XXIX A VISIT TO TOLSTO?—CONTINUED

It was not yet noon when the door opened and a supple, laughing creature burst in like a whirlwind and ran up the stairs, filling the house with music. Soon afterwards the servant summoned us to luncheon. When we went up-stairs the laughing singer with the voice like a silver bell met us at the door of the dining-room. It was the Countess Alexandra Lvovna, or, as she is known in the house, Sasha, a blooming, beautiful blonde, with her father's brows above great, wide-open, blue eyes. The Countess Sasha does not speak German. She did the honors of the luncheon in the absence of her father, who did not appear, since it is his custom not to interrupt his work at this time. Therefore another inmate of the house was present, a Circassian, a talented artist who had nursed the count in the Crimea and since then has remained in the family. She makes herself useful now by filing the count's correspondence. She speaks only Russian, however, so that she could take no part in the conversation.

Naturally, we spoke only of the countess's father.[Pg 296] His health the preceding year had been very weak from attacks of malaria and typhus, and even now the family were constantly anxious about him. For he does not spare himself in the least, and will not take his advanced years into consideration at all. For twenty years he has not eaten a morsel of meat. What appeared to be cutlets, which I saw him eat later, were made of baked rice. I cautiously led the conversation to a former inmate of the house, who, in an indiscreet book upon the family of the count, made the assertion that the count was only nominally a vegetarian, but occasionally made up for his abstinence by secretly eating tender beefsteaks. It would mean nothing in and of itself if a habitual meat-eater, after going over to vegetarianism in a general way, should now and then indulge the craving for meat. The secrecy of the indulgence, however, would be a piece of that hypocrisy of which the count is accused by his most obstinate enemies. We received from the countess, however, an explanation of the circumstances in regard to the German woman's book. Since the Tolsto? family, however, have long since pardoned the repentant authoress, it would be indelicate of me to publish the ancient history. Leo Tolsto? is no hypocrite. He does not even consider it a duty to be a vegetarian. All the rest of his family, including the Countess Sasha, eat meat. Tolsto? finds, however, that a vegetable diet agrees with him, and he therefore adheres to it without[Pg 297] wishing to convert anybody else to the same belief, as vegetarians are accustomed to do. The count, in general, does not try to make any converts, brings no pressure to bear on any one. Everybody may live exactly as he chooses, even in the bosom of the count's family. The Countess Sasha said, touchingly, "The only thing we can learn from him is whether a thing pleases him or not. That is enough, however, at least for me."

Nothing could be more touching than the relations between this last child remaining at home and her father. She hangs on his words. Every wish of his, spoken half aloud, is quickly and silently fulfilled by her. Since the marriage of the Countess Tatyana she has been his secretary, and her white hands operate the typewriter like those of the oldest amanuensis. She trills a little French song at the same time, and blushes to the neck when any one catches her at it and speaks of her sweet voice and accurate ear. Work for her father is a higher satisfaction to her. She subordinates herself completely to his thoughts. She used to be, like every one else, a lover of Shakespeare, but since she copied the latest work of her father upon, or rather against, Shakespeare, she has been convinced and converted by his arguments. She said this without any affectation, with the sincerity of a child. It is to be seen that the deep tenderness of her love for her father springs from her care of him. She trembles for him. Perhaps she exerts herself, too, to replace all the[Pg 298] brothers and sisters who have gone out from the home. Of nine living children—there were originally thirteen—she is the last. It is easy to see, too, how much the careful precautions of this daughter please the count. When his eyes rest on her face, beautiful with the distinction of race and maidenhood, it is as if a ray of light passed over his face. He does this, however, as if by stealth. His love is shy, as is hers.

