Part 9

“As for me, I remained in the room of the patient, couldn’t tear myself away. I used to tell her amusing anecdotes and to play cards with her. I sat through whole nights with her. Her mother used to thank me with tears in her eyes; but I thought to myself, ‘I’m not worthy of your thanks.’ To be candid with you--nothing is to be gained now by concealing the truth--I fell in love with my patient. And Alexandra Andreyevna too became attached to me; there were times indeed when she wouldn’t permit any one but me in her room. She loved to chat with me--she’d ask me where I had studied, how I lived, who were my kin, whom did I know? I felt that she had no right to talk; and yet I couldn’t think of forbidding her. I’d sometimes put my hands to my head, and I’d reproach myself: ‘What are you doing, murderer?’... And she’d take my hand and hold it, and continue to look at me long, very long; at times she would turn away, utter a sigh, and then she would mutter, ‘How good you are!’ Meanwhile her hands were burning; her eyes grew large and dark. ‘Yes,’ she would say; ‘you are a good, kind man, not at all like our neighbors ... not in the least.’... How my poor heart would go a-fluttering! And all the time ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, be quiet,’ I’d say to her.... ‘Believe me, I am grateful, I don’t know how I have earned it ... only, please be quiet, for God’s sake, be quiet.... Everything shall come out all right, and you shall get well.’ I should tell you, however,” added the doctor, bending forward and raising his eyebrows, “that they had had little to do with the neighbors, because the poorer folk weren’t up to them, while pride stood between them and the rich. I tell you, they were a highly-educated family--which was flattering to me, to be sure.

“From my hands alone she would take her medicine.... She’d raise herself, poor girl, with my help, swallow it, and then glance at me.... How my poor heart would go a-fluttering! And all the time she was growing worse and worse. ‘She will die,’ was my thought, ‘she will certainly die.’ Believe me, I would as lief have descended into the grave myself; and there was her mother standing about; her sisters too were anxious, as they looked into my eyes.... Surely their faith couldn’t last much longer. ‘Well, what today?’ they’d ask. ‘Nothing, nothing,’ I’d reply; but, in truth, my mind was in a whirl.

“One night I sat as usual at the bedside of my patient. The maid too was sitting in the room, and snoring for all she was worth.... She too, poor girl, was exhausted. Alexandra Andreyevna had been feeling badly all that evening; the fever tormented her. Until midnight she tossed about, and finally fell asleep; at least, she lay motionless. In a corner, before the ikon, a lamp was burning. I sat there, my head in my hands, dozing.

“Suddenly--it was as if some one gave me a thrust in the side--I raised my head.... Good God! Alexandra Andreyevna, with her eyes wide open, was gazing at me.... Her lips were parted, her cheeks burning. ‘What is the matter?’ ‘Doctor, am I going to die?’ ‘God forbid!’ ‘No, Doctor, no, please don’t tell me that I shall live ... don’t tell me.... If you only knew ... listen to me, for God’s sake, don’t conceal from me my true state!’ She said this with panting breath. ‘If I were only sure that I shall die ... I’d tell you all, all!’ ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, I entreat you!’ ‘Listen to me,’ she said: ‘I haven’t slept at all; I have been looking at you a long time.... For God’s sake! ... I believe you; you are a good man and an honest man; I conjure you by all that is holy upon earth--to tell me the truth! If you only knew how important it is that I should know!... Doctor, for God’s sake, tell me, am I in danger?’ ‘What am I to tell you, Alexandra Andreyevna, I beg of you?’ ‘I entreat you, for God’s sake!’ ‘I can’t conceal it from you, Alexandra Andreyevna, you are really in danger, but the Lord is merciful.’... ‘I shall die, I shall die!’... And she actually seemed overjoyed; her face lit up with radiance; I became alarmed. ‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid; death does not terrify me.’ Suddenly she raised herself, and propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Well, now I can tell you that I am grateful to you from my very soul, that you are a good, honest man, and that I love you.’... I gazed on her as on one mad; it was painful to me, as you may well understand.... ‘Do you hear? I love you!’... ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, how have I earned your love?’ ‘No, no, you don’t understand me ... thou dost not understand me.’[3] ... And suddenly she stretched out her arms, seized my head between her hands, and kissed me.... Believe me, I nearly cried out.... I threw myself on my knees and hid my head in the pillows. She was silent; her fingers trembled in my hair; I could hear her weeping. I tried to quiet her, to reassure her.... I really don’t know what I said to her. ‘You’ll awaken the maid, Alexandra Andreyevna,’ I said to her.... ‘Indeed, I am grateful ... believe me ... calm yourself.’ ‘Enough, enough,’ she repeated. ‘God be with them all; let them awaken, let them come--it is all the same; since I shall die.... But why do you tremble, why are you afraid? Lift your head.... Or perhaps you don’t love me, perhaps I have been deceived.... If so, please forgive me.’ ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, what are you saying? ... I love you, Alexandra Andreyevna.’ She looked straight into my eyes, and opened her arms. ‘Then embrace me.’...

