"After the party, when I had spoken to her for the first time, our relations were changed. Before that time she was to me a foreign, but majestic, object of external Nature; after the party she became a human being for me. I have met her and spoken with her; and I have been with her father at work, and have passed whole evenings in their company. And in these close relations she has remained to my thinking, just as pure, inaccessible, and majestic. To all questions she has answered in the same calm, proud, and gaily indifferent manner. At times she has been gracious, but for the most part every glance, every word, every motion of hers, has expressed the same, not contemptuous, but repressing and enticing indifference.

"Each day I tried, with a feigning smile on my lips, to dissemble, and, with the torment of passion and of desires in my heart, I spoke jestingly to her. But she saw that I was dissembling, and yet looked gaily and simply at me. This situation grew intolerable to me. I did not wish to tell lies before her, and wanted to let her know everything I thought and everything I felt. I was very much excited; that was in the vineyard. I began to tell her of my love in words that I am ashamed to recall. I am ashamed to think of them, because I ought never to have dared to tell her that, and because she stood immeasurably above the words and above the feeling which I intended to express to her. I held my tongue, and since that day my situation has been insufferable. I did not wish to lower myself by persisting in the former jocular relations, and I was conscious that I was not yet ripe for straightforward, simple relations with her. I asked myself in despair, `What shall I do?'

"In my preposterous dreams I imagined her now as my mistress and now as my wife, and I repelled both thoughts in disgust. It would be terrible to make a mistress of her. It would be still worse to make a lady of her, the wife of Dmitriy Andreyevich Olenin, as one of our officers has made a lady of a Cossack girl of this place, whom he has married. If I could turn Cossack, become a Lukashka, steal herds of horses, fill myself with red wine, troll songs, kill people, and, when drunk, climb through the window to pass the night with her, without asking myself who I am and why I am -it would be a different matter; then we could understand each other, and I might be happy."

But he could not become another Lukashka, and could not therefore find happiness in that direction.

In September he writes a letter to his aunt, through which the future writer can already be clearly seen. It is his serious attitude in the expression of thought that particularly strikes one; probably by that time numberless thoughts and images were overcrowding in his mind, and he chose only those which he could set forth on paper. He thus expresses this sensation:

"You have told me several times that you are not in the habit of writing drafts of your letters; I follow your example, but I don't manage it as well as you do, for it very often happens that I tear up my letters after rereading them. I do not do so from vanity -a mistake in spelling, a blot, a sentence badly turned do not trouble me, but it is that I cannot manage to learn to direct my pen and my ideas. I have just torn up a letter to you which I had finished, because I had said in it many things I did not wish to say to you, and nothing of what I did wish to say. perhaps you will think that this is dissimulation, and you may say that it is wrong to dissimulate with those one loves and by whom one knows one is loved. I agree, but you will also agree that one says everything to a person toward whom one is indifferent, but that the more a person is dear to one, the more things there are one would like to conceal from him."

Feeling an excess of youthful energy, and having no outlet for it. Tolstoy often risked his life in taking part in dangerous excursions.

Thus, in company of his friend, the Cossack Epishka (described in The Cossacks as Yeroshka), he once went to the village Hossaf-Yurt, in the mountains. The journey was a dangerous one, for the mountaineers sometimes attacked travelers.

On his safe return from the excursion Tolstoy met the commander-in-chief of the left wing, Prince Baryatinskiy, accompanied by his own relation, Ilya Tolstoy. The latter invited Tolstoy to join their company, and this gave him a chance of getting well acquainted with the commander-in-chief. He expressed on one occasion his satisfaction and praise at Tolstoy's cheerful and brave appearance, which he noticed on seeing him once after a raid. Then and there he advised him to enter military service at once, as Tolstoy still remained a civilian, but took part in all the expeditions as a volunteer. The flattering opinion of the commander-in-chief and the advice of his relations induced Tolstoy at last to hasten his decision and send in his petition to join the army.

He remained at Starogladovskaya during August and September. In September he went with his brother Nikolay to Tiflis. His brother soon returned, but Tolstoy stayed on in Tiflis to pass his examinations and enter the service.

"We did indeed leave on the 25th, and after a seven days' journey, very dull owing to the want of horses at almost every posting-house, and very agreeable owing to the beauty of the country through we passed, we arrived on the first of the present month.

"Tiflis is a very civilized town, which to a great extent apes St. Petersburg, and greatly succeeds in the imitation. The society is choice and rather numerous; there is a Russian theater and an Italian Opera, of which I avail myself as much as my restricted means allow. I am living in the German colony. It is a suburb, but has for me two great advantages, one of being a very pretty place surrounded by gardens and vineyards, so that one feels more in the country than in town. It is still very warm and very fine, and up to the present there is neither snow nor front. The second advantage is that for two tolerably clean rooms I pay five rubles a month, whereas in town one could not have similar apartments for less than forty rubles a month. Into the bargain I get practice in the German language for nothing, have books, occupations, and leisure, since no one comes to disturb me, so that on the whole I am not dull.

"Do you remember, good Aunt, some advice you gave me in bygone days -that I should write novels? Well, I am following your advice, and the occupations I am speaking of consist in literary work. I do not know whether what I write will ever see the light, but it is work which amuses me, and in which I have persevered too long to abandon it."

This letter is interesting, because it shows us with what modesty this great talent was developing its unsuspected excellence. He was ailing and doctoring himself for two months, and wrote his first story, availing himself of occasional leisure and solitude. Besides, part of his time was occupied with attempts to get an official appointment, which was a difficult matter owing to the want of the necessary papers.

December 23, 1851, he writes the following letter to his brother Sergey, giving characteristic details concerning life in Tiflis and the village:

"In a few days the long-desired announcement is to be gazetted of my nomination as volunteer private in the 4th Battery, and I shall have the pleasure of saluting and following with my eyes passing officers and generals. Even here, when walking about the streets in my fashionable overcoat and opera hat, which I bought here for ten ruble, despite all my splendor in this attire, I have become so accustomed to the idea of putting on a gray soldier's coat that my hand involuntarily wishes to seize my hat by the springs and flatten it down. However, if my nomination takes place, on that very day I will leave Stargladovskaya and proceed thence immediately for the front, where I will walk or ride in a soldier's cloak or a Sackashan coat and will, according to my powers, contribute, by the aid of the cannon, to the slaughter of the wild, rebellious Asiatics.

"Seryozha.—You see by my letter that I am at Tiflis, where I arrived as long ago as the 9th of November, so that I have had time to hunt a little with the dogs I bought there (Stargladovskaya), but the dogs that have been sent here I have not yet seen. Sport here (i.e., in Sackashan village) is splendid: open fields, marshy ground, full of hares, clusters, not of trees, but of rushes, in which foxes find cover. I have been out hunting nine times in all, about ten or fifteen versts from the village, with two dogs, of which one is excellent and the other a good-for-nothing. I caught two foxes and upward of sixty hares. In course of time I shall attempt to hunt deer. I have more than once been present in shooting expeditions for wild boar and stags, but have killed nothing myself. This sport is also very pleasant, but, after becoming accustomed to hunt with greyhounds, one cannot care for it. Even as he who has become accustomed to smoke Turkish tobacco cannot care for the common zhukov, although one may argue that the latter is the best.

"I know your weakness. You will probably wish to know who have been and are my acquaintances here and in what relations I stand toward them. I must tell you here that this point does not in the least interest me, but I will hasten to satisfy you. In battery here there are not many officers; I am therefore acquainted with all of them, but very superficially, although I enjoy their general cordiality, as Nikolenka and myself always have brandy, wine, and refreshments for visitors. On these same principles my acquaintance has been made and maintained with officers of other regiments with whom I had occasion to become acquainted at Stariy Yurt, a watering-place where I lived in summer, and during the expedition in which I took part. There are among them some more or less decent fellows, yet, as I always have more interesting occupations than talking to officers, I remain with all of them in good relations. Lieutenant-Colonel Alekseyev, commander of the battery I enter, is a very kind and very vain man. by this latter weakness of his I have, I confess, profited and thrown some dust unintentionally in his eyes—I need him. But this also I do involuntarily and repent of it. With vain people one becomes vain oneself.

"Here at Tiflis I have three acquaintances. I did not make more, first, because I did not wish, and secondly because I had not the opportunity -I have been ill almost all the time and it is only since last week that I have been out. My first acquaintance is Bagration of st. Petersburg (Ferzen's comrade). The second, Prince Baryatinskiy. I made his acquaintance during the expedition I took part in under his command and, later, spent a day with him in a fort with Ilya Tolstoy whom I met here. This acquaintance naturally does not afford me much recreation, for you understand on what footing a volunteer private may be acquainted with a general. My third acquaintance is an apothecary's assistant, a Pole reduced to the ranks -a most amusing creature. I am sure Prince Baryatinskiy never imagined that he could in any kind of list whatever stand by the side of an apothecary's assistant, but so it has happened. nikolenka is on a very good footing here; the commanders and fellow-officers love and respect him. He enjoys, moreover, the reputation of a brave officer. I love him more than ever, and when I am with him I am completely happy, and without him I feel dull.

"If you want to boast of news from the Caucasus you may announce that the second personage after Shamil, a certain Hadji-Murat, gave himself up the other day to the Russian Government. He was the first horseman and hero in all Checheniya, but committed a base act. You may further relate with grief that the other day the well-known brave and clever general, Sleptsov, was killed. If you wish to know whether it hurt him—I cannot tell you."

January 6, 1852, Tolstoy writes a remarkable letter from Tiflis to his aunt, which is full of tenderness and love for his guardian.

"I have just received your letter of 24th November, and I am answering you immediately, as is now my custom. Lately, I wrote you that your letter made me shed tears, and I attributed this weakness to my illness. I was wrong. For some time back all your letters have produced the same effect on me. I have always been a cry-baby. Formerly I was ashamed of this weakness, but the tears I shed in thinking of you and your love for us are so sweet that I let them flow without any scruples or false shame. Your letter is too full of sadness for it not to produce the same effect upon me. It is you who have always given me advice, and although, unfortunately, I have not always followed it, I would wish to act all my life only according to your views. For the present allow me to tell you what effect your letter had on me, and the thoughts that came to me upon reading it. If I speak too frankly, I know you will pardon it in view of the love I have for your. In saying that it is your turn to leave us, in order to join those who are no more, and whom you have so loved; in saying that your pray God to put a limit to your existence, which seems to you so insupportable and isolated, pardon me, dear Aunt, but it seems to me, in saying this, you offend God and me and all of us who so love you. You ask God for death, i.e., the greatest misfortune which could happen to me. (this is not a phrase; God is witness that the two greatest misfortunes which could happen to me would be your death or that of Nikolay -the two persons I love more than myself.) What would remain for me were God to fulfill your prayer? To give pleasure to whom would I desire to become better, to be virtuous, to have a good reputation in the world. When I make plans of happiness for myself, the idea that you will share and enjoy my happiness is always present. When I do anything good, I am satisfied with myself, because I know that you will be satisfied with me. When I act badly, what I most fear is to pain you. Your love is everything for me, and you ask God to separate us! I cannot tell you the feeling I have toward you, speech does not suffice to express it, and I am afraid you will think I am exaggerating, and yet I am weeping with burning tears in writing to you. It is to this painful separation I am indebted for knowing what a friend I have in you and how much I love you. But am I the only one who has this feeling for you? and you ask of God to die! You say you are isolated. Although I am separated from you, yet, if you believe in my love, this idea might counterbalance your pain. As for myself, wherever I am, I shall not feel isolated, as long as I know I am loved by you as I am.

"However, I know that is a bad feeling that dictates these words to me; I am jealous of your grief."

Further on, in the same letter, he relates an incident as interesting for its practical as for its psychological bearing:

"Today one of those things happened to me which would have made me believe in god, did I not already, for some time past, firmly believe in Him.

"I was at Stariy Yurt. All the officers who were there did nothing but play and at rather high stakes. As it is impossible for us when living in camp not to see each other often, I have very often taken part in card-playing, and, notwithstanding the importunity I was subject to, I had stood firm for a month, but one day for fun I placed a small stake: I lost. I began again: I again lost. I was in bad luck; the passion for play had awakened, and in two days I had lost all the money I had and that which Nikolay had given me (about 250 rubles), and into the bargain 500 rubles for which I gave a promissory note payable in January, '52. I must tell you that near the camp there is a native village inhabited by the Chechens. A young lad from there, Sado, used to come to the camp and play, but, as he could not count or write, there were rascals who cheated him. For this reason I have never wished to play against Sado, and I have even told him that he should not play because he was being cheated, and I have myself offered to play for him. He was very grateful to me for this and made me a present of a purse, it being the custom of these people to give each other mutual presents. I gave him a worthless gun I had bought for eight rubles. I must tell you that in order to become a `Kunak,' which means friend, it is customary to make each other presents and then to have a meal in the house of the `Kunak.' After this, according to the ancient custom of this people (which now exists almost only by tradition), you become friends for life and death, i.e., if I demand of him his money or his wife or his arms, or all that is most precious to him, he must give it to me, and I also must refuse him nothing. Sado had engaged me to come to him and become his `Kunak.' I went, and, after having regaled me in the native manner, he offered to let me choose anything in his house I wished -his arms, his horse, all....I wished to choose what was of the least value there, and I took a horse bridle mounted in silver, but he told me that I offended him and compelled me to take a sword which cost at least a hundred rubles. His father is rather a rich man, but one who keeps his money buried and does not give a penny to his son. The son, in order to have money, goes and steals horses and cows from the enemy; sometimes he has risked his life twenty times over in order to steal something not worth ten rubles, but it is not through greed he does it, but by fashion. The greatest thief is highly esteemed and called `Dzhighit,' `plucky fellow.' At one moment Sado has a thousand rubles, at another not a penny. After a visit to him I made him a present of Nikolay's silver watch, and we became the best of friends in the world. Several times he has proved his devotion to me in exposing himself to dangers for me; but this for him is nothing -it has become a habit and a pleasure.

"When I left Stariy Yurt and Nikolay remained there, Sado used to go to him every day saying he did not know what to do without me and that he felt terribly dull. By letter I communicated to Nikolay that, my horse being ill, I begged him to find one at Stariy Yurt. Sado, having learned this, made haste to come to me and to give me his horse, notwithstanding all I did to decline it.

"After my silly action of playing cards at Stariy Yurt I had not touched cards, and I was continually moralizing to Sado, who had a passion for gambling, and although he does not know the game has wonderfully good luck. Yesterday evening I occupied myself in considering my financial affairs and my debts. I was thinking what I could do to pay them. Having thought over these things, I saw that, if I do not spend too much, all my debts would not embarrass me and might be covered little by little in the course of two or three years; but the 500 rubles I had to pay this month threw me into despair. It was impossible for me to pay them, and at that moment they embarrassed me much more than did previously the 4,000 of Ogorev. The stupidity, after having contracted those debts in Russia, of coming here and making new ones cast me into despair. That evening, during my prayers, I begged God to extricate me from this disagreeable position, and prayed with much fervor. `But how can I get out of this business?' I thought on going to bed. `Nothing can happen which can give me any chance of meeting this debt.' I already represented to myself all the unpleasantness I should have to go through in consequence -how my creditor would present the note for payment, how the military authorities would demand an explanation why I do not pay, etc. `God help me,' I said, and fell asleep.

"The next day I received a letter from Nikolay, together with yours and several others. He wrote:

"`the other day Sado came to see me, he won your notes from Knoring and brought them to me. He was so glad of this prize, so happy, and kept asking so repeatedly, "What do you think? Your brother will be glad I have done this," that I was inspired with a great affection for him. This man is indeed attached to you.'

"Is it not astonishing to see one's desire fulfilled the very next day, i.e., is there anything so astonishing as the divine goodness for a being who deserves it so little as I? and is not this feature of attachment in Sado admirable? He knows I have a brother, Serge, who loves horses, and as I have promised to take him to Russia when I return, he told me that, were it to cost him his life a hundred times over, he would steal the best horse to be found in the mountains and would bring it to him.

"Please get a six-chambered revolver purchased at tula and send it to me, also a little musical-box, if this does not cost too much; they are things which will give him much pleasure."

This story is especially interesting because it shows what ground Tolstoy has traveled over in his spiritual development. It reaches from his naive mystical belief in God's interference with his gambling and monetary affairs, to the perfect religious freedom confessed by him now.

Finally, a few days after this letter was written and his official matters arranged, Tolstoy returned to Starogladovskaya. On his journey from Mozdok station, probably while waiting for horses, he wrote a long letter to his aunt, full of the most profound religious thoughts and, as usual, overflowing with tenderness to this beloved relative, and with visions and plans concerning a future of simple family happiness.

"Here are the thoughts which occurred to me. I will try to express them to you, as I was thinking of you. I find myself greatly changed morally, and this has been the case so very often. However I believe such is every one's fate. The longer one lives the more one changes: you who have got the experience tell me, is not this true? I think that the defects and the good qualities -the background of one's character -will always remain the same, but the say of regarding life and happiness must change with age. A year ago I thought I should find happiness in pleasure, in movement; now, on the contrary, rest, both physical and moral, is the state I desire. But I imagine that the state of rest without worry, and with the quiet enjoyments of love and friendship, is the acme of happiness for me! But one feels the charm of rest only after fatigue, and of the enjoyment of love only after being without it. Here I am deprived for some time both of the one and of the other; this is why I long for them so keenly. I must be deprived of them yet longer -for how long, God knows. I cannot say why, but I feel that I must. Religion and the experience I have of life, however small this be, have taught me that life is a trial. In my case, it is more than a trial, it is also the expiation of my mistakes.

"I have an inkling that the seemingly frivolous idea I had of going for a journey to the Caucasus was an idea inspired in me from above. It was the hand of God which guided me -I do not cease to be thankful for it. I feel I have become better here (though that is not saying much, since I had been very bad), and I am firmly persuaded that that can happen to me here will only be for my good, since it is God Himself who has willed thus. Perhaps the idea is too presumptuous. Nevertheless I have this conviction. for this reason I bear the fatigues and the privations of which I speak (they are not physical privations -such do not exist for a young man of twenty-three who is in good health) without suffering from them, even with a kind of pleasure in thinking of the happiness awaiting me.

"This is how I represent it to myself:

"After an indefinite number of years, neither young nor old, I am at Yasnaya, my affairs are in order, I have no anxieties, no worries. You are also living at Yasnaya. You have become a little older, but are still fresh and in good health. We lead the life we have led; I work in the morning, but we see each other almost all the day. We dine. In the evening I read to you something which does not weary you, then we talk -I relate to you my life in the Caucasus, you relate your memories of my father and my mother, you tell those `dreadful' stories which we used to listen to with frightened eyes and open mouth. We remind each other of those who have been dear to us and are with us no longer; you weep, I shall do the same, but these tears shall be sweet; we will talk about my brothers, who will come to see us from time to time; of dear Marie, who will also pass some months of the year with her children at Yasnaya, which she so likes. We shall have no acquaintances -no one will come to bore us and to gossip. It is a fine dream, but it is not yet all I allow myself to dream of. I am married. My wife is a sweet, good, loving person; she has the same affection for you as I have; we have children who call you Grandmamma; you live in the big house upstairs in the same room which Grandmother occupied in past times. All the house is arranged in the same way as it was in Papa's time, and we recommence the same life, only changing our parts. You take the character of Grandmamma, but you are yet better; I take the character of Papa, but I despair of ever deserving it; my wife the place of Mamma, the children ours; Marie the role of the Aunts, their misfortunes excepted; even Gasha takes the role of Praskovya Ilyinishna. But some one will be wanted to take the part which you have played in our family -never will there be found a soul so beautiful, so loving as yours. You have no successor. There will be three new personages who will appear from time to time on the scene, the brothers, especially the one who will often be with you; Nikolas, an old bachelor, bald, retired from service, always as good as he is noble.

"I can imagine how he will, as in the old days, tell the children stories of his own invention, how the children will kiss his greasy hands (but which are worthy of it), how he will play with them, how my wife will take pains to prepare his dish for him, how he and I will talk over common memories of days long past, how you will sit in your customary place and listen to us with pleasure; how you will call us old men, but, as of yore, Lyovochka and Nikolenka, and will scold me for eating with my fingers and him for his hands not being clean.

