VIII.
COUNT TOLSTOY AT HOME.
On one winter's day in Moscow, the Countess Tolstoy said to us: "You must come and visit us at Yasnaya Polyana next summer. You should see Russian country life, and you will see it with us. Our house is not elegant, but you will find it plain, clean, and comfortable."
Such an invitation was not to be resisted. When summer came, the family wrote to say that they would meet us at the nearest station, where no carriages were to be had by casual travelers, if we would notify them of our arrival. But the weather had been too bad for country visits, and we were afraid to give Fate a hint of our intentions by announcing our movements; moreover, all the trains seemed to reach that station at a very late hour of the night. We decided to make our appearance from another quarter, in our own conveyance, on a fair day, and long before any meal. If it should prove inconvenient for the family to receive us, they would not be occasioned even momentary awkwardness, and our retreat would be secured. We had seen enough of the charmingly easy Russian hospitality to feel sure of our ground otherwise.
Accordingly, we set out for Tula on a June day that was dazzling with sunshine and heat, after the autumnal chill of the recent rains. As we progressed southward from Moscow the country was more varied than north of it, with ever-changing vistas of gently sloping hills and verdant valleys, well cultivated, and dotted with thatched cottages which stood flatter on the ground here than where wood is more plentiful.
The train was besieged at every station, during the long halts customary on Russian railways, by hordes of peasant children with bottles of rich cream and dishes of fragrant wild strawberries. The strawberries cost from three to four cents a pound,--not enough to pay for picking,--and the cream from three to five cents a bottle.
Halfway to Tula the train crosses the river Oka, which makes so fine a show when it enters the Volga at Nizhni Novgorod, and which even here is imposing in breadth and busy with steamers. It was not far from here that an acquaintance of mine one day overtook a wayfarer. He was weather-beaten and travel-stained, dressed like a peasant, and carried his boots slung over his shoulder. But there was something about him which, to her woman's eye, seemed out of keeping with his garb. She invited him to take advantage of her carriage. He accepted gladly, and conversed agreeably. It appeared that it was Count Tolstoy making the journey between his estate and Moscow. His utterances produced such an effect upon her young son that the lad insisted upon making his next journey on foot also.
We reached Tula late in the evening. The guidebook says, in that amusing German fashion on which a chapter might be written, that "the town lies fifteen minutes distant from the station." Ordinarily, that would mean twice or thrice fifteen minutes. But we had a touch of our usual luck in an eccentric cabman. Vanka--that is, Johnny--set out almost before we had taken our seats; we clutched his belt for support, and away we flew through the inky darkness and fathomless dust, outstripping everything on the road. We came to a bridge; one wheel skimmed along high on the side rail, the loose boards rattled ominously beneath the other. There are no regulations for slow driving on Russian bridges beyond those contained in admonitory proverbs and popular legends. One's eyes usually supply sufficient warning by day. But Vanka was wedded to the true Russian principle, and proceeded in his headlong course na avos (on chance). In vain I cried, "This is not an obstacle race!" He replied cheerfully, "It is the horse!"
We were forced to conclude that we had stumbled upon the hero of Count Tolstoy's story, Kholstomir, in that gaunt old horse, racing thus by inspiration, and looking not unlike the portrait of Kholstomir in his sad old age, from the hand of the finest animal-painter in Russia, which, with its companion piece, Kholstomir in his proud youth, hangs on the wall in the count's Moscow house.