“To speak candidly, I can’t quite comprehend how it was that I didn’t lose my mind that night. There was the feeling that she was consuming herself, also that she was not in her senses; and that were it not for the fact that she considered herself as dying, she wouldn’t have thought of me. Say what you will, it’s a hideous thought to be dying at twenty years of age without having loved some one; that is what tortured her, that is why in her desperation she clung to me--do you grasp the idea? She held me there in her embrace. ‘Have pity on me, Alexandra Andreyevna, and have pity on thyself,’ I said to her. ‘Why, should I?’ was her reply. ‘What is there to pity, since I must die?’... She repeated this incessantly. ‘If I only knew that I’d remain alive and go among respectable young ladies, I’d feel ashamed, dreadfully ashamed ... but what does it matter to me now?’ ‘Who told you you’re going to die?’ ‘Oh, no, enough of this, you shan’t fool me, you don’t know how to lie, look at yourself.’ ‘You shall live, Alexandra Andreyevna, I shall save you; then we will ask your mother for her blessing.... We will marry, we will be happy.’ ‘No, no, I have your word for it, I must die.... You had promised me.... You told me so.’...

“I felt bitter at heart, and for many reasons. And judge for yourself; often small things happen, trifling in themselves, yet they are painful. It occurred to her to ask me my Christian name. As ill luck will have it, I am called Trifon; yes, Trifon, Trifon Ivanich. In the house I was simply called Doctor. There was no help for it. ‘Trifon, miss,’ I replied. She looked amused, and she shook her head; then she whispered something in French--something that didn’t sound quite nice; then she laughed; it was unpleasant to me, I assure you. In such a manner I passed almost the entire night with her. In the morning I left her, almost not in my own senses. I reëntered her room later in the morning, after tea. Good God! she was hardly recognizable; a corpse couldn’t have looked worse. I swear to you, upon my honor, I really can’t understand how I endured the torture. Three days and three nights more my patient lingered ... and what nights they were! And the things she said to me!... Then the final night--imagine to yourself; I was sitting beside her, and there was in my heart but one prayer to God: ‘Take her as soon as possible, and me also.’... Suddenly, unexpectedly, her mother entered the room.... I had already told her the day before that there was but little hope, and that it would be well to have a priest. The sick girl, seeing her mother, blurted out, ‘I’m glad you came.... Look at us, we love each other, we have promised ourselves to each other!’ ‘What is she saying, Doctor, what is she saying?’ I grew deathly pale. ‘She’s delirious, it’s the fever.’... But she went on: ‘Enough, enough, only a little while ago you spoke differently to me, and even accepted a ring from me ... why do you dissemble? My mother is good-hearted, she will forgive. She will understand; but I’m dying--there’s no reason why I should lie; give me your hand.’... I sprang up and ran out of the room. The old mother, of course, guessed the true state of affairs.

“I’ll not go on, however, tiring you with any further details. As it is, I find it painful to recall it all. The girl died the next day. May the Holy Kingdom be hers!” added the doctor quickly and with a sigh. “Before she died she requested her kin to go out of the room and to leave me alone with her. ‘Forgive me,’ she said to me. ‘I perhaps am guilty before you ... my illness ... but, believe me, I never loved any one so much ... don’t forget me ... take care of my ring.’”

The doctor turned away his face; I took his hand.

“Eh!” he sighed, “let’s chat about something else, or perhaps you’d rather have a game of ‘preference,’ for a trifle? It’s not for our kind to give way to elevated feelings. There’s but one thing left for us--to manage that our children don’t squall, and our wives don’t scold. Since those days, you see, I have entered, as one might say, into the legal bonds of matrimony.... Well.... I married a merchant’s daughter, who brought me a _dot_ of seven thousand rubles. Her name is Akulina; it goes just right with Trifon. She is an ill-tempered dame, but fortunately she sleeps all day long.... Did you say ‘preference’?”

We began to play preference, at a copeck. Trifon Ivanich succeeded in winning from me two rubles and a half, and left late, much gratified with his victory.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The change from _you_ to _thou_ is significant here, because among the Russians _thou_ is employed only in familiar or intimate sense.

TOLSTOI, ARTIST AND PREACHER

As a man of letters, Lyoff Nikolaievitch, Count Tolstoi, holds undisputed place in the first rank; as a philosophical preacher of reform, his position is much less secure. And it is sadly ironical that one who was so ready to lay aside those fictional laurels which all men yielded to him readily, has not been accorded the preëminence among moralists which he held to be of so much greater worth.

