Now he was certain that lie had found Christ by rejecting the priests. In this spirit, he began to draft his Notes of a Christian: "I have been on earth for fifty-two years and, apart from the fourteen or fifteen years of more or less total unconsciousness of my childhood, I have lived, for thirty-five years, not as a Christian, Mohammedan nor yet as a Buddhist, but as a nihilist, in every sense of the word, that is, someone who believes in nothing. Two years ago I became a Christian. And from that moment all I hear, see and feel has appeared to me in a new light."
He also took up his diary again. The first entry, dated April 17, 1881, is significant:
"Conversation with Sergey on non-resistance to evil."aB
And further on:
"May 21. Discussion: Tanya, Sergey, Ivan. Good is a convention. In other words, good does not exist. There is nothing but instinct."
"May 22. Continuation of discussion: the good I am talking about is what you regard as good for yourself and everyone else!"
"May 29. Conversation with Fet and my wife. The Christian doc-
t Six conspirators were arrested: "Rysakov, Sofya PcrovsVy, Zhelyabov, Jcssya Hermann, Mikhailov, Kibalchich . . ."
trine cannot be lived. Then, is it nonsense? No, but it cannot be lived! Yes, but have you tried? No, but it cannot be lived."
Fet seldom agreed with Tolstoy, but the author's sons could not help feeling that the poet was a sensible and likable man. lie had pronounced Semitic features, a long brown beard already going gray, and small womanly hands with well-manicured nails. His speech was interspersed with sighs resembling little moans. When his audience was least expecting it, he would toss out some witticism and disarm the most sullen among them. (One day Igor, the man who served at table in white gloves and scarlet vest, could not help laughing out loud at one of the poet's jests and, setting his dish on the floor, scuttled away to the kitchen.) Now even more than before, Tolstoy criticized his friend for preaching art-for-art's-sakc and refusing to enter into the tonnents of the conscience. He, on the contrary, was not at all loath to engage in evangelical exhortation at table. He claimed to despise earthly blessings; and when lie argued with a guest, he begged his pardon immediately afterward.
"I often have little quarrels with Leo now, and once I even wanted to leave the house," Sonya wrote to her sister. "It must be because we have begun to live as Christians. In my opinion, everything went much better before, without the Christian manner."39
And to her brother:
"You should see and hear Leo now! He has changcd a great deal. lie has become the most convinced and earnest of Christians. But he has grown pale, his health is poor and he is more subdued and somber than before."
In order to become more actively involved in the misery of the world, Tolstoy made several visits to the prison at Tula, comforted the prisoners, accompanied them to court and stood on the platform when trains of deportees left for Siberia. "Their heads are shaved and their feet chained together. One man, almost at death's door, and a little boy, crippled. One hundred and fourteen persons sent away for failure to possess a passport. Some very corrupt. Others simple, delightful. One old man, very weak, just out of hospital; a huge louse on his cheek. Some deported by their commune. Two accused of nothing; they're just being deported. Another on a complaint by his wife ... A strapping soldier who has been in prison for four years . . . Two convicts sentenced to hard labor for life, for brawling and manslaughter . . . They were crying. A pleasing facc. Appalling stench . . ."'10
The sight of such wretchedness confirmed his feeling that the mission of a man such as he was not to devote himself to his family. "The family is the flesh," he wrote as early as May 5. "Abandon the
family. That is the second temptation. Commit suicide. The family is only a body. But do not yield to the third temptation: live not for the family but for God."
A plan had been nagging at him for some time: to make a second pilgrimage to Optina-Pustyn. This time, it was not the desire to reconcile himself with the Church that was driving him, but the hope that by mingling with the muzhiks, the sick and the sanctimonious old women, he might renew his own faith in mankind. Although he considered their piousness false, crude and ridiculous, he continued to admire the fervor with which they believed the unbelievable. Perhaps, in order to accede to their inner beatitude, one must spurn carriages and railroad cars and set off like them, on foot, walking along the highways for days on end across the unchanging plains, sleeping under the open sky or in some filthy inn, begging for alms. . . . Nothing can prepare the soul to meet God like the infinite flatness of the Russian steppe, where the eyes skim and wander and lose their way and find no obstacle to stop them.
On June 10, 1881, dressed muzhik-fashion with a pack on his back, bark shoes and a staff in his hand, Tolstoy took leave of his wife and children, who were mortified by this masquerade, went down the front steps and turned onto the road. Two bodyguards trudged along behind him, also in disguise: Vinogradov the schoolmaster; and a valet, Arbuzov, who had red sideburns and a comical countenance, lugging a suitcase full of clean clothes. Tolstoy was enchanted by this escapade. However, as he was not used to the plaited Irark shoes his feet were soon covered with blisters. Arbuzov had to teach him how to wrap strips of cloth around his burning toes. At Selivanovo, the first halting-place, the trio slept 011 the floor of an old peasant woman's house. The next day at Krapivna, the vagabond count bought heavy socks to protect his sensitive feet and prunes to purge himself and wrote to his wife: "One cannot imagine how new, important and useful it is to the soul to see how God's world lives, the true world, the great world, not the one we have arranged for ourselves and never stepped outside of."41
They continued their trek, shuffling along, stopping for a snack at the roadside, napping in the shade of a copse, spending the night in an isba, getting up at dawn. On the evening of the fourth day they readied the monastery of Optina-Pustyn. It was mealtime and the bell was ringing. A rich aroma of soup wafted out of the kitchens. At a glance the monks summed up the three hairy and dust-covered pilgrims as beggars and would not allow them inside the travelers' dining room. Relegated to the common rcfcctory, they went inside with their packs on their backs, crossing themselves.
Tolstoy was in seventh heaven. At last he was a muzhik among muzhiks. Men ancl women were sitting together around a long table, elbow to elbow in the dim light, gulping down food and drink and breathing heavily in a fog of cabbage, sweat and dirt. Pulling a notebook from his pocket, Tolstoy jotted down an aside:
"Borscht, kasha, kvass. One cup for four people. Everything is good, 'lliey eat hungrily."
After supper he and his two companions followed the crowd toward the third-class dormitory. In the doorway of the stinking hall with its dubious straw pallets ancl walls encrusted with squashed insects, the stomach of the lord of Yasnaya Polyana heaved. Perhaps he was carrying humility too far. . . . His manservant rushed over to one of the hostelry monks, thrust a ruble into his hand and asked him to provide some more decent accommodation for them. The monk let them sleep in a little room already occupied by a cobbler from Bolkov. The man, about to drop off to sleep, must have been amazed to sec one red- whiskered muzhik pull a clean sheet and pillows out of a bag, arrange them on a bench and, with obsequious airs, assist another muzhik, grizzled, tanned and bearded, to settle himself comfortably for the night. After putting his master to bed, Arbuzov himself stretched out on the floor. As soon as the candle was blown out, the cobbler began to snore so loudly that Tolstoy sat up in alarm and whispered: "Wake up that man ancl ask him not to snore." Arbuzov shook the cobbler by the shoulder and said: "Old buddy, you're snoring too loud, you've scared my old man, it frightens him to hear somebody snoring in his sleep in the same room."