My Life

by Josiah Flynt

My purpose in going to Yasnaya Polyana was mainly journalistic, I fear. The entire trip in Russia, indeed, was to find "available" copy for the New York newspaper referred to. The free railroad transportation allowed me to cover "news" stories on very short notice, and also made it easy to get material for "space" articles. Or, rather, on first getting it, I thought that the pass would work wonders along these lines. In other hands it would very possibly have done so, but the "available" matter finally delivered by me proved only moderately successful. Putting aside all questions of ability, reputation and connections, it has been my experience that European "stuff" is not in such demand in the United States that the average writer can make it support him even on a vegetarian diet. Our editors, as a rule, want American "stuff." Only in very recent years have they given much attention even to the foreign news service, leaving the gathering, sifting, and distribution of the day's facts to newsmongers who have often been as unscrupulous as they were incapable.

Americans flock to Europe in thousands, going feverishly from place to place as if their very lives depended on seeing such trifles as the old snuff-boxes of ancient celebrities. Nothing must escape them. They want their money's worth at every turn. A few tarry longer than the rest and try to acquire some knowledge of the present condition of the countries and people they see. But the vast majority push on hurriedly, elbowing their way into nooks and crannies of alleged historical interest, until Europe becomes for many of them, probably most of them, a mere museum of things "starred" or not "starred" as the guidebook man saw fit to make them. The life of the people, their contemporaries, is looked into only incidentally; "anteeks" are what the mob is after and look for. This indifference to present-day Europe, its politics, social customs and institutions, has in the past been largely to blame for the inefficiency of our foreign news service. What was the use of going to heavy expense to inform Americans about things abroad which they would pay no attention to when they were abroad themselves? The publishers and editors reasoned that there was no use, and even at this late day many of them prefer a news item from Yankton, Dakota, to one from London. Their readers may know very little more about Yankton than about London, but that does not matter. Perhaps they have relatives in Dakota, or formerly loaned money to farmers out there at three per cent. a month. That settles the matter for the newsmongers. The Yankton dispatch is given prominence, although it refers to nothing of more importance than a divorce. Its provinciality is of greater cash value to the newspaper than the cosmopolitan significance of the message from London. This, and more that might be said, has made a foreign correspondent's life in Europe unattractive, to say the least. At one time, however, I seriously considered preparing myself for such a career. The trip to Russia was meant as a trying-out of my qualifications. It seemed to me then, and, if our newspapers, or, rather the newspaper readers, would take more interest in other things than massacres, notable suicides and fashionable scandals, it would seem to me now, that such a calling ought to be useful as well as profitable. Until our people care more, however, for a well-considered article from London or Berlin than they do for a hasty "wire" from Wilkesbarre concerning the mobbing of an Italian, the usefulness and commercial value of the foreign correspondent's efforts do not appear very evident. At any rate, the time came when I decided that my foreign "stuff" was not of the bread-winning kind, and I threw overboard the dream of becoming a writer on such lines. To this hour, however, I regret that some good opening in the foreign service did not show up at the time the dream was so present.

But to return to Tolstoy and Yasnaya Polyana. All told, I was in and about this place for ten days, seeing Tolstoy and his family practically every day; even when I did not stop in the house overnight I divided my time between Yasnaya Polyana and the home of a neighbor of the Tolstoys. When staying at Yasnaya Polyana I slept in what was called the Count's library, but it was evidently a bedroom as well. At the neighbor's home I had a cot in the barn where two young Russians, friends of the Count, also slept. They were helping Tolstoy "re-edit" the Four Gospels, omitting in their edition such verses as Tolstoy found confusing or non-essential. The life on the old estate at Yasnaya Polyana has been described so often by both English and American visitors, that there is very little that I can add to the known description of the grounds and daily routine. The place looks neglected and unkempt in many respects, but the two remaining wings of the old mansion are roomy and comfortable. Eight children of the original sixteen were living at the time of my visit, ranging in years from fourteen to thirty and over. The Countess was the "boss" of the establishment in and out of the house. What she said of a morning constituted the law for the day, so far as work was concerned. She had assistants, and I think a superintendent, to help her, but she was the final authority in matters of management. The Count did not appear to take any active part in the direction of affairs. He spent his time writing, riding, walking and visiting with the guests, of whom there were a goodly number. At one time he may have worked in the fields with the peasants, but in July of 1896 he did not share any of their toil—at least I personally did not see him at work among them. His second daughter, Maria Lvovna, however, the one child that in those days was trying to put her father's theories to a practical test, was a field worker of no mean importance, certainly to the peasants, if not to her mother. Trained as a nurse she was also the neighborhood physician, having a little pharmacy in the straggling, dirty village outside the lodge gates. It was through her kindness that I was permitted to join the peasants in the hayfield, and to get acquainted with them in their dingy cabins. Although it was pleasanter to gather with the other children on the tennis court, the haying experience was at any rate healthy and, to some extent, instructive. I noticed, however, that my presence caused considerable merriment among the peasants. They had grown accustomed to Maria Lvovna, indeed she had grown up among them, whereas I was a stranger of whom they knew nothing beyond the little that Maria had told them. Some of them no doubt thought it very foolish of me to prefer haying to tennis and refreshments, while others probably doubted the sincerity of my purpose—viz.: to get acquainted with their conditions and to see what effect Maria Lvovna's would-be altruism was having upon them. I might as well state immediately that at no time did I succeed in finding out satisfactorily what this effect was, if it existed at all. That she was a very welcome companion in the fields and cabins there could be no doubt, but was this due to the peasant's correct interpretation of her intentions or to her commercial value to them as a voluntary, wageless helper? Maria herself thought that some of the peasants understood her position as well as her father's teachings. Not being able to converse with the peasants privately I cannot say whether she was deceived or not.

Some years previous she had also tried to conduct a village school independent of the priest's, but she was finally forced to give it up on account of clerical opposition. As neighborhood physician and nurse, however, she had ample opportunity to teach the peasants what she believed, and to reason with them about following the dictates of their own consciences rather than the behests of the clergy and the orders of the military. At the time of my visit I think she had made most headway among the men, unwilling taxpayers in Russia at all times. To be told that the priests and military should support themselves without assistance from the peasantry was sweet music indeed. "Think how much more money we can have for vodka!" many an Ivan must have whispered when Maria was exhorting them not to be soldiers, and to refuse their financial support of the church.

In one cabin we visited together Maria noticed several colored portraits of the Imperial family hanging on the wall. They were set in metal frames.

"How comes it," Maria exclaimed, "that I see so many emperors this morning?"

The big, burly peasant looked sheepishly at her, and then, mumbling that his wife was to blame, swept the pictures into his hands and threw them into a cupboard.

"The woman likes such things," the man explained. "I put them away, but she gets them out again."

Maria thought that the peasant was sincere in his renunciation of Tsar worship, and perhaps he was. I think, however, that, like many of the other peasants on the estate, he found it financially profitable rather than spiritually consoling to have Maria think him one of her converts.