There is one set of words that recur whenever Nekhlyudov is among people of the upper classes: "satiated," "fat," "scrubbed," "idle," "smug," "contemptible" . . . But when he goes among the people, everyone becomes "gaunt," "pale," "hairy," "worn," "querulous," "swollen," "wretched" . . . Tolstoy's love of the adjective is boundless. He would not cross out a single one to lighten his sentence or avoid a clash of vowel sounds. Little he cared whether he wrote well, so long as what he wrote was true! To an anonymous young poet who sent hiin a sample of his work around that time he replied, "I do not like verse and I think poetry is a pointless occupation. When a man has something to say he must try to say it as clearly as possible, and when he has nothing to say it is better for him to keep quiet."13
If Tolstoy is so scornful of the music of words, it is because the only thing that matters to him is the thought behind them. His sentences, badly built, strung together with "who," "what," "which," "the latter," "the one who" and "as a result," express what lie thinks all the better. After criticizing the old master's style, Chekhov wrote, "You read on and between the lines you sec an eagle soaring in the sky, and the last thing in the world he carcs about is the beauty of his feathers." True; Tolstoy's style is total freedom, absolute sincerity. He is the enemy of mystery in literature. His world is lighted full-face, brutally. Every shadow is defined by the position of the sun. No mirages, no phantoms, no sham. He bedevils his style for love of the truth as he bedevils his friends for love of the truth. If he could, lie would live and write like a peasant: hammer words the way you hammer wooden
wedges into a shoe sole. Make them stick, make it work, make it last for generations.
Written with a propagandist's vehemence, Resurrection shocked Russia into silence. Even the authorities did not dare to make an open attack upon this indictment of the vices of the regime. And all the money went to the Dukhobors. "Your novel is more than literature," Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote to Tolstoy on July 10, 1899. "I, at any rate, cannot recall ever reading anything in the least like it. I read and it seems to me that I am not reading but walking about, and I see these people, these cells and rooms, this piano and sidewalk . . Four days later Stasov confirmed this opinion: "Ah, what an amazing miracle it is, your Resurrection. All Russia is living and feeding on this book. . . . You cannot imagine the conversations and debates it is provoking. I think there are only a few imbecilic and decadent degenerates against you in all of Russia. . . . Such as those poor wretches Merezhkovsky, Minsky et al . . ,"14 And on January 2, 1900: "This event has had no equal in the literature of the nineteenth century. It is far greater than Les Miserables because there is not one shred of idealism or invention or literature in you, only flesh, living meat!"
Tolstoy, however, was skeptical. As usual, it seemed to him that his work was not polished enough. And then, he was rather ashamed of this success, which was addressed more to the novelist than to the philosopher. His excuse was that the Dukhobors would benefit greatly by it—he had paid the eighty thousand rubiest he received for the book into their fund. With coquetry he feigned self-belittlement to Prince Khilkov: "I suppose that, just as nature has endowed certain men with a sexual instinct for the reproduction of the species, she has endowed others with an artistic instinct, which seems to be equally absurd and equally imperious. ... I sec no other explanation for the fact that an old man of seventy who is not utterly stupid should devote himself to an occupation as futile as writing novels."15
Tolstoy celebrated his seventieth birthday at Yasnaya Polyana on August 28, 1898. There were forty people around the table, singing and making speeches. Tolstoy, with patriarchal beard and misty eyes, was aglow. But Preobazhensky cast a chill over the gathering when he proposed to drink a glass of white wine to the master's health, for, as Sonya was forced to explain, "One may not drink to the health of Leo Nikolayevich because he belongs to a temperance league." He was at the height of his fame, and was alternately delighted and disgusted by
| Or $226,500.
his physical prowess. When was lie sincere—glorying in the fact that he could still cut hay for three hours at a stretch, or regretting the impure thoughts that passed through his mind at the sight of a farm girl? "Lyovochka made my bed himself," wrote his wife, "and after riding over twenty miles still had enough energy to manifest his passion. I note this as proof of his remarkable vitality at the age of seventy."16
His fame brought an ever-increasing number of letters and visitors. All foreigners of note who were traveling in Russia came to see him, from the criminologist Cesare Lombroso ("A naive, narrow-minded little old man," said Sonya) to the poet Rainer Maria Rilkc, who seems to have made no impression at all. When Lombroso tried to explain to Tolstoy his theory of the "delinquent man" whose responsibility was attenuated by heredity, illness and environment, the author of Resurrection scowled, glared at him and burst out, "It's insane! All punishment is criminal I"17
The sculptor Paolo Trubetskoy was given permission to come into the master's presence, and made a life-size bust of him, with arms crossed and beard awry and a discontented expression on his face. Later, he sculpted him on his mare D61ire: the patriarch's shoulders are squared, his feet thrust home in the stirrups, his blouse bouffant, the reins in his hands. His face is rough, wrinkled and hairy, like a hunk of earth, crazed and moss-grown in patches. His cheekbones are high, his ears large. Under the protuberant brow, his eyes—black holes—stare into the distance: away! The "second tsar of Russia," as some called him, had not given up his scheme. His need for asceticism and vagabondage was most intense just after he had dazzled Sonya with his virility. On July 17, 1898, he wrote to his Finnish translator Jerncfeld, whom he had never seen, announcing in covert terms that he would like to come and live with him. Then he rccoilcd at the thought of the scandal that would follow his flight. "My whole soul reaches out," he told one of his friends, "but I cannot tear myself away from here. Do you know why? I am afraid T should have to step over a pool of blood, a corpse in the door. That would be so horrible that I prefer to go on with my hateful life, however burdensome!"1* To Chertkov he wrote, on July 21, 1898: "Do not let anyone read this. ... I am a poor excuse for a man. I teach others and cannot live as I ought myself. For how many years have I been asking myself, must I go on as I am or must 1 go away? And I cannot make up my mind. I know that everything is decided by renunciation, and when I succeed it all becomes clear, but those moments arc few and far between."
He might have found another reason for indecision that year, in
addition to his fear of hurting his wife. Hundreds of peasants needed him: famine was threatening again, even in the richest provinces. 'I he district of Chern, where both Nikolskoyc and Grinevka—the estates of his eldest son Sergey and his second son Ilya—were located, was particularly hard-hit. He went there and, with Sergey and Ilya, set up relief kitchens and clothing distribution centers and wrote an article, Famine or No Famine. And yet he felt no communion of thought with these strapping young men, so deeply entrenched in their class privileges. "They make such a strange and unpleasant impression upon me, my children who own land and force other people to work," he wrote. "I feel guilty for them. In me it was not the result of reasoning, but of a very powerful emotion. Was I wrong not to give the land to the muzhiks outright? I don't know."19