"Were I to be made Emperor of Russia, or were some one to give me Peru—in a word, were a fairy with a wand to come and ask me what I would like to have, with my hand on my heart I should answer, I only desire that this dream might become a reality. I know you do not like to forecast, but what harm is there in it? And it gives so much pleasure. I am afraid I have been egotistical and have made your portion of happiness too small. I am afraid that misfortunes which have passed, but have left too tender chords in your heart, will hinder you from enjoying this future which would have made my happiness. Dear Aunt, tell me, would you be happy? All I have said may happen, and hope is such a delicious thing.

"I am weeping again. Why do I weep when I think of you? They are tears of happiness; I am happy to know I love you. Were all calamities to afflict me, I should never call myself quite unhappy as long as you existed. Do you remember our parting in the chapel of Uverskaya when we left for Kazan? Then, as if by inspiration, at the moment of leaving you, I understood all you were to me, and although yet a child, I was able to make you understand what I felt by my tears and a few incoherent words. I have never ceased to love you, but the feeling I experienced in that chapel and the one I now have for you are quite different; this one is much stronger, more elevated than I have had at any other time. I must confess to you something which makes me feel ashamed, but which I must tell you in order to free my conscience. Formerly, on reading your letters, in which you spoke to me of the feelings you had for us, I thought I saw some exaggeration, but only now, on reading them, do I understand you -your unlimited love for us and your elevated soul. I am sure that any one else but you on reading this letter and the last one would have cast the same reproach on me; but I am not afraid of your doing this, you know me too well, and you know that perhaps sensibility is my only virtue. It is to this quality that I owe the happiest moments of my life. At all events this is the last letter in which I shall allow myself to express such high-flown sentiments, high-flown in the eyes of the indifferent, but you will be able to appreciate them."

In January 1852, Tolstoy returned to Starogladovsk already a non-commissioned officer, and in the following February he took part as a gunner in a campaign.

In March he was again in Starogladovsk. It is interesting to note the few thought written down by him in his diary of that time.

He realized that three passions were hindering him on his way toward the moral idea which he placed before himself. These passions were card-playing, sensuality or lust, and vanity. He thus defined and characterized these respective passions:

"(1) Passion for gambling is a greedy passion which gradually develops a craving for strong excitement. But it is possible to resist it.

"(2) The indulgence of sensual passion is a physical need, a need of the body excited by the imagination; abstinence increases the desire and makes it very difficult to contend with. the best method is labor and occupation.

"(3) Vanity: this passion is the one by which we do least injury to others and the most to ourselves."

Further on are the following reflections:

"For some time back I have been greatly tormented by regrets at the loss of the best years of my life. It may be interesting to describe the progress of my moral development ever since I have begun to feel that I could have done something good; but I will use no more words, even thought itself is insufficient.

"There are no limits for a great thought, but writers have long ago reached the absolute limits of its expression....There is something in me which compels me to believe that I am not born to be like every one."

These last words represent his first vague consciousness of his vocation. It should be observed that they were written before he had finished "Childhood," and therefore before he had been praised and congratulated on a successful literary performance. It was rather an internal independent consciousness of that mysterious power he had which has since placed him so high as one of the best representatives of the moral consciousness of humanity.

In the month of May [1852] he got leave of absence and went to Pyatigorsk, to drink the waters and to be treated for rheumatism.

From there he writes a letter to his aunt which gives a picture of his spiritual growth, and points to the incessant activity of his inner life.

"Since my journey and stay at Tiflis my way of life has not changed; I endeavor to make as few acquaintances as possible, and to avoid intimacy with those whose acquaintance I have made. People have become accustomed to my manner, they no longer importune me, and I am sure they say he is a `strange' or a `proud' man.

"It is not from pride that I behave thus, but it has come of itself. There is too great a difference between the education, the sentiments, and the point of view of those whom I meet here and my own for me to find any pleasure in their society. It is Nikolay who has the talent, notwithstanding the enormous difference there is between him and all these gentlemen, to amuse himself with them and be liked by all. I envy him this talent, but feel I cannot do the same. It is true that this kind of life is not adapted for one's amusement, and for a very long time I have not thought about pleasures. I think about being quiet and contented. some time ago I began to appreciate historical reading (it was a point of contention between us, but I am at present quite of your opinion); my literary occupations also advance in their little way although I do not yet contemplate publishing anything. I have written three times over a work I had begun a very long time ago, and In intend rewriting it once more in order to be satisfied with it. Perhaps the task will be like that of Penelope, but that does not deter me, I do not write from ambition, but because I enjoy it; I find pleasure and profit in working, and I work. Although I am far from amusing myself, as I have told you, I am also very far from being dull, as I have got something to do; besides this, I enjoy a pleasure sweeter and more elevated than any that society could have given me — that of feeling at rest in my conscience; of knowing myself, of understanding myself better than I did formerly, and of feeling good and generous sentiments stirring within me.

"There was a time when I was vain of my intelligence, of my position in this world, and of my name, but now I know and feel that if there is anything good in me, and if I have to thank Providence for it, it is a kind heart, sensitive and capable of love, that it has pleased God to give me and to keep for me.

"It is to this alone that I owe the brightest moments I have, and the fact that, notwithstanding the absence of pleasures and society, I am not only at my ease but often happy."

In a letter of June 24, 1852, to his brother Sergey, he gives characteristic details of his life in Pyatigorsk:

"What shall I tell you about my life? I have written three letters, and in each have described the same thing. I should like to tell to you the spirit of Pyatigorsk, but it is as difficult as it is to tell to a stranger in what Tula consists, which we unfortunately understand very well. Pyatigorsk is also something of a tula, but of a special kind — the Caucasian; for instance, here the chief feature is family houses and public promenades. society consists of landowners (this is the technical term for all visitors to the place), who look down upon the local civilization and of officers, who look upon the local pleasures as the height of bliss. along with me there arrived from headquarters an officer of our battery. You should have seen his delight and excitement when we entered the town! He had already told me a great deal about the distractions of watering-places, how everyone walks up and down the boulevards to the sound of music, and then, as he declared, all go to the pastry cook's, and there make acquaintance even with family houses. There is the theater, there are the clubs, every year marriages take place, duels, etc.... — in one word, it is quite a Parisian life. the moment we got out of our traveling cart, my officer put on blue trousers with fearfully tight riding-straps, boots with enormous spurs, epaulets, and so got himself up and went for a walk along the boulevard to the sound of music, then to the pastry cook's, the theater, and the club, but, so far as I know, instead of an acquaintance with family houses, and a bride who owned 1,000 serfs, he — in the course of a whole month — only made acquaintance with three shabby officers who emptied his pockets to the last penny at cards, and with one family house, in which, however, two families live in one room, and tea is served with little scraps of sugar to put in one's mouth. This officer, moreover, spent in one month about 20 rubles on porter and sweets, and purchased a bronze mirror for the adornment of his toilet table. Now he is walking in an old jacket without epaulets, is drinking brimstone water as hard as he can, and appears to be taking a serious cure; but he is astonished that, although he waked every day on the boulevard, frequented the pastry cook's and did not spare money on the theater, as well as on cabs and gloves, he could not get acquainted with the aristocracy (here in every little fort there is an aristocracy), while the aristocracy, as if to spite him, arranges rides and picnics, and he is not admitted anywhere. Almost all the officers who come here suffer a like fate, but they pretend they came only for `treatment', so they limp on crutches, wear slings and bandages, get drunk, and tell strange stories about the Cherkessi. Yet at headquarters they will again tell people how they were acquainted with family houses, and amused themselves tremendously; and every season they go to the watering-places in crowds to amuse themselves."

As is evident from his letter to his aunt, Tolstoy continued writing "Childhood" in Pyatigorsk. At the same time his self-scrutiny never stopped. On June 29th [1852] he wrote in his diary a thought which might well serve as a short expression of his present view of life:

"Conscience is our best and surest guide, but where are the marks distinguishing this voice from the other voices?...The voice of vanity speaks no less powerfully. For instance — an unrevenged offense.

"The man whose object is his own happiness is bad; he whose aim is to get the good opinion of others is bad too, he is weak; one whose object is the happiness of others is virtuous; he whose object is god is great."

This again is a thought which we find further developed in his later works:

"Justice is the least measure of virtue to which every one is bound. Anything higher than justice shows an aspiration to perfection, anything lower is (no better than) vice."

July 2nd [1852] Tolstoy finished "Childhood," and in a few days sent the manuscript to the editor of "The Contemporary" in St. Petersburg.

The original title of his first literary work was "the Story of My childhood." It was signed with the three letters LNT, and the editor for a considerable time did not know the name of the author.

In Pyatigorsk Tolstoy saw his sister and her husband. Marya was undergoing treatment for rheumatism at the watering-place. According to her account, Tolstoy was then carried away by spiritualistic experiments such as the turning of tables; he even carried this on in the boulevard, taking chairs for it from the cafe.

On August 5th [1852], Tolstoy left Pyatigorsk and returned to his outpost.

On his journey he wrote down the following interesting thought, which is one of the leading principles of his present view of life:

The future occupies us more than the present. This is a good thing if we think of a future in another world. To live in the present, i.e., to act in the best way in the present — that is wisdom."

On August 7th [1852] he arrived in Starogladovsk, and on returning to his beloved and familiar patriarchal surroundings of Cossack life, he wrote in his diary:

"Simplicity — that is the virtue I desire above all others to acquire."

On August 28th [1852] he at last received the long-expected letter from the editor of "The Contemporary." "It made me silly with joy," he noted in his diary.

Here is the celebrated letter of Nekrasov, who was the sponsor of the newly born talent:

"Sir—I have read your manuscript (Childhood). It is so far interesting, and I will print it. It seems to me, though I cannot say positively, not having seen the continuation, that the author is a man of talent. At any rate, the author's tendencies, the simplicity and lifelike character of the story are incontestable merits. If the following parts contain (as one may expect they will) more vivacity and movement, it will turn out a very good novel. Please forward the continuation. Your novel and your talent interest me. I would advise you not to conceal your identity under initials, but to appear with your full name at once, if only you are not a casual visitor in the domain of literature. I hope to hear from you. Accept my best respects,

"N. Nekrasov." [Footnote: Literary supplement to the magazine "Niva," February 1898, p337.] After this, in a month's time, followed a second letter.

"St. Petersburg, September 5, 1852.

"Sir—I wrote to you about your novel, and now I consider it my duty to add a few more words. I sent it to be printed in the ninth number of `The contemporary,' and, after reading it carefully, this time not in manuscript but in proof form, I came to the conclusion that the novel is much better than it appeared to me at first. I can positively say that the author is a man of talent. It is most important for you yourself to be convinced o this now, when you are a beginner. The number of `The Contemporary' with your contribution in it will appear tomorrow in St. Petersburg, but you will only get it in three weeks' time, not before. I will send it on to your address. I have omitted some parts of your novel, but very little; however...I have not added anything. I will write again before long in detail, but I am busy just now. I expect your answer, and beg you to forward me the continuation, if ready for the press.

N. Nekrasov.

P.S.—Though I believe I have guessed the name of the author, still I beg you to inform me of it. In fact i must know it, because of the rules of our censorship."

Of this letter Tolstoy wrote in his diary, "September 30, Received a letter from Nekrasov, but no money."

He was in need of money at that time, and expected his honorarium for his first literary work. He probably wrote about it to Nekrasov, for he received a third letter from him, of which the contents were as follows:

"St. Petersburg, October 30, 1852.

"Dear Dir—I beg to be excused for my delay in answering your last letter—I was very busy. As to the money matter, I said nothing about it in my previous letters for the following reason; our best periodicals have long made it a custom not to pay anything for the first novel to a commencing author, who is first introduced to the public by the periodical itself. All who began their literary career in `The Contemporary,' such as Goncharov, Druzhinin, Ardeyev, and others, had to submit to this custom. When it came out, my own first work, as well as one of Panayev's, had to submit to the same custom. I propose to you to do the same thing, and you can make it a condition that for your subsequent works I will pay you the best honorarium, which is given only to our best-known (very few) novel writers, that is to say, fifty rubles for sixteen pages of printed matter. I should add that I put off writing to you, because I could not make such an offer before verifying my impression by the judgment of the reading public. This judgment turned out very favorable to you, and I am very glad to make no mistake in my estimate of your first work, so I offer you now with pleasure the above-mentioned conditions of payment.

"Please let me know what you think about it. In any case I can guarantee that we will come to an agreement on this point. As your novel has had so much success, we should be very glad soon to get your second work. Please send what you have now ready for print.

"I wanted to send you the ninth number of `The Contemporary,' but unfortunately I forgot to order extra copies to be printed, and the whole of this year's issues are sold out. However, if you like, I can send you one or two reprints of your novel — this can be done by making use of the defective copies.

"Once more allow me to ask you to send us a novel, or a tale of some kind. I remain, in expectation of your answer, yours truly,

N. Nekrasov.

"P.S.—We are bound to know the names of all the authors whose works we publish, so please give me exact information concerning this point. If you wish it, no one but the publishers shall know it."

Thus, judging by Nekrasov's letter, on the 6th of September, 1852, an event of great significance occurred in this history of Russian literature: Tolstoy's first work appeared in print that day.

Tolstoy mentions this episode, with his usual modesty, in a letter to his aunt Tatyana, dated October 28, 1952.

"On my return from the baths I passed a month rather disagreeably owing to the review which the general was going to hold. Marching and discharging different kinds of guns are not very pleasant, especially as the exercise interferes with any settled habits of my life. Fortunately it did not last long, and I have again resumed my way of life, consisting in sport, writing, reading, and conversations with Nikolay. I have taken to shooting, and as I have turned out to be a tolerably good shot, this occupation takes up two or three hours a day. In Russia they have no idea how much and what excellent game is to be found here. A hundred yards from where I live I find pheasants, and in half an hour I bag two, three or four. Besides the pleasure, the exercise is good for my health, which, in spite of the waters, is not in first-rate condition. I am not ill, but I very often suffer from colds, at one time from a bad throat, at another from toothache, which I have still got; at times from rheumatism, so that at least for two days a week I keep my room. Do not think I am concealing anything from you: I am, as I have always been, of a strong constitution, but of weak health. In intend passing next summer again at the waters. If I am not cured by them, I am sure they have done me good—`there is no evil without good.' When I am indisposed, I can work, with less fear of being distracted, at another novel which I have begun. The one I sent to St. Petersburg is published in the September number of the "Sovremennik" for 1852 under the title of "Childhood". I have signed it LNT and no one except Nikolay knows who is the author. I should not like it to be known."

Marya, Tolstoy's sister, told me about the impression which this thing produced in the family circle. They lived on their estate, not far from that of Turgenev -Spasskoye, who used to visit them. On one occasion turgenev arrived at their place with the latest number of "The Contemporary," and read out a novel by an unknown author which he praised highly. Marya heard with surprise the story of events of her own family, wondering who could be aware of the intimate details of their life. How little idea they had that their own Lyovochka might be the author of this novel was shown by the fact of Nikolay Nikolayevich being suspected to have written it; the fact was he had manifested literary inclinations from his childhood, and was a splendid story-teller. Evidently his devoted aunt Tatyana knew how to keep the secret entrusted to her, and it probably leaked out only on Tolstoy's arrival from the Caucasus.

In her reminiscences Mme. Golovachov-Panayev gives an interesting description of the impression made by the first novel of Tolstoy on both readers and authors.

"On all sides praises were showered upon the hew author by the reading public, and everybody wanted to know his name. as to the men of letters, they treated the newly born talent more or less indifferently, with the exception of Panayev, who was so delighted with `The History of My Childhood' that he read it aloud every evening to some of his friends. Turgenev laughed at Panayev to his face, and said that his friends, when meeting him at the Nevsky Prospect, hid themselves for fear lest he should start reading passages from the new novel, which he had already managed to learn by heart.

"The literary critics were slow to notice Tolstoy. At least in Zelinsky's volume of literary criticisms upon Tolstoy — a carefully written book — the first critical review is mentioned as having appeared in 1854. It was printed in the monthly serial, "Memoirs of the Fatherland," in November of that year, that is to say more than two years after "Childhood" appeared in print. The article was written a propos of the publication of "Boyhood," and both novels were reviewed in it."

We quote here the short but striking critique of Tolstoy's first work:

"`Childhood' — an immense chain of various poetical and unconscious conceptions of the surroundings, enabled the author to view country life in the same poetical light. He selected from this life all that strikes the mind and imagination of the child, and with the author's powerful talent this life is presented just as the child sees it. Of the environment he introduces into his story as much as strikes the imagination of the child; that is why all the chapters of the novel, though apparently disconnected, have a perfect unity: they show the child's standpoint of the world. But the great talent of the author is further seen in what follows. It might be thought that in depicting the world from the impressions of a child one could hardly present life and mankind from other than a childish point of view. We are the more surprised to find after reading these tales, that they leave in the imagination the lifelike portraiture of father, mother, nurse, and tutor, in short the whole family, and all represented in the most poetical colors." [Footnote: "Memoirs of the Fatherland, 1854, No. 11 (Journalism).]

In proportion to the growing circulation of "The Contemporary" grew the interest of the reading public in the newly rising talent.

When copies of "The Contemporary" containing the stories "Childhood" and "Boyhood" reached Dostoyevsky in Siberia they deeply impressed him. In a letter to one of his friends in Semipalatinsk he insisted on being told who this mysterious LNT was.

But the mysterious LNT, as if of set purpose, declined to reveal his identity, and only watched from the outside the sensation he had made.

In October, while living in the village Starogladovsk, he sketched the plan for a work, "The Novel of a Russian Landlord," of which the fundamental idea was as follows:

"The hoer seeks for the realization of his ideal of happiness and justice in the conditions of country life. Not finding it, he is disillusioned and searches for it in family life. His friend suggests to him the idea that happiness does not consist in any ideal, but in one's continual work with the happiness of others for its object."

Unfortunately the plan was not realized, but the same ideas are developed in many of his following works.

In spite of his prominent position, a military career proved not to his taste. It was evidently a burden to him, and he only waited to get his commission in order to be allowed to leave.

But this promotion was slow n coming, and it looked as if the delay was intentional. When he entered the service he expected to be promoted in about eighteen months, but after nearly a year's service he received at the end of October [1852] a notice informing him that he must first serve three more years.

The reason for the delay turned out to be his negligence in sending in his papers.

In the memoirs of countess S. A. Tolstoy we read the following:

"The promotion of Tolstoy as well as his service had been full of great difficulties and failures. Before his departure for the Caucasus he lived in Yasnaya Polyana with his aunt Tatyana. He often met his brother Sergey, who at that time was very much interested in gypsies and their singing. The gypsies used to come to yasnaya Polyana, and would sing, and turn the heads of the two brothers. When Tolstoy realized that this might lead to some foolish action, he suddenly, without warning to any one, left for the Caucasus and took no papers with him."

This carelessness, or rather hatred of all kinds of business documents, more than once caused a great deal of embarrassment to Tolstoy.

In his impatience he sent a complaint to his aunt P. Yushkova, who wrote to certain high officials, and so managed to hasten his promotion to the rank of officer.

On December 24th of the same year [1852] he finished his tale "The Invaders," and two days later sent it to the editor of "The Contemporary."

In January 1853, Tolstoy's battery had to march Shamyl.

In the history of the 20th Artillery Brigade, in the description of this campaign, we find the following passage:

"At one of the guns of the chief detachment at No. 4 Battery there acted as gunner Count L. Tolstoy, afterward author of the immortal works `A Wood-Cutting Expedition,' `The Cossacks,' `War and Peace,' etc."

The detachment was settled in the fortress Groznaya where, according to Tolstoy, card-playing and carousals constantly went on.

"January 18, as stated in the history of the brigade, the detachment returned from Kurinskoye. during the last three days the seven guns of the column discharged about 800 volleys, and of these about 600 were discharged by five guns of the Battery No. 4 of the Brigade No. 20, which were under the command of Lieutenant Maklinskiy and Sub-Lieutenants Sulimovskiy and Ladizhenskiy, under whose authority count L. Tolstoy served as gunner of the 4th Division. On January 19 he was despatched with a howitzer to the fort and village of Gerzel." [Footnote: Yanzhul, "The History of the Artillery Brigade No.20."]

Tolstoy also took part n the engagement of February 18th, when he was exposed to great danger, being only a hair's breadth from death. As he was sighting a gun, the enemy's shell broke the gun-carriage and burst at his feet. Fortunately, it did him no harm.

