Tolstoi took part in the Crimean war, not as a spectator or reporter, but as an officer. He was repeatedly in imminent danger, and saw all the horrors of warfare, as described in Sevastopol. Still, he found time somehow for literary work, wrote Boyhood, and read Dickens in English. About this time he decided to substitute the Lord's Prayer in his private devotions for all other petitions, saying that "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" included everything. On the 5 March 1855 he wrote in his diary a curious prophecy of his present attitude toward religion: "My conversations on divinity and faith have led me to a great idea, for the realisation of which I am ready to devote my whole life. This idea is the founding of a new religion, corresponding to the level of human development, the religion of Christ, but purified of all dogmas and mysteries, a practical religion not promising a blessed future life, but bestowing happiness here on earth."
In this same year he wrote the book which was the first absolute proof of his genius, and with the publication of which his reputation began--Sevastopol in December. This was printed in the same review that had accepted his first work, was greeted with enthusiasm by Turgenev and the literary circles at Petersburg, was read by the Tsar, and translated into French at the imperial command. It was followed by Sevastopol in May and Sevastopol in August, and Tolstoi found himself famous.
It was evident that a man so absorbed in religious ideas and so sensitive to the hideous wholesale murder of war, could not remain for long in the army. He arrived at Petersburg on the 21 November 1855, and had a warm reception from the distinguished group of writers who were at that time contributors to the Sovremennik* (The Contemporary Review), which had published Tolstoi's work. This review had been founded by Pushkin in 1836, was now edited by Nekrassov, who had accepted Tolstoi's first article, Childhood, and had enlisted the foremost writers of Russia, prominent among whom was, of course, Turgenev. The books which Tolstoi read with the most profit during this period were Goethe, Hugo's Notre-Dame, Plato in French, and Homer in Russian.
* An amusing caricature of the time represents Turgenev, Ovstrovski, and Tolstoi bringing rolls of manuscripts to the editors.
Turgenev had a fixed faith in the future of Tolstoi; he was already certain that a great writer had appeared in Russia. Writing to a friend from Paris, in 1856, he said, "When this new wine is ripened there will be a drink fit for the gods." In 1857, after Tolstoi had visited him in Paris, Turgenev wrote, "This man will go far and will leave behind him a profound influence." But the two authors had little in common, and it was evident that there could never be perfect harmony between them. Explaining why he could not feel wholly at ease with Tolstoi, he said, "We are made of different clay."
In January 1857, Tolstoi left Moscow for Warsaw by sledge, and from there travelled by rail for Paris. In March, accompanied by Turgenev, he went to Dijon, and saw a man executed by the guillotine. He was deeply impressed both by the horror and by the absurdity of capital punishment, and, as he said, the affair "pursued" him for a long time. He travelled on through Switzerland, and at Lucerne he felt the contrast between the great natural beauty of the scenery and the artificiality of the English snobs in the hotel. He journeyed on down the Rhine, and returned to Russia from Berlin. During all these months of travel, his journal expresses the constant religious fermentation of his mind, and his intense democratic sentiments. They were the same ideas held by the Tolstoi of 1900.
On the 3 July 1860, he left Petersburg by steamer, once more to visit southern Europe. He visited schools, universities, and studied the German methods of education. He also spent some time in the south of France, and wrote part of The Cossacks there. In Paris he once more visited Turgenev, and then crossed over to London, where he saw the great Russian critic Herzen almost every day. Herzen was not at all impressed by Tolstoi's philosophical views, finding them both weak and vague. The little daughter of Herzen begged her father for the privilege of meeting the young and famous author. She expected to see a philosopher, who would speak of weighty matters: what was her disappointment when Count Tolstoi appeared, dressed in the latest English style, looking exactly like a fashionable man of the world, and talking with great enthusiasm of a cock-fight he had just witnessed!
After nine months' absence, Tolstoi returned to Russia in April 1861. He soon went to his home at Yasnaya Polyana, established a school for the peasants, and devoted himself to the arduous labour of their education. Here he had a chance to put into practice all the theories that he had acquired from his observations in Germany and England. He worked so hard that he injured his health, and in a few months was forced to travel and rest. In this same year he lost a thousand rubles playing billiards with Katkov, the well-known editor of the Russian Messenger. Not being able to pay cash, he gave Katkov the manuscript of his novel, The Cossacks, which was accordingly printed in the review in January 1863.
On the 23 September 1862, he was married. A short time before this event he gave his fiancée his diary, which contained a frank and free account of all the sins of his bachelor life. She was overwhelmed, and thought of breaking off the engagement. After many nights spent in wakeful weeping, she returned the journal to him, with a full pardon, and assurance of complete affection. It was fortunate for him that this young girl was large-hearted enough to forgive his sins, for she became an ideal wife, and shared in all his work, copying in her own hand his manuscripts again and again. In all her relations with the difficult temperament of her husband, she exhibited the utmost devotion, and that uncommon quality which we call common sense.
Shortly after the marriage, Tolstoi began the composition of a leviathan in historical fiction, War and Peace. While composing it, he wrote: "If one could only accomplish the hundredth part of what one conceives, but one cannot even do a millionth part! Still, the consciousness of Power is what brings happiness to a literary man. I have felt this power particularly during this year." He suffered, however, from many paroxysms of despair, and constantly corrected what he wrote. This made it necessary for his wife to copy out the manuscript; and it is said that she wrote in her own hand the whole manuscript of this enormous work seven times!