[191.] A village near Nicholskoe, as well as the village Shelkovo, mentioned [below].
[192.] A young lively girl, whom Tolstoi met at the Chertkovs’ when they lived in the summer of 1896 near Yasnaya Polyana. Being arrested on suspicion of revolutionary activity and imprisoned in the fortress of Peter and Paul, she committed suicide by setting herself on fire.
In the letter to V. G. Chertkov, Tolstoi wrote:
“In Petersburg on February 12th the following occurred: Vietrova, Maria Fedosievna, whom you know and whom I knew, a student confined in the House of Detention before Trial in the strike case, little connected with it, was transferred to the fortress of Peter and Paul. There, as they say and surmise, after inquiry and violation (that is still unestablished) she poured kerosene on herself, set fire to it and on the third day died. Her comrades who visited her, kept on bringing her things, which were accepted, and only after two weeks, were they told that she had burnt herself. The youth, all the students, up to three thousand persons (there were some also from the Theological Seminary) gathered in the Kazan Cathedral for the service of the dead. They were not permitted, but they themselves began to sing “Eternal Memory” and with wreaths, intended to march on the Nevsky Prospect, but were not permitted, and they went along Kazan Street. Their names were taken and they were let free. Every one is indignant. I receive letters and people come and tell me about it. I feel great pity for all who take part in these affairs, and I have a greater and greater desire to explain to people how they ruin themselves simply because they neglect that law (or they do not know it) which was given by Christ and which frees from such deeds and from the participation in them.”
Tolstoi approached A. F. Koni for advice, whether it were possible to publish what was authentically known about this terrible case, and secondly about “what to do in order to resist” this kind of event?
[193.] Two lines crossed out by Tolstoi. A note by M. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.
[194.] The Englishman, Aylmer Maude, translator of many works of Tolstoi into English. The agricultural colony which Tolstoi mentions was being founded at that time in England in the town of Purleigh in Essex. Maude settled in the neighbourhood of the colony and supported it materially. Maude himself and several representatives of this colony visited Tolstoi at this time. He wrote and published in England, a biography of Tolstoi, The Life of Tolstoi, by Aylmer Maude, two volumes, London, 1908 to 1910. Unfortunately this most detailed biography of Tolstoi in English, contains among other things the most perverted information about Tolstoi and an absolutely incorrect interpretation of his views, as well as of some of his acts. Tolstoi himself, learning before his death of the contents of some of these chapters which were sent to Yasnaya Polyana in manuscript, found the interpretation of the relation among people near to him so incorrect that he wrote about it to Maude.
[195.] I. M. Tregubov, sentenced to exile by administrative order, was living in the Caucasus among the Dukhobors, far from the centres of administration, and remained still free. (See [entry of following day].)
[196.] This search was made in connection with I. M. Tregubov’s things, who was wanted at that time, and which were left by him in A. N. Dunaev’s apartment.