1871
S. A. Behrs tells us, 'I know for a fact that he learnt the language and read Herodotus in three months.' While in Moscow that winter, he visited Leóntief, then Professor of Greek at the Katkóf Lyceum, to talk about Greek literature. Leóntief did not wish to believe in the possibility of his having learnt Greek so rapidly, and proposed that they should read something at sight. It happened that they differed as to the meaning of three passages; but after a little discussion the Professor admitted that the Count's interpretations were right.
Tolstoy felt the charm of the literary art of the ancient world, and so keen was his power of entering into the minds of those of whom he read, and so different to his own was the Greek outlook upon life, that the contradiction produced in him a feeling of melancholy and apathy profound enough to affect his health.
What clash of ideals it was that produced this result we may guess when we consider how from his earliest years he had been attracted by the Christian ideal of meekness, humility, and self-sacrifice, and how little this accords with the outlook on life of the ancient Greeks. In a book written nearly forty years later, Tolstoy tells us that 'If, as was the case among the Greeks, religion places the meaning of life in earthly happiness, in beauty and in strength, then art successfully transmitting the joy and energy of life, would be considered good art' [good, that is, in its subject-matter of feeling conveyed] but art transmitting the opposite feelings would be bad art.[51] Again in the same work he says that the esthetic theory he is combating, seeks to make it appear 'that the very best that can be done by the art of nations after 1900 years of Christian teaching, is to choose as the ideal of life the ideal held by a small, semi-savage, slave-holding people who lived 2000 years ago, imitated the nude human body extremely well, and erected buildings pleasant to look at.'[52]
To wean him from his absorption in Greek literature, his wife at first urged him to take up some fresh literary work; and finally, becoming seriously alarmed for his health, induced him to go eastward for a koumýs cure. He wrote to Fet at this time:
10 June 1871.
Dear Friend,—I have long not written to you, nor been to see you, because I was, and still am, ill. I don't myself know what is the matter with me, but it seems like something bad or good, according to the name we give to our exit. Loss of strength, and a feeling that one needs nothing and wants nothing but quiet, which one has not got. My wife is sending me to Samára or Sarátof for two months for a koumýs cure. I leave for Moscow to-day, and shall there learn where I am to go to.
In Moscow it was decided that he should go to the part of Samára he had visited before.
Railways have always been an affliction to Tolstoy. Civilisation has forced them on him without his wish, and, as he argued in his educational articles, to the detriment of the peasant population. Personally, he complained of disagreeable sensations he experienced when travelling by rail, and compared these discomforts with the pleasure of riding on horseback. He objected both to the officious politeness of the conductors and to the way in which the passengers suspiciously shun one another. (This latter complaint is not one a Westerner would bring against Russians, for they appear to us the most friendly and sociable of fellow-travellers.) He used to insist on his wife always travelling first class. He himself went either first or third, but seldom second. To travel third is a more serious matter in Russia than in England; and he used purposely to choose a car in which there were peasants, and talked to all whom he met.
On this outward journey he went third class, by rail to Nízhni Nóvgorod and by steamer down the Vólga to the town of Samára. On the boat he took the opportunity to study the manners and customs of his fellow-passengers, natives of the Vólga district, and displayed his remarkable gift of making friends with people of all kinds. Before he had been two days on the boat he was on the friendliest terms with everybody, including the sailors, among whom he slept each night in the fore part of the vessel. Even when he met reserved or surly characters, it was not long before he drew them out of their shells, and set them chatting at their ease. One secret of this success was the unaffected interest he took in learning about other people's lives and affairs.
From Samára Tolstoy went eastward for eighty miles on horseback, following the banks of the river Karalýk till he reached the village of that name. He had lived there in 1862, and was welcomed as an old acquaintance and friend by the Bashkírs, who always spoke of him as 'The Count.' The reader will remember that at the University Tolstoy had studied oriental languages. His knowledge of Tartar no doubt increased his popularity with the Bashkírs. He had with him a man-servant, and his brother-in-law, Stepán Andréyevitch Behrs, then a lad of about sixteen, who subsequently in his Recollections gave many particulars about this outing. They lived, not in the 'winter village' of Karalýk, but about one-and-a-half miles away, in a kotchévka on the open steppe. A kotchévka is a conical tent, made of a collapsible wooden frame covered with large sheets of felt. It has a small painted door, and is usually carpeted with soft feather grass. The one in which Tolstoy's party lived, was a very large one which he hired from the Mullah (priest). It had formerly been used as a mosque, but had the practical disadvantage of not being rain-proof. There were four kotchévki in the neighbourhood, one of which was occupied by the Mullah.
