CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE

Ancestors. Count Peter. Russian titles. Tolstoy's grandfather and father. His maternal grandfather and mother. First recollections. Aunty Tatiána. Antecedents.

1353

IN the annals of the Russian nobility it is recorded that a man named Idris came from 'the lands of Cæsar,' that is to say, from the Holy Roman Empire, in the year 1353 with two sons and 3000 followers, and settling at Tchernígof in Little Russia was received with favour by the reigning Grand Duke, who granted him much land. A great-grandson of this Idris, Andrew by name, migrated to Moscow, where he was well received by the reigning Grand Duke Vasíly, who conferred upon him the surname of Tolstóy.

1645

As, however, the annals of the Russian nobility were to a large extent concocted in the reign of Peter the Great, it is extremely doubtful whether this story is reliable. Be that as it may, it is certain that Peter Tolstoy, born in 1645, was a Russian who distinguished himself in the service of the State. During the struggles which preceded the acquisition of power by Peter the Great, he made the mistake of allying himself with that autocrat's ambitious half-sister, Sophia. The defeat of her Guards, the Streltsí, caused him quickly to transfer his allegiance to Peter, whose favour he eventually managed to secure. When drinking with his chosen companions in later days, the Tsar would often pat Tolstoy's head, saying, 'Little head, little head, had you been less wise, you would have come off your shoulders long ago.'

1697, 1716, 1717

This Peter Tolstoy held a commission in the Guards, and fought in the Azof campaign of 1696; but later on he went abroad to study shipbuilding when Peter the Great was seeking volunteers for that purpose. He was sent in 1701 as Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and in the years 1710-1713, when political affairs were critical, he twice suffered severe imprisonment in the Seven Towers--the stronghold wherein the Sultan occasionally confined the ambassadors of States with whose conduct he felt dissatisfied. Returning to Russia in 1714, Tolstoy obtained the favour of Prince Ménshikof and became a Minister of State. He married; but his wife does not appear to have been of sufficient importance for any one to have said anything about her. He accompanied Peter the Great to Holland and France, and rendered him an important though discreditable service. Peter the Great's son, the refractory Alexis, who disliked his father's reforms, had escaped from Russia and was living with his mistress Euphrosyne at St. Elmo, near Naples. By threats and promises, and by the aid of this woman, Tolstoy induced the unfortunate Tsarévitch to return to Russia, and when he had got him there, took a leading part in his trial and secret execution.

30 Aug. 1725

For this service Tolstoy received large estates and was promoted to the headship of the Secret Chancellery. On the day of the coronation of Peter's second wife, Catherine, Tolstoy was made a Count. His coat of arms shows seven towers, in memory of his imprisonment by the Sultan, and is appropriately supported by two wolf-hounds rampant, looking outwards.

6 May 1727, 1729

On the death of Peter the Great, Tolstoy actively supported Ménshikof in securing the throne for Catherine the First, and he was one of the seven members of the Upper Secret Council which practically ruled Russia. On the question of choosing a successor to Catherine, he ventured however to oppose Ménshikof. The latter was too powerful for him; and forfeiting his title of Count and deprived of all offices rewards and estates, Tolstoy, at the age of eighty-two, was banished for life to the Solovétz Monastery, situated on an island in the White Sea. Here, two years later, he died. Ménshikof himself, one may remark in passing, finished his life that same year in Siberia, having been banished by an order signed by the boy he had placed on the throne. To be a Russian Minister of State in those days was almost as dangerous as it is in our times to be a revolutionary conspirator.

The title of Count was revived in the family in 1770, for the benefit of Peter Tolstoy's grandson; whose son, Count Elias Tolstoy (he figures in _War and Peace_ as the elder Count Rostóf), was the grandfather of Leo Tolstoy, whose life this book narrates.