On April 1st he returned with his detachment to Starogladovsk.

From the first steps of his literary activity Tolstoy had to come into contact with the senseless cruelty of that irresponsible power, which has now for more than a century been obstructing without intermission the free development of Russian thought. I mean what is called the censorship.

In a letter to his brother Sergey of May 1853, Tolstoy writes:

"I am writing in a hurry so please excuse this letter being short and disorderly. `Childhood' has been spoiled by the censorship, and the `Expedition' has quite perished under it. All that was good in them is deleted or mutilated. I have handed in my resignation, and one of these days, i.e., in about six weeks, I hope to go as a free man to Pyatigorsk and so on to Russia."

But getting leave of absence was no such easy matter, and in the summer of 1853, Tolstoy was again in a dangerous position, and with great difficulty was saved from being taken prisoner.

We take the description of this incident from the Memoirs of Poltoratsky:

"On June 13, 1853, I joined the 5th and 6th squads of Kurinsky and a company of battalion of the line with two guns, and we set out on an expedition for which we were drafted off [footnote 2: During the war with the mountaineers, military expeditions were very dangerous. Such operations usually took place under the protection of a strong convoy of soldiers. Naturally, all kinds of errands for those in service were combined with these movements, which for that reason were called "occasions".] to the fortress of Groznaya. After a halt at Yermolov's Knoll, the column started in marching order. When I came up to the middle of the column, which stretched out along the road, I suddenly noticed, not far from the advanced guard, to the left of the upper plain between Khan Kale and the Tower of Groznaya, a party of from twenty to twenty-five Chechen horsemen heedlessly galloping down the incline and across the line of our column.

"I rushed onward to the advanced guard and soon heard a volley of gun-shots, but before I had time to reach the 5th Company I saw at a distance of about forty yards the gun unlimbered and the linseed over it. "Put it back, put it back, our men are there!" I shouted at the top of my voice, and fortunately succeeded in stopping the discharge, which was aimed at the group of horsemen huddled together, among whom were evidently some of our men. Upon my order the 3rd platoon rushed forward, but they hardly made a few steps when the Chechens turned to flight down the plain to Argun, and then two shells were discharged in their pursuit. At the same time, from the spot where the conflict took place, Baron Rosen, deadly pale and very shaky, rode up to the column. He was almost immediately followed by a horse without a saddle, which was recognized as belonging to a platoon officer. At that moment, from behind the short bushes growing on the road, there appeared the artillery ensign Scherbachov. this young, ruddy-complexioned man of nineteen summers, who only a few months before had left the artillery school and struck everybody by his appearance of good health and his extraordinary frame and strength, at this moment shocked us all.

"He came up with deliberate but firm steps, without limping or groaning, and only when he calmly came quite near did we see how badly he had been hurt by the Chechens. Blood was spouting like a fountain from bullet wounds in his chest and both his legs, from a grape-shot wound in the abdomen, and a slash on the neck from a sabre. There was not doctor and no medical assistant with the column, so the barbers of the company had to do what they could, and one of them skillfully and quickly dressed the wounds. Meanwhile, Rosen, who had recovered a little from his fright, explained that five of them rode on in advance of the column and, at the moment of the attack by the mountaineers, Count Lev Tolstoy, Pavel Poltoratskiy and the Tartar Sado probably escaped to Groznaya, while he and Sherbachov turned their horses back to the column which was moving up behind them. `Your honor,' interrupted an artillery soldier lying on a high pile of hay, `there is another man lying on the road, and I believe he is moving.' I shouted to the third platoon, `Forward, double quick!' and rushed down the road. At a distance of about one hundred yards from the guns of the advanced guard lay a dead raven-hued horse well known to us, and almost buried beneath him was the maimed body of Pavel. [Footnote: Pavel Poltoratskiy, the nephew of the writer.] He moaned aloud, and in a heartrending voice begged to be set free from the unbearable weight of the dead horse. I sprang from my horse and, throwing the bridle to a Cossack, with one haul, which cost me an extraordinary effort, I turned over the carcass of the horse and freed the sufferer, who was bleeding to death. He had been wounded by sidearms, having received three blows on the head and four on the shoulder. The latter were so deep that they literally divided the shoulder in two, exposing a wide extent of flesh. I sent by a Cossack an order for the whole column to move on to where we were, and here the dressing of the wounds was begun, and the stretchers were made ready.

"All this happened in a few minutes, during which we managed, however, to render first help to the wounded, while the cavalry of the Groznaya fortress was induced to rush out. The commander of the garrison, seeing from the heights our column in prefect order and the Chechens disappearing in the horizon, concluded that it was useless to pursue them, and ordered the soldiers to return to the fortress. But a few horsemen, having separated from the rest, galloped onward to reach our column, which was at a distance of about four versts from Groznaya. These were Pistolkorse and several of his Circassian friends, from the friendly Chechens inhabiting the villages about Groznaya. By common efforts we constructed a kind of stretcher out of the soldiers' overcoats, placed both the wounded thereon, and started on our journey. Pistolkorse informed us the Count Lev Tolstoy and the Tartar Sado were hotly pursued by seven of the Chechens, but, thanks to the speed of their horses, they reached the gates of the fortress unhurt, leaving the enemies a trophy in the shape of a saddle cushion.

"Tolstoy and his friend Sado and three companions were impatient to arrive before the rest at Groznaya, and detached themselves from the column at Yermolov's Knoll. This maneuver is unfortunately only known too well in the Caucasus! Who of us, if mounted on a spirited horse, but obliged to move on step by step in the occasion with the infantry, would not gallop away in advance? This is a temptation to which old and young often yielded, contrary to the strict prohibitions and discipline of the authorities. And our five brave fellows did the same. Leaving the column thirty yards behind them, they agreed that two of them, for the purpose of reconnoitering, should ride along the upper recess and the remaining three by the lower road. No sooner did Tolstoy and Sado mount the ridge than they descried a crowd of Chechen riders, who from the Khan-Kalsky forest were flying straight upon them. Not having time to descend without great risk, Tolstoy shouted from above informing his comrades of the enemy's appearance, and himself with Sado galloped away at full speed along the ridge of the recess to the fortress. Those below did not at first believe the news, and not being able to see the mountaineers had lost a few minutes; when the Chenchens (seven of them started pursuing Tolstoy and Sado) appeared on the recess and rushed downward, Baron Rosen turned his horse and galloped back to the column and reached it safely. Shcherbachov followed him, but his horse, given by the Government, galloped badly, and the Chechens overtook him, wounded him, and threw him off the saddle, after which he managed to reach the column on foot. Pavel's turned out the worse case. Having caught sight of the Chechens, he instinctively rushed forward in the direction of Groznaya, but at once realized that his young, well-fed and petted horse could not in hot weather gallop the five versts dividing him from the fortress, so he abruptly turned backward at the very moment when the enemy had already come down the recess on the road, and, with his sabre unsheathed, as a last resource he intended to force his was back to the column. But one of the mountaineers aimed his carbine well, and, waiting for pavel's approach, lodged a bullet in the forehead of his raven horse; it fell down dead, burying its rider underneath. One Chechen bent from his horse toward Pavel, and snatching out of his hands the silver-mounted sabre, he pulled off the sheath, but seeing the third platoon, which was hurrying to Pavel's assistance, he slashed him with his sabre on the head and ran away. His example was followed by the remaining six mountaineers one after another, who, riding by in full speed, each dealt heavy blows on the head and shoulders of Pavel, who lay motionless under the weight of his dead horse and bleeding to death, up to the very moment of our arrival." [Footnote: "Reminiscences of V. A. Poltoratskiy." "Historical Review," June 1893, p. 672.]

In the reminiscences of Bers we learn one more detail of this affair characterizing Tolstoy:

"The peaceful Chechen Sado, with whom Tolstoy rode out that day, was his great friend. They had only recently exchanged horses. Sado had bought a young horse, and after having given it a trial, gave it to his friend Tolstoy, and himself mounted the latter's ambler, which, as it is well known, cannot gallop. When they were overtaken by the Chechens, Tolstoy could have galloped away on the spirited horse of his friend, but he did not leave him. Sado, like all mountaineers, never parted from his gun, but unfortunately this time it was not loaded. Still, he aimed it at the pursuers, and shouted threateningly at them. Judging by the actions of the pursuers, they intended to take both as prisoners, especially Sado, out of revenge; for that reason, they did not shoot. this saved them. They managed to approach Groznaya, where a vigilant sentinel noticed the pursuit afar and sounded the alarm. The appearance of the Cossacks on the road induced the Chechens to stop the pursuit."

This incident served Tolstoy as a basis for his story, "A Prisoner in the Caucasus."

But neither the dangers of the military career, nor the fits of vice and gambling which burst like hurricanes into his peaceful life, arrested the general development of Tolstoy's character, and soon after the incident just described, he writes down the following thoughts or maxims:

"Be straightforward, and, even if brusque, be frank with all, but not childishly frank without due occasion.

"Refrain from wine and women.

"Delight is rare and imperfect, but repentance is complete.

"Give thyself up completely to every work thou doest. Under a strong feeling pause always before action, but having once made thy mind up, even wrongly, act with resolution."

In the middle of July, 1853, Tolstoy went to Pyatigorsk and remained there until October, returning afterward to Starogladovsk. Evidently the monotonous service began to be very wearisome, and he was looking forward to a change in his life.

Meantime, he wrote from Pyatigorsk to his brother as follows:

"I think I have already written to you about my having handed in my resignation. God knows, however, whether it will be accepted, and when, in view of the war with Turkey. This disturbs me very much, as I have now become so accustomed to the happy thought of soon settling down in the country, that to return again to Staroglavosk and wait till eternity, as I do for everything connected with my service, it is very unpleasant."

The same frame of mind is perceptible in a letter from Staroglavosk, written in December, 1853.

"Please write to me quickly about my papers. This is necessary. When shall I arrive? [sentence emphasized] god only knows, for it will soon be a year since I have considered how I can resheath my sword, and still I cannot do it. However, as I must fight somewhere, I find it pleasanter to fight in Turkey than here, and have accordingly applied to Prince Sergey Dmitriyevich, who wrote me that he had already written to his brother, but did not know what the result might be.

"At all events, before the New Year I expect a change in my way of life, which I confess has become inexpressibly wearisome to me. Silly officers, silly conversations, nothing else. If there were only one man with whom one might have a talk from one's soul! Turgenev is right in speaking of the `irony of solitude,' when one is by oneself one becomes perceptibly stupid. Though Nikolenka took away with him -God knows why -the greyhounds (we, Epishka and I, often call him a pig for this), still, during whole days from morning till night, I go out shooting alone with a dog. And this is my only pleasure; indeed, not a pleasure, but a means of stupefaction. You get tired and hungry, and fall dead asleep, and the day is passed. If you have an opportunity, or should be in Moscow, buy for me Dickens' `David Copperfield' in English, and send me Saddler's English Dictionary, which is among my books."

During this time Tolstoy was writing his "Boyhood," and had finished a tale called "The Recollections of a Billiard-Marker," which was sent to the editor of "The Contemporary," expressing at the same time his dissatisfaction with his work, and the hurry in which it was done.

About the same time, one of his occupations was reading Schiller's biography.

After having returned from a short journey to the village of Khassav-Yurt, Tolstoy put down in his diary:

"For all the prayers I have invented, I substitute a single one, `Our Father.' All the petitions I am able to address to God are expressed in a way much more elevated and much worthier of him in the words: `Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'"

In her memoirs, the Countess S. A. Tolstaya describes another interesting incident of his Caucasian life -the attitude of Tolstoy to the St. George's Cross.

Readers are already aware that Tolstoy had distinguished himself several times in military exploits, and that he coveted the reward of the soldier's St. George's Cross. The commander of his battery, Colonel Alekseyev, was very fond of Tolstoy. After one of the engagements, several St. George's Crosses had been sent to the battery. These crosses were to be distributed next day, but on the eve of this day Tolstoy had to be on duty on the island where the guns were placed.

With his usual inclination to be carried away by everything, he, instead of going, played chess till late at night, and was not on duty. The commander of the division, Olifer, not finding him on duty, was very angry, reprimanded him severely, and put him under arrest.

The following day the crosses were distributed in the regiment, and the bands played. Tolstoy knew that he was to have had one, but, instead of enjoying the grand event, he was in prison and in despair at the time.

Another opportunity presented itself for receiving the cross, but it again proved a failure, the reason of the failure being, however, more to his credit.

Crosses were sent to the battery for good conduct in a certain engagement with mountaineers. This time Tolstoy knew beforehand that he was to get one.

But just before the distribution, Colonel Alekseyev spoke to him in the following terms: "You know that St. George's Crosses are mostly given to old, deserving soldiers, to whom they give a right to life pensions in proportions to the salary they have been receiving during service. On the other hand, crosses are given to those non-commissioned officers who are in favor with their superiors. The more crosses that are received by the non-commissioned officers, the more are taken away from the old, deserving soldiers. I will give you one if you like, but, if you are willing to decline it, it will be given to an old and very worthy soldier who deserves such a cross and who is looking forward to it as a means of livelihood." Notwithstanding his passionate desire to own the cross, Tolstoy immediately gave up his claim, and after this he had no further opportunity of getting it.

To conclude our description of Tolstoy's life in the Caucasus, we will quote a few lines from the reminiscences of an officer, M. A. Yanzhul, who served in the seventies in the village Starogladovsk, and came across traces of Tolstoy's sojourn there.

"In 1871 I was made officer of the 20th Artillery Brigade, of the same brigade and village of Starogladovsk in which seventeen years before Count L. N. Tolstoy had lived and served in the army. The village of Starogladovsk with its handsome women of striking local type, its valiant Grebenskiy Cossacks, and `the commander's house surrounded by old poplars,' described by Tolstoy in his well-known story, `The Cossacks,' had been familiar to me for more than twenty years. At my time the memory of Lev Nikolayevich, as they called him there, was still fresh in the village. They used to point out to me the old Maryana, the heroine of the story, and several old Cossack sportsmen, who knew Tolstoy personally and had with him shot pheasants, and hunted wild boars. One of these Cossacks, as all know, went on horseback in the eighties from the village to Yasnaya Polyana to pay Tolstoy a visit. At the battery I met Captain Trolov (now deceased), who had know Tolstoy as a quarter-gunner, and related incidentally that even then the Count possessed the marvelous capacity of a story-teller who carried away the listeners by his interesting conversation." [Footnote: "Notices of L. N. Tolstoy," by M. A. Yanzhul, "Russian Olden Times," February 1890, p.335.]

Further on Yanzhul gives a short sketch of the character of Tolstoy's superior, the commander of his battery:

"Nikita petrovich Alekseyev, the commander of the battery in which Count Tolstoy served, was loved and respected by all for his kindness. He enjoyed the reputation of a scholarly `artillerist,' a universalist, was distinguished for his extreme piety, and was particularly fond of going to church, where he spent hours kneeling and making bows. To this is to be added, that he had lost one ear, which a horse had bitten off. One of his peculiarities was this: he could not bear to see officers drinking, especially young ones. In accordance with the customs of the good old times, all officers dined with their commander. And here Tolstoy, by way of a joke, often pretended to want some drink. On these occasions Petrovich, in a solemn fashion, persuaded him not to take any, and used to offer some sweets instead of spirits."

The description of Tolstoy's life in the Caucasus would not be complete if we omitted his two comrades, the dogs Bulka and Milton. He tells their history in his "Books For Reading," in a series of charming idyllic pictures of Caucasian life with which almost all Russian school-children are familiar.

At last there arrived the long-expected order, promoting Tolstoy to the rank of an officer.

January 13, 1854, he passed his officer's examination, which at that time was a meaningless formality, and began to prepare for his departure.

January 19th he started fro Russia. February 2nd he arrived in Yasnaya Polyana. On a journey, which took in those days about a fortnight, he met with a very violent snowstorm that probably gave him the subject for his tale of that name. The short time of his stay in Russia he spent with his brothers, his aunt, and his friend Perfilliyev.

An order to join the Danube army was already awaiting him, and he accordingly arrived in Bucharest, march 14, 1854.

Having finished the description of the Caucasian period of Tolstoy's life, I think it will interest the reader if I give his own opinion of that period such as it is at present. Tolstoy looks back upon that time with pleasure, considering it one of the best periods of his life, notwithstanding all his lapses from his then vaguely realized ideal. He thinks that his subsequent military service, and especially his literary activity, were injurious to his character, and that it was only his return to the country and his work at school with the peasant children that helped him to feel as if he were born again and renewed his spirit within him.

8. Chapter VIII
The Danube and Sebastopol

Before entering upon the narrative of this period, I must say a few words concerning the chain of political events which brought about the changes in Tolstoy's life.

The reign of Nicholas was approaching its end. Despotism was at its height, and the oppression of both the higher classes and the masses proviked a desire to revolt. As always happens, the government, instinctively feeling the threatening storm, turned recklessly to adventures abroad. The potentially accumulated energy of violence is thus discharged in the bloody slaughter of an obedient herd of soldiers, trained for the purpose of making them able and willing tocome to the rescue of governments in the difficult moments of their criminal existence. The populace and the higher classes also half consciously participate in such massacres, just as a man in misery seeks to stay his anguish by drinking.

Thus, ruined and demoralized by the tyranny of Nicholas I, on November 4, 1853, russia declared war with turkey. At first the russian army scored successes, entering the turkish dominion and occupying Moldavia, and the Russian Black Sea fleet, under the command of the celebrated Nakhimov, destroyed the turkis fleet at Synope.

At this juncture two Eruopean powers, France and England, interfered, and then began the well-known Crimean campaign, which was marked by the heroic defence of Sebastopol, a feat unprecedented in history. As is usual in such a crisis, along with the noisy movements of outward life, the inner life ran its course in the hearts of the best men, both of the people and of the higher classes, and took shape in new ideals — in liberal social reforms of a certain kind, which, however, so far only faintly reflected the needs of the people. These two agencies, the direction of the energy of the people into heroic military exploits and the fact of the national spiritual life being stirred by the new ideals, gave a character to the creative activity of Tolstoy during this period.

Almost from the first these two great phenomena came into opposition one with the other, and consequently Tolstoy's works took that form of high poetic tragedy which is so marked in his tales of Sebastopol.

Tolstoy, as has been stated above, was sent out to the army of the Danube, after having seen his relations.

On reaching Bucharest, he writes a letter to his aunt Tatyana, in the shape of a diary, describing in a concise way the journey and first impressions on arriving.

"From Kursk I have made about 2,000 versts instead of the 1,000 I intended, and I went through Poltava, Balta, Kishinev, and not by Kiev, which would have been our of the way. As far as the province of Cherson I had excellent sleighing, but there I was obliged to give up sleighing, and to do a thousand versts in a perekladnaya [Footnote: Term indicating a travelling vehicle without springs which was ordinarily used for travelling in russia, and is somewhat similar to a small working cart.] over dreadful roads, as far as the frontier, and from the frontier to Bucharest it is impossible to describe the state of the roads; in order to understand it, one must have tasted the pleasure of doing a thousand versts in a cart smaller and worse than those in which we transport manure. Not understanding a word in Moldavian, and finding no one who understood Russian, and moreover paying for eight horses instead of two, although my journey lasted only nine days, I spent more than 200 rubles, and arrived almost sick from fatigue.

"19th March.—The prince was not here, but he arrived yesterday, and I have just seen him. He received me better than I expected, really as a relation. He embraced me; he has invited me to come to dine with him every day, and he wants to keep me attached to his person, but that is not yet decided.

"Pardon me, dear aunt, for writing so little—I have not yet collected my ideas—this big and beautiful town, all these introductions, the Italian opera, the French theater, the two young Gorchakovs, who are very nice fellows...so that I have not remained for two hours at home, and I have not thought of my occupations.

"22nd March.—Yesterday I learned that I am not to remain with the prince, but am going to Oltenitsa to rejoin my battery."