On first arriving at Karalýk, Tolstoy for some days felt very depressed and unwell. He complained that he lacked capacity to feel either mental or physical pleasure, and looked at everything 'as though he were a corpse': a characteristic usually most foreign to him, and which in other people always evoked his dislike. It was, however, not long before he recovered his spirits and energy.
There were other visitors at Karalýk, who had also come to benefit by a koumýs cure. They neither associated with the Bashkír nomads, nor adopted their customs; but Tolstoy was extremely fond of the Bashkírs, associated much with them, and strictly followed their diet: avoiding all vegetable foods and restricting himself to meat and animal products. Dinner every day consisted chiefly of mutton eaten with the fingers out of wooden bowls.
Some of the Russian visitors lived in one of the kotchévki, but most of them lodged in the 'winter village.' Tolstoy soon made friends with them all, and thanks to his genial influence the whole place grew gay and lively. A professor of Greek from a Seminary for the education of priests might be seen trying a skipping-rope match with him; a procureur's assistant discussed legal and other questions, and there was a young Samára farmer who became his devoted follower.
Among those who specially interested Tolstoy was Mouhamet-Dzhan, the Bashkír Elder, whom the Russian peasants called Michael Ivánovitch. This man was very nimble and active, full of humour, fond of a joke, and a very strong player at draughts.
Accompanied by Behrs and two of their new acquaintances, and taking a supply of guns and presents, Tolstoy went for a four days' drive through the neighbouring villages. The party had splendid duck-shooting by the lakes they passed; and they were entertained and treated to koumýs by the Bashkírs at the kotchévkas in which they rested. As opportunity presented itself, they made suitable acknowledgment for their entertainment by giving presents to their hosts. One serious drawback to the hospitality they enjoyed was the fact that their hosts insisted on feeding them with mutton and fat with their own hands, without the intermediacy of fork or spoon, and it was out of the question to insult them by refusing such well-meant though quite undesired attentions.
On one occasion Tolstoy happened to admire a horse that had separated from its herd, and remarked to Behrs, 'See what a beautiful specimen of milking mare that is.' When, an hour later, they were taking leave, their host tied this animal to their conveyance, thus presenting it to his visitor. Of course, on the return journey, Tolstoy had to make an equivalent present in return.
Another incident of this stay in the Government of Samára, was a visit to the Petróvsky Fair, which is held once a year at Bouzouloúk, a small town some fifty miles from Karalýk. Here Russians, Bashkírs, Oural Cossacks, and Kirghiz mingled with one another; and Tolstoy was soon on a friendly footing with them all. He would chat and laugh with them even when they were drunk; but when one in that condition took it into his head to embrace the Count, Tolstoy's look was so stern and impressive that the fellow drew back his hands and let them fall, saying, 'No, never mind, it's all right!'
The following letter of 18th July 1871, to Fet, relates to Tolstoy's experience of the nomadic Bashkírs:
Thank you for your letter, dear friend! It seems that my wife gave a false alarm when she packed me off for a koumýs cure and persuaded me that I was ill. At any rate now, after four weeks, I seem to have quite recovered. And as is proper when one is taking a koumýs cure, I am drunk and sweat from morn to night, and find pleasure in it. It is very good here, and were it not for family home-sickness, I should be quite happy. Were I to begin describing, I should fill a hundred pages with this country and my own occupations. I am reading Herodotus, who describes in detail and with great accuracy these same galactophagous [gluttonous-for-milk] Scythians among whom I am living.
I began this letter yesterday, and wrote that I was well. To-day my side aches again. I do not myself know in how far I am ill, but it is bad that I am obliged to think—and cannot help thinking—about my side and my chest. This is the third day that the heat has been terrible. In the kibítka [tent] it is as hot as on the shelf of a Russian bath, but I like it. The country here is beautiful—in its age just emerging from virginity, in its richness, its health, and especially in its simplicity and its unperverted population. Here as everywhere I am looking round for an estate to buy. This affords me an occupation, and is the best excuse for getting to know the real condition of the district.
After a six weeks' stay Tolstoy returned to Yásnaya, travelling first class on the return journey.
His search for an estate had been successful, and after persuading his wife that the investment was a sound one, he purchased two thousand acres on his return to Moscow.
The change of scene, or some other influence, weakened Tolstoy's absorption in Greek literature; and a huge dictionary he had taken with him, was used by his brother-in-law to press a collection of local wildflowers.
