The Land of Riddles (Russia of To-day)

by Hugo Ganz

"Who struck them out?" I asked.

"The censor, to be sure. An orthodox Christian censorship strikes out of the Sermon on the Mount two verses which do not suit it. This is called Christianity."

The authorities give the Tolstoï family the greatest difficulty in its work of educating the people. The village school was suppressed, because reading and writing were taught there and not orthodoxy. The instruction which the Countess Sasha now gives is quite unsystematic. Five children come to her at the old manor, and are taught the black arts of reading, writing, arithmetic, and manual training, in constant danger that some high authority will interfere to ward off this injury to the state.

"It is quite probable that we shall all be officially disciplined when my father is no longer living," the Countess Sasha said to us, with that calmness with which every one in Russia sacrifices himself to his convictions.

There was nothing pastoral, likewise nothing exalted, in Tolstoï's manner during this conversation. After finishing his luncheon he rose and walked up and down the long dining-room with me, both hands in his belt, as he is painted by Ryepin. He spoke conversationally, with no especial emphasis on any word, as to one whom there is no need of convincing. It was the afternoon conversation of an intelligent country gentleman with his guest—the easy, matter-of-course talking in a minute of resting—talk that is not meant to go deep or to philosophize. To me it proved only the lively interest taken by Tolstoï in all the events of the day. He was not at all the hermit, merely preparing himself by holy deeds for heavenly glory, but an alert, vigorous, elderly man who watches events without eagerness or passion, yet with sufficient sympathy—an apostle unanointed, literally or figuratively.

A half-hour's siesta was a necessity after the night spent in travel and the excitements of the morning. We rested, as did the whole house, in which at this time there was scarcely a sound. I do not know whether such stillness reigns in summer in the park, which now lay buried deep in snow. The house is very quiet now because it has become too large for the remaining occupants. A whole suite of simply furnished rooms on the ground floor stands entirely empty, and is awakened to life only when the married children come to visit. In the first floor, also, where the study and reception-room are, everything has become too large. After we had settled for our nap we heard only the click of the typewriter, on which the Countess Sasha was copying the manuscript her father had written in the morning, and the low song with which she accompanied her work. Then the house awoke again. The count was about to take his ride. A fine black horse was led to the door, and the old count descended the stairs with his light, quick step. He now had the Russian shawl around his neck and a broad woollen scarf belted about his body. He drew on his high felt overshoes and thick mittens, put the lambskin cap on his head, seized his riding-whip, and went out. A strange muzhik was waiting for him before the door. He had come from a distance to lay his case before the count. Tolstoï listened to him, questioned him, and then called the servant. As he was not at hand, the count asked me to tell him to give the muzhik some money. Then a foot in the stirrup, and, with the swing of a youth, the man of seventy-five seated himself in the saddle. It is easy to see, even now, that he must once have been a notable horseman and athlete. For, though strength of passion abates in an elderly man, he who has once had muscular training does not lose the effects of it.

With a nod of the head the rider rapidly disappeared in the lane that leads to the main road. It was already growing dark when he returned, chilled through, and now noticeably altered. The cold had pinched his face; his eyelids were slightly reddened; eyebrows, mustache, and beard were thickly frosted. The change was only superficial, however. An hour later he was more fresh and vigorous than before, held himself erect, and spoke with ever-increasing animation.

We, however, spent the afternoon in a walk in the village with the Countess Sasha. We had accepted her invitation with pleasure. She now appeared, humming, in a lively mood, slipped on a light gray Circassian mantle and her little high overshoes, wound a long, red scarf about her, and put a gray Circassian cap on her thick hair. Nothing was ever more beautiful than this creature, so full of health and strength. She took a stout stick from the wall for protection from dogs, and then led us out into the deep snow, in which only a narrow path was trodden.

Even the deepest reverence does not require uncritical adoration. Moreover, Tolstoï is of such phenomenal importance for us all that the narrator who can communicate his own perceptions is bound to reproduce them with the most absolute fidelity. Therefore, I believe I ought not to conceal the thoughts which refused to leave me during the walk through this village. I had to admire once more the deep humanity of the Tolstoïs when I saw the Countess Sasha, in her beauty and purity, go into the damp, dirty hovels of the peasants, and caress the ragged and filthy children, just as Katyusha, in The Resurrection, kissed a deformed beggar on the mouth in Easter greeting after the Easter mass. This absolute Christian brotherliness receives expression also in the whole attitude of the family. Countess Sasha says, quite in the spirit of her father: "The industrious peasant stands much higher morally than we who own the land and do not work it. Otherwise he differs in no way from us in his virtues and vices." This brotherliness, however, has this shortcoming, that it leaves the brother where it finds him, and does not compel him to conform to different and more refined ways of living. The Tolstoï family teaches the village children. It has established a little clinic in the village. But it does not make its influence felt in teaching the villagers personal cleanliness, taking, say, the German colonists in the south as a model. I cannot conceive of the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana looking as they would if the landlord were an English or Dutch philanthropist instead of a Russian; and I cannot believe, either, that the simplicity of manners or the warmth of brotherly love would suffer if the village looked, for instance, like those of the Moravians, which shine with cleanliness. To be sure, the count refrains from any pressure on the people about him, and if his muzhik feels better unwashed, as his fathers were before him, and prefers a dirty, unaired room, shared with the dear cattle, to one in which he would have to take off his shoes to prevent soiling the floor, the count will not exhort him to change into a Swabian or a Dutchman. Æsthetic demands do not form any part of the Tolstoï view of life—I believe that for this reason it will find slow acceptance in the West.