Two months later he agains writes, but now in another frame of mind:

"While you imagine me exposed to all the dangers of war, I have not yet smelled Turkish powder, and I am staying very quietly at Bucharest, walking about, enjoying music, and taking ices. Indeed all this time, with the exception of two weeks I passed at Oltenitsa, where I was attached to a battery, and a week I passed journeying about Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bessarabia by order of the General Serzhputovsky , to whom I am not attached for special commissions, I have remained at Bucharest, and, to speak the truth, the kind of life which I lead here, being, as it is, somewhat dissipated, quite idle, and very expensive, displeases me infinitely. Before this it was the service which kept me here, but now I have remained for three weeks owing to a fever I contracted during my journey, but from which, thank God, I am now sufficiently recovered to join—in two or three days' time—my general, who is in camp near Silistria. Speaking of my general, he appears to be a very good fellow, and, although we know each other very little, to be well disposed toward me. What is, movover, pleasant is that his staff is composed for the most part of gentlemen. The two sons of the Prince Serge, whom I have found here, are nice fellows, especially the younger, who, although not particularly clever, has much nobility of character and a very kind heart. I like him very much."

We next quote from a letter which refers to events on the Danube, though written from Sebastopol. As the reader will notice, Tolstoy first addresses his aunt tatyana, and then his brother Nikolay. To our mind, this letter should form a page in a history of Russia.

"I will speak to you of the past, of my memories of Silistria. I saw there so much that was interesting, poetic, and touching that the time I passed there will never be effaced from my memory. Our camp was stationed on the other side of the Danube, i.e., on the right bank, on the very elevated ground among beautiful gardens belonging to Mustafa Pasha, the governor of Silistria. The view from this place is not only magnificent but of the greatest interest for all of us; not to mention the Danube, its isles and its shores, some occupied by us, others by the Turks, one saw the town, the fortress, and the little forts of Silistria as it were on the palm of one's hand. One heard the booming of cannon and guns unceasingly, day and night, and with a glass one could distinguish the turkish soldiers. It is true, it is a curious kind of pleasure to see people killing each other, nevertheless every evening and every morning I got on to my cart and remained for whole hours observing, and I was not the only person who did. The spectacle was really fine, especially at night. During the night my soldiers generally undertook trench work, and the Turks threw themselves at them in order tohinder them, then you should have seen and heard the fusillade. The first night I passed in the camp this terrible noise awoke and frightened me; I thought an assault had commenced, and I got my horse ready very quickly; but those who had already passed some time in the camp told me that I had only to keep quiet, that this cannonade and fusillade were ordinary things, and that they joikingly called them `Allah.' Then I lay down again, but being unable to sleep I amused myself by counting, watch in hand, the number of discharges of cannon I heard, and I counted 110 explosions in the space of one minute. Yet all this at close quarters had not the frightful character it would appear to have. At night, when nothing could be seen, it was a question of who could burn most powder, and, with these thousands of cannon-shots, a score and a half of men at most were killed on both sides. You will allow me, dear aunt, to address myself in this lettter to Nikolay, for since I have begun to give details of war, I should like to continue and address myself to a man who understands and can give you explanations of what may be obscure to you. Well, this was an ordinary spectacle which we had every day, and in which, when I was sent with orders into the trenches, I took my share; but we also had extraordinary spectacles such as the one the day before the assault, when a mine of 240 lbs. of powder was exploded under one of the enemy's forts. On the morning of this day the prince had been to the trenches with all his staff (as the general I am attached to belongs to it, I was there too) in order to give definite instructions in view of the assault of the next day. The plan, too long for me to be able to explain it here, was so well combined, and everything had been so well anticipated, that no one doubted as to its success. By the bye, I ought, besides, to tell you that I am beginning to feel admiration for the prince (you ought to hear what is said about him among the officers and the men; not only have I never heard any evil spoken of him, but he is universally worshipped). I saw him under fire for the first time that morning.

"You should see his figure, somewhat ridiculous with his high stature, his hands behind his back, his cap on the back of his head, his spectacles, and the way he has of speaking like a turkey cock. One could see he was so absorbed in the general progress of affairs that the shells and bullets did not exist for him; he exposed himself to danger with such simplicity that one would have thought he was unconscious of it, and involuntarily one was more afraid for him than for oneself; and then he gave his orders with such clearness and precision, and at the same time was always affable with every one. He is a great, i.e., a capable and honest man, as I understand the words; a man who has devoted all his life to the service of his country, and not through ambition, but as a duty. I will tell you a feature of his connected with the history of this assault I had begun to describe. In the afternoon of the same day that they exploded the mine, about 600 pieces of artillery opened fire on the fort which they wished to take, and this was continued all night. It was one of those sights, and it caused on of those emotions which one never forgets. In the evening again the prince, amid all the commotion, went to sleep in the trenches, in order himself to direct the assault which was to commence at three o'clock of the same night. We were all there, and, as is always the case on the eve of a battle, we all pretended to be no more concerned with the morrow than with any ordinary day, and I am certain that all, in the depth of their hearts, felt a little nervous, and not even a little but very much so, at the idea of this assault. As you are aware, Nikolay, the time which precedes an engagement is the most unpleasant—it is only then that one has time for fear, and fear is one of the most disagreeable of feelings. Toward the morning, the nearer the moment approached the more did this feeling diminish, and toward three o'clock, when we were all waiting to see fired the batch of rockets which were to be the signal for the attack—I was in such good spirits that, had they come to tell me the assault would not take place, it would have greatly grieved me. And lo and behold, exactly an hour before the time fixed for the assault, an aide-de-camp arrived from the Field-Marshal with the order to raise the siege of Silistria! I may say, without fear of being mistaken, that this news was received by all, men, officers, and soldiers, as a veritable misfortune, the more so that it was known through spies who often come to us from Silistria and with whom I myself often had opportunity to talk—it was known that, if once this fort were captured—an event which no one doubted—Silistria could not hold out for more than two or three days. Do not you think that if this news was caluclated to pain any one it must have been the prince, who throughout all this campaign had done everything for the best, yet saw in the very middle of the action of the Field-Marshal arrive on top of him and spoil the whole thing? And then, having in this assault his only chance of repairing our reverses, he receives a counter order from the Field-Marshal at the instant of commencing. Well, the prince had not a moment's ill-feeling, he who is so impressionable; on the contrary, he was glad to be able to avoid the slaughter, for which he would have had to accept the responsibility, and during all the time of the retreat, which he himself directed, though he did not go back till the last soldier was through it, and which was accomplished with remarkable order and precision, he was in better spirits than he had ever been before. What greatly contributed to his good humor was the emigration of about 7,000 families of Bulgarians whom we took with us, mindful of the ferocity of the Turks—a ferocity in which, notwithstanding my incredulity, I was compelled to believe. The moment we had abandoned the various Bulgarian villages we had occupied, the Turks made away with every one who remained with the exception of women young enough for their harems. There was a village to which I had gone from the camp to get milk and fruit, in which the population had been exterminated in the way I have described. But no sooner did the prince communicate to the Bulgarians that those who desired could cross the Danube with the army and become Russian subjects, than all the country rose, and all, with their women, children, horses, and cattle approached the bridge; but as it was impossible to take them all, the prince was compelled to refuse those who came the last, and you should have seen their sorrow. He received all the deputations which came from these poor people, he talked with each of them, he endeavored to explain to them the impossibility of the thing, he offered to let them cross without their wagons and their cattle, undertaking to maintain the people themselves until they should reach Russia, and to pay out of his own pocket for private ships to transport them; in a word, doing all he possibly could to give help to these people.

"Yes, dear aunt, I would greatly desire the realization of your prophecy. The thing which I most crave is to be the aide-de-camp of a man like him, whom I love and whom I esteem from the depth of my heart. Good-by, and, dear aunt, I kiss your hands."

In the midst of these strong and new sensations, Tolstoy does not forsake his regular habit, that of self-reproach; this is reflected in the entries of his diary.

"7th July—I have no modesty. This is my great deficiency. What am I? One of the four sons of a retired lieutenant-colonel, left from the age of seven without parents, and who, under the guardianship of women and strangers, received neither a worldly nor scientific education, and then became emancipated at seventeen; a man without any great wealth, without any social position, and, above all, without principle, who has let his affairs get out of order to the last extremity, who has passed the best years of his life without aim or pleasure; who has finally banished himself to the Caucasus in order to run away from his debts, and, above all, from his habits, and who, having taken advantage of some connection or other which had existed between his father and a commander-in-chief, has got himself transferred, at the age of twenty-six, to the Army of the Danube as lieutenant, with hardly any means but his pay (having to use such means as he possesses for the payment of his remaining debts), without patrons, without knowledge of worldly manners, without knowledge of the service, without practical capacities, but with enormous vanity. Yes, such is my social position. Let us see what is my personality.

"I am ugly awkward, uncleanly, and, in the worldly sense, uneducated; I am irritable, a bore to others, rude, intolerant, and as bashful as a child. I am almost completely ignorant. What I do know I have learned anyhow, independently, by snatches, incoherently, in a disorderly way, and all comes to—so little. I am self-indulgent, irresolute, inconstant, stupidly vain and hot-headed, as are ll people with a weak character. I am not brave, I am not methodical in my life, and am so lazy that for me idleness has become almost a necessary habit.

"I am intelligent, but my intelligence has not yet been thoroughly tried on anything. I have neigher a practical nor a worldly nor a business intelligence."

"I am honest, i.e., I love what is right, have got myself into the habit of loving it; and when I deviate from it I am dissatisfied with myself, and return to it with pleasure; but there are things I like more than what is right—fame. I am so vain, and so little has this feeling been gratified that often I am afraid lest, between fame and virtue, I might, if the choice were given me, choose the former.

"Yes, I am arrogant, because I am inwardly proud, though I am shy in society."

At times a softened mood would come over him, and he would write with some poetic feeling, as the following entry in his diary shows:

"After dinner I leaned upon the balcony and looked at my favorite lamp which gleams so nicely through the foliage. Just then, after a few storm-clouds which have today passed and moistened the ground, there lingered one big cloud covering the whole of the southern portion of the sky, and there was a peculiar pleasant lightness and humidity in the air. The landlady's pretty daughter, like myself, was reclining in the window leaning on her elbows. A barrel-organ came along the street, and when the sounds of a good ancient waltz, after gradually retreating, completely vanished, the girl gave a sigh from the depths of her soul, rose quickly, and left the window. I felt so happy that I could not help smiling, and continued a long time gazing at my lamp—the light of which was ever and anon hidden as the wind moved the branches of the tree—gazing at the tree, at the fence, at the sky; and everything assumed a beauty such as I had never seen it wear before."

The unsuccessful campaign of the Army of the Danube, the dull life of the staff, all this wasunsatisfactory to tolstoy. He wanted more vigorous activity, greater excitement, and he begged to be sent to join the army in the Crimea.

After the retreat from Silistria (July 20th) he went to the Crimea. His journey lay through the towns of Tekuchi, Berlad, Yassi, Kherson, and Odessa. He reached Sebastopol November 7, 1854. On his way he fell ill and was in a hospital, which explains the length of time he spent on his journey.

On his arrival he was attached to the 3rd Light Battery of the 14th Artillery Brigade.

Here he was overwhelmed with such a flood of new impressions that for some time he could not master them. At the end of a fortnight, on November 20th, he writes to his brother Seryozha:

"Dear Friend Seryozha: I have behaved very ill to you all ever since my leave began, and how this happened I myself do not know; at one time a distracted life, at another the dulness of my life and disposition, at another war, at another some one in the way, and so on; but the chief reason has been a distracted life, full of outside interferences. So much have I learned, experienced, and felt during this year that one positively does not know what to begin to describe, or whether one will be able to describe it as one would like. To aunty I wrote about Silistria, but to you and Nikolenka I will not write like that—I would like to communicate with you so that you may understand me as I wish. Silistria is now an old song; now it is all Sebastopos, about which I dare say you have yourself read with a beating heart, such as I had four days ago. Well, how can I tell you all that I saw there, and where I went, and what I did, and what the French and English say -the wounded prisoners -and whether they suffer and suffer much, and what heroes our foes are, especially the English. We can talk over all this some day at Yasnaya or Pirigovo; and about much of it you will learn from myself through the press. I will explain later what I mean, but now I will give you an idea of the position of our affairs at Sebastopol. The town is besieged from one side only -from the south side -on which, when the enemy approached, we had no fortifications. Now we have on this side more than 500 guns of enormous calibre, and several lines of earthworks, positively impregnable.

"I passed a week in the fortress, and up to the last day kept losing my way among these labyrinths of batteries as in a forest. the enemy has for more than three weeks in one place been only 180 yards off, and does not advance; at his slightest forward movement he is covered with a hail of shot.

"The spirit of the troops is beyond description. There was not so much heroism in the time of ancient Greece. Kornilov, when making the round of the troops, instead of, `I greet you, boys!' said: `One must die, boys; will you die?' and the troops shouted, `We will die, your Excellency! Hurrah!' and this was not mere show, but on the face of each one could see that it was not in jest but in earnest, and 22,000 men have already fulfilled this promise.

"A wounded and almost dying soldier told me how they attacked the 24th French Battery and were not reinforced; he wept aloud. A company of marines almost revolted because they wanted to relieve them from a battery on which they had remained thirty days under shell fire. Soldiers snatch the fuses out of the shells. Women carry water to the bastion for the soldiers, and many of them are killed and wounded. Priests with crosses go to the bastions and read prayers under fire. In one brigade, the 24th, there were 160 men wounded who would not leave the ranks. Wonderful time! Now, however, after the 24th, we have somewhat quieted down, and it has become splendid at Sebastopol. The enemy has almost ceased to fire, and all are convinced that he will not take the town; indeed, it would be impossible. There are three possible events: either he will make a general attack, or else he is diverting us with false works, or else fortifying himself in order to winter. The first is the least and the second the most probable. I did not succeed in being even once in action; but I thank God that I have seen these men and live in this glorious time. The bombardment of the 5th will remain the most brilliant and glorious exploit, not only of Russian but of universal history. More than 1,500 guns for two days played upon the town, and they not only did not force it to surrender, but they did not even silence one gun in two hundred of our batteries. It seems to me that if this campaign is not favorably looked upon in Russia, posterity will place it higher than all others. Do not forget that with equal, even inferior forces, with bayonets alone, and with the worst troops of the Russian army (such is the 6th Corps), we are fighting with a more numerous foe, possessing a fleet and armed with 3,000 guns, excellently made rifles, and with his best troops. I do not mention the superiority of the enemy's generals.

"Our army alone can stand and conquer under these conditions, and conquer shall yet, this I am convinced of. You should see the French and English prisoners (especially the latter): each one is better than the last, I mean morally and physically; they are a splendid people. The Cossacks say that even they feel pity in sabring them, and by their side you should see any one of our riflemen: small, lousy, and shrivelled up, in a way.

"Now I will tell you how it is that you will learn from me through the press about the xplooits of these lousy and shrivelled up heroes. In our artillery staff office, consisting, as I think I wrote to you, of very good and honorable men, the idea has been started of publishing a military periodical for the purpose of maintaining a good spirit in the troops, a cheap review (at three rubles), and in popular language, so that the soldiers could read it. We have written a prospectus of the paper and presented it to the Prince. The idea pleased him very much, and he submitted the prospectus and a specimen number, which we had composed, to the Emperor for sanction. The money for the publication has been advanced by myself and Stolypin. They have made me editor, together with a certain Mr. Konstantinovich, who has published `The Caucasus,' and is an experienced man in this line. In the review will be published descriptions of battles, not so dry and untruthful as in other papers, exploits of bravery, biograpnies and obituaries of good men, and particularly of the rank and file; military stories, soldiers' songs, popular articles about engineering and artillery, arts, etc. This thing pleases me very much; first, I like this occupation, and, secondly, I hope that the periodical will be useful and not at all bad. All this remains presumptive until we get the Emperor's answer, and I confess I am anxious about it. In the trial copy we sent to St. Petersburg we carelessly inserted two articles, one by myself and the other by Rostovtsev, which are not quite orthodox. for this business I shall require 1,500 rubles, which are lying in the office, and which I have asked Valeryan to send to me. As I have already gossipped this to you, tell it to him too. Thank God I am well, and I have been living happily and pleasantly from the very time I returned from abroad. In general, my life in the army is divided into two periods: abroad a bad one, where I was ill and poor and lonely, and at home a pleasant one. Now I am well and have got good comrades, but I am still poor, for money is soon gone.

"I do not write, but I instinctively feel how Aunty is bantering me. One thing troubles me: this is the fourth year of my life without female society; I may become quite uncouth and unfit for family life, which I so enjoy.

"Well, good-by. God knows when we shall see each other, unless you and Nikolenka take it into your heads some day, when out hunting, to look in from Tambov at our headquarters."

I have given the whole of this remarkable letter, because it shows how young in his spirit Tolstoy was at that time, how liable to be carried away by his feelings, and how this stood in the way of any clear understanding of what was going on around him. But glimpses of vivid consciousness and prophetic inspiration appear with all the greater force in the background.

However, these powerful outward impressions did not occupy the whole of tolstoy's soul, and while alone, writing his diary, possibly in the tents of the 4th battalion, he was still the same as he had always been and as he is now, ever seeking for and striving after the ideal. His frame of mind at that time found vent in the following poetical form:

"When, oh when, shall I at last cease to pass my time without aim or enthusiasm, and to feel a deep wound in my heart without knowing how to heal it? Who made this wound? God alone knows, but from birth I have been bitterly tormented by a sense of the insignificance which threatened my future and by painful sadness and doubt." [Footnote: We translate the verses in prose.—Translator]

He moved to Simferopol on November 23rd.

January 6, 1855, he writes a pacifying letter to his aunt Tatiana:

"I have not taken part in the two bloody battles which have taken place in the Crimea, but I went to Sebastopol immediately after the battle of the 24th, and I passed a month there. They no longer fight -they devastate the country because of the winter, whick is exceptionally severe, especially at the present moment; but the siege goes on. What will be the issue of this campaign? God only knows; but, in any case, the Crimean campaign must come to an end in three or four months one way or another. But, alas! the end of the Crimean campaign does not mean the end of the war, which, on the contrary, it appears will last very long. I had mentioned in my letters to Sergey, and, I think, to Valerian, an occupation which I had in view, and which greatly attracted me; now that there is an end of the notion, I may explain it. I had the idea of founding a military journal. This plan, at which I had worked with the cooperation of many very distinguished persons, was approved by the Prince and sent to the Emperor for confirmation; but, as in our country there are intrigues against everything, people were found who were afraid of the competition of this journal; and perhaps, too, the idea did not fall in with the views of the Government. The Emperor has refused.

"I confess this disappointment gave me infinite pain, and has greatly altered my plans. If god will that the Crimean campaign should terminate in our favor, and I do not receive an appointment with which I can be satisfied, and if there be no war in Russia, I shall leave the army and go to St. Petersburg to the Military Academy. This plan occurred to me, first, because I should not like to abandon literature, with which it is impossible for me to occupy myself in this camp life; and, secondly, because it seems to me I am beginning to become ambitious, or rather, not ambitious, but I should like to do some good, and, in order to do that, it is necessary to be something more than a sublieutenant; thirdly, because I should like to see you all and all my friends. Nikolay writes tha tTurgenev has made the acquaintance of Marie. I am very glad of it; if you see him, tell Varinka that I beg him to embrace him on my baahelf, and to tell him that, although I know him only by correspondence, I should have had a lot of things to say to him."

The life which followed is very well pictured in his letter to his brother, written in May 1855. In it he gives a chronological summary of the events of his military life during the preceding winter of 1854-55.

"Although you probably know through our folks where I am and what I have been doing, I will repeat to you my adventures since Kishinev, the more so that my story may be interesting to you, and you will learn from it in what phase I now am -for it seems that my fate is always in some phase or other. From Kishinev I petitioned to be transferred to the Crimea, partly for the purpose of seeing this war, and partly in order to tear myself away from the staff of Serzhputovskiy, which I did not like, but chiefly from patriotism, which at that time I confess took hold of me strongly. I did not request to be sent to any particular point, but left the authorities to dispose of my fate. In the Crimea I was attached to a battery in Sebastopol itself, where I passed a month very pleasantly in the circle of simple and kind comrades, who are especially engaging during real war and danger. In December our battery was removed to Simferopol, and there I lived six weeks in the comfortable home of a landowner, going to Simferopol to dance and play the piano with young ladies, and, with the Government officials, to shoot deer on the Chaterdag. In January there was another redistribution of officers, and I was transferred to a battery encamped at ten versts from Sebastopol. There j'ai fait la connaissance de la mere de Kousma [Footnote: A jocular translation into French of a Russian slang byword "Kousma's Mother," popularly used to indicate a difficult plight.—Translator]—the nasty circle of officers in the battery, the commander, though a kind creature, yet harsh and coarse; no comfort, cold earth huts; not one book, not one man with whom one could speak. Here I received 1,500 rubles for the periodical, the sanction of which had already been refused; and here I lost 2,500 rubles, thus proving to the whole world that I am still a frivolous fellow, although the above circumstances may be accepted comme circonstances attenuantes. [Footnote: French for extenuating circumstances.—Translator] But still it was very, very disgraceful. In March it became warmer, and a good fellow and most excellent man arrived and joined the battery, one Brenevskiy; so I began to recover myself, and on the first of April my battery, during the actual bombardment, went to Sebastopol, where I quite recovered myself. there, until May 15th, although in serious danger, having been on duty four successive days in a battery of the 4th bastion, yet we had the spring and excellent weather, a mass of impressions and of people, all the conveniences of life, and the company of well-bred men like ourselves, so that these six weeks will remain one of my pleasantest recollections. On May 15th Gorchakov, or the commander of the artillery, was pleased to intrust me with the formation and command of a mountain detachment at Belbek, twenty versts from Sebastopol, with which I am up to now very well satisfied in many respects.

