In the night of August 27-28, the Russian troops began evacuating the southern part of town. The glow of fires rose above the bastions. An occasional explosion tore open the sky and illuminated swarms of flying stones. The makeshift bridge across which the soldiers were filing swayed and sagged at breaking point. At two in the afternoon of August 28, Fort Paul was blown up, with five hundred seriously injured men inside. The French, stopped on the summits, did not press their advantage. Tossed about in the flood of retreating regiments, the soldiers, their faces exhausted and clothes tattered, were observed by Tolstoy and his throat tightened with compassion. "When they stepped off the other end of the bridge," he wrote, "all the soldiers took off their caps and crossed themselves. But underneath this feeling there was an-
t August 16, by the Gregorian calendar.
t September 8, by the Gregorian calendar.
other—a deep aching, compounded of remorse, shame and anger. Almost everyone, looking back from the north at Sevastopol abandoned, heaved a sigh of unspeakable bitterness and muttered threats at the enemy."3*
After the fall of the city, Tolstoy was instructed by General Kryzhan- ovsky to write an account of the final engagements based on the reports of the bastion commanders. For an author whose aim was to be honest at all times, such a task, performed on command in the style of an official dispatch, was a refined form of torture. lie later said, "It was a peerless example of the naive and inevitable military duplicity employed in composing descriptions of this type."30
With the defenses of Sevastopol overrun, Tolstoy's batten' moved to Krcmenchug (September 19), then to Foti-Sala (September 26), where the Russians exchanged a few shots with the French vanguard, and then withdrew to the north. "Did not wash or undress and behaved like an ass," he wrote on October 1. In the ensuing days, his desire to leave the army sharpened. "My career is Literature! Write! Write! Beginning tomorrow I shall work at it all my life, or abandon everything, rules, religion, proprieties and all!" (October 10.) And later, "Insurmountable laziness. It is absolutely essential that 1 get out of this rut of army life, which is bad for me." (October 27.)
A letter from Ivan Turgenev—the first—gave a powerful boost to his inclination. One of Tolstoy's stories—A Wood-Felling—which had been published in The Contemporary (still under the initials L.N.T.), was dedicated to Turgenev.
"Nothing in my literary carccr has ever flattered me as much," Turgenev wrote. "But I dislike to think of you where you are now. Although in a way I am glad you are having these new impressions and experiences, there is a limit to everything; we must not tempt fate, which is only too happy to thwart us at every turn. It would be wonderful if you could get yourself out of the Crimea. You have shown sufficient proof of your bravery, but the military life is not for you. . . . Your weapon is the pen, not the sword. . . ." Inviting his young colleague to call on him when he was on furlough, he added, "It seems to me that we should get along well together, we could talk frankly, and our acquaintance would be profitable to both of us."
At last, early in November, Tolstoy, who had requested a mission, was detached from his battery and sent to St. Petersburg as a courier. On the eve of his departure he lost another 2800 rubles at cards.*
• About $7qco.
3. Introduction to Civilian Life
Tolstoy reached St. Petersburg on the morning of November 19, 1855. He left his bags at the hotel, changed his shirt, put on a dress uniform in place of his traveling uniform and rushed off to see Turgenev, who lived on Fontanka Quay near the Anichkov Bridge. All he knew of the man he was about to meet, ten years his senior, was that he was a great nobleman and a great writer. A Sportsman's Sketches had conquered the intellectual elite and given serf-owners a bad conscience. After rereading the book, Tolstoy wrote in his diary, "It is difficult to write, after him."1
In 1850, Ivan Scrgcycvich Turgenev—who lived most of his life abroad in the wake of Pauline Viardot, the singer," with whom he was in love—had returned to Russia to be with his mother at her death and collcct his share of the inheritance. Two years later Nicholas I condemned him to live on his estate (after a month in prison) on account of his obituary article 011 Gogol, in which the censor had detected liberal tendencies. He had recently been permitted to live in St. Petersburg but could not leave the country, and was suffering from this long separation from the object of his passion in France. Worse yet, his illegitimate child "Paulinctte" (alias Pelagya), whom he had thirteen years before by a seamstress-serf of his mother's, had been adopted by the Viardots and was living with them, in Paris and on their country- estate of Courtavenel, at Rozay-en-Brie.
A friend of George Sand, MЈrim6e, Musset, Chopin and Gounod, Ivan Turgenev had a mind which exuded the same European clcgance as his person. When Tolstoy crossed the threshold of his library, he saw- before him a giant, with a massive, mild and gentle face, candid blue
• Pauline Viardot's husband, who was twenty one years older than she, was director of the Italian Opera in Paris.
eyes, neat side-whiskers, large soft hands and a certain lassitude in the droop of the shoulders. A Hercules with doe's eyes. The two men embraced enthusiastically. They were equally eager to bccomc friends, and the honeymoon began immediately. Turgenev insisted that his young colleague come to stay with him, and Tolstoy accepted with alacrity. A bed was assigned to him. That evening, introduction to Nekrasov. They dined, played chess, talked literature. After his rough life in the army camp, these intellectual conversations went to Tolstoy's head like wine after a long fast. He was submerged by the flood of compliments, and realized that he was an object of exceptional interest to his fellow- writers. And, feeling loved and admired, he wanted to admire and love in return. "Turgenev is a wonderful man . . ." "Nekrasov is interesting, he has many good qualities . . . he wrote.
His circle of acquaintances widened in the ensuing days. Everyone who worked 011 The Contemporary wanted to meet the glorious young writer and hero of Sevastopol. He met Druzhnin, Tyutchev, Goncharov, Maykov, Ostrovsky, Grigorovich, Sologub, Pisemsky, Korch, Dudysh- kin, Panayev, Polonsky, Ogaryov, Zhemchuzhnikov, Annenkov, etc.f The civilians were instantly charmed by the soldier. His name cropped up often in their correspondence and private diaries. "You cannot imagine what a delightful and exceptional man [Tolstoy] is, even though I have baptized him the Troglodyte because of his barbaric ardor and bull-headedness," Turgenev wrote to Annenkov. "My affection for him is curious, one might almost say paternal."3 "Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy has arrived," Nekrasov wrote to Botkin. "What a delightful person, what intelligence! A likable, energetic, unselfish young man, a real falcon! Perhaps an eagle! I liked him better than his writing, and God knows that's good enough! He is not handsome, but he has an extremely attractive face, at once forceful and gentle. His look is a carcss. I liked him very much."4 "He's a first-class chap," wrote Druzhnin to Liventsev, "and a true Russian officer, full of wonderful tales; but he hates empty words and his attitude toward events is sound, if not rose-colored."'"' And he wrote in his own diary, "Tolstoy behaved like a troglodyte and a bashi-bazouk. He did not know, for example, what the Censor Committee was and what ministry it was attached to. Tie then informed us that he did not regard himself as a man of letters . . ."