1844-1845
The winter season when Tolstoy, as a student at the University and a young man of good position, entered Kazán society, was a particularly gay one. He attended many balls, given by the Governor of the Province, by the Maréchal de la Noblesse, and by private people, as well as many masquerades, concerts, tableaux-vivants, and private theatricals. He is still remembered by old inhabitants as having been 'present at all the balls, soirées, and aristocratic parties, a welcome guest everywhere, and always dancing, but, far from being a ladies' man, he was distinguished by a strange awkwardness and shyness.' At Carnival time in 1845 he and his brother Sergius took parts in two plays given for some charitable object. His performance was a great success.
As to the nature of Kazán society and of his surroundings there, accounts are contradictory. On the one hand, we have his own statement that (imitating his brother Sergius in this as in other matters) he became 'depraved.' Birukóf, too, speaks of 'the detestable surroundings of Tolstoy's life in Kazán,' and another writer, Zagóskin, a fellow-student of Tolstoy's at the University, says that the surroundings in which the latter moved were demoralising and must have been repellent to him. On the other hand, on seeing Zagóskin's remarks, Tolstoy (in whom there is often observable a strong spirit of contradiction) replied:
I did not feel any repulsion, but was very glad to enjoy myself in Kazán society, which was then very good. I am on the contrary thankful to fate that I passed my first youth in an environment where a young man could be young without touching problems beyond his grasp, and that I lived a life which, though idle and luxurious, was yet not evil.
The explanation of these contradictions, no doubt, is that the family circle in which Tolstoy lived was an affectionate one, and that he himself not only enjoyed his life, but formed friendships and made efforts at which in later years he looked back with satisfaction. Yet there was assuredly much in his life and in the life around him which (except when others were severe on it) he recalled with grave disapproval, a disapproval he has plainly expressed in his Confession.
To come as near as we may to the truth, we must allow for the personal equation which, in Tolstoy's case, is violent and fluctuating.
With constant amusements going on around him, it is not surprising that at the end of his first University year he failed in his examinations. The failure does not however appear to have been entirely his fault, for he tells us:
Ivanóf, Professor of Russian History, prevented me from passing to the second course (though I had not missed a single lecture and knew Russian History quite well) because he had quarrelled with my family. The same Professor also gave me the lowest mark—a 'one'—for German, though I knew the language incomparably better than any student in our division.