There is one matter which it may be as well to explain at the outset, as English readers are so often puzzled by it: I refer to the nature of Russian titles of nobility. The only really Russian title is that of _Knyaz_, commonly translated 'Prince.' It is borne by descendants of Rúrik, by descendants of the Lithuanian Prince Ghedimin, and by descendants of various Tartar Khans whose dominions Russia has annexed. It has also been conferred by Imperial Decree on a dozen or more other Russian families. Though _Knyaz_ is translated 'Prince,' _Velíky Knyaz_, curiously enough, is not translated 'Great Prince,' but 'Grand Duke,' and this indicates how difficult it is to find suitable equivalents for these titles. Not till the time of Peter the Great were the German titles, Count (_Graf_) and Baron, introduced into Russia. Both of these are now common among the Russo-German landlords of the Baltic Provinces; and less so among real Russians.

It must be borne in mind that there is no law of primogeniture in Russia. Each son and daughter inherits the family title, so that there are usually several, and sometimes many, people with equal rights to use the same title. Though springing from one stock, they may be only distantly connected. There are for instance other Counts Tolstoy, contemporaries of Leo Tolstoy and distant cousins of his. One of these, the poet Count Alexis Tolstoy, was a well-known author and dramatist. Another, the reactionary Count Dmítry Tolstoy, was successively Head of the Holy Synod, Minister of Education, and Minister of the Interior.

Tolstoy's grandfather already mentioned, Count Elias Tolstoy, was an easy-going generous trustful and extravagant man, who married a wealthy Princess Gortchakóf, but ran through her money and his own, and at last to secure a means of livelihood, procured the post of Governor of Kazán. This he was able to do, thanks to his family influence. It is recorded to his credit that, contrary to the general custom of the time, he accepted no bribes (except from the Government contractor, who was considered the natural financial prop of a Provincial Governor), though his wife accepted presents without his knowledge.

Their eldest daughter married a Count Osten-Saken. She became guardian of Leo Tolstoy and of his brothers and sister, after they had lost their parents. Another daughter married V. I. Úshkof. Leo Tolstoy was under her charge when he lived in Kazán and studied at its University.

The first fact known to us about his father, Count Nicholas Tolstoy, is characteristic of the manners of his class and day. When he was only sixteen, his parents arranged a _liaison_ between him and a peasant girl, such connections being considered necessary for the health of young men. A son was born, and Tolstoy records his 'strange feeling of consternation when (in after years) this brother of mine, fallen into destitution and bearing a greater resemblance to my father than any of us, used to beg help of us, and was thankful for the ten or fifteen roubles we used to give him.'

1812, 1814

Nicholas Tolstoy was not yet seventeen when Napoleon invaded Russia; but in spite of his parents' efforts to dissuade him, he insisted on entering the army, and thanks to his mother's family influence, quickly obtained an appointment as Adjutant to Prince Andrew Gortchakóf, a General in command. He went through the campaigns of 1813 and 1814; and in the latter year he and his orderly, while on their way to rejoin the Russian army in Germany, after taking despatches to Petersburg, were captured by the French. The orderly managed to hide his master's gold coins in his boots, and for months never risked taking them off, though his feet grew sore and he suffered extreme discomfort. Thanks to this devotion, Nicholas Tolstoy, after reaching Paris, was able to live in comfort.

Having attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he left the army when the war was over, and, disillusioned with military service, returned to Kazán, where his father (completely ruined by that time) was still Governor.

1820

In 1820 Count Elias died, leaving his estate so encumbered that his son declined to accept the inheritance. The young man had to face the task of providing for his old mother, who was accustomed to great luxury, as well as for his sister and a distant cousin, Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky, who had been adopted into the family; and so a marriage was arranged for him with the wealthy but plain Princess Marie Volkónsky, who was no longer very young.

His father's life, Tolstoy tells us, was then

passed in attending to the estate, a business in which he was not very expert, but in which he exercised a virtue great for those days: he was not cruel, but perhaps even lacked firmness. During his lifetime I never heard of corporal punishment. If it ever was administered to the serfs, the cases were so rare and my father took so little part in them, that we children never heard them mentioned. It was after his death that I learnt, for the first time, that such punishment ever took place at home.

