Another flight nearly cost him his life. On June 13 he left with his kunak Sado to ride with a convoy going to Fort Groznaya. The convoy was inching along, and the two young men were foolhardy enough to set off ahead of the escort at a gallop. A few vcrsts from Groznaya, they were attacked by a score of Chcchcnian horsemen, seven of whom set out in pursuit of them. They had traded horses a short time before: 'Tolstoy's Kabardian was an excellent trotter, but heavy at the gallop. Sado, who had given him his own swift mount, was thus at a handicap. However, at the risk of lxjing caught, Tolstoy held back level with his friend rather than outdistance him. He knew he would be killed if he were captured; but the thought of escaping alone was incompatible with his code of honor. He waved his saber aloft; Sado brandished his gun—which was not loaded—and behind them the pounding hoofs and bloodthirsty howls and whistles were drawing dangerously near. The alarm was given, some Cossacks rode out of Fort Groznaya, and the Chechenians turned tail and rode away.t
This heroic deed might conceivably have reconciled Tolstoy with himself. Far from it. The moment he was back at Starogladkovskaya, after succumbing to his habitual temptations of women and cards, he took up his pen to scourge himself: "All week long my behavior has been so dissolute that 1 feel leaden and bleak, as always when I am not pleased with myself."66 And, in his own words, he undertook a "soul cleansing." He liked to clean house this way, at intervals, throwing open the windows and giving all his evil thoughts a good sweep with a broom. Afterward he could stroll contentedly through his renovated domain and contemplate the future with emboldened confidence. "This cursed regiment has turned me completely aside from the path of goodness I had begun to follow and want to return to at all costs, for it is the best. . . . The goal of my life, it is plain, is the good . . . the good I owe my serfs and fellow countrymen; the former because I am their master and the latter because I have brains and talent."67
He had just sold another thirty of those serfs he so cherished, "of masculine sex," along with 365 acres of land bordering the village of Yagodnaya. This transaction had brought him 5700 rubles—enough to keep him afloat for a few months. But shortly thereafter, in a surge of liberality, he had freed one of his peasants, Alexander Mikhailov, twenty-three years old, who wanted to become a monk in the monastery of Trinity St. Sergey. One deed canceled out the other, he trusted, in the eyes of divine justice.0
When summer came he obtained permission to return to Pyatigorsk, where his sister Marya and brother-in-law Valerian were also taking
t Three officers in the escort were gravely wounded that day in an engagement with the main body of the Chechens.
" The sale of the village of Yagodnaya was concluded by Valerian Tolstoy 011 April 10, 1853; Alexander Mikhailov, the serf, was freed on June 6 of the same year.
the waters. At first Marya amused him, then she disappointed him: "She plays the coquette too much." His brother-in-law Valerian was "an honest, sober fellow, but devoid of that delicate sense of honor I deem essential in all to whom I give my friendship." Thereupon Nicholas Tolstoy arrived; more fortunate than his younger brother, his resignation had just been accepted. This much-beloved and admired brother, in spite of his dirtiness, laziness and his fondness for wine, suddenly appeared to Tolstoy in a new light. He found him empty, and remote. As remote as his brother-in-law and sister. Strangers. "My family's indifference torments mc," he wrote on July 17, 1853. And, "Why is it nobody loves mc? I am neither stupid, nor ugly, nor perverse, nor a cad. I don't understand it!" Two days later he wrote to his brother Sergey, "I must confess I was expecting more pleasure from seeing Masha and Valerian again than I actually felt. Poor Masha goes to all the parties here and finds them very insignificant affairs indeed. In the first placc, it is a sad thing that she should enjoy herself in such trivial company, and sadder still that all her time is taken up with such distractions, which she prefers to the company of the brother she has not seen for two years. ... I may be oversensitive, as usual, but during the two weeks I have spent with them (Marya, Valerian and Nicholas), I have not heard a single word from any of them that was—I will not say affectionate (for I had all of that I wanted)—but from the heart, and proved to me that thev love me and that I have a place in their lives."
All the while he was fulminating against this idle existence, he tagged along with his brother's and sister's "bunch," down the boulevard, around the hot springs, on picnics. A certain 'llieodorina caught his eye for a few days: "July 25. Talked to Thcodorina. . . ." "July 27. The pretty women 011 the boulevard have too great an effcct on me. . . . Yesterday, Thcodorina, utterly delightful, told me about her life at boarding school." "August 1-4. Thcodorina is in love with me. I am not bored. I take baths." "August 6. Thcodorina is very infatuated with mc. I shall have to make up my mind one way or another. I confess it is some consolation." "August 7. Brushed against Thcodorina several times during the evening: she excites me very much." "September 3. Theodorina is a silly goose; I am sorry for her." "September 14. Thcodorina is snubbing me and I won't sec her again."
Merc trifles. Tolstoy's true source of worry lay elsewhere. The approach of the New Year incited him to meditate upon himself. With beetling brows, he re-entered his sententious phase. Once again, his diary filled up with trenchant formulas: "Keep away from wine and women" "The pleasure is so negligible and the regret so profound!" "Abandon yourself entirely to everything you undertake." "When under the sway of a powerful emotion, hold back; but after reflection, act with determination even if you're wrong." "Overcome depression by work, not by distractions." And, as before in Moscow, he kept his "Franklin" notebooks, recording all his misbehavior. A ruthless inquisitor, he smacked himself across the fingers with a shiver of delight: "Broke my oath not to frequent drinkers . . ." "Cot up too late . . "Lied . . ." "Made a foolish purchase . . ." "Wandered aimlessly . . ." "Could not make up my mind . . ." "Went to sleep after lunch . . ." "Offended Epishka . . ." "Struck a cat . . ." "Insulted Alyoshka . . ." "Lost my temper and beat Alyoshka . . .",>>R
Hie publication of Childhood and The Raid having made him, in his own eyes, a genuine man of letters, he soon added no less peremptory "Rules of Writing" to his "Rules of Life": "When you criticize your work, always put yourself in the position of the most limited reader, who is looking only for entertainment in a book." "The most interesting books are those in which the author pretends to hide his own opinion and yet remains faithful to it." "When rereading and revising, do not think about what should be added (no matter how admirable the thoughts that come to mind) . . . but about how much can be taken away without distorting the overall meaning." In his excitement he even criticized Pushkin, whose prose he found poor and thin, and concluded with a flourish, "I know perfectly well that I have genius."
This was the very reason why, no doubt, he felt so lonely! "I must get used to the idea, once and for all, that I am an exceptional being," he wrote on November 3, 1853, "a person ahead of his time, or else I have an impossible, unsociable nature, always dissatisfied. . . . For a long time I lied to myself, imagining I had friends, people who understood me. I low wrong I was! I have not met one man who is morally as good as I am, who is attracted to the good on every occasion, as I am, or ready to sacrifice everything for his ideal, as I am. That is why I can find no company in which I am at ease."