The Journal of Leo Tolstoi (First Volume — 1895–1899) · 64

176. Countess Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoi (1817–1904), a second cousin of Tolstoi, lady-in-waiting to the Empress. Tolstoi in his youth was on friendly terms with her. His correspondence with the Countess A. A. Tolstoi, with the addition of a memoir by her, was published by the Tolstoi Museum Society, Petrograd, 1911. In reference to this meeting with her, mentioned by Tolstoi in the Journal, see the memoirs (pages 71, 72 of the above mentioned publication). About this same meeting[337] and about the visit to Petrograd in general, Tolstoi wrote to V. G. Chertkov the following (February 15, 1897): “St. Petersburg gave me a most joyous impression. Of course the principal thing was the meeting at your house. The depressing impression was my conversation with A. A. Tolstoi. The terrible thing was not only the coldness, but the cruelty and the forcing oneself into one’s soul and the violence, the very same which had estranged us. What a bad belief it is, which makes good people so cruel and therefore so insensible to the spiritual condition of others. Believe word for word as I do, otherwise if you are not exactly my enemy, still you are a stranger.” It should be noted that from the autumn of 1895, for the course of several years, Tolstoi did not write at all to the Countess A. A. Tolstoi.

177. In considering Tolstoi’s opinions concerning women found in the Journal, one should be particularly careful to avoid misunderstanding. First, Tolstoi, wishing from natural delicacy to make his remarks impersonal, often generalised his private impressions and observations from intercourse with separate individuals, and therefore these remarks in reality carried no reflection whatever against all women in general.

Second, even in those instances where Tolstoi consciously expressed himself adversely about women in general, he had in mind the most commonplace modern woman with her adverse qualities.

But in his mind he absolutely discriminated in favour of the intelligent, religious woman whom seldom he happened to meet in life and who always attracted his attention. So, for instance, he valued very highly the distant[338] relative who brought him up, T. A. Ergolsky, for her self-sacrificing life; Mmes. M. A. Schmidt and L. F. Annenkov he respected for their true religious lives, and among the women writers he especially valued an American, Lucy Mallory, for her exceptional writings, from which he selected many thoughts for The Reading Circle. For women of this type he always had the greatest respect, recognising fully their merits and their great significance to humanity. In his literary works, Tolstoi, as is known, frequently reproduced the highest type of woman (for instance, Pashenka in Father Sergius, or the old woman, Maria Semenovna in The Forged Coupon). Also in his other writings, Tolstoi did not always express himself adversely about women, as can be seen, for instance, from the following extracts:

“Oh, how I would like to show to woman the whole significance of chaste women. The chaste woman (not in vain is the legend of Mary) will save the world.” (Journal, August 3, 1898.)

“One of the most necessary tasks of humanity consists in the bringing up of chaste women.” (Journal, August 24, 1898.)

“The virtues of men and women are the same; temperance, truthfulness, kindness; but in the woman, these same virtues attain a special charm.” (The Reading Circle, June 2.)

“Men cannot do that highest, best work, which brings men more than anything else nearer to God—the work of love, the work of complete self-surrender to him whom you love, which good women have done so well and so naturally, are doing, and will do. What would happen[339] to the world, what would happen to us men, if women had not that quality and if they did not exercise it... Without mothers, helpers, friends, comforters, who love in a man all that is best in him, and who with a suggestion hardly to be noticed, call forth and support all the best in him—without such women it would be bad to live in this world. Christ would not have had Mary and Magdalene; Francis of Assisi would not have had Clara; the Decembrists would not have had their wives with them in exile; the Dukhobors would not have had their wives who did not hold their husbands back, but supported them in their martyrdom for truth, there would not have been those thousands and thousands of unknown women, the very best, as everything that is unknown, the comforters of the drunken, the weak, the debauched, those for whom the consolations of love are more necessary than for any one else. In this love, whether it is directed to Kukin or to Christ, is the principal, great and irreplaceable strength of women.” (Appendix to Chekhov’s story, Dushechka.)

178. On Life—a religious-philosophic work by Tolstoi, written by him in 1887 and printed in all his collected works. An abbreviation of this work and an exposition of it written in simple language for plain readers was made by an American, Bolton Hall, and was approved by Tolstoi and printed under the title, Life, Love and Death. Later a translation of this under the title, True Life, appeared in an issue of the Ethical Artistic Library, Moscow, 1899. See article of Bolton Hall in the International Tolstoi Almanac compiled by P. A. Sergienko (Kniga, 1909).

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179. See Letters of L. N. Tolstoi to his Wife, Moscow, 1913, pages 518 to 519.

180. Tolstoi made a mistake of one year: the battle against the Caucasian mountaineers in which he took part in the capacity of an artillerist, took place February 18, 1853. (See P. Biriukov’s Biography of Tolstoi, Volume I, page 226.) Nine years after the above mentioned note, February 18, 1903, Tolstoi wrote to Rusanov: “To-day it is fifty-three years since hostile enemy shells struck the wheel of that cannon which I directed. If the muzzle of the gun from which the shell emerged had deviated 1-10,000ths of an inch to one side or another, I would have been killed and I would no longer have lived. What nonsense. I would have existed in a form now inconceivable to me.”