Like most men who served in the army in the early years of Alexander's reign, he [Count Nicholas Tolstoy] was not what is now called a Liberal, but out of self-respect he considered it impossible to serve during the latter [reactionary] part of Alexander's reign, or under Nicholas. During all my childhood and youth, our family had no intimate relations with any Government official. I, of course, understood nothing about this in childhood, but I understood that my father never humbled himself before any one, nor altered his brisk, merry, and often chaffing tone. This feeling of self-respect, which I witnessed in him, increased my love and admiration for him.

Leo Tolstoy's mother's family, the Volkónskys, were descended from Rúrik (the first ruler mentioned in Russian history) as well as from St. Michael the martyr, Prince of Tchernígof; and through them, even more than on his father's side, Tolstoy is connected with many of the leading families of the Russian aristocracy. Prince Nicholas Volkónsky, his mother's father, came into conflict with the most powerful of the favourites of Catherine the Great, for Tolstoy tells us that:

Having attained the high position of Commander-in-Chief, he lost it suddenly by refusing to marry Potémkin's niece and mistress, Varvára Engelhardt. To Potémkin's suggestion that he should do so, he replied: 'What makes him think I will marry his strumpet?'

He married instead, a Princess Catherine Troubetskóy, and after retiring from the service, settled down on his estate at Yásnaya Polyána. His wife soon died, leaving him only one surviving child, a daughter, Tolstoy's mother. Tolstoy writes of this grandfather:

He was regarded as a very exacting master, but I never heard any instance of his being cruel or inflicting the severe punishments usual in those days. I believe such cases did occur on his estate, but the enthusiastic respect for his importance and cleverness was so great among the servants and peasants whom I have often questioned about him, that though I have heard my father condemned, I have heard only praise of my grandfather's intelligence, business capacity, and interest in the welfare both of the peasants and of his enormous household.

Later, a strange chance brought Prince Volkónsky again into touch with Varvára Engelhardt, whom he had refused to marry. She married a Prince Sergius Golítsin, who consequently received promotions and decorations and rewards; and Tolstoy tells us:

With this Sergius Golítsin and his family, my grandfather formed so close a friendship that my mother from her childhood was betrothed to one of his ten sons.... This alliance, however, was not destined to be consummated, for the young man died prematurely of fever.

In a portrait of Prince N. Volkónsky which has been preserved in the family there is much that corresponds to Leo Tolstoy's own appearance. 'Both,' as his brother-in-law remarks, 'have high, open foreheads and large organs of the creative faculty, and in both the organs of musical talent are exceedingly prominent and are covered by thick, overhanging eyebrows, from beneath which small, deep-set, grey eyes literally pierce the soul of the man on whom they are turned.'

1822

Prince N. Volkónsky died in 1820, and two years later his daughter married Count Nicholas Tolstoy. Of her Tolstoy tells us:

I do not remember my mother. I was a year-and-a-half old when she died. By some strange chance no portrait of her has been preserved, so that as a real physical being I cannot picture her to myself. I am in a way glad of this, for in my conception of her there is only her spiritual figure, and all that I know about her is beautiful; and I think this has come about not merely because all who spoke to me of my mother tried to say only what was good, but because there actually was much good in her.

She was well educated, spoke five languages, played the piano well, and had a wonderful gift for improvising tales in the most delightful manner. It is said that at balls her young lady friends would leave the dance and gather in a dark room to hear her tell a story, which shyness induced her to do where she could not be seen. Tolstoy remarks that 'her most valuable quality was that though hot-tempered, she was yet self-restrained. "She would get quite red in the face and even cry," her maid told me, "but would never say a rude word."' She had one quality Tolstoy values very highly--that of never condemning any one. It was a quality shared by her eldest son, Nicholas; and Leo Tolstoy says:

In the _Lives of the Saints_ by D. Rostóvsky, there is a short story which has always touched me exceedingly, of a certain monk, who to the knowledge of all his brethren had many faults, but whom an old monk, in a dream, saw occupying a place of honour among the saints. The old man asked in astonishment, 'How could this monk, so unrestrained in many ways, deserve so great a reward?' The answer was: 'He never condemned any one.'

