1848
On the 13th of the following February he wrote to his brother Sergius:
I write you this letter from Petersburg, where I intend to remain for ever.... I have decided to stay here for my examinations and then to enter the service....
In brief, I must say that Petersburg life has a great and food influence on me: it accustoms me to activity and supplies the place of a fixed table of occupations. Somehow one cannot be idle; every one is occupied and active; one cannot find a man with whom one could lead an aimless life, and one can't do it alone....
I know you will not believe that I have changed, but will say, 'It's already the twentieth time, and nothing comes of you—the emptiest of fellows.' No, I have now altered in quite a new way. I used to say to myself: 'Now I will change,' but at last I see that I have changed, and I say, 'I have changed.'
Above all, I am now quite convinced that one cannot live by theorising and philosophising, but must live positively, i.e. must be a practical man. That is a great step in advance and a great change; it never happened to me before. If one is young and wishes to live, there is no place in Russia but Petersburg for it....
Tolstoy in 1848, after he had left the University.
On the 1st of May he wrote again to his brother, in a very different strain:
Seryózha! I think you already say I am 'the emptiest of fellows,' and it is true. God knows what I have done! I came to Petersburg without any reason, and have done nothing useful here, but have spent heaps of money and got into debt. Stupid! Insufferably stupid! You can't believe how it torments me. Above all, the debts, which I must pay as soon as possible, because if I don't pay them soon, besides losing the money, I shall lose my reputation.... I know you will cry out; but what's to be done? One commits such folly once in a lifetime. I have had to pay for my freedom (there was no one to thrash me, that was my chief misfortune) and for philosophising, and now I have paid for it. Be so kind as to arrange to get me out of this false and horrid position—penniless and in debt all round.
He goes on to mention that he had passed two examinations at the University, but that he had altered his mind, and now, instead of completing his examinations, wanted to 'enter the Horse Guards as a Junker.' (A Junker was a young man who volunteered for the army as a Cadet. Before receiving a commission, a Junker lived with the officers, while preparing to become one of them.)
God willing, I will amend and become a steady man at last, I hope much from my service as a Junker, which will train me to practical life, and nolens-volens I shall have to earn the rank of officer. With luck, i.e. if the Guards go into action, I may get a commission even before the usual two years are up. The Guards start for the front at the end of May. At present I can do nothing: first, because I have no money (of which I shall not need much, I fancy), and secondly, because my two birth-certificates are at Yásnaya. Have them sent on as soon as possible.
Before long, Tolstoy was again writing to his brother:
In my last letter I wrote much nonsense, of which the chief item was that I intended to enter the Horse Guards; I shall act on that plan only in case I fail in my examinations, and if the war is a serious one.
The war in question was Russia's share in quelling the Hungarian rebellion of 1849. Not a thought of the justice or otherwise of the cause seems at that time to have crossed the mind of him who in later life became so powerful an indicter of war.
This is Tolstoy's own summary, written many years later, of the period we are now dealing with:
It was very pleasant living in the country with Aunty Tatiána, but an indefinite thirst for knowledge drew me away to a distance. This was in 1848, and I was still uncertain what to undertake. In Petersburg two roads were open to me. I could either enter the army, to take part in the Hungarian campaign, or I could complete my studies at the University, to enter the Civil Service. My thirst for knowledge conquered my ambition, and I again began to study. I even passed two examinations in Law, but then all my good resolutions broke down. Spring came, and the charm of country life again drew me back to my estate.
Of the two examinations he passed at this time he says:
In 1848 I went to pass the examinations for my degree at Petersburg University, knowing literally nothing, and reading up during only one week. I worked day and night; and passed with Honours in Civil and Criminal Law.
But in spite of this success he did not take the remaining examinations, and returned to Yásnaya without having obtained a degree—finally abandoning the attempt to do so.
In later times, when Tolstoy's reputation was world-wide, critics often amused themselves by detecting inconsistencies in his conduct and questioning his sincerity. But the proof of his sincerity is writ large in the story of his life. Time after time, from the earliest pages of his Diary, we find him vehemently resolving never more to do certain things, but always to do other things, and again and again confessing in the greatest tribulation, that he had failed to carry out his intentions; yet in spite of everything he returns, and again returns, to his earliest ideals and gradually shapes his life into accord with them, and eventually forms habits which, when he first extolled them, appeared utterly beyond his reach. Not insincerity but impetuosity, retrieved by extraordinary tenacity of purpose, has always characterised him. It was the same with his thirst for knowledge as with his yet deeper thirst after righteousness. Often as he was swayed by the lures of life, each of those two great desires found its satisfaction at last.
The letters quoted above show some consciousness of the fact that there is a practical side to life not to be mastered by theorising; but the duty of learning by experience as well as by ratiocination is one Tolstoy has very seldom dwelt on, and never, I think, realised at all fully.
Another characteristic matter alluded to in these letters is the difficulty he found himself in for lack of his birth-certificates and other papers. Russia has long suffered from a superabundance of red tape, which contrasts strongly with the slipshod habits of its people, and promotes the hatred of officialism that is there so common. The fact that Tolstoy has on several occasions been put to great inconvenience for lack of certificates, which it was not in his nature methodically to keep in readiness, is a small matter, but it has probably had its share in increasing his strong dislike of governments.
From Petersburg he brought back with him to Yásnaya a gifted but drunken German musician named Rudolph, with whom he had chanced to make acquaintance, and whose talent he had discerned. For some time Tolstoy devoted himself passionately to music, acquiring sufficient skill on the piano to become an excellent and sympathetic accompanist. He was always very susceptible to the influence of music, and in music, as in literature, he had strong sympathies and antipathies. Rudolph supplies the principal figure in Tolstoy's story Albert, written several years later.
Aunt Tatiána, who had played the piano excellently in youth, but had quite given it up for nearly thirty years, and who was now fifty-three years of age, resumed its practice and, Tolstoy tells us, played duets with him, and often surprised him by the accuracy and beauty of her execution.
For the next three years he lived partly at Yásnaya and partly in Moscow, and led a life alternating between the asceticism of his brother Demetrius and the self-indulgence of his brother Sergius; with dissipation, hunting, gambling, and the society of gipsy-girl singers. These were among the wildest and most wasted years of his life; but even here we find him, in the summer of 1850, resuming his Diary with penitence and self-reproach, and drawing up a time-table of how his days are in future to be spent: estate management, bathing, diary-writing, music, dinner, rest, reading, bathing, and again estate business to close the day. This curriculum was, however, neglected. Gusts of passion again swept away his good resolutions.