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.