Tolstoy adds: 'If such rewards did exist, I think my brother and my mother would have received them.'

Another feature Tolstoy records of his mother is 'her truthfulness and the simple tone of her correspondence.' He tells us that in his imagination his mother

appeared to me a creature so elevated, pure and spiritual, that often in the middle period of my life, during my struggles with overwhelming temptations, I prayed to her soul begging her to aid me; and such prayer always helped me much.

1828

Five children were born to Nicholas and Marie Tolstoy. First came four sons, of whom Leo was the youngest. His name in Russian is Lyóf Nikoláyevitch (Leo, son-of-Nicholas) Tolstóy. Leo Tolstoy is the way he signs himself when using the Latin alphabet; and when pronouncing his name it should be remembered that the accent falls on the second syllable, and that that syllable rhymes with 'boy.' The fancy spellings _Tolstoi_ and _Tolstoï_ are due to the fact that some of the early translators and reviewers, not being able to read Russian, relied on French versions, and did not know how Tolstoy spells or pronounces his own name. He was born on 28th August 1828[1] at Yásnaya Polyána, with a caul--which both in Russia and in England is considered a sign of good-fortune.

[1] The dates mentioned in the text are usually old style (twelve days behind our calendar), unless the contrary is expressly stated.

A year and a half later a daughter, Marie, was born; and in giving birth to her the mother died, on 7th March 1830.

Pilgrims, monks, nuns, and various half-crazy devotees were frequent visitors at the house, and even took up their abode there. One of these was a nun, Márya Gerásimovna, who in her youth had made pilgrimages to various holy places dressed as a man. After the birth of four boys Tolstoy's mother longed for a daughter, and promised Márya Gerásimovna that she should be godmother if by prayer she enabled her to obtain her desire. The next child really was a daughter. The promise was kept, and thereafter Márya Gerásimovna, though she lived partly in the Toúla convent, was free of the Tolstoys' house and spent much of her time there.

Tolstoy gives us his earliest reminiscences in an autobiographical fragment published in 1878:

These are my first recollections. I cannot arrange them in order, for I do not know which come first or last. Of some of them I do not even know whether they happened in a dream or when I was awake. I lie bound[2] and wish to stretch out my arms, but cannot. I scream and cry, and my screams are disagreeable to myself, but I cannot stop. Some one--I do not remember who--bends over me. This all happens in semi-darkness. I only know there were two people there. My cries affect them: they are agitated by my screams, but do not untie me as I want them to, and I scream still louder. To them it seems necessary that I should be bound, but I know it is unnecessary and I wish to prove this to them, and I again burst into cries which are unpleasant to myself but are yet unrestrainable. I feel the injustice and cruelty--not of people, for they pity me, but--of fate, and I pity myself. I do not know and shall never know, what it was all about: whether I was swaddled while still a baby at the breast, and struggled to free my hands; whether they swaddled me when I was more than a year old, to prevent my scratching some sore, or whether I have gathered into this one recollection (as one does in a dream) many different impressions. The one sure thing is, that this was the first and strongest impression of my life. And what remains on my memory is not my cries nor my suffering, but the complexity and contradictoriness of the impressions. I desire freedom, it would harm no one, but I who need strength am weak, while they are strong.

[2] Russian babies are usually swaddled tightly with bands, making them look like fresh mummies.

The next impression is a pleasant one. I am sitting in a tub, and am surrounded by a new and not unpleasant smell of something with which they are rubbing my tiny body. Probably it was bran, put into the water of my bath; the novelty of the sensation caused by the bran aroused me, and for the first time I became aware of, and liked, my own little body with the visible ribs on my breast, and the smooth, dark, wooden tub, the bared arms of my nurse, the warm, steaming, swirling water, the noise it made, and especially the smooth feel of the wet rim of the tub as I passed my hands along it.

