Even in Childhood, his art of suggesting a character's psychology in a few casually sketched physical traits was abundantly displayed. Tolstoy had only to describe a gesture or underline a detail of dress, and the hidden recesses of a soul were lighted up in some mysterious manner. His characters were surrounded by an aura that distinguished each from all the others, and yet its components remained indefinable. "Who has not sensed these mysterious, tacit relationships caught in an imperceptible smile, a gesture, a look, between people who live constantly together: brothers, friends, husband and wife, master and servant, especially when they are not completely truthful with each other? How many desires, half-expressed thoughts and fears of being understood are revealed in a single chance glance, when their eyes meet, timid, unsure!"08
With its digressions, flashes of poetry, heavy load of memories, Childhood is at once a naive and cynical book, quite singularly new by its very refusal of innovation, a triumph of heart over mind, sincerity over artifice, raw instinct over the literary culture of the "connoisseurs." Nckrasov had not been mistaken. On October 21, 1852 he wrote to Ivan Turgencv expressing his admiration; and the latter replied, after reading Childhood in The Contemporary (October 28), "You're right. 'Iliis is a sure gift. Write him and encourage him to continue. Tell him, in case he may be interested, that I welcome, hail and applaud him."
In his first flush of enthusiasm Ivan Turgcnev also showed the book by this unknown author, who modestly signed himself L.N., to Tolstoy's sister Marya, who lived near him in the country. "Imagine our surprise," Marya told Leo later, "as we gradually began to recognize ourselves in the characters of the story, and the description of our whole family. Who had written these lines? Who could be so familiar with the most intimate details of our lives? We were so far from thinking that our Leo could be the author of a book that we decided it had been written by Nicholas!"
The story made an instantaneous hit with the public, underscored by the praise of the critics. With the exception of Pantheon, which said that Childhood was an "amusing and uninspired little tale," the press unanimously hailed a genius. "It has been a long time sincc we have had occasion to read so inspired a story, one so nobly written, so profoundly steeped in love for the reality the author has sought to depict," wrote Dudyshkin in Fatherland Notes. "If this is L.N.'s first effort, Russian literature may congratulate itself upon the appearance of an admirable new talent." In The Muscovite, Almazov asked, "What is happening to Russian literature? One might almost believe it is beginning to revive at last."
Tolstoy was out hunting, in November 1852, when he received the first reviews. He read them in a cabin by candlelight, and was staggered by a violent burst of joy. "I am lying down in an isba on a plank bed," he later said,59 "and my brother and Ogolin are beside me. I read and wallow in all this praise. I say to myself, 'Nobody, not even they, knows that all these compliments arc for me.'" And he wrote in his diary on November 25, "I read a review of my book with unbelievable joy!" On the following day, November 26, he added, "I want to begin more stories about the Caucasus right away. I started today. I have too much self-respect to write anything bad, but I don't know whether I have it in me to write something good." lie was working on The Raid, the Novel of a Russian Lord (the basis for A Landlord's Morning), Boyhood (sequel to Childhood), and taking notes for other short stories. His need to tell stories was so great that he doubted whether he would be able to use up the ideas whirling about in his head in a lifetime.
However, a short while later, in the depths of Siberia, another young writer, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (seven years older than Tolstoy), recently released from prison and drafted by force into the infantry, read Childhood and told his friend Maikov, "I like Leo Tolstoy enormously, but in my opinion he won't write much of anything else (after all, I can be wrong!)."60
Tolstoy had been in the Caucasus for two years and the "wild, free life" had lost all its appeal for him. He was bored by his kunak Sado and the old drunkard Epishka, he 110 longer even looked at Maryanka, whose beauty had stirred him so deeply before, and the pointless banter of his cornpanions-at-arms only increased his desire for solitude.
In January 1853 another expedition went out against ShamiTs Chcchenians. The operation no longer had the spice of novelty for Tolstoy, so he saw only its futile and depressing sides: "War," he wrote in his diary on January 6, 1853, "is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves." At Fort Groznaya, where the men were resting briefly before going into battle, there was heavy drinking and gambling: "'Iliey all drink, especially my brother. How I hate it/11 This evening Knoring came in drunk with Hesket. lie brought along some port. I got drunk too. Some officers from Tenginsk happened along with some prostitutes. . . ."62 Altercation, insults, a barely avoided duel. ... At last the 20th Brigade went into action. Artillery fire was heavy near Kurinsk. The eight cannons of the 4th battery, under Lieutenant-Colonel Alexeyev, overpowered the enemy battery of Shamil. The hillsmen fell back. Only ten casualties were recorded on the Russian side. On February 16 and 17 there were fresh engagements, and a few aouls were destroyed. On those two days, in his own opinion, Leo Tolstoy bore himself "well." Praised by his superiors, he again hoped he might be given the St. George Cross.
But on March 7, the day before the decorations were distributed, he was placed under arrest because he had been playing chess with an officcr and had forgotten his turn at guard duty. The next day, when the regiment fell in for parade to the roll of the snare drum, he was left behind, alone and furious, locked in a cabin. He hated Captain Olifcr, who had reported him, and General Levin, who had struck him off the honors list, 'lhe only reason he wanted that St. George Cross was "to impress the people in Tula" when he came home from the war. On March 10, 1853 he wrote in his diary, "It made me dreadfully Sad not to receive the Cross."
Sulking, he waited to return to Starogladkovskaya, where he tendered his resignation to General Brimmer, commander of the artillery brigade. It was refused. Another source of disappointment: his short story, The Raid, which he had sent to The Contemporary, had just been printed, but was heavily cut by the censor. "I ask you," wrote Nckrasov on April 6, 1853, "not t° be discouraged by these annoyances, from which all our great authors suffer. Sincerely, your story is very vivid and fine, even in its present form." His sister Marya and brother Sergey also wrote, congratulating him on what they considered a success. And Aunt Toinette exulted, in the tones of a requited sibyclass="underline" "Didn't I urge you to take a serious interest in literature? Didn't I predict that you would be successful at this type of work, because you have in you everything necessary to be a good writer: intelligence, imagination and noble feelings?"®3
Although these words of praise did not quite take the placc of the St. George Cross, they did incite Tolstoy to settle down to work again. "I am writing Boyhood with as much pleasure as I did Childhood" he wrote on May 22. "I hope it will be as good!" And he was already working on the outline for the third part, Youth. These studious activities did not save him from an occasional resurgence of "carnal desires." He treated these attacks as symptoms of a disease. An alarming force would begin to stir in his belly. He would go sniffing and prowling around a woman, waiting for a sign to speak to her. "Because of the girls I have not had and the Cross they refused to give me, here I sit wasting the best years of my life."114 Salornonida remained the most receptive of the Cossack women: "I still like her, even though she has grown ugly." With her, at least, he could relax. But with new girls, shyness fuddled his brain. In his presence, one of his companions told pretty Oxana that he loved her, and he could not bear this public declaration. "I fled, in a state of utter confusion!"65