The last twenty years of his abundant life disclosed in this greatest of all Russians that which was always really present--the single eye, with its gaze constantly set upon ethical ideals. Even a swift survey of his life and its so closely interpenetrating work will bear out this estimate--perhaps surprisingly.

In 1828, on September 9--August 28, old style--Tolstoi was born at Yasnaia Polyana, in the government of Tula, Russia. For several centuries his wealthy and noble family was distinguished in military and state affairs as well as in literature, one of his ancestors, Peter Tolstoi, having been the intimate of Peter the Great. Lyoff’s father, Nikolai, and his mother, the Princess Volkhonsky, died while he was yet a lad, leaving him in charge of an aunt. He inherited a rich estate which his father had succeeded in thriftily disencumbering from the debts of extravagance contracted by his own father.

The future author was educated at home, spent some time (1843-44) at the University of Kazan, did further private work at home, for a while studied law in St. Petersburg, alternated between his estates and the social life of the great cities, and eventually entered the army in 1851. It was during this period that he gathered much of the material for his early stories, notably “The Cossacks,” a short novel of unmistakable power and insight; and the rambling autobiographical stories, “Childhood,” “Boyhood,” and “Youth,” generally combined under the first title. When the Crimean War broke out, in 1853, Tolstoi was transferred to the army of the Danube, and distinguished himself for bravery before Sevastopol--as well as by his three notable sketches which bear the name of this great siege, “Sevastopol in December,” “Sevastopol in May,” and “Sevastopol in August.”

Tolstoi’s life as a soldier was that of a rake--in which he differed not at all from the young noblemen of the period. But this wild career does not seem to have interfered with his fondness for moralizing, nor with his conviction that he was the spiritual Moses, divinely commissioned to lead the Russian people out of the wilderness. His youthful diary confesses that the three passions to which he yielded, gambling, sensuality, and vanity, were moral stumbling-blocks; and with naïve premonition he wrote: “There is something in me which makes me think that I was not born to be just like everybody else.” But the most remarkable youthful forecast is found in the words which Professor Phelps quotes from Tolstoi’s journal of this period: “The man who has no other goal than his own happiness is a bad man. He whose goal is the good opinion of others is a weak man. He whose goal is the happiness of others is a virtuous man. He whose goal is God is a great man.” In these cumulative epigrams we have a summary of Tolstoi’s creed. However far afield he wandered in middle years, distressed by doubts and confused by jangling voices, the sturdy seeking-soul of him followed this great light with the single eye of an honest man, and this altruistic doctrine he preached with increasing loftiness, through excommunication and charges of insanity, down to the very end. That so extreme a theory should lead him often into blind avenues, and that the phantoms of many inconsistencies should challenge his way, was inevitable; yet Tolstoi stands before the world today as a good man and an earnest one, who never lay upon a couch of down while he preached abnegation for others.

An insatiable psychological curiosity possessed the Russian master from youth to the close of his fiction-writing years. In the exercise of this minute observing power, he is as amazing a realist as was Balzac, and when he confines his examinations to humans he is quite as profoundly interesting, but rather tiresome when he records the numberless details of inanimate nature.

A character so given to scrutiny would naturally be introspective, so that his novels are markedly autobiographical. And it is always the struggling, set-upon, brooding character which the novelist chooses through which to depict his own nature. How different from the romantic self-exploitation of Byron! In “Childhood,” _Nikolenka_ is Tolstoi himself, as _Olénine_ is in “The Cossacks.” So too in _Levine_ of “Anna Karenina,” _Pozdnichev_, of “The Kreutzer Sonata,” and _Nekhlioudov_, of “Resurrection” (his final creed-summary), we have pictures of the self-recognized characteristics and beliefs of the author.

Each of these distinguished novels exhibits the same loosely-knit, diffuse, and digressive literary method, and the same marvellous perfection of character analysis and description. Each, also, advances a step toward that morbid idealism which was always seeking a new expression for a philosophy which was never finally set, but remained a shifting formulary to the last.

“War and Peace” is a huge study of the times of Napoleon and Alexander, brilliant and tedious by turns, and requiring leisure for its reading--in the last analysis, a really great novel. “Anna Karenina” treats with great frankness and high moral purpose contemporaneous Russian society. Both these remarkable books abound in striking comparisons, witty comments, well differentiated character work, and convincing pictures of their times.

Shortly after finishing these works, Tolstoi emerged from his groping, pessimistic, skeptical, nihilistic philosophy and “discovered” the Sermon on the Mount. Thenceforward he was the Preacher. It is true that, as his devoted wife playfully said, he changed his views every two years, yet his devotion to his altruistic creed--the creed of his youth, as we have seen--was so firm that neither the dying adjurations of his friend Turgenev nor the clamors of the forty-five peoples into whose separate languages his writings have been translated could induce him to return to fiction--he felt that the mantle of a new spiritual leadership was upon his shoulders, and thenceforward the story-teller’s art, when exercised at all, was to be merely a means to the ulterior end of teaching.

