"Sire, now you stand pure and innocent before yourself and before God, but you arc at a crossroads. A few days more and, if the victory goes to those who think and say that Christian truths have no value except in words and that in life, blood must flow and death must reign, then you will lose forever your blessed state of purity and communion with Cod, and you will set forth along the dark road of 'reasons of State' that justify everything, even the violation of divine law. If you
do not pardon, but exccutc the murderers, you will have done away with three or four individuals out of hundreds; but evil breeds evil, and thirty or forty more will spring up to replace those three or four. . . . But forgive, return good for evil, and out of a hundred wrongdoers ten will be converted, not to your side but to the side of God, whereas before they were on the side of Satan. And thousands, millions of your subjects will thrill with joy and affection at this act of mercy from a throne, at a moment so painful for the son of a murdered father. Sire, if you did that, if you called these men before you, gave them some money and sent them away somewhere, to America, and wrote a manifesto beginning with the words, 'But verily I say unto you, love your enemies,' I do not know what others would feel, but I, who have not been a model subject, would become your dog, your slave, I would weep with love—as I am weeping at this moment—every time I heard your name. What did I say: that I do not know how others would feel? I know with what torrential force good and love would pour over Russia at those words. . . . The death penalty is useless against revolutionaries. Their numbers are not what counts, it is their ideas. To fight them, you must meet them on the ground of ideas. Their ideal is universal well-being, equality, liberty. To combat them some other ideal must be advanced, superior to theirs, larger than theirs. There is only one ideal that can be opposed to them: that to which they turn for support without realizing it, and in blaspheming it, the only ideal that is larger than their own, the ideal of love and forgiveness. . . . Then, as wax melts in the fire, the revolutionaries' opposition will melt in the deed of their emperor, the man who fulfills the law of Christ."
After writing out his plea, Tolstoy read it to his family. Sonya was furious that he could dare to intervene on the murderers' behalf. She was afraid he would anger the young tsar by preaching a form of mercy that was unnatural. In her anxiety she even threatened to dismiss Alexeyev, her children's tutor, who was guilty of approving her husband's latest folly." Under the storm of reproach, Tolstoy held his ground as far as the principle was concerned, but agreed to tone down some of the more inflammatory sentences. Then he sent to Tula for some best-quality paper and his copyist Ivanov wrote out the epistle in the proper calligraphic form.
It was sent to Strakhov on March 17, 1881, to be given to Pobycdo- nostsev, the tsar's minister to the Holy Synod, who had been the monarch's tutor and had great influence over him. If he presented the
f Although she later apologized to him for this outburst, Alexeyev and his family left the house and went to live on the Samara farm.
request in person, Alexander III would certainly consider it favorably. In a postscript to Tolstoy's note to Strakhov, Sonya reiterated her misgivings:
"Despite my advice and entreaties, Leo N'ikolayevich has decided to send his letter to the emperor. . . . Read it, judge for yourself and ask Pobyedonostsev's opinion. Won't it be likely to arouse the tsar's displeasure or animosity toward Leo Nikolayevich? If so, I beseech yon to see that it does not reach him."
Wasted effort! Thrilled by Tolstoy's gesture, Strakhov immediately went to see the minister, who glanced through the letter and refused to show it to the emperor on the ground that in a matter of such consequence he was bound to follow his own views of Christianity, which were diametrically opposed to those of the writer. His visitor bemoaned this fresh recourse to violence, so Pobycdonostscv assured him that although he personally was a confirmed partisan of capital punishment, he would see that the criminals were executed privately. Strakhov withdrew in despair.
After lie left, Pobyedonostev began to fear that copies of the letter might be circulated in the city, and the emperor would hear of it from soinc other source. That evening he learned that the philosopher Solovyev had just made a public address on capital punishment and that in his peroration lie, too, had exhorted the heir to the throne to pardon the assassins. That was too much! On March 30, 1881 the minister dashed off the following note to Alexander III:
"An idea that fills me with horror has just begun to circulate. People are capable of such mental aberration that some of them think it possible not to execute the murderers. The Russian people are already beginning to fear that monstrous schemes may be submitted to Your Majesty to incite you to pardon the criminals. . . . No, no, a thousand times no; in this moment, with the eyes of the entire Russian nation upon you, it is unthinkable that you should pardon the murderers of your father, the emperor of Russia—that you should forget the blood that has been shed, for which everyone (apart from a few weak-hearted and feeble-minded individuals) is crying vcngcancc, and people arc already demanding to know why the sentence is so long in coming. . . . I am a Russian, I live among Russians, and I know what the Russian people feel and want. At this moment, they are all eager for punishment. If one of these wretches should escape death, he will immediately begin to hatch new plots for undermining the government. For the love of God, Sire, do not listen to misguided sycophants."
With a firm hand Alexander wrote across the page: "Rest assured,
no one will dare to come to me with such a request, and I promise you that all six of them will hang."}
When lie learned that his first attempt had failed, Tolstoy telegraphed to Strakhov asking him to give the letter to Professor Kon- stantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who would pass it on to Grand Duke Sergey, one of the monarch's four brothers. This time the contact was the right one: the document reached the tsar's desk within forty-eight hours. But Alexander III, a clear-sighted, intransigent man imbued with the doctrine of the divine right of kings, did not alter his decision.
On April 3, 1881 the six murderers were hanged. The rope broke twice under one of them, Mikhailov, who had to be hanged a second time with his legs broken.
Two and one-half months later, Tolstoy received a letter from Pobye- donostsev telling him why, in good conscience, he had been unable to support his appeaclass="underline"
"When I read your letter I saw that your faith had nothing in common with mine, which is that of the Church, and that my Christ was not your Christ," wrote the minister for religious affairs. "My Christ is a man of strength and truth who heals the weak, and yours seemed to me to be a weak man himself in need of healing."37
Tolstoy choked down his anger and did not reply to this lesson in Christianity administered by the highest official of the empire, the man in charge of relations between Church and State.