from moscow an accommodation train goes in one night to tula, capital of the government of the same name. the infallible baedeker advises the traveller to leave the train there, because it is hard to get a team at the next station, kozlovka, though kozlovka is nearer to yasnaya polyana, the estate of the poet, than is tula. i follow my baedeker blindly, because i have always had to repent when i departed from its advice. the german baedeker deserves the highest credit for taking the trouble to give this information to the few travellers that make the pilgrimage to leo tolsto?. for it is not to be supposed that tolsto? is overrun. his family guard his retirement, and do not grant admittance to every one. i was, in fact, the only stranger who found his way there during the entire week. it was, indeed, a very special introduction which opened the gates to me.
the train reaches tula at eight in the morning. thoughtful friends had given me a card in russian to the station-master to help me to find a driver who knew the way. the station-master could not,[pg 286] however, decipher the card, and did not understand my french. a colonel of cossacks then helped me out. he had already been talking with the official, and now asked me if i could not speak german a little. when i assented he immediately played the interpreter. in a few minutes a muzhik was found who, with his small sleigh and shaggy, big-boned pony, had made the journey many times. the amiable cossack then accepted an invitation to breakfast in the clean station, and we chatted for a while over our tea. he was a tall, fair-haired man, with kindly blue eyes and the short slavonic nose. his conversation, however, emphatically contradicted his appearance. he was on his way to the ural, where he was to meet his regiment, and talked about the bayonets of his cossacks being bent because the men spit the "kakamakis" (japanese) and threw them over their shoulders. he was delighted that i was a german, for the russians think the germans very good fellows at present. only the english are a bad lot—"jew englishmen!" leo tolsto?, he said, was a man of great genius, but it wasn't nice that he was an atheist. i interrupted him, laughing:
"i don't wish to be personal, colonel, but leo tolsto? is a much better christian than you."
"how's that?"
i explained to him that tolsto? wishes to reestablish the primitive christianity and is the enemy only of the church and of the priests. the good[pg 287] fellow was immediately satisfied. if it were nothing worse than that—no russian could endure the priests. they were all rascals. the missionaries in china had turned all their girls' schools into harems. only the dissenting priests led a moral life.
it was the talk of a big, thoroughly lovable child, in whom even the thirst for fighting was not unbecoming. who knows whether the bullets of the "kakamakis" have not already found him out! i spoke later to the good tolsto? of this conversation. he also is persuaded that only right teaching is needed to turn these essentially good-hearted people from the business of murder. at present war is merely a hunting adventure for them. they form no conception of the sufferings of the defeated.
deeply buried in furs and robes, we glided at last over the glittering snow. the city of tula, which would have been interesting at another time on account of its metal industry, was a matter of indifference at the moment. we quitted it on the left and struck at once into the road to yasnaya polyana. the distance before us was almost fifteen versts (ten miles); our pony had, therefore, to make good time if it was to bring us, over all the hills covered with soft snow, to our destination before noon. a russian horse, however, can stand a good deal, so i did not need to interrupt by inopportune consideration for animals the thoughts which surged[pg 288] through my brain more and more as we came near the end of the journey. a meeting with tolsto? is such an incomparable privilege for me—will fate permit me thoroughly to enjoy the moments? and if he is not the man i expect to find, if one of the great again unmasks before me as a poseur—who appears great and admirable only at a distance—how many illusions have i still to lose? may not his apostleship be merely a self-suggested idea obstinately clung to? is not his tardy religious bent, perhaps, mere hypochondria, fear of the next world, preparation for death? a look with his eyes must show me. i must learn from the sound of his voice whether my inner ear deceives me when i hear the ring of sincerity in the primeval force of his diction. i know i cannot deceive myself. if the concept i have formed of him is corrected even in the least point by the reality, that is the end of my secret worship.
we turned in at last between two stone pillars at the park of yasnaya polyana. below, beside the frozen pond, we saw a youthful figure advancing with the light step of an officer surrounded by a pack of baying and leaping dogs. yet, if my eyes did not deceive me, a gray beard flowed over the breast of this slender, boyish figure. he stopped, shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked towards our sleigh. then he turned back. it was he.
we had hardly reached the house and been[pg 289] unwrapped from our furs and overshoes by the servants, when the door of the low vestibule opened, and there, in muzhik smock and fur, high boots and tall fur cap, as we knew him from a thousand pictures, leo tolsto? stood before us and held out a friendly hand.
while he, motioning away the servants, pulled off his knee-high felt overshoes, i had opportunity to look at him. that is to say, my eyes at first were held by the head alone, with its softly curling gray hair, which flows, parted, to the neck. thick, bushy, gray brows shade the deep-set, blue eyes and sharply define an angular, self-willed forehead. the nose is strong, slender above, broad and finely modelled in the nostrils. the long, gray mustache completely covers the mobile mouth. a waving white beard, parted in the middle, flows from the hoary cheeks to the shoulders. the head is not broad—rather, it might be called narrow—wholly unslavonic, and is well poised. the broad, strongly built shoulders have a military erectness. the powerful body is set on slender hips. a narrow foot is hidden in the high russian boot and moves elastically. the step and carriage are youthful. an irony of fate will have it that the bitterest foe of militarism betrays in his whole appearance the former officer. the man in the peasant's dress is in every movement the grand seigneur.
