For the moment, he was not very sure which was his goal. One thing was sure: he was working furiously away at his novel. On May 27, 1852 he completed the third draft. And immediately started over again. "Perhaps it will be like the labor of Penelope," he wrote to Aunt Toinette on May 30 (in French), "but that doesn't discourage me. I am not writing out of ambition, but because I like to; work gives me pleasure and a sense of purpose, and I am working." The same day, he wrote in his diary, "Do I have talent, in comparison with the new Russian writers? Assuredly not." But, three days later (June 2), he qualified this categorical statement: "I am not yet certain that I have no talent. I think what I lack is patience, skill, precision; nor do I have any grandeur of style, feeling or thought. On that last point, however, I will reserve my opinion." While wearily and crossly revising the fourth draft of Childhood—"in which there are sure to be spelling mistakes!"49—he began a story based on his military experience: The Raid.
He was putting the finishing touches to the last chaptcr of his novel when, on July i, he received a letter from his steward at Yasnaya Polyana, notifying him that Kopylev, the lumberman, was threatening to sue him in Moscow for defaulting in his payments. If this happened, the court might order the seizure of his property. "I could lose Yasnaya Polyana," lie wrote in his diary that night, "and in spite of all the philosophies in the world, that would lie a dreadful blow for mc. . . . I ate dinner, wrote a little, baclly, and did nothing useful at all. Tomorrow I shall finish Childhood and decide what to do with it. To bed at eleven-thirty."
On the following day's, he alerted his brother Sergey and begged him to deal with the matter of the outstanding payments,! read his manuscript over one last time, found it neither good nor bad, and decided, without much hope, to send it to a magazine. He could choose between The Contemporary, Fatherland News and The Reading Library. He opted for The Contemporary, which had been founded by Pushkin and was foremost among the monthly publications of the time. The famous poet Nekrasov was its director. On July 3, 1S52 Leo Tolstoy wrote to him:
"Sir, the favor I am going to ask of you will demand so little of your time that I am sure you will not refuse me. Glance through this manuscript and, if it is not worth printing, send it back to me. Otherwise, tell me what you think of it, send me whatever amount you think it is worth and print it in your review. . . . Actually, this is the first part of a novel that will cover four periods. The publication of the following parts will depend on the success of the first. I am eager to know your verdict. Either it will incite me to continue in my favorite occupation or it will oblige mc to burn everything I have begun."
The manuscript was entitled Story of My Childhood and both it and the letter bore the initials L.N. The reply, a postscript added, was to be sent in care of Count Nicholas Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Second Lieutenant of Artillery, for L.N., at the Starogladkovskaya stanitsa.
Once the package had gone, Tolstoy felt both relieved and en-
t Which Sergey managed, without too much difficulty.
fccblcd, happy and unhappy at once, and was tormented by one thought: how long did it take a very famous and very busy man to read a manuscript? To distract himself, he went for treatment to another spa, Zheleznovodsk. After sulphur water, iron water. He bathed in it, he drank it: No change. His toothache, acid stomach, rheumatism continued. Would he never get well? And when it wasn't his body that was sick, it was his soul. At Zheleznovodsk he wrote more of his short story The Raid, went for walks, cursed the rain and the army, and even wondered whether the time had not come for him to resign his commission. Deeper doubts also nagged at him: "I have seen bodies die, so I suppose my body will die; but since nothing proves to me that my soul will die as well, I say it is immortal. . . . The idea of eternity is a mental disease. . . ."50 For the first time, he included the established order in his criticism, and thought of writing an explosive novel inspired by Plato's Politics: "In my novel I shall show all the evils of the Russian government and, if I find this first experiment satisfactory, I shall devote the remainder of my life to working out a schcmc for collaboration between an elected house of representatives of the aristocracy and the present monarchical government."51
On August 7, he was at Starogladkovskaya again, where he fell back into and was carricd away by the tedium of routine: drill, cannon practice, idiotic scoldings by Alexeyev, petty drinking bouts, cards, hunting ("Shot five snipe . . . Shot three pheasants . . . Shot two partridge"), toothache, reading, women, boredom, work, writer's daydreams: "It would justify a whole lifetime to write one good book."52 On August 28, 1852, his birthday, he made a melancholy note in his diary: "I am twenty-four years old and I have still done nothing. I am sure it's not for nothing that I have been struggling with all my doubts and passions for the past eight years. But what am I destined for? Only time will tell. Shot three snipe."
The following day, August 29, the face of the world was transfigured: "I received a letter from the editor, which has made me happy to the point of imbecility," wrote Leo Tolstoy."3 lie read Nckrasov's short, tense note ten times over: "I have read your manuscript (Childhood). Without knowing the sequel, I cannot make any final judgment, but it seems to me that the author has talent. In any case his ideas, and the simplicity and reality of his subject, form the unquestionable qualities of this work. If, as is to be expected, the sequel contains more animation and action, it will be a fine novel. Do send me the following sections. Your novel and your talent interest me. I advise you not to hide behind initials but immediately to begin publishing under your real name, unless you are to
be only a bird of passage on the literary scene. I await your reply. . . ."
When his first burst of joy had subsided, Tolstoy remarked to his annoyance that there was no mention of money among the words of praise. And his finances were in a very bad way. After considering the matter for a few days, he wrote to St. Petersburg and asked for an explanation. Ilis letter crossed a second one from Nekrasov, announcing that the novel was at the printer's. He must have written yet again, for he received a third letter from the director of the review: "I have not spoken to you about money in my previous letters for this reason: it has long been the custom of our foremost reviews not to pay a beginner who is being presented to the public for the first time. ... In the future, you will receive the same amount as we pay our top writers of fiction (of whom there are very few), that is, fifty rubles per printed page. . . . We are obliged to know the name of the author whose work we are printing, which is why you must give us positive information in this matter. If you desire, no one else need know. . . ."