Tolstoy never fears to deal with the real problems of life, and never fears to call a spade a spade; but he also never panders to the animal passions. In a letter relating to Resurrection he remarked: 'When I read a book, what chiefly interests me is the Weltanschauung des Autors: what he likes and what he hates. And I hope that any one who reads my book with that in view will find out what the author likes and dislikes, and will be influenced by the author's feelings.' What is important is not the subject treated of, but the feeling the author imparts when dealing with it.
Arnold, it is true, is rather shocked that Anna should yield so quickly and easily to the persuasions of Vrónsky. He is quite sure that she ought to have resisted. But here we come to a matter on which many Russians disapprove of Tolstoy on quite the opposite ground. Kropótkin in his interesting work Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature, has stated their case very clearly, and this is the substance of what he says:
Anna Karénina produced in Russia an impression which brought Tolstoy congratulations from the reactionary camp and a very cool reception from the advanced portion of society. The fact is that the question of marriage and of the separation of husband and wife, had been most earnestly debated in Russia by the best men and women, both in literature and in life. Levity towards marriage such as is continually unveiled in the Divorce Courts, was decidedly condemned, as also was any form of deceit such as supplies the subject for countless French novels and plays. But after levity and deceit had been condemned, the right of a new love—appearing perhaps after years of happy married life—was seriously considered, Tchernyshévsky's novel, What Is To Be Done? may be taken as the best expression of the opinions on marriage which became current among the better portion of the young generation. Once married, it was said, don't take lightly to love affairs or flirtation. Not every fit of passion deserves the name of a new love; and what is called love is often merely temporary desire. Even if it be real, before it has grown deep there is generally time to reflect on the consequences that would result were it allowed to grow. But when all is said and done, there are cases when a new love does come, and comes almost inevitably: as for instance when a girl has been married almost against her will under the continued insistence of her lover, or when the two have married without properly understanding one another, or when one of the two has continued to progress towards an ideal, while the other, after having worn the mask of idealism, falls back into the Philistine happiness of warmed slippers. In such cases separation not only becomes inevitable, but is often to the interest of both. It would be better for both to live through the suffering a separation involves (honest natures are improved by such suffering) than to spoil the entire subsequent life of one—or both in most cases—and to face the evil consequences which living together under such circumstances would be sure to produce on the children. That at any rate was the conclusion to which, both in literature and in life, the best portion of Russian society came.
And into the society Kropótkin describes in the above statement, comes Tolstoy with Anna Karénina. The epigraph of the book is 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' and death by suicide is the fate of poor Anna, who was married young to an old and unattractive man, and who had never known love till she met Vrónsky. Deceit was not in her nature. To maintain a conventional marriage would not have made her husband or child happier. Separation and a new life with Vrónsky, who seriously loved her, was the only possible outcome. At any rate, continues Kropótkin, if the story of Anna Karénina had to end in tragedy, it was not in consequence of an act of supreme justice. The artistic genius of Tolstoy, honest here as everywhere, itself indicated the real cause, in the inconsistency of Vrónsky and Anna. After leaving her husband and defying public opinion—that is, as Tolstoy shows, the opinion of women not honest enough to have a right to a voice in the matter—neither she nor Vrónsky had the courage to break right away from that society, the futility of which Tolstoy describes so exquisitely. Instead of that, when Anna returns with Vrónsky to Petersburg, their chief preoccupation is, how Betsy and other such women will receive her if she reappears among them? 'And it was the opinion of the Betsies—surely not Superhuman Justice—which brought Anna to suicide.'
Whether Matthew Arnold's view or Kropótkin's view be accepted, Tolstoy at any rate does full justice to Anna's charm: 'her large, fresh, rich, generous, delightful nature which keeps our sympathy' and even our respect; there is no nonsense about her being a degraded or vile person. And after all, Tolstoy's view of marriage sanctity is a very old and a very widely held one; and it is surely good to have that side of the case put so artistically, so persuasively, so well, as he puts it. If ultimately the idea that two uncongenial people ought to live out their lives together because they have married, has to be abandoned, let it not be abandoned without the very best advocates being heard on its behalf.
Anna Karénina contains passages: the ball, the officers' steeplechase, the mowing, the death of Lévin's brother, and others, which for artistic beauty are unsurpassed and, one is tempted to add, unsurpassable. It also, towards the end, contains in admirably concise form much of what Tolstoy has told in his Confession, of his quest after the meaning of life, his thoughts of suicide, and how he learnt from a talk with a peasant that man should live for his soul and for God.
His treatment in this novel of the Russian volunteers who went to fight for Servia, was as bold a slap in the face to the Russian jingoes, who were having things all their own way at that time, as Campbell Bannerman's 'methods of barbarism' speech, or Sir E. Clarke's declaration that the reassertion of England's claim to suzerainty in the internal affairs of the Transvaal, was 'a breach of national faith,' was to our jingoes at the time of the Boer war; but it is curious to note the precise position that (speaking through the mouth of Lévin) Tolstoy took up. He did not say that Russia ought not to fight to free the Christian populations of Turkey; he merely said that no individual Russian had any business to volunteer for the Servian or Bulgarian army, or to take any action to urge the Russian Government towards war.
Of Lévin we are told: 'He, like Miháylitch and the peasants, whose feelings are expressed in the legendary story of the invitation sent to the Varyági by the early inhabitants of Russia, said: "Come and be princes and rule over us. We gladly promise complete submission. All labour, all humiliations, all sacrifices we take on ourselves, but we do not judge or decide."' And Lévin goes on to repudiate the idea that the Russian people have 'now renounced this privilege [the privilege, that is, of not taking any part in Government] bought at so costly a price.'
The connection between the roots of Tolstoy's opinions—manifested in these writings of his first fifty years—and his opinions in their ultimate rigid and dogmatic form, as expressed during the last three decades, is in general so close, the dogmas of the later period grew so naturally out of the sympathies and experiences of the earlier time, that this point—at which there is a clean line of cleavage (the difference between obeying Government and disobeying it)—is worthy of particular note. When finishing Anna Karénina Tolstoy had not yet reached the conclusion that all Governments employing force are immoral; but his later teachings are dominated by that view.
Apart from the special points I have referred to, the general effect and influence of Tolstoy's fiction can hardly be summed up better than they have been summed up by W. D. Howells, who says: