Stráhof's assistance enabled Tolstoy (though he continued to give most careful instructions with regard to the treatment of the various sections of the book) to get a much needed change; and after having as usual worked during the winter and spring up to the very limit of his strength, he went for a short visit to his Samára estate, where he arranged about building, and about breaking up the virgin soil. A peasant from Yásnaya village was appointed steward of the new estate, and was instructed to see to the building of the house there. Being far away from home Tolstoy was anxious about his ABC Book; so he cut short his stay, and returned to Yásnaya before the end of July. There he learned that a fine young bull of his had gored its keeper to death. The unpleasantness of such an occurrence and of the legal investigation consequent on the man's death, was greatly increased by the fact that the Investigating Magistrate, an incompetent and arrogant young official, wrongly held Tolstoy responsible for 'careless holding of cattle,' and, besides commencing criminal proceedings against him, obliged him to give a written undertaking not to leave Yásnaya. Prince D. D. Obolénsky tells how Tolstoy arrived one day at a meet at the Prince's estate of Schahovskóy (some thirty miles from Yásnaya) late and much upset, and told of an examination he had that morning undergone at the hands of the Investigating Magistrate, whose duties included those of Coroner. 'Being an excit able man,' says Obolénsky, 'Tolstoy was extremely indignant at the Magistrate's conduct, and told how the latter had kept a Yásno-Polyána peasant in prison for a year-and-a-half on suspicion of having stolen a cow, which then turned out to have been stolen by some one else. "He will confine me for a year," added Tolstoy. "It is absurd, and shows how utterly arbitrary these gentlemen are. I shall sell all I have in Russia and go to England, where every man's person is respected. Here every police-officer, if one does not grovel at his feet, can play one the dirtiest tricks!"'
P. F. Samárin, who had also come to the hunt, opposed Tolstoy with animation, arguing that the death or even the mutilation of a man, was so serious a matter that it could not be left without judicial investigation. After long argument Samárin more or less convinced Tolstoy, and the latter before retiring to rest remarked to Obolénsky, 'What a wonderful power of calming people Samárin has!'
The judicial proceedings dragged on for more than a month, and it was not till late in September that Tolstoy was again free to take a journey to Moscow. The proceedings, first against him and then against his steward, were abandoned; but not before the newspapers had taken the matter up and made a fuss about it.
At last, in November, the ABC Book was published. It sold slowly, and was attacked by some of the papers. Tolstoy however was not discouraged, but held to his belief that (as he expressed it to Stráhof) he had 'erected a monument'—a conviction amply justified by the ultimate success of the work. He had indeed produced a reading-book far superior to anything that had previously existed in Russia, and that is probably unmatched in any language. With certain modifications to be mentioned later on, it continues to circulate throughout Russia to the present day.
In connection with his other efforts to popularise his system of instruction, Tolstoy, in October 1872, invited a dozen teachers from neighbouring schools to visit him for a week at Yásnaya. They were accommodated in his second house (called, as is customary in Russian when speaking of a subsidiary residence, 'the wing'); and a number of illiterate boys were collected from villages within reach, to be taught on Tolstoy's lines. He also formed a project of establishing a 'University in bark shoes' [the country peasants wear bark shoes] or in other words, a training college in which peasants could become teachers without ceasing to be peasants. This plan occupied his attention, off and on, for some years; but (owing to causes which will be related later) never came to fruition.
In December Tourgénef writes from Paris, to Fet:
I got a copy of L. Tolstoy's ABC, but except the beautiful story, A Prisoner in the Caucasus, I did not find anything interesting in it. And the price is absurdly dear for a work of that kind.
The price of the first edition of 3000 copies of the ABC was Rs. 2 (about 5s. 6d.). Tourgénef probably had no idea of the immense labour, or of the typographical difficulties, involved in its production. The subsequent editions were much cheaper.
About this time Fet sent Tolstoy a letter in rhyme, to which the latter replied as follows:
12 November 1872.