"This is a general description. In the next letter I will write about the present more in detail."

To this short description we may add that its jocular tone does not harmonize with the serious thoughts and feelings which beset him at the time.

In his diary of march 5, 1855, he puts down the following prophecy about himself:

"A conversation about divinity and faith suggested to me a great, a stupendous idea, to the realization of which I feel myself capable of devoting my life. this idea is the foundation of a new religion corresponding to the present state of mankind -the religion of Jesus but purified from dogma and mysticism, a practical religion, not promising future bliss, but giving bliss upon earth. I feel that this idea can be realized only by generations consciously looking toward it as a goal. One generation will hand on the idea to the next and, some day, enthusiasm or reason will bring it into being. To act with a deliberate view to the religious union of mankind, this is the leading principle of the idea which I hope will command my enthusiasm."

Of course when a man first writes the above words, and after that is engaged for fifty years, with the resolution and ability shown by Tolstoy, in elaborating the means of realizing his idea, we may be sure his place was not in the artillery.

He had a vague consciousness of this, and from time to time the idea struck him that he was born not for a military career, but for a literary life.

Moreover, he never wholly forsook his literary activity.

On his way from Romania to Sebastopol he went on with "The Wood-Cutting Expedition"; in Sebastopol he began to write "Youth" and "Tales from Sebastopol."

From the 11th to the 14th of April [1855] he remained in bastion No. 4. The sense of danger was a spiritual awakening to him, and he addresses God with the following prayer:

"Lord, I thank thee for Thy continual protection. How surely Thou leadest me to that which is right! and what an insignificant creature should I be wert Thou to abandon me! Leave me not, Lord; direct me, and not for the satisfaction of my poor desires, but for the attainment of the eternal and might object of existence, unknown to me and yet recognized by me."

On August 4, 1855, Tolstoy took part, although indirectly, in the battle of the Black River. He hastens to reasure his relatives, and in a letter to his brother, of August 7, 1855, says, by the way:

"I am writing you a few lines to reassure you about myself with reference to the battle on the 4th, in which I took part and was not hurt; but I did not do anything, because my mountain artillery had no occasion to fire."

At the same time, as is seen from Tolstoy's correspondence with Nekrasov, he kept his eye on Russian literature, and actively supported the editors of "The Contemporary"; in fact he got together at Sebastopol a group of contributors. This is what he wrote to Nekrasov:

"Respected Nikolay Alekseyevich -You must have already received my articie, `Sebastopol In December,' and the promise of Stolypin's article. Here it is, notwithstanding the wild orthography of this manuscript, which you will yourself get corrected, if it is to be published without erasures by the censor, which the author has tried his best to avoid. You will, I hope, agree that such military articles are unfortunately very scarce with us or else do not get published. Perhaps, by this same courier, an article by Saken may be sent, of which I say nothing, and which I hope you will not print. The corrections in Stolypin's article in black ink are made by Horulef with his left hand, his right hand being wounded. Stolypin requests that they should be put in footnotes. Please insert, if possible, mine as well as Stolypin's in the June issue. Now we are all together, and the literary society of the fallen Journal is beginning to be organized, and, as I told you, you will receive from me every month two, three, or four articles of a contemporary military character. The best contributors, Bakunin and Rostvortsev, have not yet had time to finish their articles. Be so kind as to direct your answer to me, and in general write by this courier, an adjutant of Gorchakov's, and by the others who are continually going to and fro between you and us." [Footnote: The Literary Reminiscences of J. Panayev.] Sebastopol, april 30, 1855.

On June 15th [1855], in Bakhchisaray, he received a letter from Panayev and a copy of "The Contemporary," with his printed tale "Sebastopol In December." From this letter he learned that the tale had been read by the Emperor Aleksandr II.

Evidently it had made a deep impression on the Emperor, for he ordered it to be translated into French. In the same month of June [1855] Tolstoy finished the tale "The Wood-Cutting Expedition," and sent it to "The Contemporary."

In July he completed and sent to the editors his new tale, "Sebastopol In May."

In his letter from St. Petersburg, dated August 28, 1858, Panayev relates the following incident in connection with this story:

"In my letter, delivered to you by Stolypin, I wrote you that your article had been passed by the censorship with a few slight changes, and begged you not to be angry with me, because it was necessary to add a few words at the end so as to mollify an expression. Nearly 3,000 copies of the article, "Night In Sebastopol" [as "Sebastopol In May" was then called], were printed, when the censor prevented publication of the number by ordering a copy to be brought him from the printing-office; hence the August issued appeared on the 18th of January, and during my absence -I went to Moscow for a few days -it was presented to the president of the committee of Censors, Pushkin, whom you should know in connection with Kazan. If you know Pushkin, you may imagine what followed. Pushkin became wild; he was very angry with the censor as well as with me for presenting such articles to the censorship, and he made corrections in it himself. In the meantime I returned to St. Petersburg, and was horror-struck when I saw the changes made. I did not want to print the article at all, but Pushkin, in an interview with me, said that I must publish it in its transformed shape. Nothing could be done, and your mutilated article will appear in the September number, omitting the letters L.N.T., which I should hate to see at the bottom of it after that. But the article was so good that even after it was completely destroyed by the censor I gave it to Milutin, Krasnokutskiy, and others to read. Everybody likes it very much, and Milutin wrote me that I should commit a sin by depriving readers of this article and by not publishing it even in its present form.

"At any rate, do not blame me because your article has been published in such a shape. I was forced to do it. If it is god's will that we should meet some day, for which I long, I will clear up the matter to you. Now I will say a few words in regard to the impression generally made on us, and on everybody else to whom I have read it, by your story, `Night,' in its original shape...Censorship is out of the question here.

"Everybody thinks this story more forcible than the first one, owing to the minute and profound analysis of the emotions and feelings of men who are constantly in the face of death, owing to the accuracy with which army officers are depicted, their intercourse with members of the nobility, and their mutual relations. In short, everything is perfect -described in a masterly way; but the whole thing is so full of bitterness, everything is so keen and biting, merciless and cheerless, that at this moment, when the scene of this story is held almost sacred, it hurts those that are far from it. The very events of the story might make a disagreeable impression.

"`The Wood-Cutting Expedition,' with its dedication to Turgenev, will also appear in September (turgenev begged me to thank you very much for your remembering him and being so attentive)....Even in this story, which passed three censors -the Caucasian censor (Secretary of State Butkov), the military censor (Major-General Stefen), and one civil censor (consisting of Pushkin and us) -the types of officers have been tampered with, and unfortunately some parts have been struck out."

In September Nekrasov wrote to Tolstoy:

"Dear Sir Lev Nikolayevich -I arrived in Petersburg in the middle of August to find `The Contemporary' in a very sad plight.

"the shocking state to which your article [Footnote: Evidently he means tolstoy's tale "Sebastopol In May," 1855.] was brought turned my last drop of blood. At this moment I cannot think of it without pain and indignation. Your work, to be sure, will not be lost....It will always bear witness to the power capable of such deep and sober truth in circumstances in which it is not everybody who could have kept it unimpaired. I need not say how highly I value this article and the trend of your talent in general as well as its power and freshness as a whole. It is just what the russian public needs; the truth -the truth, of which so little remains in Russian literature since the death of Gogol. You are quite right in caring most of all for this side of your capacity. Truth in the form presented by you in our literature is something quite new to us. I do not know of any author at the present moment who could make one love and sympathize with him so deeply as the one to whom I now write. But I have one dread -lest the course of time, the abominations of real life, and the deaf and dumb environment should affect you in the same way as they have affected most of us, and destroy that energy which is indispensable to an author, at least to those authors who are necessary for russia at present. You are young; certain changes are taking place; they may -let us hope -end in good, and then a wide arena may be opened before you. Your beginning is such that the least sanguine persons are carried far away in their hopes. But I have turned from the purpose of my letter. I shall not console you by telling you, true as it is, that the printed fragments of your article are very much appreciated by many; for to those who know the article in its real shape they are nothing but a string of phrases without sense or inner meaning. But it cannot be helped. I must say one thing, the article would not have been printed in this shape were it not necessary. But it is not signed by your name. `Felling Wood' passed the censorship fairly well, though a few precious criticisms are lost. My opinion of the work is this: in form it may resemble Turgenev, but the resemblance ends there; the rest belongs to you and could be written by no one but you. In this sketch there are many wonderfully striking observations and it is entirely new, interesting, and judicious. Don't disdain this type of sketches: in our literature hitherto nothing but trivialities have appeared about the soldier. You are only opening the subject, and, in whatever way you choose to tell us what you know of it, all will be exceedingly interesting and useful. Panayev handed me your letter in which you primise soon to send us `Youth.' Please do. Setting aside the review, I am personally interested in the continuation of your first production. We will keep space for `Youth' in the tenth or eleventh number, according to the time it arrives.

"The money will be forwarded to you one of these days. I have settled for the winter in Petersburg, and shall be glad to hear from occasionally. Accept my sincere respect, N. Nekrassov." [Footnote: Four letters by N. A. Nekrasov to Count L. N. Tolstoy. "Niva Monthly Literary Supplement," No. 2, 1898.]

But, needless to say, literary work was not Tolstoy's chief occupation at that time. He was leading the conventional life of an officer, and was "a good comrade," as is certified by his contemporaries and fellow-officers.

Nazarev quotes in his reminiscences the narrative of a former comrade of Tolstoy, who evidently recalled with delight the time he had spent together with Count Tolstoy in the battery. He even recognized himself as one of the characters in the "Sebastopol Tales." "I may say," related the old man, with a smile of pleasure on his face, "Tolstoy, with his stories and his impromptu verses, encouraged us all in the direst moments of our military life. In the full meaning of the word he was the soul of our battery. When we were in his company, we did not notice how time flew, and there was no end to the general good spirits. When the Count was not there -he had left for Simferopol -all were downcast. No news of him for a day, two, three...At last he came back...looking exactly like the prodigal son -gloomy, worn out, dissatisfied with himself. He would take me aside out of the way, and begin to do penance. He would tell everything about his carousing, playing cards, as to where he spent the days and nights, and, would you believe it? his repentence and sufferings were as deep as if he had been a great culprit. It was pitiful to see him, so great was his distress....This is the kind of man he was. He was, in a word, peculiar, and, to tell you the truth, not quite comprehensible to me; but, on the other hand, he was a rare comrade, an honest soul, and to forget him is quite impossible."

Tolstoy's conduct as a brave officer, and his familiarity with higher circles, could readily have secured for him an advantageous military career. The publication of his Sebastopol sketches, which had attracted the attention of Nicholas, and of the Empress Aleksandra Fedorovna -who, it was said, shed tears while reading the first tale -would have contributed to the same end. But his very gifts put an end to his military advancement. The obstacle to a briliant military career proved to be "The Sebastopol Song."

This is the history of this song:

The version we quote is from the "Olden Times," where it appeared in full. The well-known author and scholar, M. T. Venyukov, wrote with the text of the song the following note:

"In the years from 1854 to 1856 I was studying military science in the Academy of the general staff, and there I received from the Crimea -the theatre of war -through one of my comrades of the battery, Iv. Vas. Anossov, an officer in the 14th Artillery Brigade, a copy of the following song:

The Sebastopol Song

"As to the authorship of this witty, farcical song," continued Venyukov, Anossov in his letter, informed me that the general opinion of the army ascribed it to our gifted author, Count L. N. Tolstoy `but you understand,' wrote Anossov, `one cannot exactly assert it, were it only for fear of injuring Tolstoy, supposing him to be really the author.'"

Later on the same version of the song was again printed in the "Olden Times" under the signature of "One of the authors of `The Sebastopol Song.'"

This is how the part author relates the history of the song:

"Count L. N. Tolstoy no doubt took part in the compilation of this song, but he did not compose all its verses. It would not be fair to ascribe to him the whole of this witty production.

"Therefore, in the interest of historical truth, I will tell you, as a witness, how it originated:

"During the Crimean War, very often -almost every evening -the members of the artillery staff and some other officers used to meet at Krizhanovsky's, who commanded the artillery staff.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Balyuzek usually sat at the piano, all the rest standing round and imporvising verses. Each introduced his thought and word. Count L. N. Tolstoy introduced his own too, but not all. Onc may say therefore that this improvisation was a common act, which expressed the modd of the military circle."

Here following the names of the authors of "The Sebastopol song": Lieutenant-Colonel Balyuzek (afterward governor of turgai, now deceased), who used to sit at the piano; Captain A. Y. Friede, at present commander of the Caucasian Artillery; Lieutenant-Captain Count L. N. Tolstoy; Lieutenant V. Lughinin; Lieutenant Shulein; Lieutenant-Captain Surzhputovsky; Lieutenant Shklyarsky, an officer of the Uhlan Regiment; N. F. Koslyoninov, No. 2, and an officer of the Hussar regiment, N. S. Mussin-Pushkin.

"We received a copy of a similar song written probably under the same circumstances, but somewhat later. The music of it was given us by Sergey Tolstoy from memory. this song contains many popular expressions not fit for print. Where a change was possible, we replaced them, without changing rhythm or meaning, by more polite language. Where this was impossible, dots were put in place of the expressions.

[Footnote: this soldier's song, as well as the first one, a few pages back, has been translated very freely, as it would have been impossible to render in English the peculiar vernacular of Russian soldiers.—Trans.]

If one thinks of the circumstances in which these songs were written, of all the horrors of death, groans of the wounded, bloodshed, fires, murders, filling the atmosphere in Sebastopol, one cannot help being struck with admiration of the moral strength of those men who could indulge in good-natured jests at their own cost in the face of constant threat of sufferings and death.

Meanwhile in literary circles in St. Petersburg Tolstoy became more and more known. He conquered his first severe critic, Turgenev. Readers will remember the account of Mme. Golovachov-Panayev, which we quite at the beginning of this chapter, how Turgenev checked Panayev's enthusiasm by his reasonings.

In 1854 Turgenev wrote from his estate, Spasskoye, to E. Y. Kolbassin, a collaborator of "The Contemporary":

"I am very glad to hear of the success of `Boyhood'. Let Tolstoy only survive, and I hope he will yet astonish us all -his is a first-rate gift. I met his sister (she is married to a Count Tolstoy, too) -a very charming woman..." [Footnote: The First Collection of T. S. Turgenev's Letters, p. 9. Published by the Society of Help to authors, 1885, St. Petersburg.]

When the "Sebastopol Tales" were printed turgenev became most enthusiastic, and thus expressed his enthusiasm in a letter to Panayev:

"Tolstoy's article on Sebastopol is a gem. Tears came into my eyes when I read it, and I shouted hurrah! I am much flattered by his desire to dedicate his new tale to me. I saw in the `Moscow News' the advertisement of "The Contemporary." Very good; God grant you may keep your promises, that is to say, that articles may safely pass the censorship, that Tolstoy may not be killed, and so on. It will help you greatly. Tolstoy'a article made a great sensation here....Spasskoye, July 10, 1855." [Literary Reminiscences" by Panayev, 1888.

One may sat that after the appearance of the "Sebastopol Tales" Tolstoy had risen to the rank of a foremost author. A. E. Kony, in his biography of T. F. Gorbunov, quotes the following interesting opinion of Pissemskiy concerning these tales:

About this time, Pissemskiy — who was then writing his remarkable novel, "The Thousand Souls — after having listened to some passages out of the "Sebastopol Tales" by the then "only promising great writer of the Russian Land," gruffly said to Gorbunov: "This young officer will eclipse us all — one might as well give up writing..." [Biographical Sketch of I. F. Gorbunov, by A. E. Kony. (Preface and Works, p115)]

After the fall of Sebastopol, Tolstoy was sent as a courier to St. Petersburg and was attached to a rocket battery.

Before leaving Sebastopol, Tolstoy had applied his literary abilities to making a report of the last battle. Of this report, he himself says in his article, "A few words concerning `War and Peace,'":

After the loss of Sebastopol, the commander of the artillery, Krizhanovskiy, sent me the reports of the artillery officers from all the bastions, and requested me to compose an account from more than twenty of these reports. I regret that I did not copy them. They were the best specimen of the kind of naive, unfailing military falsehood which always furnishes the material for descriptions. I believe that many of these comrades of mine who composed these reports, if they read these lines, will laugh as they call to mind how, by the orders of the authorities, they wrote of matters about which they could not know anything. [A few words about the book "War and Peace". The Russian Archives, 1868]

During his military service, Tolstoy had disagreements with his superior officers and comrades owing to his love for justice.

In accordance with the custom of those days, commanders of different parts of the battery, as well as the commander of the whole battery, used to save up part of the money given them from the treasury to spend on keeping the battery. The money thus saved they generally kept for themselves, getting a certain regular income which led to many abuses.

Tolstoy, on making his accounts, found a surplus over the expenses; he added it to the sum allotted for the battery instead of appropriating it. This practice was viewed with great disfavor by other commanders, and General Krizhanovskiy reproved him for it. N. A. Krilov bears testimony to this in his reminiscences. In 1856 he was transferred to the 14th Battery, which tolstoy had recently quitted. Tolstoy is remembered in the brigade as a good horseman, a genial companion, and an athlete. he would lie on the floor, a man weighing 5 poods would be placed on his hands, and he would lift him up by straightening his arms; in tugging a stick nobody could beat him. A great many witty anecdotes are attributed to him, which he used to tell in a masterly way. The Count was accused of preaching to the officers to refund to the Government the excess of forage money in case an officer's horse does not consume the quantity of fodder it is suposed to eat. [Russkiye Vedomosti, p136, 1900]

In St. Petersburg quite a different life awaited Tolstoy, into which he plunged with his unfailing youthful energy.

9. Chapter IX
St. Petersburg

Tolstoy was sent to St. Petersburg as a despatch bearer. There he was attached to a rocket battery under General Konstantinov and returned to the front no more.

In St. Petersburg, where he arrived November 21, 1855, he found himself at once in the circle of "The Contemporary," and was received there with open arms.

In his "Confession," Tolstoy thus speaks of that period: "During that time I began to write, out of vanity, love of gain, and pride. I followed as a writer the same path which I had chosen as a man. In order to obtain the fame and money for which I wore, I was obliged to hide what was good and bow down before what was evil. How often while writing have I cudgelled my brains to conceal, under the mask of indifference or pleasantry, those yearnings for something better which formed the real problem of my life! I succeeded in my object and was praised. At twenty-six years of age, on the close of the war, I came to St. Petersburg, and made the acquaintance of the authors of the day.

"I met with a hearty reception and much flattery."

Naturally, during the twenty years before he wrote those lines, Tolstoy was beset by various feelings, though even then his unsparing self-analysis and skepticism were pushed so far as to astonish his companions.

"The contemporary" was a review founded by A. S. Pushkin and Plentev. Its first number was issued in 1836. After Pushkin's death, the review was published from 1838 to 1846 by Plentev alone and lost all its importance. In 1847 N. A. Nekrasov and T. T. Panayev became the proprietors of the review. In Collaboration with the well-known literary critic Belinskiy, they managed in a short time to attract the best authors, and until its suppression by the authorities in 1866, this review was the chief organ of progressive russian art, criticism and sociology.

At the time of Tolstoy's appearance in Petersburg, the more intimate members of this literary circle are to be seen in the two well-known photo-groups of authors -Panayev, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Druzhinin, Ostrovskiy, Goncharov, and Grigorovich and Sollogulo. One may add to the circle V. P. Botkin, Fet, and others not included in the two groups.

