At fifty, with a wife and children, being at the time a governor of a province, he offered together with “the young scions of Russia” to go abroad to learn navigation; and he learnt it. During his ambassadorship at Constantinople he was thrice imprisoned in the dungeons of the Castle of the Seven Towers, and thrice he came out; and later gained the Tsar’s special favour. Once his private secretary charged him in writing with having appropriated money belonging to the state; but the sudden death of the secretary took place before the despatch of the letter.
Tolstoi explained thus: “Timothy, the clerk, became acquainted with the Turks and thought he would join the infidels. By God’s help I learnt about it. I called him to me, talked seriously to him, and then locked him up in my room until evening; during the night he drank a glass of wine and died soon afterwards. In this fashion God saved him from his crimes.”
It was to some purpose that he studied and translated into Russian the Political Discourses of Niccolo Machiavelli, the noble Florentine citizen. Tolstoi himself passed for a Russian Machiavelli. “O head, head, if I had not known you to be so clever I should have cut you off long ago!” said the Tsar in reference to him. And that was why Tolstoi was now afraid lest in this business with the Tsarevitch this clever head should prove itself foolish and the Russian Machiavelli a dupe. And at the same time he had done all that could have been done; he had enmeshed the Tsarevitch in a fine though strong net; he had made all believe that all secretly desired his extradition, but that, through fear of breaking faith, each was thrusting the responsibility upon others. The Empress was reckoning upon the Emperor, the Emperor upon his chancellor the chancellor upon the Viceroy, the Viceroy upon his secretary. To the last named Tolstoi had given a present of £32, and promised to add more should he succeed in convincing the Tsarevitch that the Emperor would no longer protect him. But all efforts were wrecked by the “cursed stubbornness.” The worst was that he had himself asked to be sent on this mission. “Every one should recognise his star,” he used to say; and it seemed to him that his star would be the capture of the Tsarevitch, which would be the crown of his official service, he would be decorated with St. Andrew’s ribbon, receive the title of Count, and thus become the ancestor of a new house—the Counts Tolstoi, a dream which he had cherished all his life. What would the Tsar say, if he returned alone, without him? Just now, however, he did not think about the loss of the Tsar’s favour, the St. Andrew’s ribbon, nor the title. Like a true sportsman, forgetting everything else, he had one thought only, that the prey would escape him.
A few days after his first interview with Alexis, Tolstoi was sitting sipping his chocolate at breakfast on the balcony of his luxurious apartments at the Three Kings Hotel, in one of the liveliest streets of Naples, the Via Toledo. He looked very old, almost decrepit, in his dressing gown, with no wig to cover his smooth skull, which showed a scanty remnant of grey hair at the back.
Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” which he was still translating into Russian, lay on the table in front of the mirror, together with his own metamorphosis—his youth—a small jar, brushes, and a beautiful wig with youthful coal-black curls.
He was very uneasy. But as always in moments of deep musings about political affairs, he wore an unconcerned, almost heedless expression. He exchanged glances with his pretty neighbour who was also sitting on her balcony across the road. She was a black-eyed Spaniard, one of the class who according to Æsop “are not very much inclined to live by manual labour.” He smiled across at her with gallantry, though his smile reminded one of the grin of a death’s head; and hummed a love song of his own, “To the maiden,” an imitation of Anacreon:—
Fly not thus my brow of snow,
Lovely wanton! fly not so!
Though the wane of age is mine,