He looked at me kindly, and merely said, "Thank you."
It is self-evident that Tolstoï did not mean by this to express sympathy with the Diabolics and other eccentrics. Moreover, he spoke flatly against art for art's sake, which he calls tiresome more than anything else. "Agonized productions of the search for originality, welcomed by idleness, and intended for the applause of the critics of so-called fine taste." He shrugged his shoulders over the fact that a monument had been erected to Baudelaire. He agreed with me, however, when I traced the interest in exotic suggestion in the creative arts, as for everything eccentric and bizarre, back to the tendency towards an entirely external naturalism, which would completely rule out from art the personality of the artist. He returned again to his text.
"Without the deepest sympathy and complete identification with the subject no work of art can ever be produced."
He does not admit, however, that this identification with the subject is found in the experiments of these latter-day writers. He sees in them only a sudden change from the fashion for objectivity to the fashion for subjectivity. When, however, I spoke of the good-fortune of the Russian in not being obliged to take part in all these fashions, because he had already showed in his deep-hearted realism that it is possible to be true to reality, and yet be full of warmth and meaning, he again raised his hand to stop me, and blushed. I could not tell whether it was from modesty or whether he does not wish any longer to hear of the works of his "literary" period. I believe, however, that the noise of all this no longer reaches his ear. When I spoke with warm enthusiasm of the debt we all owe him, said that his art was a revelation to us, that through him we had first learned what poetic power lies in the simplest and deepest fidelity to nature, he stopped me in his gentle way. Only philanthropy is now a matter of any importance for him. Everything else is empty trifling. He said to me:
"You are still buried deep in materialism. You must see that you free yourself from that."
Nevertheless, he was good enough to recognize my honest purpose of seeking the truth, even though I do not succeed in finding it in all points as he believes he has found it.
I must certainly admit that in the late hours of the night, as he sat opposite me, his fine head leaning far back and resting on one hand, his glowing eyes making him seem as it were transparent, I had great difficulty in preserving a conventional bearing. Here was one of the greatest men of all times, who had risen out of the purely human and had become a saint upon whom rests the divine light. The kindness and tenderness of his voice and the gentleness of his words are indescribable. He has the love and the dauntless courage of the prophet and the apostle without their passion and wrath. It is doubtful whether any mortal has ever had more understanding of human weakness than he. He combats only institutions, never men. And yet no other man has had such influence upon our consciences as he, most compassionate of all judges in spite of the pitiless keenness of his vision.
It was midnight when the count's sleigh took us to Kozlovka, the nearest station to the estate. In leaving I could not conceal the extent to which I was moved. When I think of the final moments, when the count stood at the head of the stairs and called a last word after me, while I turned to him to say good-bye once more and forever, it seems to me that I never in my life experienced anything more overwhelming. I carried away an impression that the whole hall was filled with the light of his eyes. Yet it was only a prosaic bit of advice for our return trip to Moscow, to give which he had hurried after us after the adieus in his study. The Countess Sasha, however, stood in the starlight by the door, lovely as a goddess of hospitality. It was gratifying to know that the saintly old man was in the care of this lovely creature.
Under the twinkling stars we sped at a brisk trot past black forests and over the silent, deep-buried fields. Within us re-echoed the saying of Kant, "Two things there are that always fill me with reverent awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral consciousness within." The man whose hand I had just grasped embodies the moral consciousness of our century.