My next recollections belong to the time when I was five or six, and there are very few of them, and not one that relates to life outside the walls of the house. Nature, up to the age of five, did not exist for me. All that I remember, happened in bed or in our rooms. Neither grass, nor leaves, nor sky, nor sun existed for me. It cannot be that no one ever gave me flowers and leaves to play with, that I never saw any grass, that they never shaded me from the sun; but up to the time when I was five or six years old, I have no recollection of what we call Nature. Probably, to see it, one has to be separate from it, and I was Nature.

The recollection that comes next after the tub is that of Ereméyevna. 'Ereméyevna' was the name with which they used to frighten us children. Probably they had long frightened us with it, but my recollection of it is this: I am in bed and feel well and happy as usual, and I should not remember it, but that suddenly the nurse, or some one of those who made up my life, says something in a voice new to me, and then goes away; and in addition to being happy I am also frightened. And besides me there is some one else like me. (Probably my sister Mary, whose crib stood in the same room.) And I now remember a curtain near my bed; and both my sister and I are happy and frightened at the strange thing happening to us, and I hide in my pillow: hide, and glance at the door from behind which I expect something new and merry. We laugh, and hide, and wait. And then some one appears in a dress and cap quite unknown to me, but I recognise that it is the same person who is always with us (whether my nurse or aunt I do not remember), and this some one says something about bad children and about Ereméyevna in a gruff voice which I know. And I squeal with fear and pleasure, and really am frightened, and yet am glad to be frightened, and wish her who is frightening me not to know that I have recognised her. We become quiet, but presently begin whispering to one another again, on purpose that Ereméyevna may come back.

I have another recollection similar to this of Ereméyevna (but as it is clearer it probably belongs to a later date) which has always remained inexplicable to me. In this recollection the chief part is played by our German tutor, Theodore Ivánitch, but I am sure I was not yet in his charge; so the event must have taken place before I was five. It is my first recollection of Theodore Ivánitch, and it took place at so early an age that I can remember no one else: neither my brothers nor my father nor any one. If I have some notion of some one individual person, it is only of my sister, and this only because she, like me, was afraid of Ereméyevna. With this recollection is joined my first conception of the fact that our house had a top story. How I climbed there--whether I went by myself or whether any one carried me--I have quite forgotten, but I remember that many of us are there, and we all form a circle holding each other's hands; among us are some women I did not know (for some reason I remember that they were washer-women), and we all begin to go round and to jump; and Theodore Ivánitch jumps, lifting his legs too high and too loudly and noisily, and I at one and the same instant feel that this is bad and depraved, and notice him and (I believe) begin to cry--and all is over.

That is all I remember up to the age of five. Neither my nurses, aunts, brothers, sister, nor my father, nor the rooms, nor my toys, do I remember. My more distinct recollections begin from the time I was moved downstairs to Theodore Ivánitch and the elder boys.

When I was moved downstairs to Theodore Ivánitch and the boys, I experienced for the first time and therefore more strongly than ever since, the feeling which is called the sense of duty, the consciousness of the cross every man is called upon to bear. It was hard to leave what I was accustomed to from the beginning of things, and I was sad, poetically sad, not so much at parting from people: sister, nurse, and aunt, as at parting with my crib, the curtain and the pillow; and I feared the new life into which I was entering. I tried to see the jolly side of this new life awaiting me; I tried to believe the caressing words with which Theodore Ivánitch lured me to him. I tried not to see the contempt with which the boys received me, the youngest boy. I tried to think it was a shame for a big boy to live with girls, and that there was nothing good in the life upstairs with nurse; but my heart was terribly sad, I knew I was irreparably losing my innocence and happiness; and only a feeling of personal dignity and the consciousness of doing my duty upheld me. (Often in after-life I have experienced similar moments at the parting of crossroads, when entering on a fresh course.) I experienced quiet grief at the irreparableness of my loss; I was unable to believe that it would really happen. Though I had been told that I should be moved to the boys' rooms, I remember that the dressing-gown with a cord sewn to its back, which they put on me, seemed to cut me off for ever from upstairs, and I then for the first time observed--not all those with whom I had lived upstairs, but--the chief person with whom I lived, and whom I did not remember before. This was my Aunty Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky. I remember her short, stout, black-haired, kindly, tender, and compassionate. It was she who put the dressing-gown on me, and embracing me and kissing me, tied it round my waist; and I saw that she felt as I did, that it was sad, terribly sad, but had to be; and for the first time I felt that life is not a game but a serious matter.