Members of the staff of "The Contemporary" were bound by certain obligations as to honoraria as well as the contribution of articles. These obligations were sometimes found too burdensome, and caused many unpleasant frictions among literary men. Publishers and editors of other reviews would, by urgent entreaties, obtain "copy" from the celebrated authors belonging to the personnel of "The Contemporary." The administration of that review resented such proceedings very much, a feeling which was reciprocated by the rival publishers.

[no para]Tolstoy's German biographer, Loewenfeld, gives a description of one such incident as follows:

Turgenev and Katkov had a quarrel in which Tolstoy was involved, partly by his own fault. Turgenev had been for some time an assiduous contributor of Katkov's and the latter was naturally loath to part with such an author. He commissioned his brother to call daily on both the young authors and solicit from them articles for his review. Turgenev, growing tired of these endless petitions, on a sudden impulse promised to write something for Katkov, but could not keep his promise. Katkov was furious and attacked Turgenev in public, arguing that since Turgenev promised to write for him, he could not at the same time give his services `exclusively' to `The Contemporary.' On the other hand, as a member of `The Contemporary' staff, he was precluded from contributing to Katkov's review. His gentle and compliant nature played him a bat turn this time.

Tolstoy took the part of his friend. He wrote a long letter to Katkov in defense of Turgenev. The gentle nature of Turgenev, as well as his politeness, had induced him to make promises to both parties. Tolstoy requested Katkov to publish his letter. Katkov agreed, on the condition that his answer should be printed as well, and he therewith sent a rough sketch of it. But it was of such a character that Tolstoy thought it wiser to give up his part of mediator. [Loewenfeld. Count L. N. Tolstoy, p.125, Moscow.]

The association of "The Contemporary" ceased long before, and it became an ordinary publishing concern.

Tolstoy did not meet Belinskiy in the circle of "The Contemporary." The latter died in 1848, after having worked hard to put the "Review" on a satisfactory footing. His enthusiasm breathed new life into the dying periodical, and made its existence secure for a long while to come. But Tolstoy was not influenced directly by Belinskiy. The reason for this was, in the first place, the different character of their respective times. Belinskiy was a man of the forties, in the full sense of the word, whereas Tolstoy entered upon his literary career in the fifties, and moved among Belinskiy's followers, who lacked his attractive power; though, on the other hand, the social surroundings in which Tolstoy had been reared could not be favorable to his intimacy with these representatives of the republic of letters -"raznochintsy," as they called themselves, all sorts and conditions of men. He kept company with men of his own standard of breeding, and even with them was always reserved, independent, mostly in opposition, and trying to influence others, while himself little responsive to outside influence. Once may point out a more serious cause, that underlying difference in general views. Though Tolstoy had not yet definitely formed his views of life, still the tendency of "The Contemporary" had never attracted him.

Moreover, as Tolstoy has acknowledged in his literary work, he was more attracted by talent that was simply artistic than by that of a social tendency.

In his youth he had been under the sway of rousseau's philosophical teaching.

Discussing the subject of French literature with Professor Boyer from Paris, who paid him a visit in the spring of 1901, Tolstoy thus expressed his opinion of his two teachers -Rousseau and Stendhal:

People have been unjust to rousseau, the greatness of his thought was not recognized, and he was calumniated. I have read the whole of rousseau, all the twenty volumes, including the dictionary of music. I admired him with more than enthusiasm, I worshipped him. At fifteen I wore on my neck, instead of the usual cross, a medallion with his portrait. with some of his pages I am so familiar that I feel as if I had written them myself. As to Stendhal, I will speak of him only as the author of "Chartreuse de Parme" and "rouge et Noir." These are two great, inimitable works of art. I am, more than any one else, indebted for much to Stendhal. He taught me to understand war. Read once more "Chartreuse de Parme," his account of the Battle of Waterloo. Who before him had so described war — i.e., as it is in reality? Do you remember Fabracius crossing the battle field and "understanding nothing," and how the hussars threw him with ease over the back of his horse, his splendid general's horse?

Subsequently my brother, who had served in the Caucasus before me, confirmed the faithfulness of Stendhal's descriptions. He enjoyed war very much, but did not belong to those who believed in the Bridge of Arcole. He used to say to me, "All that is embellishment, and in war there is no embellishment." Soon afterward in the Crimea I easily verified all this with my own eyes. I repeat, all I know about war I learned first of all from Stendhal." [Paul Boyer, "Le Tempes, 28 August 1901]

From twenty to thirty-five years of age tolstoy was chiefly influenced by the following works:

Titles Degree of Influence

• Goethe, Hermann und Dorothea Very great
• V. Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris Very great
• Tyuchev, Verses Great
• Koltsov, Verses Great
• Fet, Verses Great
• Plato, Phaedo and the Symposium Very great
• (Golitsyn's translation) Odyssey and Iliad Very great

Thus we have the more or less complete list of Tolstoy's literary guides.

Tolstoy entered the circle of St. Petersburg authors, his powerful artistic personality and obstinate, often aggressive temperament creating a storm in their hitherto quiet and peaceful atmosphere.

The following is from Fet's reminiscences of Tolstoy's first appearance in St. Petersburg:

Turgenev used to get up and take his tea in the St. Petersburg fashion, very early, and during my short stay in town I called every morning about ten to have a quiet talk with him. On the second morning when Zakhar opened the door I saw in the hall a dress sword with a ribbon of St. Anne.

"Whose sword is this?" I inquired, as I proceeded to the drawing room.

"If you please, come this way," said Zakhar in a low voice, pointing to the left of the corridor. "This is Count Tolstoy's sword, and his excellency is asleep in the drawing room. Ivan Sergeyevich is drinking tea in the study."

During the hour I spend with Turgenev, we conversed in a low voice, being afraid to awaken Tolstoy, who was asleep in the next room.

"He is like this all the time," said Turgenev, smiling. "He came from Sebastopol, straight from the battery, stopped here at my place, and then and there plunged into dissipation. Carousals, gypsies, and card-playing all night; and afterward he sleeps like a top till two in the afternoon. At first I tried to restrain him, but after a while I gave it up."

About this time I was introduced to Tolstoy, but our acquaintance was a formal one, I not having yet read a single line of his nor even heard of him as an author, although Turgenev mentioned to me his tale of "Childhood." But from the first I noticed in young Tolstoy a kind of unconscious antagonism to all accepted rules in the domain of reasoning. During this short period I saw him only once at Nekrasov's, at our bachelor's literary party. There I witnessed how Turgenev, eager and breathless in discussion, was driven to despair by the apparently calm, but all the more sarcastic, replies of Tolstoy.

"I cannot accept," said Tolstoy, "what you said just now as your conviction. I stand at the door with a dagger or sword in hand and say, `while I am alive, no one shall enter this door.' That is conviction. but you two are trying to conceal the real meaning of your thoughts from each other, and you call this conviction.

"Then why do you come here?" said turgenev, panting and in a tin falsetto, his voice during warm discussions always reaching this high pitch. "Ours is not your banner! Go to Princess B-e-b-e."

"Why should I ask you where I am to go?" returned Tolstoy. "Besides, idle talk will by no means beget convictions, wherever I go."

As far as I can remember, this was the only encounter between Turgenev and tolstoy at which I was present, and I cannot help saying that, although I understood that the controversy related to politics, I took too little interest in the subject to pay attention to it. I must add that, from what I heard in our circle, Tolstoy was in the right, and, if indeed men suffering from the "regime" then in force were to try to describe their ideal, they would find the greatest difficulty in formulating their wants.

Who of us at that time did not know the boon-companion, the partner in all sorts of frolics, and the capital fellow at telling amusing anecdotes, Dmitriy Vasiliyevich Grigorovich, celebrated for his novels and stories? This is how he, by the way, told me of the encounters between Turgenev and Tolstoy in the same house of Nekrasov: "My dear boy, by dear boy," said Grigorovich, choking with laughter till tears came to his eyes, and stroking me on the shoulder, "you cannot imagine what scenes we had here. Mercy on us! Turgenev speaks shriller and shriller, then pressing his hand to his throat, and with a look of a dying gazelle, whispers: `I cannot talk any longer! It will give me bronchitis!' and with enormous strides begins to walk up and down the three rooms. `Bronchitis!' sneers Tolstoy, `it's an imaginary illness. Bronchitis is a metal!' Of course the host Nekrasov is trembling heart and soul: he is afraid to lose both Turgenev and tolstoy, in whom he foresees a powerful support for "The Contemporary," so he is bound to maneuver. We are all upset and at a loss what to say. Tolstoy is lying down in the middle of the room on a leather sofa and sulks; Turgenev, with the lappets of his jacket asunder and his hands in his pockets, continues to walk up and down all the three rooms. To prevent a catastrophe, I approached the sofa and said: `My dear Tolstoy, don't get excited! You have no idea how he appreciates and loves you!' `I will not allow him,' says Tolstoy, his nostrils dilating, `to be spiteful to me. And now he walks up and down the room on purpose, crossing his democratic legs close to me.'" [A. Fet, My Reminiscences, Part I, p. 105.]

D. V. Grigorovich, in his "Literary Reminiscences," tells a similar story of the earlier period of Tolstoy's acquaintance with St. Petersburg authors:

On my return from Marynskiy to St. Petersburg, I met Count Tolstoy. I was first introduced to him in Moscow at the house of the Sushkov family, where he still wore his military uniform. He lived in St. Petersburg, in Ofitsskiy Street, on the lower floor of a small set of chambers next to the lodgings of M. L. Mikhailov, the author. It seems they were not acquainted. His keeping permanent rooms in St. Petersburg was incomprehensible to me, for from the very first he not only disliked St. Petersburg itself, but was irritated with everything connected with it.

Having learned from him during our interview that he was invited to dine that very day with the editorial staff of "The Contemporary," and that though he had already written for that review, he yet knew very little the members of its staff, I agreed to go with him. On the way I warned him to be careful and not touch certain subjects, and in particular not to attack Georges Sand, who at that time was the idol of most of the members. The dinner went off quietly. Tolstoy was rather taciturn, but toward the end he could no longer control himself. Hearing praise bestowed on a new novel by Georges Sand, he abruptly declared his hatred of her, adding that her heroines, if they existed in reality, ought to be tied to the hangman's cart and driven through the streets of St. Petersburg as an example. Even at that time he had formed that personal standpoint about women and the woman question which he so forcibly expressed in his novel "Anna Karenina."

The incident at that dinner party may have been caused by his dissatisfaction with everything that bore the cachet of St. Petersburg, but more probably by his tendency to contradiction. Whatever judgment might have been passed, and the greater the authority of his interlocutor, the more he would insist on asserting an opposite view and in retorting sharply. Watching how he listened to his interlocutor, how he scrutinized him, how sarcastically he screwed up his lips, one would have thought he was thinking not so much how to answer a question as how to express an opinion which should be a puzzle and surprise to the questioner. this is how Tolstoy impressed me in his youth. In discussion he pushed his arguments to the furthest extreme. I happened once to be in the next room when he and Turgenev were having a discussion; hearing their loud voices I went into the room. Turgenev was pacing up and down showing signs of great embarrassment; he profited by the door I opened and went out immediately. Tolstoy was lying on the sofa, and his excitement was so great that it was only with great difficulty that I managed to calm him and take him home. The subject of their discussion remains unknown to me at the present moment. [Complete edition of the Works of D. V. Grigorovich, vol. xii, p. 326.]

This tendency of Tolstoy to contradiction is also illustrated in the following episode related in the reminiscences of G. P. Danilevskiy:

At the end of the fifties I met Tolstoy in St. Petersburg in the family of a well-known sculptor and painter. The author of the "Sebastopol Tales" had just arrived in St. Petersburg; he was a young, stately artillery officer. A very good likeness of him at that time is to be found in the well-known group of photographs by Levitskiy, where he is taken together with Turgenev, Goncharov, Ostrovskiy, and Druzhinin. I remember well how Count Tolstoy entered the drawing room of the lady of the house during the reading aloud of a new work of Herzen's. Quietly standing behind the reader's chair, and waiting till the end of the reading, he began at first softly and shyly, but then boldly and hotly to attack Herzen and the enthusiasm with which his writings were accepted. He spoke with such sincerity and force, that in this family I did not come across Herzen's publications any more. ["A Visit to Yasnaya Polyana," by G. P. Danilevskiy, "Historical Review," March, 1886, p.529.]

We know that Tolstoy changed his opinion of Herzen later on, and this will be mentioned in due place.

E. Garshin, in his reminiscences of Turgenev, gives the following interesting account of Turgenev's opinion of tolstoy. It shows the early element of mutual incompatibility which almost brought their relations to a fatal end.

"Tolstoy," said Turgenev, "developed early a trait of character which, as the foundation of his gloomy view on life, causes in the first place much suffering to himself. He never believed in the sincerity of men. Any kind of emotion seemed false to him, and he had the habit, by the extraordinary penetrating glance of his eyes, of piercing through the man who struck him as false."

Turgenev told me that never in his life had he experienced anything more depressing that the effect of that penetrating glance, which, combined with two or three venomous remarks, could exasperate one who had no great self-control to the verge of madness. This subject of Tolstoy's casual experiments, and almost the exclusive subject, was his friend Turgenev. He was, so the latter said, greatly annoyed by Turgenev's self-possession and his serenely calm attitude at that period of brilliant literary achievement, and Count Tolstoy seemed to have made up his mind to exasperate this quite, kind-hearted man, who was working with full conviction of doing the right thing. The worst of it was that Tolstoy did not believe this, he thought that the men whom we consider good are only hypocrites or try to display their goodness, and that they affect to be convinced that they are doing their work for a good cause.

Turgenev recognized Count Tolstoy's attitude, but resolved by all means to keep his own ground and remain self-possessed. He tried to avoid Tolstoy, and with this object went to Moscow, then went to his country place, but Count Tolstoy followed him step by step, "like a woman in love," to use Turgenev's words as he told the story. [E. Garshin, Reminiscences of I. S. Turgenev, "Historical Review, November 1883]

All these facts as to the mutual relations of the two authors show that any real spiritual intimacy between them was impossible. But the liberal movement carried both of them in the same direction, and they considered themselves fellow-workers for the same cause. Besides, their aristocratic origin, their education, their prominent position in the literary circle — all this, though against their will, was bringing them, outwardly at any rate, together. But, as readers will see from the following incident, whenever they tried to be more than simple companions, a conflict was the result, and this sometimes exposed their priceless lives to danger. To do them justice, they both clearly realized the distance dividing them, they owned it openly to each other and to others, and, what is more important, they made great moral efforts to keep up, if not cordial, at least amicable relations based on mutual respect. On this ground, they present a suggestive example to following generations.

We may insert here the account given by Mme. Golovachov-Panayev of the early days of the acquaintance of Turgenev and Tolstoy, which confirms our assertion.

I must go back and tell of the appearance of Count Tolstoy in the circle of "The Contemporary." He was then still an officer, and the only collaborator of "The Contemporary" who wore a military uniform. His literary talent had by this time made such a mark that all the leaders in literature had to accept him as their equal. Besides, Count Tolstoy was not a shy man, he was aware of his talent, and behaved, as I thought, with a certain more or less ease of manner or nonchalance.

I never entered into conversation with the authors when they met at our house, I only listened in silence and observed them. I was particularly interested in watching Turgenev and Tolstoy, when they happened to be together and had a discussion or made remarks to one another, for they were both very clever and observant.

I never heard Tolstoy express his opinion of Turgenev, and as a rule he said nothing of any of the authors, at least before me. Turgenev, on the other hand, seemed impelled to pour out observations about everybody.

When Turgenev made Tolstoy's acquaintance, he said of him: "There is not a word, not a movement, which is natural in him. He is constantly posing, and I am at a loss to understand in so intelligent a man this foolish pride in his wretched title of Count!"

"I did not notice it in Tolstoy," said Panayev.

"But there are many things you don't notice," said Turgenev.

After a time, Turgenev came to the conclusion that Tolstoy had the ambition to be considered a Don Juan. Count Tolstoy one day related to us certain interesting episodes which had happened to him during the war. When he went away, Turgenev said: "You may boil a Russian officer for three days in strong suds and you won't succeed in getting rid of the braggadocio of a Junker; you may cover him with a thick veneer of education, still his brutality will shine through."

And Turgenev began to criticize every sentence of Tolstoy's the tone of his voice, the expression of his face, and finally said: "And only to think that at the bottom of all this brutality lies merely the desire to get promoted."

"Look here, Turgenev," remarked Panayev, "if I did not know you so well, I should think, when I listen to your abuse of Tolstoy, that you are jealous of him."

"On what grounds can I be jealous of him? Of what, tell me!" cried Turgenev.

"Oh, no doubt, you have no reason; your talent is equal to his...But people may think..."

Turgenev laughed, and with a kind of pity in his voice remarked: "Panayev, you are a good observer when it concerns coxcombs, but I don't advise you to go beyond the proper sphere of your observations."

Panayev was hurt.

"It's for your own good that I said that," he added, and went out of the room.

Turgenev was very much excited and repeated with vexation: "Only Panayev's head could entertain such nonsense — that I am jealous of Tolstoy! Is it his title that I am jealous of?"

Nekrasov spoke very little all this time, suffering as he was from a sore throat. He merely said to Turgenev: "Do leave it alone, whatever Panayev may have said; as if indeed any one would suspect you of such an absurdity." [Reminiscences of Mme. A. Golovachov- Panayev, p279]

Turgenev, with his honest, truthful nature, had many times publicly declared his great admiration of Tolstoy's talent, and more than that, he once said to a French publisher, using the expression of John the Baptist in relation to Jesus Christ: "I am unworthy to untie his shoe." Their relations nevertheless were never cordial.

Only on his death-bed, in his last letter to Tolstoy, while with touching tenderness imploring him to return to literary activity, he gave him the name with which no Russian author had been hitherto honored, the name of "the great writer of the Russian land." And this glorious name will follow him into eternity.

To give the reader an idea of the relations between Tolstoy and Turgenev at the early period of their acquaintance, we will interrupt the chronological order of our work and quote several setters of Turgenev to Tolstoy, written in the same year.

To Leo Tolstoy.

Paris, November 16, 1856.

My dear Tolstoy — Your letter of October 15th was crawling toward me for a whole month. I received it only yesterday. I have thought it well over what you write to me, and I believe you are mistaken. It is a fact that I cannot be quite straightforward with you, because I cannot be quite frank with you. It seems to me that we became acquainted in an awkward way, and at an evil moment, but, when we meet again, all will be much easier and smoother. I feel I love you as a man (as to my love for the author—needless to mention it); yet many things in you jar upon me, and in the end I have found out that it is better for me to keep aloof from you. At our next meeting let us try again to go hand in hand — perhaps it will come off better. But at a distance, however strange it sounds, my heart is disposed to you as to a brother, and I feel a tenderness for you. In a word, I love you - -there is no doubt about it; let us hope that in time something good will come of it.

I have heard of your illness and I was grieved, and now I beg you to dismiss the thought of it from your mind. You are imagining things yourself and probably think of consumption, but I can assure you, you have not got it.

I am very sorry for your sister; she is one who ought to enjoy good health; I mean, if there is anybody who deserves to be quite well, it is she; instead, she is a constant sufferer. Let us hope the Moscow treatment may help her. Why don't you recall your brother? Why should he stay in the Caucasus? Does he intend to become a great warrior? My uncle informed me that you have all of you gone off to Moscow, and I therefore forward this letter to Botkin, Moscow.

French conversation is as distasteful to me as it is to you, and never did Paris appear to me so flatly prosaic. Contentment does not suit it; I saw this city in other days, and then I liked it better. I am kept here by an old indissoluble tie with a particular family, and by my daughter, of whom I am very fond; she is a good, intelligent girl. Were it not for this, I would have long ago joined Nekrasov in Rome. I have received from him two letters — he is a little bored in Rome, and no wonder — all that is great in rome only he surrounds him; he does not share in it. And one cannot exist for long on a diet of sympathy and admiration when those feelings occur involuntarily only ar rare intervals. Yet he is better off there than in St. Petersburg, and his health is improving. For the present, Fed is staying in Rome with him. He had written a few graceful verses, and a detailed account of his travels containing much that is childish, but also many clever, sensible sayings — and a kind of touching simplicity and sincerity if impression. He is, in fact, a darling, as you call him.