Soon after luncheon the count sent me an invitation to join him. He had paused in his work to eat a few mouthfuls. Meanwhile we might chat. We again sat at the same table. The talk turned on the war, against which the count was just writing an article. He made the observation that the right-minded Russian was in a remarkable position. He contradicted all human feelings in wishing a defeat for his own nation. The bitterest misfortune that Russia could meet, however, would be the continuance of the present criminal régime, which demands so many victims, inflicts so much suffering upon Russia, and which, in case of victory, would only be strengthened. Quite recently he had received a letter from a highly gifted writer, a certain Semionov, whom he himself had discovered and taught. Semionov, a peasant, had been a janitor in Moscow, but on Tolsto?'s advice had returned to his father, and had written a little volume of stories, which Tolsto? rates higher than those of Gorki. Now the gendarmes have confiscated everything he has, and, if[Pg 299] I am not mistaken, have even arrested the writer. The pressure, the count says, is unendurable. I told him of my meeting with the Cossack colonel in Tula and of the hotel servants in Moscow, who one and all wished to go to the scene of war for the sake of plunder. "Certainly," answered the count. "The soldier must rejoice over every war, for war gives him for the first time a kind of title to existence in his own eyes. As to these house-servants and waiters, however, who are so ready to take part in the war, their love of fighting is nothing but common love of stealing. The Europeans have rioted and plundered shamefully in China. The people of the lower classes suffer from these things, and thus all their evil instincts are awakened."

I told the count of the officially arranged patriotic demonstrations in St. Petersburg, of which I had been a witness, and in which alcohol had played its part.

"Yes, intoxication!" said the count; "they need that to make people forget that killing, robbery, and plunder are sins. If people only came to their senses they could no longer do these things; for nineteen hundred years of Christianity, however falsified, leave their trail in the consciousness of man, and make it impossible for him to rage like the heathen. But everything is done to suppress religion. Our upper classes have already completely lost religious consciousness. They either say 'Away with this nonsense!' and become gross [Pg 300]materialists, or they remain orthodox and do not themselves know what they believe—stupid stuff about the world's being created in six days and lasting only six thousand years. This trash, which is taught the people as religion—that is to say, belief in the schools—is just as much a means of hindering religion as a superficial knowledge of science. Yet religion alone can free us from our evils, from war and violence, and bring men together again. Religion is at present in a latent condition in every one, and needs only to be developed. And this religion is the same for all, for the native religious consciousness is quite the same in all men. But the churches prevent this unity, and bury this religious consciousness under forms and dogmas which produce a sort of stupefaction instead of satisfying the religious hunger."

I repeated the amusing remark of the Cossack colonel of Tula, that Tolsto? was a great man, only that it was a pity that he was an atheist.

The poet laughed, with something like pain in the laugh.

"There is always a certain amount of truth in which people believe, only it is misunderstood. To that good Cossack faith and orthodoxy are identical. My own sister, who is in a convent, laments that her brother asserts that the Gospel is the worst book that has ever been written. The truth is that I made this assertion about the legends of the saints, but it is misquoted. The authorities know what I[Pg 301] think of the Gospel. They have even struck out of the Sermon on the Mount two verses which I put into an alphabet for the people."

"Who struck them out?" I asked.

"The censor, to be sure. An orthodox Christian censorship strikes out of the Sermon on the Mount two verses which do not suit it. This is called Christianity."

The authorities give the Tolsto? family the greatest difficulty in its work of educating the people. The village school was suppressed, because reading and writing were taught there and not orthodoxy. The instruction which the Countess Sasha now gives is quite unsystematic. Five children come to her at the old manor, and are taught the black arts of reading, writing, arithmetic, and manual training, in constant danger that some high authority will interfere to ward off this injury to the state.

"It is quite probable that we shall all be officially disciplined when my father is no longer living," the Countess Sasha said to us, with that calmness with which every one in Russia sacrifices himself to his convictions.

There was nothing pastoral, likewise nothing exalted, in Tolsto?'s manner during this conversation. After finishing his luncheon he rose and walked up and down the long dining-room with me, both hands in his belt, as he is painted by Ryepin. He spoke conversationally, with no [Pg 302]especial emphasis on any word, as to one whom there is no need of convincing. It was the afternoon conversation of an intelligent country gentleman with his guest—the easy, matter-of-course talking in a minute of resting—talk that is not meant to go deep or to philosophize. To me it proved only the lively interest taken by Tolsto? in all the events of the day. He was not at all the hermit, merely preparing himself by holy deeds for heavenly glory, but an alert, vigorous, elderly man who watches events without eagerness or passion, yet with sufficient sympathy—an apostle unanointed, literally or figuratively.

