And, indeed, on our way home the rain stopped, and we went back to the gypsies.
Tolstoi said:
“Yes, it is always like that: as soon as you turn to go home the rain stops. Something like this happens in Moscow too. When you have to find some one in a large building and ring for the porter, he is never there. But no sooner do you go into the yard to make water than the porter is sure to catch you. So I advise you that if you have to find some one, don’t ring for the porter, but do the second thing first.”
When Andrey Lvovich was made an aide-de-camp, Tolstoi said to him:
“My only comfort is that you are sure not to kill a single Japanese. An aide-de-camp is always exposed to great danger, but seldom takes part in the fighting. I spent a great deal of time on the fourth bastion at Sevastopol when I was in the army on the Danube. I was aide-de-camp, and I believe I had not to fire even once. I remember once on the Danube, near Silistria, we were on our side of the river, but there was also a battery on the other side, and I was sent across with some order. The commander of the battery, Schube, on seeing me, thought: ‘Well, there’s that little Count, I’ll give him a lesson!’ And he took me across the whole line under fire, and with deadly slowness on purpose. I passed that test well outwardly, but my feelings were not pleasant. I also remember how one of the highest officers—Kotsebu—visited the bastion in Sevastopol, and some one, I think it was Novosilzev, wanted to put him to the test, and began saying perpetually: ‘Look, Your Excellency, just there at their line,’ forcing him to put his head out from behind the fortifications. He put his head out once or twice, and then, realizing what was up, he, as the superior officer, began in his turn to order the other man to look at the firing, and, after teasing him for some time, he said: ‘Next time I advise you not to doubt the courage of your superiors.’”
Tolstoi recalled Lichtenberg’s[10] aphorism to the effect that mankind will finally perish when not a single savage is left.
Tolstoi added:
“I first turned to the Japanese, but they have already successfully adopted all the bad sides of our culture. The Kaffirs are the only hope remaining.”
Tolstoi said:
“I do not remember during any previous war such depression and anxiety as are now in Russia. I think it is a good sign, a proof that a realization of the evil and uselessness and absurdity of war is permeating deeper and deeper the social consciousness; so that perhaps the time is coming when wars will be impossible—nobody will want to go to war. Now Lisanka, who always sees the good in things, was telling me about a peasant—a porter, I think—who was called up and, before going to the front, took off his cross. That is a truly Christian spirit! Although he is not able to resist the general will and has to yield to it, yet he clearly realizes that it is not God’s doing.”