And as, in spite of these clouds of incense, Tolstoy still complained that he was unhappy, the good disciple protested, "You are in the prime of life; you are not suffering from any illness; why arc you so sad and why do you talk of death? Of course, you lead an appalling life. You drive yourself unmercifully."27
Now that he had become the prophet of his own religion, Tolstoy began to wonder when and how he could put it into practice.
At the end of April 1880, Russia's foremost writers gathered in Moscow in preparation for the unveiling of a monument to Pushkin. Turgenev, a fervent admirer of the poet, returned from France for the occasion and resolved at all costs to persuade Tolstoy to take part in the celebration. He came to Yasnaya Polyana on May 2, 1880, and was received with open arms. Spring was warming the air, a green mist of new leaves shimmered around the birches, the nightingale sang through the heart of the night. Tolstoy arranged a hunt and posted
J This took place on February 18, 1884. See following chapter.
his colleague in a choice clearing, where the snipe usually came. But just then, there was not a bird in sight. Sonya, who had stayed behind with her guest, asked why he had stopped writing. lie smiled wistfully and murmured:
"No one can hear us, so I shall tell you. I can't write any more. Whenever I felt the desire to write, in the past, I was trembling in an absolute fever of love. Now that's finished. I am an old man, and can neither write nor love any more."
At that moment a shot rang out and Tolstoy, invisible, called to his dog to retrieve the bird he had brought down.
There, we're off," said Turgenev. "Leo Nikolayevich is already hard at work. Now there's a man of many blessings. Fortune has smiled on him his whole life long."28
True enough, all the snipe were flying Tolstoy's way. Turgenev only managed to bring down one, and it caught in a branch and was not found until the next day.
After the hunt the two men withdrew to an isba that had been converted into a study, not far from the house. There Turgenev tried to persuade Tolstoy that in his position as a great Russian author it was his duty to make a speech at the forthcoming ceremony in honor of Pushkin. But Tolstoy categorically refused to appear in public. True, he had always loathed official occasions: but this time his bashfulness was coupled with pride—in a way, the evening would almost be a kind of contest between him and Dostoyevsky, and he did not want to run the risk, by going to Moscow, of finding himself less popular than his rival. When Turgenev had exhausted his store of arguments he could hardly hide his vexation at his host's obstinacy. He packcd his bags and left the same day. In Moscow he saw Dostoyevsky, who had just arrived for the unveiling and was planning to go to Yasnaya Polyana to meet Tolstoy. Turgenev talked the author of The Brothers Kara- mazov out of making the trip. It was rumored in the literary world that Tolstoy was going through a mystical crisis. Dostoyevsky wrote to his wife: "Grigorovich told me today that Turgenev fell ill upon his return from Tolstoy's place and that Tolstoy is half-mad and maybe completely mad."29
The festivities in Pushkin's honor concluded with an apotheosis for Dostoyevsky: at the end of his speech the audience burst into wild applause, women flung bouquets of flowers onto the platform, enemies embraced each other and one student fainted. Upon hearing the news of this triumph, Tolstoy must have congratulated himself for sitting tight at home.
He and Dostoyevsky were destined never to meet. That summer he
reread The House of the Dead and, struck with admiration, wrote to Strakhov: "I know of no more beautiful book in modem literature, not excepting Pushkin. I am not so much impressed by the style as by the author's point of view—wonderfully sincere, natural and Christian. It is a good book, uplifting. ... If you sec Dostoyevsky, tell him I like him." Strakhov did more than pass on the compliment; he gave Dostoyevsky the letter. A few months later, 011 January 28, 1881, Dostoyevsky died. When he read the news in the papers, Tolstoy felt a sharp, profound blow, which surprised him.
"How I should like to be able to say all I feel about Dostoyevsky," he wrote to Strakhov. "I never saw the man, never had any direct contact with him, and suddenly, at his disappearance, I realized that he was the closest of all to me, the most precious and essential. ... I was a writer and all writers are vain and envious, or at least I was. But it never occurred to me to compete with him. Everything he set out to do was so good, so sincere that the more he did the happier I was. Artistry can make me jealous, and so can intelligence, but actions that spring from the heart give me nothing but joy. I always thought of him as a friend, and was convinced that one day we would meet. . . . And all of a sudden, during dinner—I was dining alone, late—I read of his death. It was as though one of my supporting pillars had suddenly buckled. I had a moment of panic, then 1 realized how precious he was to me and I began to cry, I am still crying."30
When his emotion subsided, Tolstoy's critical sense returned and he abandoned himself to his natural animosity to anyone who did not share his opinions. Some time later Rusanov, an admirer of his, asked what he thought of Dostoyevsky and lie unhesitatingly replied:
"The House of the Dead is a fine thing, but I do not set great store by his other books. People cite passages to me. And indeed there are some very fine parts here and there, but, on the whole, it is dreadful stuff! His style is turgid, he tries so hard to make his characters original, and in fact they are hardly outlined. Dostoyevsky talks and talks and in the end all you arc left with is a sort of fog floating above what he was trying to prove. There is a peculiar mixture in him of the most lofty Christian concepts and panegyrics 011 war and submission to emperor, government and the popes."
"Have you read The Brothers Karamazov?" asked Rusanov.
"I couldn't stick it out to the end," confessed Tolstoy.
"But Crime and Punishment? It's his best book! What do you think of it?"
"Read a few chapters at the beginning and you can guess everything that's going to follow, the whole novel."31
Above all, Tolstoy disliked Dostoyevsky's exaggeration, his implausi- bility, his "shapeless style," his grammatical errors, his mania for crowding the stage with epileptics, alcoholics and paranoiacs. "If Prince Mishkin had been a healthy human being, his innocence and fundamental decency would have moved us deeply," he said. "But Dostoyev- sky lacked the courage to make him healthy. Besides, he did not like healthy people. Since he was sick, then he wanted the whole universe to be sick with him."32 Dostoyevsky, on the other hand, had written about Anna Karenina, "A boring book, by and large, and nothing out of the ordinary at all. What do they all find that is so wonderful in it? I don't see it!"** There was a chasm between these two giants, one of whom had lived a martyrdom while the other sought the tranquil wisdom of the prophets.
Later, after publishing a biography of Dostoyevsky, Strakhov wrote an extraordinary letter to Tolstoy:
"All the while I was writing the biography I had to fight off a revulsion that kept rising within me, and I have tried to stifle this evil feeling. Help me to find some solution. I cannot regard Dostoyevsky either as a good man or as a happy one (in reality they are the same). He was vicious, envious, depraved and spent his entire life in a state of emotional upheaval and exasperation that would have made him appear ridiculous had he not been so malicious and so intelligent. ... He was attracted by base actions and gloried in the fact. . . . Viskovatov told me that he bragged one day of having . . . with a little girl whom his governess had brought him, in the public baths. . . . Note that along with his bestial sensuality he was utterly lacking in taste, and had no sense of beauty or feminine charm. . . . The characters most like him are the hero of the Notes from Underground, Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment, and Stavrogin in The Possessed. ... He was a truly wretched and truly evil man, who thought he was noble and happy, and never had any real affection for anyone but himself."34