we were still standing in the vestibule, which serves also as a cloak-room. the count thrust both[pg 290] hands in his belt—well-shaped, powerful hands—and asked in faultless german my plan for the day. i felt the gentle eyes on my face as he spoke. the look is beaming and kindly. one is not pierced, only illuminated. yet one feels distinctly that nothing is hidden from those quiet, kindly eyes. i answered that i should return to moscow at midnight, and until then would under no consideration disturb him in his work. he told me, thereupon, to send back my sleigh, since he would have us driven at night to the station in his own. he would have no refusal to our eating breakfast before we withdrew to the room assigned us. the countess, he said, was in moscow at the time, but the youngest daughter would soon return from the village school, where she taught. he would leave her to entertain us until luncheon. i should say here that my wife accompanied me on this wintry journey, as on the whole journey of investigation. tolsto? himself would keep to his usual programme—would look over his mail, write a promised article, rest a little in the afternoon, then ride, and from dinner—that is, from six o'clock—until midnight would be at my disposal. then he led us to a large room on the first floor. here stood a long table, which remains spread all day. tea and eggs were brought. before withdrawing, however, the count sat with us awhile, asked with the tact of a man of the world about personal matters—the number of our children and how they were cared for in our absence,[pg 291] and the friends in moscow who had introduced us to him—all in a low, musical voice which banished all embarrassment. then he rose with a slight bow and walked to his room. at the door, however, he turned and came back to ask whether we brought any news of the war. it was just in the pause after the first catastrophe at port arthur. we were obliged, therefore, to say no. then the servant appeared and led us back to the ground floor, where we were shown into two connecting rooms. we had time to record our first impressions.
the worst was over. there was no fear of disillusion. that was gone like a cloud of smoke. the infinite kindliness of his eyes, the gentleness of his hand-shake, the beauty of the silvery head exert a fascination. there can be no doubt of his complete sincerity. the mind is filled with an entirely new feeling, that of astonishment at the unpretentious peacefulness of this fighter, who, from the stern seriousness of his latest writings, and from his current portraits, might be taken for a philosophizing pessimist. whatever titanic thoughts may work in this head, which looks like one of michael angelo's, all that is visible is a glow of serene and holy peace, which gently relaxes the tension of our own souls also. the ever-disturbing thought that we might find in the count a recluse and an eccentric—if one may use such profane expressions in connection with this illustrious man—a fanatic on the subject of woollen underclothing and a return to[pg 292] nature in foods, was set at rest from the first moment of meeting. the count is no eccentric, but a polished man in spite of the convenient dress of the muzhik. the peasant dress is simply the one that has proved best for his intercourse with the country people. moreover, there is a noticeable difference between the well-cut and well-fitting coat of tolsto? and that of the ragged peasant. i must confess that the setting at rest of even this little misgiving was of value to me. for, as people are in this world, they will not take even a saint seriously if he wraps himself in external eccentricities—if he has not good taste. leo tolsto? decidedly has good taste. only he is great enough and strong enough not to submit to the tyranny of fashion. i should like, however, to see the man who felt the least suggestion of worldly superiority in talking with him. truly the count is not the man whom any fop in the consciousness of his english tailor would presume to patronize. perhaps, unconsciously to himself, and certainly against his will, it is unmistakably to be seen in him that he once had the idea of being comme il faut, as he tells in his childhood and youth. however insignificant this circumstance may be in the worldwide fame of leo tolsto?, it must be mentioned, simply because the legend of the muzhik's smock may too easily create an entirely false impression of the personality of the poet. in spite of all the kindly simplicity of his bearing, no one can for a[pg 293] moment escape the impression that here speaks a distinguished man in every sense of the term.
the rooms allotted to us were parts of his large library. on a shelf i found the carefully kept catalogue of the fourteen cases, with each book on a separate slip. a glance through one of the glass doors showed me english, french, german, and russian books; my eye even fell on a danish grammar. there stood side by side a work on leonardo da vinci, bj?rnson's über unsere kraft, marcel prévost's vierges fortes, jules verne's journey to the centre of the earth, spinoza, renan, a book of travel by vámbéry, a book of entomology, buffon—the most different sorts of books, and obviously much used. the count is able to accomplish such an achievement in reading only by a careful division of the day, not to say a military exactness and thoroughness, pushed perhaps to pedantry, in all his doings. later, in speaking with me, he used the familiar phrase, "genius is eternal patience." he has this patience. it is well known how he works—that he has his first conception copied on the type-writer, then corrected, then copied again, and so on until the work satisfies him. on the day of my visit this man of seventy-five took an early morning walk of an hour and a half, looked over his large mail, wrote an english article upon the war, rode two full hours in the afternoon with the thermometer at six, worked again, and remained in almost uninterrupted conversation with us from six[pg 294] o'clock until midnight. he spoke german most of the time, rarely french. at the end of the exceedingly intense conversation he was just as youthfully elastic as at the beginning; indeed, in the late night hours his eyes first began to glow with a light of inspiration which no one who has once seen it can ever forget. in addition to the great thoroughness of all his action and the strict division of the day, a vital energy which must be called truly phenomenal is also most essentially characteristic of his personality. leo tolsto? is a giant in psychical and intellectual strength, as he must once have been in physical strength also. it is not purely accidental that the two heroes in whom he has pictured himself most unmistakably—peter, in war and peace, and levin, in anna karenina—are large, strong men of unusual productive capacity.
