Yet once he got to Moscow, he was so pleased to be there that he prolonged his stay. As he had sworn before he left never to set foot inside a cabaret or brothel again,he had to fall back on trips to the parks and monuments. In the gardens of the Hermitage, where he was loitering one bored afternoon, he ran into Longinov, erstwhile refuser of his challenge. His anger boiled up again, he could not decide whether to speak to the coward or pretend not to notice him, and strolled ostentatiously along in front of him with murder in his eye. Longinov did not turn a hair, however, and Tolstoy went away disconcerted. Another day he went as far as the Troitsa Monastery, where Aunt Pelagya Yushkov was making her retreat. "She's still the same," he wrote in his diary on May 19. "Vain, full of petty and amiable sensitivity, kind- hearted." The next day he went to the sacristy: "You would think you were watching a Punch-and-Judy show: numbers of people kissing icons, and one prostrate old woman braying with joy." But mockery, in him, quickly gave way to compassion. Upon analyzing his state of mind, he found himself divided into four compartments: "Love, the pangs of repentance (pleasant, however), the desire to marry, and a feeling for nature."
It was in this poetic mood that he met Dyakov's sister Alexandra once again, at her brother's home. lie had been in love with licr long before and had not seen her for years; she was now married to Prince Andrey Obolensky. "Yes," he wrote, "even today it pains me to think of the happiness that might have been mine and has fallen to the lot of a distinguished man, A. Obolensky." (May 22, 1856.) "She listened to me twice, very attentively. No, I am not mistaken when I say she is the most charming woman I have ever met. The most highly refined artistic nature and at the same time the most moral." (May 24.) To subdue his passion, which he knew to be hopeless, he went out to the Sparrow Hills one evening to drink milk, bathe by the Moskva and sleep in the garden, "while the monks were getting drunk with the girls and dancing polkas in the orchard."20 The following day at the Dyakow', he had a conversation with the fair Alexandra that troubled him considerably. "She suddenly gave me her hand. Her eyes filled with tears. ... I was beside myself with joy. . . . Even though the feeling is hopeless, I very much like inspiring it. . . ." But after an exchange of reminiscences, some transparent allusions and a few soft squeezes of the hand, Alexandra announced that she would shortly have to follow her husband to St. Petersburg, whereupon Tolstoy decided that there was nothing further to detain him in Moscow.
He was famished for the green country-side. On the eve of his departure for Yasnaya Polyana, he dined at Pokrovskoyc-Streshnevo,f eight miles outside Moscow, at the home of his childhood friend Lyubov Behrs (nee Islenyev), the very woman he had once pushed off the balcony. She received him en famille: as she had let her servants off to go to church, the meal was served by her three daughters, Lisa
f Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo, the Bchrs' property, should not be confused with Pokrovskoye, Valerian Tolstoy's estate in the government of Orel.
(twelve), Sonya (eleven) and Tatyana (ten). A playful spirit of rivalry animated the pink-cheeked girls, with their sparkling eyes and skirts belling out over starched petticoats. Their eyes devoured the famous author whose Childhood and Boyhood they had read, the hero telling Papa about the war, his lips scarcely moving beneath his thick mustache. After the meal they asked him to sing the "Song of Sevastopol"; he willingly complied. Then they went for a walk. They even played leapfrog. "What sweet, gay little girls!" Tolstoy wrote in his diary, on May 26, 1856. Me did not dream that six years later one of them—Sonya, the second daughter—would become his wife.
The desire to revisit the scenes of his childhood was not the only thing that brought Tolstoy back to Yasnaya Polyana. For some time he had been thinking about the emancipation of the serfs. The idea was in the air. In March of that year, at the assembly of marshals of the nobility in Moscow, Tsar Alexander II had said it was better to "abolish serfdom from above, rather than wait for it to abolish itself from below." Then he convened a Committee for Peasant Affairs and instnictcd it to prepare a draft reform. The committee, determined to stall for time, had referred the question to a commission of which General Rostovtsev was chairman. Westerners and Slavophils alike united in condemning the delay. On April 22, 1856 Tolstoy noted in his diary, "My relations with the serfs arc beginning to prey upon my mind." Hearing talk of the impending reform, he flung caution to the winds. Why couldn't he do, alone and at once, what it would take the government years to accomplish, because of the slowness of administrative machinery? This desire assuredly showed great good-will on his part toward the peasants, but once again, there was a large share of pride mingled with the master's generosity. Rather than submit, like any other landowner, to a decision from the tsar, he wanted to lead the field, take the initiative, be the first to put social justice into practice. He began his campaign forthwith. He went to see Kavelin the historian, and Milyutin, a member of the imperial commission, and drew up his own draft reform, which he submitted to Their Excellencies Levshin and Bludov for approval. Ilie replies were evasive. Tolstoy was inccnscd: "Wherever one turns in Russia, one sees that everything is beginning to changc—but the men in charge of the changes are old and therefore incompetent."-1 In the end, although he was not officially authorized to act, he was not exactly forbidden to do so either. That was enough for him.
It was not really his intention to cast away all his worldly goods for nothing, especially as there was a two-thousand-ruble mortgage on his property which had to be repaid before anything else. Hence, no rash donations, no evangelical abdication; rather, an equitable arrangement respecting the interests of both master and serfs. The wisest course would be to free the peasants and lease the land they had hitherto farmed for their master's sole profit; in exchange, the peasants would pay rent for thirty years, after which the land would belong to them outright.
His pockets stuffed with papers, Tolstoy hurried back to Yasnaya Polyana, feeling himself the bearer of a priceless gift. Before leaving he had written out the speech lie would make to the peasants: "Cod has planted in my soul the idea of setting you all free." After this preamble, lie would propose to discuss the plan "with the old men, the wise." "If anything about it seems unfair or illegal to you," he would say, "tell me, and I shall make it right and change it." In advance, he savored the surprise and gratitude of the crowd, and in his heart a kind thought stirred for himself.