A half-hour's siesta was a necessity after the night spent in travel and the excitements of the morning. We rested, as did the whole house, in which at this time there was scarcely a sound. I do not know whether such stillness reigns in summer in the park, which now lay buried deep in snow. The house is very quiet now because it has become too large for the remaining occupants. A whole suite of simply furnished rooms on the ground floor stands entirely empty, and is awakened to life only when the married children come to visit. In the first floor, also, where the study and reception-room are, everything has become too large. After we had settled for our nap we heard only the click of the typewriter, on which the Countess Sasha was copying the manuscript her father had written in the morning, and the low song with which she [Pg 303]accompanied her work. Then the house awoke again. The count was about to take his ride. A fine black horse was led to the door, and the old count descended the stairs with his light, quick step. He now had the Russian shawl around his neck and a broad woollen scarf belted about his body. He drew on his high felt overshoes and thick mittens, put the lambskin cap on his head, seized his riding-whip, and went out. A strange muzhik was waiting for him before the door. He had come from a distance to lay his case before the count. Tolsto? listened to him, questioned him, and then called the servant. As he was not at hand, the count asked me to tell him to give the muzhik some money. Then a foot in the stirrup, and, with the swing of a youth, the man of seventy-five seated himself in the saddle. It is easy to see, even now, that he must once have been a notable horseman and athlete. For, though strength of passion abates in an elderly man, he who has once had muscular training does not lose the effects of it.

With a nod of the head the rider rapidly disappeared in the lane that leads to the main road. It was already growing dark when he returned, chilled through, and now noticeably altered. The cold had pinched his face; his eyelids were slightly reddened; eyebrows, mustache, and beard were thickly frosted. The change was only superficial, however. An hour later he was more fresh and vigorous than[Pg 304] before, held himself erect, and spoke with ever-increasing animation.

We, however, spent the afternoon in a walk in the village with the Countess Sasha. We had accepted her invitation with pleasure. She now appeared, humming, in a lively mood, slipped on a light gray Circassian mantle and her little high overshoes, wound a long, red scarf about her, and put a gray Circassian cap on her thick hair. Nothing was ever more beautiful than this creature, so full of health and strength. She took a stout stick from the wall for protection from dogs, and then led us out into the deep snow, in which only a narrow path was trodden.

Even the deepest reverence does not require uncritical adoration. Moreover, Tolsto? is of such phenomenal importance for us all that the narrator who can communicate his own perceptions is bound to reproduce them with the most absolute fidelity. Therefore, I believe I ought not to conceal the thoughts which refused to leave me during the walk through this village. I had to admire once more the deep humanity of the Tolsto?s when I saw the Countess Sasha, in her beauty and purity, go into the damp, dirty hovels of the peasants, and caress the ragged and filthy children, just as Katyusha, in The Resurrection, kissed a deformed beggar on the mouth in Easter greeting after the Easter mass. This absolute Christian brotherliness receives expression also in the whole attitude of the family.[Pg 305] Countess Sasha says, quite in the spirit of her father: "The industrious peasant stands much higher morally than we who own the land and do not work it. Otherwise he differs in no way from us in his virtues and vices." This brotherliness, however, has this shortcoming, that it leaves the brother where it finds him, and does not compel him to conform to different and more refined ways of living. The Tolsto? family teaches the village children. It has established a little clinic in the village. But it does not make its influence felt in teaching the villagers personal cleanliness, taking, say, the German colonists in the south as a model. I cannot conceive of the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana looking as they would if the landlord were an English or Dutch philanthropist instead of a Russian; and I cannot believe, either, that the simplicity of manners or the warmth of brotherly love would suffer if the village looked, for instance, like those of the Moravians, which shine with cleanliness. To be sure, the count refrains from any pressure on the people about him, and if his muzhik feels better unwashed, as his fathers were before him, and prefers a dirty, unaired room, shared with the dear cattle, to one in which he would have to take off his shoes to prevent soiling the floor, the count will not exhort him to change into a Swabian or a Dutchman. ?sthetic demands do not form any part of the Tolsto? view of life—I believe that for this reason it will find slow acceptance in the West.