181. What Is Art?

182. Matthew Arnold (1822–1888), a well-known English poet, critic and student of literature. Shortly before his death, Arnold printed an article in The Fortnightly Review, devoted to the critical analysis of Anna Karenin and some of the religious philosophic writings of Tolstoi. (See Novoe Vremia, December 11, 1887, the article, “An English Critic on Leo Tolstoi.”) The thought quoted by Tolstoi was expressed by Arnold in his article, “The Problems of Modern Criticisms” (a Russian translation was issued by Posrednik). Tolstoi valued the writings of Arnold highly, especially his book, Literature and Dogma, of which a Russian translation was published by Posrednik under the title, Wherein Lies the Essence of Christianity and Judaism (Moscow, 1907).

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183. Tolstoi, for the sake of an airing, rode about ten versts to a dressmaker, for the dress of Nadezhda Mikhailovna Yushkova.

184. Jules and Leo Edwardovich Konius, the violinist and the pianist.

185. Countess T. L. Tolstoi and Count Mikhail Adamovich Olsuphiev performed two small plays, Feminine Nonsense by I. L. Stcheglov and The Lady Agreeable In All Respects.

186. According to the copy in possession of the editors.

187. Evidently a mistake in the copy in possession of the editors. This extract refers not to Book VII, but to Book VI of Politics. The quotation cited by Tolstoi reads in the Russian translation of Prof. S. A. Zhebelev in this way: “In a state enjoying the best organisation, and uniting in itself men absolutely just, and not relatively just (in relation to this or that political system), the citizens should not lead a life such as is led by craftsmen or merchants (such a life is ignoble and is contrary to virtue); the citizens of the state planned by us should likewise not be agricultural workers, because they will be in need of leisure for the development of their virtue.” Aristotle’s Politics: Works of the Petrograd Philosophic Society, Petrograd, 1911, pages 318, 319.

188. An omission in the copy in possession of the editors.

189. The editor knows nothing about the acquaintanceship of Tolstoi with Madame Shorin.

190. Countess A. M. Olsuphiev, who had been on friendly terms with Tolstoi. In a note to V. G. Chertkov,[342] written on a piece of proof of Resurrection, June 8, 1899, Tolstoi communicated: “I have a sorrow. Anna Mikhailovna Olsuphiev died.”

191. A village near Nicholskoe, as well as the village Shelkovo, mentioned below.

192. A young lively girl, whom Tolstoi met at the Chertkovs’ when they lived in the summer of 1896 near Yasnaya Polyana. Being arrested on suspicion of revolutionary activity and imprisoned in the fortress of Peter and Paul, she committed suicide by setting herself on fire.

In the letter to V. G. Chertkov, Tolstoi wrote:

“In Petersburg on February 12th the following occurred: Vietrova, Maria Fedosievna, whom you know and whom I knew, a student confined in the House of Detention before Trial in the strike case, little connected with it, was transferred to the fortress of Peter and Paul. There, as they say and surmise, after inquiry and violation (that is still unestablished) she poured kerosene on herself, set fire to it and on the third day died. Her comrades who visited her, kept on bringing her things, which were accepted, and only after two weeks, were they told that she had burnt herself. The youth, all the students, up to three thousand persons (there were some also from the Theological Seminary) gathered in the Kazan Cathedral for the service of the dead. They were not permitted, but they themselves began to sing “Eternal Memory” and with wreaths, intended to march on the Nevsky Prospect, but were not permitted, and they went along Kazan Street. Their names were taken and they were let free. Every one is indignant. I[343] receive letters and people come and tell me about it. I feel great pity for all who take part in these affairs, and I have a greater and greater desire to explain to people how they ruin themselves simply because they neglect that law (or they do not know it) which was given by Christ and which frees from such deeds and from the participation in them.”

Tolstoi approached A. F. Koni for advice, whether it were possible to publish what was authentically known about this terrible case, and secondly about “what to do in order to resist” this kind of event?

193. Two lines crossed out by Tolstoi. A note by M. L. Obolensky in the copy in possession of the editors.

194. The Englishman, Aylmer Maude, translator of many works of Tolstoi into English. The agricultural colony which Tolstoi mentions was being founded at that time in England in the town of Purleigh in Essex. Maude settled in the neighbourhood of the colony and supported it materially. Maude himself and several representatives of this colony visited Tolstoi at this time. He wrote and published in England, a biography of Tolstoi, The Life of Tolstoi, by Aylmer Maude, two volumes, London, 1908 to 1910. Unfortunately this most detailed biography of Tolstoi in English, contains among other things the most perverted information about Tolstoi and an absolutely incorrect interpretation of his views, as well as of some of his acts. Tolstoi himself, learning before his death of the contents of some of these chapters which were sent to Yasnaya Polyana in manuscript, found the interpretation of the relation among people near to him so incorrect that he wrote about it to Maude.