'Aunty' Tatiána Alexándrovna Érgolsky, mentioned in the above reminiscences, was a very distant relative who being left an orphan, had been brought up by Tolstoy's paternal grandparents. She was very attractive and affectionate. She loved and was loved by Count Nicholas, Leo's father, but stood aside that he might marry the rich Princess Marie Volkónsky and repair the family fortunes. Six years after his wife's death Count Nicholas asked Tatiána to marry him and be a mother to his children. Not wishing (Tolstoy tells us) to spoil her pure, poetic relations with the family, she refused the first but fulfilled the second of these requests.

The joyousness of Tolstoy's boyhood was largely due to the care and affection of this excellent woman, and in the most firmly rooted of his principles--such as his detestation of corporal punishment and his approval of complete chastity--it is easy to trace her unconscious influence.

Here for instance is one episode:

We children were returning home from a walk with our tutor, when near the barn we met the fat steward, Andrew, followed by the coachman's assistant, 'Squinting Kouzmá' as he was called, whose face was sad. He was a married man and no longer young. One of us asked Andrew where he was going, and he quietly replied that he was going to the barn, where Kouzmá had to be punished. I cannot describe the dreadful feeling which these words and the sight of the good-natured crestfallen Kouzmá produced on me. In the evening I told this to my Aunt Tatiána, who hated corporal punishment and, wherever she had influence, never allowed it for us any more than for the serfs. She was greatly revolted at what I told her, and rebuking me said, 'Why did you not stop him?' Her words grieved me still more.... I never thought that we could interfere in such things, and yet it appeared that we could. But it was too late, and the dreadful deed had been done.

To sum up what we know of Tolstoy's antecedents: he was descended on his father's side and still more on his mother's, from aristocratic families who were more or less in passive opposition to the Government, and who shared the humanitarian sympathies current in the early years of the reign of Alexander I. A cousin of Tolstoy's mother was one of the Decembrists, and on the accession of Nicholas I in 1825 took part in their abortive attempt to establish Constitutional Government. He was exiled to Eastern Siberia for thirty years, doing hard labour in irons part of the time. His wife (another Princess Marie Volkónsky) voluntarily accompanied him, as Nekrásof has told in a well-known Russian poem. Several members of the family towards the end of their lives retired into convents or monasteries.

We find strong family love uniting the homes of Tolstoy's parents and grandparents; and even after their death, Tolstoy's nature ripened in a congenial atmosphere of family affection; and many of his most pronounced sympathies and antipathies are not peculiar to himself, but were shared equally by other members of the family.

CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER I

P. Birukof: _Lyof Nikolayevitch Tolstoy. Biografiya_: Moscow, 1906. (The Russian edition is much more readable and accurate than the English.)

Referred to hereafter as _Birukof_.

S. A. Behrs: _Vospominaniya o Grafe L. N. Tolstom_, Smolensk, 1894, is very valuable as being the work of one who spent twelve summers at Yasnaya, and knew Tolstoy intimately.

Referred to hereafter as _Behrs_.

There is an English edition of this book: _Recollections of Count Leo Tolstoy_, London, 1893, but it is incomplete, and inferior to the Russian in many ways. It gives the author's name wrongly as C. A. Behrs.

Leo Tolstoy, _First Recollections_, a fragment: Tolstoy's collected works, Moscow, 1892.

Supplement to _Novy Mir_, Graf Lyof Tolstoy: St. Petersburg, 1903.

Referred to hereafter as _Novy Mir_.