[Pg 306]

There is the meekness and "lowliness" of early Christianity, there is an anti-Hellenic principle in the village dirt of Yasnaya Polyana. It is true that Hellenism leads in its final outcome to the abominable "Herrenmenschenthüm"[14] of Nietzsche, to Nero's hatred of the "many too many." A predominant ?sthetic valuation of the good things of life leads in a negative way to the immoral in conduct. Every final consequence, however—that is, every extreme—is absurd; even absolute spirituality, indifferent to all outward things, as well as the heartless cult of mere external beauty. If we may learn from the muzhik patience in misfortune, we have also something to offer him in return for this in ideas of how to care for the body and of ?sthetically refined ways of living. But Leo Tolsto? is an enemy of all compromise, and perhaps must be so. If the impulse towards the spiritualizing of our life, towards brotherly kindness and holiness, which goes out from him, is to work in its full force, it must be free from any foreign admixture, at least in him, its source. In the actual world counteracting forces are not wanting, moreover, and in some way the balance is always struck. The synthesis of Nietzsche and Tolsto? is really not so very hard to find. It was given long ago in the "kaho-kayadin" (beauty and goodness) of the ancients as well as in the rightly understood conception of the[Pg 307] gentleman. If Tolsto?'s human ideal wears the form of the muzhik and flatly rejects every concession to the claims of an ?sthetic culture, the fact leads back ultimately to the repulsion which the St. Petersburg type of civilization must awaken in every unspoiled mind. One perceives there that luxury cannot uplift man. Indeed, it is easy to come to the Tolsto? conviction that it ruins instead of ennobling him. An isolated thinker like Tolsto? reaches in this revulsion very extreme consequences. In any case the bodily uncleanness of the peasants is less unpleasant to him and his daughter than the moral impurity of the town dwellers. The dirt of the peasants is for him nature, like the clinging clay of the field.

Suppressing our thoughts, we followed our brave guide into the houses of the village. With a few blows of her stick she put to flight the snarling curs that stood in her way. In the first house there was great wretchedness. The muzhik lay sick on the oven, beside him a stunted, hunchback child. The wife sat at the loom, surrounded by a heap of other children, flaxen-haired and unspeakably filthy. Half a dozen lambs shared the room and its frightful air with the peasants, sick and well. The young countess had a friendly word for each. One of the children was a pupil of hers, and was at that very time working at her writing lesson. This, of course, was praised. There was, however, something obsequiously cringing about the peasant woman I did[Pg 308] not like. It was all quite different in the next house, which belonged to a rich muzhik. He likewise lay on the oven. The room was lighter, thanks to a larger window, but the floor was equally dirty, and the inevitable lambs were pushing each other about in the straw in the same way. At our entrance the muzhik awoke and got up. His mighty brown beard almost covered his breast, which showed through his open shirt, and was covered with a thick crust. This peasant, however, read the paper, spoke of the war, and put a very interesting question. A little while before the Countess Sasha had been at his house with Bryan, who had visited her father. The muzhik and his visitor had become rather friendly. Now the muzhik read in the paper that the Americans are enemies of Russia. How about his friend Bryan? The countess, therefore, had to tell him whether Bryan had now become his personal enemy. She reassured him, laughing. The peasant woman accompanied us out of the house, and made the characteristic speech: "I am ashamed; we live here like pigs; but what is any one to do? We are so, and can't help it!"

In the same house is the little village hospital, which for the present is only a movable affair. This is kept really clean. The amount of illness is large. The peasants from the surrounding country come also, and the doctor often has to treat forty patients in a single office hour. He is said to be an able man and a good one—a matter of course in[Pg 309] Tolsto?'s vicinity. Whether one wishes it or not, one is drawn out here in the atmosphere of pure kindliness. When I came back from the village I was almost ashamed that I had held my breath in the peasant's room.
FOOTNOTE:

[14] The theory that the elect few alone deserve to live and that the masses are superfluous.