Tolstoï shows the same qualities and defects as in “War and Peace,” and gives the same tediously long descriptions. The parts devoted to the pictures of country life and rural occupations will seem, in France, a little dull. Unfortunately, in one sort of realistic description, we must know the locality to appreciate the artist’s effort and the resemblance of the picture. The description, for instance, of the races at Tsarskoe-Selo, so appreciated by Russian readers, could not have any more interest for us than the brilliant account of le grand prix de Paris in “Nana” would have for the Muscovites; on the other hand, the portraits of Oblonski and Karenina will always retain their power, because they express human sentiments common to all countries and all times. I will carry the analysis of these novels no farther, for they will hardly admit of it; we could scarcely choose a path in this labyrinth for the reader; we must leave him the pleasure of losing himself in it.
Tolstoï belongs to the “school of nature,” if extreme realism of description entitles him to that honor. He carries this tendency sometimes to great excess, even to coarseness. I might quote many examples of this kind, but they would hardly bear translation, and might, occasionally, be almost revolting to us. He is also an impressionist, for his phrases often bring to us every material sensation produced by a sight, object, or sound.
Finally, his being both pessimist and Nihilist gives him, as a narrator, almost the impassibility of a stoic. Persuaded of the vanity of all human action, he can maintain his own coolness in all his delineations, his condition resembling that of a man awaking from sleep at dawn, in the middle of a ball-room, who looks upon the whirling dancers around him as lunatics; or the man who, having eaten to repletion, enters a hall where people are dining, and upon whom the mechanical movements of the mouths and forks make a grotesque impression. In short, a writer who is a pessimist must assume the superiority of an inexorable judge over the characters he has created. Tolstoï employs all these methods, which he carries as far as any of our novelists do. Why is it, then, that he produces such a different impression upon the reader? The question as to how far he is both realist and impressionist in comparison with our authors is the important one. The whole secret is a question of degree. The truth is that what others have sought he has found and adopted. He leaves a large space for trifling details, because life is made up of them, and life is his study; but as he never attacks subjects trifling in themselves, he after all gives to trifles only the secondary place which they hold in everything that demands our attention.
As an impressionist he well knows how to produce certain rapid and subtle sensations, while he is never obscene or unhealthy in tone. “War and Peace” is put into the hands of all young girls in Russia. “Anna Karenina,” which touches upon a perilous subject, is considered a manual of morals.
As to Tolstoï’s impassibility, though his coldness almost approaches irony, we feel, behind and within the man, the shadow of the Infinite, and bow before his right to criticise his fellow-man. Moreover, unlike our own authors, he is never preoccupied with himself or the effect he wishes to produce. He is more logical; he sacrifices style that he himself may be eclipsed, put aside entirely in his work. In his earlier years he was more solicitous in regard to his style; but of late he has quite renounced this seductive temptation. We need not expect of him the beautiful, flowing language of Turgenef. An appropriate and clear form of expression of his ideas is all we shall have. His phraseology is diffuse, sometimes fatiguing from too much repetition; he makes use of a great many adjectives, of all he needs to add the smallest touches of color to a portrait; while incidents rapidly accumulate, from the inexhaustible fund of thought in the farthest recesses of his mind. From our point of view, this absence of style is an unpardonable defect; but to me it appears a necessary consequence of realism which does away with all conventionality. If style is a conventionality, might it not warp our judgment of facts presented to us? We must acknowledge that this contempt of style, if not to our taste, contributes to the impression of sincerity that we receive. Tolstoï, in Pascal’s way, “has not tried to show to us himself, but our own selves; we find in ourselves the truths presented, which before were utterly unknown to us, as in ourselves; this attracts us strongly to him who has enlightened us.”
There is still another difference between Tolstoï’s realism and ours: he applies his, by preference, to the study of characters difficult to deal with, those made more inaccessible to the observer by the refinements of education and the mask of social conventionalities. This struggle between the painter and his model is deeply interesting to me and to many others.
Count Tolstoï would no doubt commiserate us if he found us occupied in discussing his works; for the future he wishes to be only a philosopher and reformer. Let us, then, return to his philosophy. I have said already that the composition of “Anna Karenina,” written at long intervals, occupied many years of the author’s life, the moral fluctuations of which are reflected in the character of Constantin Levin, the child and confidant of his soul. This new incarnation of Bezushof, in “War and Peace,” is the usual hero of modern romance in Russia, the favorite type with Turgenef and with all the young girls. He is a country gentleman, intelligent, educated, though not brilliant, a speculative dreamer, fond of rural life, and interested in all the social questions and difficulties arising from it. Levin studies these questions, and takes his part in all the liberal emotions his country has indulged in for the last twenty years. Of course, his illusions and chimeras vanish, one after another, and his Nihilism triumphs bitterly over their ruins. His Nihilism is not of so severe a kind as that of Pierre Bezushof and Prince André. He drops the most cruel problems and takes up questions of political economy. A calm and laborious country life, with family joys and cares, has strangled the serpent. Years pass, and the tale goes on toward its close.
But suddenly, through several moral shocks in his experience, Levin awakes from his religious indifference, and is tormented by doubts. He becomes overwhelmed with despair, when the muzhik appears who proves his saviour and instructor. His mind becomes clear through some of the aphorisms uttered by this wise peasant. He declares that “every evil comes from the folly, the wickedness of reason. We have only to love and believe, and there is no further difficulty.” Thus ends the long intellectual drama, in a ray of mystic happiness, a hymn of joy, proclaiming the bankruptcy and the downfall of reason.
Reason has but a narrow sphere of its own, is only useful in a limited horizon, as the rag-picker’s lantern is merely of use to light up the few feet of space immediately around him, the heap of rubbish upon which he depends for subsistence. What folly it would be for the poor man to turn those feeble rays toward the starry heavens, seeking to penetrate the inscrutable mysteries of those fathomless spaces!