Now as to Chenishevskiy's articles. I don't like their arrogant, dry tone, the expression of a harsh nature. But I rejoice at their being printed, rejoice over the reminiscences of B., and the quotations from his articles; I rejoice that at last his name is uttered with respect. However, you cannot sympathize with me in this joy. Annenkov assures me that I derive these impressions from living aborad; that with them this is already a thing of the past, they now want something else. Perhaps he is a better judge, as he is on the spot; still I am pleased.

You have finished the first part of "Youth" — that is glorious. What a pity I cannot hear you read it! If you don't turn aside from your path (and there is no reason why you should), you will go far ahead. I wish you health, activity, and freedom — spiritual freedom.

As to my "Faust", I don't suppose you will like it very much. My writings might have pleased you and perhaps influenced you in some way, but only up to the time when you became quite independent. There s no need for you to study me now, you will only see my difference of manner, my faults and omissions. It remains for you to study man, your own heart, and the really great authors. I am a writer of a transition period, and am of use only to men who are in a transitory state. Well, good-by and be well. Write to me. My present address: Rue de Rivoli, No. 206.

Thanks to your sister for the two added words; remember me to her and her husband. I am grateful to Varenko for remembering me.

I intended to tell you something of the authors here, but keep this for the next letter. I shake your hand warmly. I do not stamp my letter, do the same with yours." [Letters of I.S. Turgenev (First Collection), p27] December 8, 1856, he wrote to Tolstoy:

Dear Tolstoy — Yesterday my good fairy took me past the post office, and it occurred to me to inquire about letters at the post-restante for me, though by this time all my friends ought to know of my Parisian address. There I found your letter, in which you speak of my "Faust"; you can easily imagine what a pleasant reading I had. Your sympathy caused me great and sincere delight. And besides, the whole of your letter breathed gentleness and frankness and a kind of friendly serenity. It remains for me to hold out my hand across the "ravine" which long ago turned into a hardly perceptible chink; we won't mention it, it is not worth it.

I dare not speak to you on a subject which you mention; these are delicate things. They are killed with a word before they are ripe, but when they are ripe a hammer cannot break them. God grant everything may come off successfully and well. It may bring you that spiritual equilibrium you needed so much when I first knew you. I see you are very friendly with Druzhinin and under his influence. this is well, only mind not to feast on him too much. When I was your age I was more influenced by enthusiastic natures, but you are a different man from me; moreover, perhaps, the times are now different. I am eagerly looking forward to get the "Reading Library." I am anxious to read the article on Belinsky, although I don't expect to derive much pleasure from it. As to "The Contemporary" being in bad hands, that is beyond doubt. At first Panayev used to write very often and assure me he would not act "heedlessly," underlining this word, but he is subdued now and keeps silent like a child who has misbehaved at mealtime. I have written to Nekrasov with full details about it, and this will very likely induce him to leave Rome and return earlier than he intended. Please let me know in what number of "The Contemporary" your "Youth" will appear, and, by the way, give me your final impression of "Lear," which you have probably read if only for the sake of Druzhinin." [Letters of I. S. Turgenev (First Collection), p33]

We do not possess exact information as to Tolstoy s opinion of "King Lear" in Druzhinin's translation, but from the letter of Botkin to Druzhinin quoted below, one can see that Tolstoy liked Druzhinin's translation.

Here is the letter:

What a success your "Lear" proves. To me it was certain; still, how the pleasure increases when the inner conviction becomes a reality. There it is, the well- known antipathy of Tolstoy to shakespeare which Turgenev so much fought against! I must do myself the justice to state that I was convinced that at the first opportunity this antipathy would disappear; but I am glad that your excellent translation brought that opportunity. [From Druzhinin's papers, "Twenty-five Years," a volume published by the Society of assistance to Authors and Scholars, St. Petersburg, 1884]

It seems the joy of Botkin was premature, for Tolstoy persisted in his dislike of Shakespeare, but on this we shall have occasion to remark in one of the following chapters.

On the 5th of December 1856, Turgenev wrote to Druzhinin from Paris:

By the way, I am told you are very intimate with Tolstoy, and he is now so nice and open. I am very glad. When this new wine has been through the fermenting process it will turn out a beverage worthy of the gods. What about his "Youth," which was submitted to your judgment. I wrote to him twice, the second time c/o Vasenka [Botkin]. [Letters of I.S. Turgenev (First Collection), p32]

"Youth" really was forwarded to Druzhinin to be criticized by him; he read it and wrote the following interesting letter in answer:

Twenty sheets should be written about "Youth." I read it with wrath, shouting and swearing; not on account of its want of literary worth, but owing to the copy and the handwriting. This mixing together of two different handwritings distracted my attention and prevented an intelligence perusal; it was just as if two voices were shouting in my ear and purposely confusing me, and I know that the impression was not as complete as it should have been. However, I will say to you what I can. Your task was awful, but you have accomplished it well. None of the present-day writers could have grasped the unintelligible, fleeting period of youth and depicted it in such a manner. Cultured people will derive great enjoyment from your "Youth"; if anybody tells you that this work in inferior to "Childhood" and "Boyhood", you may spit in his face. There are depths of poetry in your work; all the first chapters are excellent, only, until the description of spring and the removal of double windows, the introduction is rather dry. After that the arrival at the village is fine, just before that the description of the Nekhludov family, the father's explanation of his reasons for marrying, the chapters "New Comrades" and "I am falling through." Many chapters breathe the poetry of ancient Moscow, which nobody had observed in the proper way. Baron Z.'s coachman is admirable (I speak as one who understands). Some chapters are prosy and dry, as, for instance, all about the stipulations to Varenka, and the chapter on family understanding. The feast at Yar's is also rather long, as well as the Count's visit with Ilinka, which comes before it. The recruiting of Semenov will not pass the censor. You must not be afraid of arguing; it's all clever and original. You are apt to analyze to minutely, which might become a great defect. Sometimes you are ready to say, "Such and such a fellow's thigh indicated that he desired to travel in India." You must curb this inclination, but on no account should it be suppressed. All your analytical work should be conducted in this way. Every one of your defects has elements of force and beauty; nearly all your merits contain grains of defect.

Your style is in harmony with your matter. You are illiterate in a marked degree. Sometimes your illiteracy is that of neologist or a great poet who is perpetually reconstructing a language in his own manner, or that of an officer who sits in his tent and writes to a friend. It may be said for certain that all the pages written by you in a kindly mood are excellent, but as soon as you grow cold, your style gets confused and diabolical forms of speech bubble up. Therefore passages written unsympathetically should be looked through and corrected. I tried to make corrections at times, but I gave up the idea; you alone can do this task and you should do it. It is of importance that you should avoid long sentences. Chop them into two or three...don't be afraid to use full-stops...use with scant ceremony words like that, which, and this; they should be struck out by tens. If you are in a difficulty, take a sentence and imagine that you want to communicate it to somebody in a fluent familiar way.

It is time to close, but there are still a good many things to be said. The bulk of the less educated readers will like "Youth" less than "Childhood" and "Boyhood." The small size of these two works and some episodes, such as the tale of Karl Ivanovich are in their favor. The dullest man cherishes a few childish memories and rejoices when their poetry is made clear to him, but the period of youth (of that confused and disconnected youth which is full of hard knocks and humiliation which you unveil for us) is usually buried in the soul, and hence it loses its vividness and becomes obliterated.

It would mean much labor to make your work reach the understanding of the masses, by inserting two or three amusing incidents, etc., but hardly anybody could make it suit the taste of the majority.

The plot and the framework of your "Youth" will provide a feast for thinking people who understand poetry.

Let me know if I should forward the MS. to you or hand it over to Panayev. You have not made a large stride in a new direction with this work, but you have shown what there is in you and what can be effected by you.

The fact that Druzhinin could have written to tolstoy in such a manner shows that they really were on familiar terms, and that Druzhinin could influence him.

Tolstoy's stay in St. Petersburg — from November until May — was interrupted by a short visit to Orel on business connected with family affairs.

February 2nd Tolstoy received the news of his brother Dmitriy's death; he drew a vivid picture of the latter's personality in his Reminiscences, quoted by us in the chapter on "Youth". Here we quote the second part of those Reminiscences, referring to his brother's subsequent life, illness and death:

When we made a partition of our property the estate Yasnaya Polyana, on which we lived, fell to my lot. Seryozha was a lover of horses, and as there was a stud at Pirogovo, he received that estate, which was what he desired. To Mitenka and Nikolenka were given the other two estates — to Nikolenka, Nikoleskoye; to Mitenka, the Kursk of Shcherbachovka, which came to us from Perovskaya. I have kept a statement from Mitenka explaining what were his views as to the possession of serfs. The idea that this sort of thing ought not to be, but that serfs should be set free, was quite unknown in our circle in the forties; the possession of serfs by inheritance appeared a necessary condition of life, and it was thought that the only thing that could be done to prevent this possession from being an evil was that the landowner should concern himself with the moral welfare of the peasants as well as their material condition. From this point of view, Mitenka explained his project very seriously, naively, and sincerely. He, a lad of twenty when he left the university, took upon himself the duties — thinking that he could not do otherwise — of directing the morality of hundreds of peasant families, and thought to do this by threats of punishments and punishments, as is recommended by Gogol in his letters to a landowner. I think I remember that Mitenka had these letters, which had been pointed out to him by the prudent priest — thus did Mitenka commence his landlord's duties. But besides these duties toward the serfs, there was at that time another duty which it was deemed impossible to neglect — that was military or civil service, and Mitenka, having finished with the university, decided to enter the civil service. In order to decide which branch to select, he purchased an almanac, and having examined all the branches of civil service, he came to the conclusion that the most important one was legislation, whereupon he went to St. Petersburg and there applied to the officials at the head of that department. I can imagine Tanayev's astonishment when, on giving his reception, he stopped in front of a high, round-shouldered, badly dressed man among the supplicants (Mitenka always dressed merely for the purpose of covering his body), a man with quiet, fine eyes; and on inquiring what he wanted, received for an answer that he was a Russian nobleman who had gone through the university, and being desirous of being useful to his country, had chosen legislation as his province.

"Your name?"

"Count Tolstoy."

"You have not yet served anywhere?"

"I have only just finished my university course, and my desire is merely to be useful."

"Then what post do you desire to have?"

"It is all the same; any one in which I can be useful."

His gravity and sincerity so struck Tanayev that he drove Mitenka to the department of legislation and there handed him over to an official.

Probably the official's attitude toward him, and above all toward the work, repelled Mitenka, for he did not enter that department. He had no acquaintance in St. Petersburg except the student Obolenskiy, whom he had known at Kazan. Mitenka called on him at his summer residence. Obolenskiy told me about it laughing.

Obolenskiy was a very worldly, ambitious man, but gifted with tact. He related how on that occasion he had guests (probably of the aristocracy, with whom Obolenskiy associated), and Mitenka came to him through the garden in a nankeen coat. "At first I did not recognize him, but, when I did, I tried to put him at his ease. I introduced him to my guests and asked him to take his coat off, but it turned out that there was nothing under the coat; he did not think anything necessary." He sat down, and immediately, without being disconcerted by the presence of the guests, he turned to Obolenskiy with the same question he had put to Tanayev: Where was it best to serve in order to be useful?

To Obolenskiy, with his views on service as merely a means of satisfying ambition, such a question had probably never occurred. But with the tact which he possessed and with external good nature he answered, mentioning various posts, and offered his assistance. Mitenka was evidently dissatisfied both with Obolenskiy and Tanayev, and he left St. Petersburg without entering the civil service. He went to his country place, and at Soudja, I think it was, he accepted some local post and busied himself with rural work, especially among the peasants.

After we had both left the university, I lost sight of him. I know that he lived the same severe, abstemious life, knowing neither wine, tobacco, nor, above all, women, up to twenty-six years of age, which was very rare at that time. I know that he associated with monks and pilgrims, and he became very intimate with an extremely singular man — our guardian — who lived at Voyekov's place, a man whose origin no one knew. This man was called Father Luke. He walked about in a cassock, was very ugly, small of stature, one-eyed, but clean in his person and exceptionally strong. When he shook hands, he gripped your hand as if with pincers, and he always spoke very solemnly and mysteriously. He lived at Voyekov's, near the mill, where he had built himself a little house, and cultivated a remarkable flower garden. It is this Father Luke whom Mitenka used to take about with him. I heard also that he associated with an old-fashioned old man, a miserly neighboring landowner, one Samoyloy.

I think I was already in the Caucasus when an extraordinary alteration took place in Mitenka. He suddenly took to drinking, smoking, wasting money, and going with women. How this came to pass with him, I do not know; I did not see him at the time. I only know that his seducer was a deeply immoral man, very attractive externally, the youngest son of Islenyev. I will tell about him later. In this life, Mitenka remained the same serious, religious man he was in everything. A prostitute named Masha, who was the first woman he knew, he ransomed from her abode and took into his house. But this life did not last for long. I believe it was not so much the vicious and unhealthy life which he led for some months in Moscow as the internal struggle and the qualms of conscience which suddenly destroyed his powerful organization. He contracted consumption, went to the country, was treated in towns, and took to his bed at Orel, where I saw him for the last time, immediately after the Crimean War. He was in a dreadful state: the enormous palm of his hand appeared visibly attached to the two bones of the lower arm, his face was all eyes, and they were the same beautiful, serious eyes, with a penetrating expression of inquiry in them. He was constantly coughing and spitting, but he was loath to die, did not wish to believe he was dying. Poor pox-marked Masha, whom he had rescued, wearing a kerchief round her head, was with him and nursed him. In my presence, at his own wish, a miraculous icon was brought. I remember the expression of his face when he prayed to it.

At that time I was particularly odious. I had arrived at Orel from St. Petersburg, in which city I was moving in society, and I was full of vanity. I was sorry for Mitenka, but not much. I just looked about me in Orel and went away again; he died a few days later.

I really think that what troubled me most in his death was that it prevented me from taking part in some private theatricals which were then being organized at court and to which I had been invited. [From Tolstoy's Reminiscences.]

Peace was concluded on March 12 [1856], and this circumstance made it easier for Tolstoy to get his leave.

During the winter he finished "Lost on the Steppe; or, The Snowstorm"; "Two Hussars"; "an Old Acquaintance"; and "A Russian Landowner". Tolstoy had to distribute his works among three periodicals; thus the first two novels appeared in "The Contemporary", the third in the "Reading Library", and the fourth in "Memoirs of the Fatherland."

Among other things, Tolstoy wrote to his Aunt Tatayana at this period:

I have finished my "Hussars" (a novel), and have not taken up anything else; besides, Turgenev, whom I have begun to live (I realize it now), notwithstanding that we always quarrelled, is gone. Hence, I feel terribly lonely.

This letter shows that Tolstoy's relation to Turgenev varied from time to time.

St. Petersburg life was evidently not to Tolstoy's liking. Soon after his arrival, he did his best to get away and prepared to go abroad.

In the letter to his brother of March 25, 1856, he says incidentally:

I shall start for abroad in eight months; if I can get leave I shall go. I have already written about this to Nikolenka and asked him to come with me. If we were all three to arrange to go together, that would be excellent. If we each take 1,000 rubles, we could do the trip very well. Please write. How did you like "The Snowstorm"? I am dissatisfied with it, seriously, and now there is much I should like to write, but there is really no time in this accursed St. Petersburg. At all events, whether I am allowed or not to go abroad in April, I intend to take leave of absence and stay in the country.

On the 12th of May [1856], while yet in St. Petersburg, he put down in his diary:

A powerful means to secure true happiness in life is — without any rules — to spin in all directions, like a spider, a whole web of love and catch in it all that one can — old women, children, women, and constables.

* * * * * * * *

It may be supposed that "The Contemporary's" business, as well as literary affairs, gave little satisfaction to its chief supporters; this was perhaps due to the individual diversity of convictions, views, habits, education, and surroundings of the contributors, as this always hinders any common work devised by educated people. In every circle composed of "intellectuals", division into groups very soon takes place: a tolerant attitude is very soon replaced by indifference; after that rivalry asserts itself, culminating in open enmity. That was the case with "The Contemporary."

As far back as the beginning of 1856, the idea struck some of the contributors of separating and founding a new magazine. Druzhinin's letter to Tolstoy bears testimony to this. In it he says, among other things:

Availing myself of some surplus energy, I hasten to have a talk with you concerning a matter which occupied us at our last meeting and which is now being favorably considered by many of our comrades in St. Petersburg. The want of a journal which should be purely literary and critical, and counteract all the frenzies and indecencies of the present time, is felt in a marked degree. Goncharov, Yermin, Turgenev, Annenkov, Maikov, Mikhaylov, Avdeyev, and many others back up this idea with their hearty approval. If you, Ostrovskiy, Turgenev, and perhaps our half-insane Grigorovich (though we could get along without him), would join this group, it may be taken for granted that the whole of the belles-lettres will be concentrated in one journal. What this organ shall be, whether a new journal, or a reading library on premises hired by the company, as to all this, you might devise some scheme and let us know what it is. Here the majority is bent on taking a lease on moderate terms, and the publisher consents. For my part, I have nothing to say either for or against, but offer my services to a purely literary journal, on whatever principles it got up.

As to the department of science, the following professors could be regarded as willing contributors: Gorlov, Oostryalov, Blagoveshchenskiy, Berezin, Zernin, as well as those who contribute now — I am naming the most talented — Lavrov, Lkhovskiy, Kenevich, Vodovozov, Dumilin. Although Turgenev is a hopeless worker, he will be a valuable man, considering his activity, as well as his position in literature. However, the details have to be left in the background now; we must agree as to the whole and decide the main points.

Judging by the interest you have manifested in this matter, I count on your support. By the way, I have a request to make of you, as I am still following my old occupation, and starting a new journal might take up a good deal of time, I beg your permission to have you in the meantime included in the number of contributors to the "Reading Library". Do not dispose of all your articles, but leave some work for me toward the autumn, making your own choice and stipulating for your own condition. I won't worry you about this, being aware that without my entreaties you will do everything for me that you can.

Write me a few lines about all this and about your life in general, your anticipations, and Marie's Health; give her my best and sincere regards. Also let me know your address. We must keep up correspondence about the new journal; I am afraid that our forces will get scattered, we have only enough for one edition. It is immaterial what was the idea of the undertaking, as long as we all unite in working at it. So, in summer, as you often go to see Turgenev, try to influence him and direct this delightful but unreliable...toward our common goal. Judging by what he has said to me a hundred time, the idea of such a journal should please him; but how can one rely on anything he says? Let him consider to what a low stage our journals have been reduced by the splitting of forces; "Russkiy Vestnik" alone has kept its ground well, but it has a jaded appearance now owing to the falling off of "Ateney"; "Ateney", however, is very dull. There is nothing to say about St. Petersburg.

On May 17th [1856], Tolstoy set off for Moscow.

May 26th [1856] he spent in the house of Dr. Bers, married to a friend of Tolstoy's childhood, Mademoiselle Islenev; there were then living at Pokrovskoye, not far from Moscow. In tolstoy's diary there are a few words about this visit.

"The children were all there. What jolly, charming little girls!" One of them, the youngest, became Tolstoy's wife six years later.

After that he proceeded on his journey, and on May 28th [1856] arrived at Yasnaya Polyana.

Next day he wrote a letter to his brother Sergey, in which, among other things, he remarked:

In Moscow I passed ten days...exceedingly pleasantly, without champagne and gypsies but a little in love — with whom I will tell you later.

On his arrival at Yasnaya, he naturally goes to greet his neighbors, his sister Marie, Turgenev, and others.

From the two following letters to his brother, we see that at the end of the summer he was seriously ill. Thus, at the beginning of September 1856 he writes:

Only now, at nine o'clock in the evening, Monday, can I give you a good answer; before this I kept getting worse and worse. Two doctors have been called, forty leeches have been applied, but it is only a little while ago that I fell asleep, and I have awakened feeling considerably better. Still, for five or six days I cannot think of going. So, au revoir. Please let me know when you start, and whether there really are great arrears in the farming work of your estate, and do not devastate the sporting places too much without me; the dogs I may perhaps send tomorrow.