During his wanderings on the steppe, Tolstoy met many Molokáns, members of a kind of Bible-Christian peasant sect. They base their faith on the Bible, reject the Greek Church with its traditions, priesthood, dogmas, ritual, sacraments, and icons. The name Molokán, or Milk-Drinker, probably arose from the fact that, not observing the Russian fasts, these people do not scruple to drink milk in Lent. They are said to be distinguished by an honesty and industry not found among their Orthodox neighbours; and they abstain from all intoxicants.
It interested Tolstoy to mix with these people, and he liked to discuss their beliefs, especially with a venerable leader of theirs, named Aggéy. It so happened that in the neighbouring village of Pátrovka there was a very worthy young Russian priest, who was eager to convert the Molokáns, and occasionally arranged debates with them on religious subjects. Tolstoy sometimes attended these debates: his object being not so much to convert the Molokáns, as to understand the points on which they differed from the Russo-Greek Church. He also took an interest in the Mohammedan faith of his Bashkír friends, and on his return to Yásnaya read through a French translation of the Koran.
A few years later Tolstoy associated much with the representatives of various sects and faiths, being then profoundly interested in their beliefs; but at this time, his interest in such matters was only beginning to make itself felt.
A letter of Tourgénef's written at this period, indicates how little he allowed his quarrel with Tolstoy the man, to warp his appreciation of Tolstoy the artist. Writing to Fet on 2nd July 1871, he says:
Your letter again grieves me—I refer to what you write about L. Tolstoy. I have great fears on his account, for two of his brothers died of consumption, and I am very glad he is taking a koumýs cure, in the reality and efficacy of which I have faith. L. Tolstoy is the only hope of our orphaned literature; he cannot and must not vanish from the face of the earth as prematurely as his predecessors: Poúshkin, Lérmontof and Gógol.
Again in November, writing from Paris, he says:
I am very glad that Tolstoy's health is now satisfactory and that he is at work. Whatever he does will be good, if only he does not himself mutilate his own handiwork. Philosophy, which he hates, has revenged herself on him in a strange way: she has infected him, and the enemy of rationalising has plunged head over ears into rationalisation! But perhaps all that has fallen away from him by now, and left only the pure and powerful artist.
On returning home from Samára improved in health, Tolstoy turned his thoughts once more to matters educational: especially to the crying want of good primers for those beginning to read. We have seen how strongly, in 1862, he had felt the need of well-written books simple enough for beginners and peasant readers, and how he resented the monopolisation of knowledge by the cultured classes entrenched behind barriers of pedantry. We have seen, too, how under the influence of Homer he swore he would no more write 'wordy rubbish'; and the time had now come for this feeling to bear fruit. The task to which he devoted his powers at their zenith, was the production of an ABC Book for beginners, which was to be as simple, sincere and perfect in form and in subject-matter as possible.
We know from the writings of the American Consul, Mr. Eugene Schuyler, who visited Tolstoy in 1868, and at his request obtained for him a collection of American school primers, that Tolstoy was even then meditating a work of the kind to which he now devoted himself ardently for a whole year. By September he was hard at work, the Countess as usual acting as his amanuensis.
Of her we hear that in an impulsive, kind-hearted way, she often rendered assistance to the poor, not merely among the Yásnaya Polyána peasants, but to others from a distance as well; and that the neighbouring peasants thought well of her.
The increase in the Tolstoy family was met this year by a considerable enlargement of their domicile. By way of a house-warming to celebrate the completion of the building, a masquerade was arranged at Christmas, at which Tolstoy evoked great enthusiasm by appearing as a goat.
About this time, at the age of sixteen, Behrs and a school friend of his became sorely troubled as to the state of their souls, and thought of entering a monastery. This is what he tells us of Tolstoy's relation to the matter:
His attitude towards my inclination was a most cautious one. I often went to him with my doubts and questions, but he always managed to avoid expressing his opinion, knowing how very great an influence it would have with me. He left it to me to work out my own convictions. Once, however, he spoke out with sufficient plainness. We were riding past the village church where his parents lie buried. Two horses were grazing in the churchyard. We had been talking over the only subject that then interested me.
'How can a man live in peace,' I asked, 'so long as he has not solved the question of a future life?'
'You see those two horses grazing there,' he answered; 'are they not laying up for a future life?'
'But I am speaking of our spiritual, not our earthly life.'
'Indeed? Well, about that, I neither know nor can know anything.'