yev lived. 'Hie temptation was too great; the next day, the count went to call on the muzhik. Of the two, the count was the more intimidated. Syutayev willingly explained the substance of his doctrine: pool everything in the family—land, implements, food, animals, clothes, women! lie would have no commerce, courts, taxes or army. He wanted the whole world to have but one heart. Tolstoy was overcome with admiration for the little old shepherd with the illuminated eyes, melodious voice and dirt)' beard. In the evening Syutayev accompanied his guest back to Bakunin's home in a telega. As it was against the Old Believer's principles to use a whip, his horse ambled along at a snail's pace. Unnoticed by driver and passenger, who were deep in their theological discussion, the wagon gradually edged off the road and all of a sudden, they found themselves head over heels in a ditch.
Back in Moscow, Tolstoy continued to think of Syutayev as a sccond self, simpler, less educated and, consequently, closer to God. He even invited him to call on him at Denezhny Street if ever he came to town, and at the end of January 1882, when he was still in a state of shock after the census-taking, he received an unexpected visit from the old shepherd. He dragged him into his study, told him of his sufferings and explained his plan to succor the unfortunate. Syutayev, hunched up in a short black sheepskin cloak which he wore, peasant-style, indoors and out, seemed to be thinking of something else. Suddenly he broke in:
'That's all nonsense!"
"Why nonsense?" asked Tolstoy. "Is it wrong to clothe those who are naked and feed those who are hungry, as it says in the Gospel?"
"I know, I know. . . . You sec a man, he asks you for twenty kopecks, you give them to him. Is that charity? No; all you want is to get rid of him!"
"Then is one supposed to let him die of hunger and cold?"
Syutayev's little gray eyes sparkled and he murmured, "Let us divide up these unfortunate people between us. I'm not rich, but I'll take two right away; even if there are ten times as many, we will take them all. . . . We will all go to work together. . . . We will sit down at the same table. One of them will hear a good word spoken by you or me. He will learn the right way to live. That is real charity; but your scheme is just a game of seesaw."*
'Ilus Christian communist, who rejected government in any form and relied on love alone, was a perfect expression of Tolstoy's ideas. Overjoyed, he saw that he had invented nothing new, that it had all existed before him in the head of an old shepherd, that he was at last becoming one with the people!
He talked about Syutayev to his wife, his friends and acquaintances.
[10] A galley proof of the novel Resurrection, corrected by the author
I f
[i 2] Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, 1901
[i 3] lolstoy and Maxim Corky in the Crimea, 1901
[14] Iolstoy and his daughter Tatyana. at Gaspra in 1902
5j Tolstoy at his work tabic, ca. 1903
The hard core of the countess's Thursdays also wanted to meet the prophet of Shevclino. Tolstoy consented to exhibit his "discovery" to society. "These evenings arc always dull," Sonya wrote to her sister, "but we were saved by the presence of a sectarian named Syutaycv, who is now the talk of Moscow and is being introduced everywhere and is spreading his ideas everywhere."10
Not in the least intimidated by his brilliant audience, Syutayev preached in a singsong voice, drawing out his "o's" like the peasants of the north. His sheepskin jacket gave off an odor of tallow. Tolstoy's attitude toward him was both fatherly and deferential. Young Tanya, attracted by the picturesqueness of the old prophet, painted his portrait in oils.
After several of these evenings had taken place, Prince Dolgorukov, governor general of Moscow, became alarmed at the thought that people of the best society were gathering in Tolstoy's home to listen to the ranting of a muzhik. He sent an officer of the gendarmerie to ask the count what was the meaning of these lectures and, as on every
other occasion when the administration had the cffrontcrv to meddle
#
in his affairs, Tolstoy reacted like an offended boyar. White-faced, his beard trembling and his eye dreadful to behold, he pointed to the door and snarled at the governor's emissary:
"Get you gone in the name of God! And on the double!"
But Prince Dolgorukov was not to be so easily repulsed, and dis patched a government official to persuade Tolstoy to reply to his questions. Luckily, Syutayev had already gone back to his village by then.
He left his fellow believer convinced that any effort made by an individual to help the poor was futile in practical terms, and an offense to human dignity, in moral ones. This view was corroborated by the failure of Tolstoy's appeal in the press. Tolstoy distributed the money lie had begun to collect and gave up his "nonsense."
Because lie was stifling in Moscow, he went to Yasnaya Polyana on February 1, 1882. Back in his childhood home, with the snow-covered grounds and the aging servants and the silence, he felt new strength surge up within him. "I think there is no place where I shall feel better or more at peace than here," he wrote to Sonya on February 4. "Eternally occupied as you are by the household and the family, you cannot understand what a difference there is for me between town and coun try. . . . 'lTie main thing wrong with life in town, for me and any thinking man, is that one is constantly compelled either to argue and refute mistaken opinions, or to accept them without an argument, which is worse."
Divested of his wife, his sons, his daughters and the Thursday crowd, lie wrote an essay: What Then Must We Do?, savored the rough and hearty peasant fare (blinis, salt meat, kasha), and thought "no more of man, but only of God." Looking at him, the old servant Agatha Mi- khailovna shook her head and grumbled, "You've left the countess back there to carry on alone with eight children, while you sit here pulling at your beard!"
And although Sonya agreed that her husband needed a rest, she could not forgive him for such an ostentatious lack of interest in his family.
"You and your Syutayevs," she wrote on February 3, "maybe you can remain above all feelings of affection for your own children, but mere mortals like me cannot. Or maybe it's that we don't try to justify our lack of any profound love by pretending to love the whole universe."
And the following day:
"Even when you are in Moscow I hardly ever see you. Our two lives have separated. Is this still a life at all?"
Remorse-stricken, Tolstoy returned to Moscow, talked to his wife and, unfortunately, had another religious quarrel with Alexandra Tolstoy who had made a special trip from St. Petersburg to see him. Once more, the old maid of honor tried "to bring him back to Christ" and once more he lost his temper, denied that she had any right to give lessons in Christianity to anyone and left her, not on speaking terms, lie was so angry that he struck out for Yasnaya Polyana again, to calm himself. The moment he reached the country, he wrote a letter of unprecedented violence to his incorrigible babushka:
"Right or wrong, I regard your faith as the devil's work, designed solely to deprive mankind of the salvation promised by Christ. ... In my book and in person, I denounce all liars and false prophets in sheep's clothing. . . . Those liars will do as they have always done, they will be silent. But when they can be silent no longer, they will kill me. I am expecting it. And you are helping them in their task, for which I am grateful to you!"11