In his letter of September 15th [1856] he says:

My dear friend Seryozha: My health has improved and it has not. The pains and the inflammation have passed, but there remains some kind of oppression in the chest. I feel shooting sensations and toward the evening pains. Perhaps it will pass off gradually of itself, but I shall not soon make up my mind to go to Kursk, and if not soon, then it is no good going at all. If I am not better in a fortnight or so, I would rather go to Moscow.

Soon after he again removed to St. Petersburg, whence he wrote to his brother the 10th of November 1856:

Excuse me, dear friend Seryozha, for writing only two words. I have no time. Since my departure, illness pursues me. Of those I love not one is here. In the "Otechestvenniya Zapiski" they say Ii have been abused for the "Military Stories". I have not yet read it, but Konstantinov made a point of informing me the moment I arrived that the Grand Duke Mikhail [brother of the Emperor Nicholas I], having learned that I was reported to have composed a song, is displeased, especially for my having, as it was said, taught it to the soldiers. that is too bad. I have had an explanation upon the subject with the Chief of Staff. There is only one thing as it should be — my health is all right, and Shipulinskiy says my lungs are in perfect order.

On November 26, 1856, Tolstoy retired from Military service. We may mention a good act done by him at the close of his service.

The commander of the battery where Tolstoy served, Captain Lieutenant Korenitskiy, was to be tried by courtmartial after the war, but thanks to Tolstoy's influence and exertions he was spared.

With the retirement of Tolstoy from service begins a new period of his life, full of social and literary interests, with strivings after personal happiness.

Notwithstanding his uncompromising views and his rejection of literary authorities, Tolstoy was a welcome guest and a valued member of the literary circle of "The Contemporary."

But Tolstoy himself was far from pleased with that circle. It could not be otherwise. One need only read the reminiscences of authors belonging to that period, for example, Herzen, Panayev, Fet, and others, men of different schools, to come to very sad conclusions as to the moral weakness of those men, though they pretended to be leaders of humanity. When we think of the dinner parties of Nekrasov, the carousals of Herzen, Ketcher and Ogarel, Turgenev's love for the culinary art, all those friendly parties, incomplete without a great deal of champagne, hunting, card-playing, etc. — we are pained to think of the idleness, the mental blindness of these men, who could not see the evil of their revels, with all the love for democracy and progress which they mixed up with them. In the midst of this shamelessness, which is perhaps still going on in some shape or other even at the present day, only one voice of accusation and self-correction resounded — the voice of a man whose soul could not endure that self-deception. That voice was Tolstoy's.

In his "Confession" he gives the following picture of the manners of the literary people, i.e., of society, at the end of the fifties and beginning of the sixties:

Before I had time to look around, the prejudices and views of life common to the writers of the class with which I associated became my own and completely put an end to all my former struggles for a better life. These views, under the influence of the dissipation into which I plunged, issued in a theory of life which justified it. The view taken by my fellow-writers was that life is a development, and the principal part in that development is played by ourselves, the thinkers, while among the thinkers the chief influence is again due to ourselves, the poets. Our vocation is to teach mankind.

In order to avoid answering the very natural question "What do I know and what can I teach?" the theory in question is made to contain this formula, that the answer is not required, but that the thinker and the poet teach unconsciously. I was myself considered a marvelous litterateur and poet, and I therefore very naturally adopted this theory. Meanwhile, thinker and poet though I was, I wrote and taught I knew not what. For doing this, I received large sums of money; I kept a splendid table, had an excellent lodging, associated with loose women, and received my friends handsomely; moreover, I had fame. It would seem, then, that what I taught must have been good, the faith in poetry and the development of life was a true faith, and I was one of its high priests, a post of great importance and profit. I long remained in this belief, and for a year never once doubted its truth.

In the second year, however, and especially in the third of this way of life, I began to doubt the absolute truth of the doctrine and to examine it more closely. The first suspicious fact which attracted my attention was that the apostles of this belief did not agree among themselves. Some proclaimed that they were the only good and useful teachers and all the others worthless; while those opposed to them said the same of themselves. they disputed, quarrelled, abused, deceived, and cheated one another.

Moreover, there were many among us who, quite indifferent to right or wrong, only cared for their own private interests. All this forced on me doubts as to the truth of our belief. Again, when I doubted this faith in the influence of literary men, I began to examine more closely into the character and conduct of its chief professors, and I convinced myself that they were men who led immoral lives and were most of the worthless and insignificant individuals and far beneath the moral level of those with whom I had associated during my former dissipated and military career; these men, however, had none the less an amount of self- confidence only to be expected in those who are conscious of being saints, or for whom holiness is an empty name.

I grew disgusted with mankind and with myself and discovered that the belief which I had accepted was a delusion. The strangest thing of all was that though I soon saw the falseness of the belief and renounced it, I did not renounce the position I had gained by it; I still called myself a thinker, a poet, and a teacher. I was simple enough to imagine that I, the poet and thinker, was able to teach other men without knowing myself what it was I attempted to teach. I had only gained a new vice by my companionship; it had developed pride in me to a morbid extreme, and the self-confidence with which I taught what I did not know amounted almost to insanity.

However, while living in the same circle with these men, Tolstoy had taken part in all their affairs and was one of the most active members in their common enterprises. Thus, one of the most important schemes of the Society of Assistance to Authors and Scholars, the so-called "Literary Fund," is in many respects indebted to him for its foundation. Druzhinin is generally considered the founder of the society. But in Tolstoy's diary there is the following note:

January 2, 1857. I wrote a project of the fund at Druzhinin's.

The name of Tolstoy must therefore be added to the list of the founders of the "Literary Fund."

To this period belong his more thorough study and admiration of Pushkin's works.

According to Tolstoy, he seriously appreciated Pushkin after having read Merimee's French translation of his "Gypsies". The reading of this work, thus expounded in prose form, gave Tolstoy a very strong impression of the greatness of Pushkin's poetical genius.

In Tolstoy's diary for January 4, 1857, there is the following remark:

I dined at botkin's house alone with Panayev; he read Pushkin to me. I went into Botkin's study and there wrote a letter to Turgenev; then I sat down on a couch and wept with joyful tears. I am of late decidedly happy, rejoicing in the advance of my moral development.

The advance of moral development to which he refers did not allow Tolstoy to find satisfaction in that society and in its work, and he eagerly looked for another outlet. As a restless spirit usually manifests its uneasiness in action, so Tolstoy showed restless activity, and one way in which his impatience found vent was foreign travel, apparently without a fixed plan. This is what he says about the matter in his "Confession", judging himself and those surrounding him with his characteristic plainness of speech:

I had lived in this senseless manner another six years, up to the time of my marriage. During this time I was abroad. My life in Europe and my acquaintance with many eminent and learned foreigners, confirmed my belief in the doctrine of general perfectibility, and I found the same theory prevailed among them. This belief took the form which is common among most of the cultivated men of the day. It may be summed up in the word "progress." I believed at that time that this word had a real meaning. I did not understand that, when on being tormented like other men by the question how I was to better my life, I answered that I must live for progress, I was only repeating the reply of one who is carried away in a boat by the waves and the wind, and who, to the one important question "Where are we to steer?" should answer, "We are being carried somewhere or the other."

But, before going abroad, Tolstoy gave up a great deal of time to the search for personal and family happiness.

10. Chapter X
Romance

I have now to relate one of the most important passages of Tolstoy's life, embracing the history of his falling in love. It did not lead to marriage, still, in my opinion, it must have had a very great influence on his life. Like many other episodes, it brings out very clearly certain traits of his character, such as, in the first place, his ardent, impulsive nature, and next the power exercised by his supreme guide, reason, which keeps the passions under control and directs them to a good end; lastly, the simplicity, sincerity, and chivalry of his character. We see this both where his actions are determined by the highest principles, and also in connection with the petty details of everyday life. The story is interesting in itself as dealing with the relations between a man and a woman, and giving in connection therewith a grave and instructive experience, by attention to which young people might be saved from a great deal of unhappiness.

In Tolstoy's life up to this time there had already been a few incipient love affairs, but they had led to nothing. The strongest case was that of his boyish affection for Sonichka Kaloshin. this was followed by the affair of Z. N. while he was at the University; but the love really only existed in his own imagination, Z. N. herself hardly knew anything about it. The Cossack girls has been mentioned already. After this there was a kind of a society love affair with Madame S., of which she herself probably was scarcely conscious; Tolstoy was always shy and reserved in connection with such matters.

However, his love for V. A. was a more powerful and serious feeling. Their relations had become thoroughly understood and avowed and had been declared to a circle of relatives and acquaintances as those of lovers.

Unfortunately, Tolstoy's extensive and interesting correspondence with this girl cannot yet be published owing to circumstances beyond my control, and I have to confine myself to a short summary of its contents.

Let us remember how, in a letter from Sebastopol, Tolstoy complained of the want of female society and expressed his fear of becoming incapacitated for it and thus depriving himself of the possibility of married life, which he held in high honor.

Thoughts of women and family life were constantly in his mind after he returned from the campaign, and on his way through Moscow he was struck by a good-looking girl, the daughter of a landowner of the neighborhood, the result being, in no long time, a romantic mutual attachment.

The first letter is written by Tolstoy from Yasnaya Polyana to Moscow where the young lady was staying. the family she live in comprised an aunt, a fashionable lady who was fond of court life, and three sisters; besides this lady's nieces and Zh., and also a French governess. After spending the summer Sudakovo, a country place not far from Yasnaya Polyana, they moved to Moscow in August to be present at the coronation festivities of Aleksandr II on August 26, 1856.

The young lady enjoyed herself very much during the festivities, and in a letter to Tolstoy's aunt, she described them in enthusiastic language. This letter was the first disappointment to Tolstoy. As he was attracted by the girl, he could not help looking upon her as his possible life-companion, and he thought he ought to explain to her his views of social and family life; but he was disagreeably surprised by finding himself completely misunderstood, the lady's attitude toward sundry questions of the highest importance being one of absolute indifference. However, he still hoped to influence her in the right direction, in reliance on her young and susceptible nature, and finding her by no means unsympathetic, he used all his eloquence to make her take a serious view of their relations. Consequently, his letters breathe the most tender solicitude for her, are full of precepts relating to trifles, but leading incidentally to general questions of philosophy. Now and then, in distress at her lack of comprehension, he would write in a bitter sarcastic tone; then, again, he would soften down to a tender caress as from a father to his child.

In one letter he expresses his horror and despair at the discovery how unworthy of her, as he held, were the objects in which she took an interest. In fact, he mercilessly jeers at the young lady's passion for coronation festivities, balls, parades, and flirtations with aides-de-camp, and ends his letter with a portentously affected sentence.

For a long time he got no answer. He was agitated, wrote again, begged for forgiveness, and at last succeeded in eliciting a good-humored reply.

It appears from his letters that after the coronation the family returned to Sudakovo, where Tolstoy was often in their house, and that the mutual inclination grew and strengthened.

But Tolstoy was not the man to be carried away blindly and heedlessly by his feelings. He resolved to submit their attachment to the test of time and distance, and he went to stay at St. Petersburg for two months.

From Moscow he wrote a letter in which he attempted a sort of education of the young lady, which letter makes it plain that what is called the passion of love did not exist between them.

He goes very fully into the question of mutual attraction and insists upon the very great significance of marriage, and finally he explains his determination to put their friendship to the test of a temporary separation. Though this did not appeal to the young lady, whose affections were strongly engaged, yet she agreed, and they kept up a correspondence.

Before long, Tolstoy had to go through a new trial not imposed by himself, but coming from without. While in St. Petersburg, he learned from a trustworthy source that this "charming girl" allowed her pianoforte teacher, Mortier, to make love to her, and that, in fact, she fell in love with him. And all this took place during those unfortunate coronation fetes. It is true she tried hard to counteract this feeling, and she even broke off all relations with Mortier, but the very fact of this sudden love affair was a frightful shock to Tolstoy. Under the impulse of the bitter feeling called forth by this discovery, he wrote to her a letter full of reproaches, but evidently relenting, he never posted it. Then he wrote another, which was posted. In this he also referred somewhat severely to the flirtation with Mortier.

One can, of course, easily notice that the discovery made by Tolstoy of the continued relations of the lady with Mortier caused an incurable wound to his developing love, and that he did not cut short his relations with her only because he thought nature and time would fulfil the operation better. From that time they became more of comrades, and only at rare intervals, and then, I presume, more in imagination, did the flame of love show itself.

Getting no answer to his letter, and having very probably satisfied himself with the argument that "pas de nouvelles — bonnes nouvelles," he continued to influence her life rather as her teacher than as her lover and wrote her a detailed letter concerning their possible relations in the future, setting forth for her a minute plan of their duties, surroundings, circle of acquaintances, and apportionment of time, and trying to get his future life-companion interested in serious and vital questions.

He did not receive any answer to his letters for a long time and remained somewhat in doubt.

At last he was rewarded for his patience by receiving several belated letters all at once, and the relations between the two friends became again very loving.

He initiates her in his literary plans, describes his life in St. Petersburg and continues to develop his pure and high ideals of family life to her.

However, the beginning of doubt which had crept into Tolstoy's mind is more evident in these last letters. Through the expressions of love a kind of oppressive feeling betrays itself, as the outcome of their somewhat artificial relations. This false not becomes obvious also to her, the intensity of their mutual feeling grew less, and both were on the lookout for an honorable escape.

In a letter to his aunt Tatyana, Tolstoy confessed the cooling down of his love and asked her advice in this difficulty. The letter was written in Moscow, to which place he went early in December and remained till the end of the month.

Moscow, Dec. 5, 1856.

You again write to me about V. in the same tone in which you have always spoken to me about her, and I again answer in the way in which I have always answered. Just as I had left, and for a week later, it appeared to me that I was in love, as it is called, but with my imagination, that is not difficult. At present, and especially since I have strenuously taken to work, I would like, and very much like, to say that I am in love with or simply love her, but this is not the case. The one feeling I have toward her is gratitude for her love, and also the thought that of all the girls I have known and do know, she would have been the best for my wife, as I understand married life. It is in this that I would like to know your candid opinion as to whether I am mistaken or not, and I desire your advice, firstly, because you know both her and me, and, above all, because you love me, and those who love are never mistaken. It is true that I have tested myself very unsatisfactorily, for since I left I have been leading a solitary life, rather than a dissipated one, and have seen very little of women, but notwithstanding this, I have often had minutes of vexation with myself for having so closely approached her and have repented of it. Still, I say that were I once convinced of the constancy of her nature and sure that she would always love, if not as much as she does now, at least more than she does any one else, I would not hesitate a minute to marry her. I am sure that in that case my love toward her would continually increase, and that by means of this feeling she could become a noble woman."

His letter to the young lady had now become cool and argumentative. He still used the words "in love," but, it seemed, only playfully, without the former enthusiasm. He addressed his letters to St. Petersburg, where she went to spend the winter season — an ambition she had cherished for a long time.

The coldness in the tone of his letters did not escape her, and she wrote to him with loving reproach. Two kind letters from her resulted in some return of love on his part; he sent her a letter written in a soft tone, and with some warmth of expression. In a subsequent letter, Tolstoy confesses that he is "losing his head," and tries to define "love" by reference to the mutual education that comes of it. However, as may be seen, they could never a tree as to what love precisely was, and the more sincerely and cordially Tolstoy expressed his thoughts and his feeling for her, the less they penetrated her soul and the more resistance she offered. This same resistance his last letter failed to overcome, and her reply made him change his tone, and friendship took the place of love.

After this there followed and interruption of three weeks. Very evidently their relations had changed and turned into friendship. Tolstoy meanwhile settled in St. Petersburg in order to prosecute his literary work. They exchanged letters once more; however, nothing was arranged, and she forbade him to write to her. But he continued to write, confessing his guilt toward her and himself.

He further tells her that he is going abroad and gives her his address in Paris, begging her to write to him there, were it even for the last time.

Finally, before he left Moscow for abroad, he wrote to his aunt about the whole matter.

Dear Aunt — I have received my passport for abroad and have come to Moscow, intending to pass a few days with marie and then go to Yasnaya to arrange my affairs and take leave of you.

But I have now changed my mind, chiefly on Mashinka's advice, and have decided to remain with her here a week or two and then go direct by Warsaw to Paris. You probably understand, dear Aunt, why I do not wish to come to Yasnaya now, or rather to Sudakovo, and even ought not to do so. I think I have behaved very badly in relation to V., but by seeing her now, I should behave yet worse still. As I have written to you, I am more than indifferent to her and fear I can no longer deceive either myself or her. Whereas, if I came, I might perhaps, owing to weakness of character, again deceive myself.

Do you remember, dear Aunt, how you laughed at me when I told you that I was leaving for St. Petersburg that I might test myself, yet it is to this idea that I owe the fact of not having made the unhappiness of this young lady and myself, for do not think that it was inconstancy or infidelity. No one has taken my fancy during these two months, but I have simply come to see that I was deceiving myself, and that I have not only never had, but never shall have, the slightest feeling of true love for V. The only thing which greatly pains me is that I have injured the young lady, and that I shall not be able to take leave of you before my departure. I intend returning to Russia in July, but should you desire it, I will come to Yasnaya to embrace you, for I shall have time to get your answer at Moscow.

After this, Tolstoy really got away, and from Paris, in reply to a letter from his old sweetheart, which he received there, he wrote to her his last friendly letter, in which he speaks of his feeling as of a mistake belonging to the past, thanks her for her friendship, and wishes her happiness.

Tolstoy's aunt evidently did not approve of this rupture, as she was desirous to see her nephew married, and before long she reproached him for his inconstancy, even accusing him of having acted dishonorably toward the girl who had been tormented with doubts and expectations on his account. In reply to this, Tolstoy wrote the following interesting letter:

By your letter, dear Aunt, I see that we do not at all understand each other in regard to this affair. Although I confess that I was to blame, in having been inconstant, and that everything might have happened quite differently, yet I think I have acted quite honestly. I have never ceased to say that I did not know the feeling that I had for the young lady, but that it was not love, and that I was anxious to test myself. The experience showed me that I was mistaken in my feeling, and I wrote about it to V. as plainly as I could.

After this, my relations with her have been so sincere that I am sure the memory of them will never be disagreeable, were she to marry, and it is for this reason that I wrote to her, saying that I would like to hear from her. I do not see why a young man should necessarily either be in love with a girl and marry her or have no friendly relation with her at all, for as to friendship and sympathy for her, I have always retained a great deal. Mademoiselle Vorgani, who wrote to me such a ridiculous letter, should have realized all my conduct in regard to V., how I endeavored to come as seldom as possible, how it was she who engaged me to come oftener and to enter into nearer relations. I understand her being vexed that a thing she had greatly desired did not take place (I am perhaps more vexed than she), but that is no reason for telling a man who has endeavored to act in the best way possible, and who had made sacrifices for fear of rendering others unhappy, that he is a brute, and making every one else think so. I am sure Tula is convinced I am the greatest monster."

Judging by this letter, one can imagine what impression the rupture made on the lady and her friends.

A short time afterward, having learned from his aunt's letter that his old sweetheart's sister was getting married, his former feeling reawoke, and he wrote as follows:

As to V., I never lover her with a real love, but I allowed myself to be drawn into tasting the evil pleasure of inspiring love, which afforded me an enjoyment which I had never know before.

But the time I have passed away from her has proved to me that I have no longing to see her again, much less to marry her. I feel only fear at the thought of the duties I should be obliged to fulfill toward her without loving her, and it is for this reason that I made up my mind to go away sooner than I intended. I have behaved very ill; I have asked pardon of God, and I ask it of all those I have grieved, but it is impossible to repair matters, and now nothing in the world could make the thing begin anew. I desire all happiness to Olga; I am enchanted with her marriage, but to you, my aunt, I confess that of all things in this world, that which wold give me the greatest pleasure would be to learn that V. was going to marry a man whom she loved and who was worthy of her; for although I have not got in the depth of my heart the slightest atom of love for her, I still regard her as a good and honorable girl.

Thus ended this short but pathetic affair, a most interesting passage in Tolstoy's life. Having known a period of strong agitation and outlived it, he, so to speak, turned to account this episode of his life, with the sensations which he experienced, by describing them in his novel "Family Happiness", in an artistic form, as anyone can see who compares the work of art with the author's actual life. We may in fact say that what is represented as taking place in the novel is the course of events which might have occurred in his real life, and the real romance was the commencement or prologue of the fiction.

After this unsuccessful affair, Tolstoy resumed his literary and social activity.