There is the meekness and "lowliness" of early Christianity, there is an anti-Hellenic principle in the village dirt of Yasnaya Polyana. It is true that Hellenism leads in its final outcome to the abominable "Herrenmenschenthüm"[14] of Nietzsche, to Nero's hatred of the "many too many." A predominant æsthetic valuation of the good things of life leads in a negative way to the immoral in conduct. Every final consequence, however—that is, every extreme—is absurd; even absolute spirituality, indifferent to all outward things, as well as the heartless cult of mere external beauty. If we may learn from the muzhik patience in misfortune, we have also something to offer him in return for this in ideas of how to care for the body and of æsthetically refined ways of living. But Leo Tolstoï is an enemy of all compromise, and perhaps must be so. If the impulse towards the spiritualizing of our life, towards brotherly kindness and holiness, which goes out from him, is to work in its full force, it must be free from any foreign admixture, at least in him, its source. In the actual world counteracting forces are not wanting, moreover, and in some way the balance is always struck. The synthesis of Nietzsche and Tolstoï is really not so very hard to find. It was given long ago in the "kaho-kayadin" (beauty and goodness) of the ancients as well as in the rightly understood conception of the gentleman. If Tolstoï's human ideal wears the form of the muzhik and flatly rejects every concession to the claims of an æsthetic culture, the fact leads back ultimately to the repulsion which the St. Petersburg type of civilization must awaken in every unspoiled mind. One perceives there that luxury cannot uplift man. Indeed, it is easy to come to the Tolstoï conviction that it ruins instead of ennobling him. An isolated thinker like Tolstoï reaches in this revulsion very extreme consequences. In any case the bodily uncleanness of the peasants is less unpleasant to him and his daughter than the moral impurity of the town dwellers. The dirt of the peasants is for him nature, like the clinging clay of the field.
Suppressing our thoughts, we followed our brave guide into the houses of the village. With a few blows of her stick she put to flight the snarling curs that stood in her way. In the first house there was great wretchedness. The muzhik lay sick on the oven, beside him a stunted, hunchback child. The wife sat at the loom, surrounded by a heap of other children, flaxen-haired and unspeakably filthy. Half a dozen lambs shared the room and its frightful air with the peasants, sick and well. The young countess had a friendly word for each. One of the children was a pupil of hers, and was at that very time working at her writing lesson. This, of course, was praised. There was, however, something obsequiously cringing about the peasant woman I did not like. It was all quite different in the next house, which belonged to a rich muzhik. He likewise lay on the oven. The room was lighter, thanks to a larger window, but the floor was equally dirty, and the inevitable lambs were pushing each other about in the straw in the same way. At our entrance the muzhik awoke and got up. His mighty brown beard almost covered his breast, which showed through his open shirt, and was covered with a thick crust. This peasant, however, read the paper, spoke of the war, and put a very interesting question. A little while before the Countess Sasha had been at his house with Bryan, who had visited her father. The muzhik and his visitor had become rather friendly. Now the muzhik read in the paper that the Americans are enemies of Russia. How about his friend Bryan? The countess, therefore, had to tell him whether Bryan had now become his personal enemy. She reassured him, laughing. The peasant woman accompanied us out of the house, and made the characteristic speech: "I am ashamed; we live here like pigs; but what is any one to do? We are so, and can't help it!"
In the same house is the little village hospital, which for the present is only a movable affair. This is kept really clean. The amount of illness is large. The peasants from the surrounding country come also, and the doctor often has to treat forty patients in a single office hour. He is said to be an able man and a good one—a matter of course in Tolstoï's vicinity. Whether one wishes it or not, one is drawn out here in the atmosphere of pure kindliness. When I came back from the village I was almost ashamed that I had held my breath in the peasant's room.
FOOTNOTE:
[14] The theory that the elect few alone deserve to live and that the masses are superfluous.
XXX A VISIT TO TOLSTOÏ—CONTINUED
At six o'clock we were summoned to dinner, at which the count appeared. As entrée there were baked fish—for the count, rice cutlets—then a roast and vegetables, of which the count took only the latter; then dessert and black coffee. We drank kvass, later tea, with cakes. Everything was very well prepared. A man-servant waited at table. It is by no means petty to tell all this. The Tolstoïs do not live on locusts and wild honey, but like other good families in Russia. We have, thank Heaven, outgrown the days when genius had to assert itself by extravagant conduct. Brilliant originality is entirely compatible with conformity to custom in all every-day usages, according to our way of thinking. Conversely, all originality immediately becomes suspicious in our eyes when it labors to assert itself in trifles. "A wise man behaves like other people." The individuality of Tolstoï shows in no way the stamp of the idle wish to differentiate itself in each and every particular from other people.
No one will expect me to reproduce every detail of the conversation, which began at dinner and ended almost six hours later at the house door. I certainly have not forgotten a word of it, but I cannot answer for the order of succession of subjects, nor even for every expression and every turn of speech. I therefore reconstruct from memory only what seems to me the most important, and ask every indulgence for this report. It is as faithful as is possible to human inadequacy after such fatigues and excitements, and with rather tardy notes.