A great number of didactic essays wearing the transparent gauze of fiction came from Tolstoi’s pen in this period, as well as many religious and ethical treatises, besides one astounding, ideal-smashing discussion, “What is Art?” Radicalism is the native air of reform, and our author was fond of drastic measures in practice and in theory. The communism of his middle period found new emphasis in the later long essay, “What, Then, Must be Done?” Yet his was a directly contrary individualism of personal philosophy. Contradictory again was his abandonment of the city and adoption of the peasant life on his own estates. Indeed, one looks in vain for consistency in the working-out of his whole career; and yet, while the general course swerved startlingly time and again, no one could doubt the naïve sincerity of this sophisticated, simple mind, this nobleman peasant, this iconoclastic gentle man, this nihilistic Christian, this pessimistic idealist, this contradictory soul of single purpose, this incarnation of selfish unselfishness. For there can be no doubt that Tolstoi’s character was greater than his confused system of ethics, just as his intellect was greater than his philosophy. Think of the supreme selfless egoism that could permit a wife with whom he lived as with a sister for years--probably ever since he propounded his extreme marital theories in “The Kreutzer Sonata”--to copy as often as ten times the myriad pages of his works, all laboriously by hand! And yet, because his followers demanded that he should exemplify his doctrines, and partly also because this eighty-two-year-old father of ten children could not live peacefully under stress of the divided beliefs of the home, he broke the heart of this devoted woman by leaving home secretly by night, and died thus in retreat shortly after, November 20 (O. S. Nov. 7), 1910. For four days the Countess Sophia was beneath the roof where her husband lay ill, yet only at the last did she venture to come into his room, drop on her knees by his bedside, and kiss the hand that for conscience’ sake had smitten her! Strange contradiction of human life when this idealizer of family love, this apostle of gentleness, this generous soul who could withhold nothing from the needy, make over his estate to his family years before he died, refuse to receive royalties from his books, beg the public to forget his masterpieces of fiction and read only his tractates, labor in the fields and eat peasant bread--when this great soul could love-starve the aged helpmeet who had been his strength for three-score years!

* * * * *

In the midst of so many vague and divergent expressions throughout his whole literary career, and especially in “My Religion” and “Resurrection,” it is difficult to crystallize what Tolstoi taught. But this seems to me to be the gist:

We have two natures: the animal nature, which decays and dies, and the spiritual, which lives forever. Life consists in doing those things which gratify our desires, and thus bring happiness. But when we attempt to live and gain happiness by the gratification of our animal natures we meet only disappointment, for animal desires can never be really satisfied. Therefore we need to be regenerated, which is nothing more than the enthronement of our spiritual natures and the denying or casting-out of our animal natures. The gratification of our spiritual selves is found in Love, the only good, and the essence of love consists not in self-pleasing but in seeking our happiness in the happiness and well-being of others. Thus do we obey the law of God and become one with Him. In the exercise of our desires for the well-being of others we will not only deny ourselves all carnal desires, but never oppose force by force--love will be sufficient to overcome all enemies. We must not even flee from suffering, danger, or death, but accept each as good, whereupon it will cease to have power to harm us. This life of love is opposed to all selfish acquisition of property. To be truly happy, we must get back to the soil, abandon the artificialities of city life, labor for our food, and give to others.

Though Tolstoi turned so often, and finally without backsliding, to the peasant class, he did not so much champion their cause as he gemmed a crown for the obscure life as such. He could not pity those whose ways were laborious, because to him no other career than bodily toil could bring the highest good. The outbursting, fiercely passionate soul of all his later years was for the pitiable masses who still chose swords rather than plowshares, who preferred a lawsuit to a loss, who loved the city more than the country, who saw joy in the factory and none in the farm.

Those who have only a shivering admiration for the terrors of Russian fiction in general will find in Tolstoi’s short-stories much that is sweet and gentle; yet, being the most Russian of all Russian fiction-writers, he could but cry aloud with the pity of his people. But greater than his pity was his passion for preaching.

Sermons big and little lurk in every corner of his stories to fix you with their relentless eyes. Even when the tale is not clearly didactic, a swift vision of moral relations is sure to come to him who reads. For an instance, take “My Dream,” the story of a Russian prince whose daughter runs away with a married man and bears him a child. At length the sister-in-law of the prince pleads with him to forgive his daughter. Here is his severe reply:

“I have suffered enough. I have now but one desire, and that is to put her in such a position that she will be independent of others, and that she shall have no further need of communicating with me. Then she can live her own life, and my family and I need know nothing more about her. That is all I can do.”

But the woman-heart crystallizes the teaching of the story when she replies:

“Michael, you say nothing but ‘I.’ She too is ‘I.’”

There is a fine, high spirit, too, in “Where Love is, There God is Also.”