• Dates included in parentheses are based on the Cregorian calendar. These are the dates as used by Tolstoy and others when writing from Europe.
and, bare-armed and bare-legged, alone in the middle of the room, begins to caper about and bob up and down and whinny for dear life. He is not drunk, he is a respectable married man with a family, he is simply full of joie de vivre."
On the streets, in the cafes and shops and buses, he found the same air of buoyancy, frivolity and elegance. Even the poor people here seemed glad to be alive. Bold stares sped back and forth between men and women in public. The peddlers hawked their wares so wittily that there was alway's a ring of loiterers standing around to listen. Everyone, from the livery-stable driver to the soft-drink peddler, had his own saucy line of patter, as though there were no police. Although Napoleon III claimed to be an emperor, his French despotism had nothing in common with the Russian variety. True, a lot of people were said to have been imprisoned and exiled after the coup d'etat of December 2, 1851, but that did not prevent Paris from exhaling an air of devil-may-care nonchalance that would have been inconceivable in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The air was cleaner along the banks of the Seine, one felt like throwing out one's chest, making smart remarks, thumbing one's nose at the authorities and crowing like a rooster. "There is not one numbskull of an officer running after the whores or hanging around the cafds who is untouched by this sense of social freedom, which is the chief attraction of life in Paris," Tolstoy wrote to Kolbasin.2 And to Botkin, the same day: "I am still in Paris . . . and cannot yet foresee the day when this city will have ceascd to intrigue me, or the life I am leading here lose its appeal. I am a flagrant ignoramus, I have never felt it so powerfully as here. If only for that, I should be thankful to have come, especially as my ignorance is not, I can feel it, irreparable. I am delighting in the arts here."3
As a dutiful tourist, he went often to the theater and, back in his pension, jotted down notes on the plays he had seen: Les precieuses ridicules and L'Avare—'"Excellent"; Les fausses confidences—"Deliriously elegant"; Le malade imaginaire—"Admirably acted"; Le Manage de Figaro—"Very good"; Racine's Plaideurs-'Foul." Moreover, "The theater of Racine and his ilk is the poetic plague of Europe. Luckily we do not and never shall have anything like it."4 Offcnbach, at the Bouffes-Parisiens, is "pure French! Funny! A sense of comedy so jolly and sprightly that he can get away with anything."5 The concerts swept him off his feet. He declared that nobody could play Beethoven as the French could.®
Determined to see everything, he set himself a schedule that would have brought a less robust man to his knees at the end of a week. He raced through the Hdtel de Cluny, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Bourse
("A horror!"), the Louvre, where he could not decide which was most admirable, the Mona Lisa or Rembrandt's portraits; Fontaincblcau, Versailles ("There I feel how little I know"), La Bibliotheque Nationale ("The place is packed full of peoplel"), the Pere-Lachaise cemetery, the racetracks, the auction gallery. He saw the Comte de Falloux being admitted to the Academie, and was amazed at all those men of letters in brocadcd gowns, listening to such boring speeches. He pushed on to Dijon to see the churches and museum. Then, back in Paris, he went to the Invalides. At the sight of Napoleon's tomb, he was seized with indignation. Paying no attention to the guide, who was mumbling his commentary as though they were in church, he felt his ancient patriotic resentment rise within him against the invader of Russia and profaner of Moscow, and his historical hatred was intensified by the memory of a more recent war in which the French had again gotten the upper hand. Less than two years after Sevastopol, he could not tolerate this homage paid to the military prowess of the enemy. How could a people who claimed to be peace-loving, freedom-loving and reason- loving dedicate this haughty sarcophagus in red porphyry to a man who had drenched all Europe in blood? "This idealization of a malefactor is shameful!" he thought.7 He scowled furiously at the names of the victories carved in the walls of the crypt, among which he saw—O horror of horrors!—the Moskva! ITc left in a rage, and the sight of two old disabled veterans sunning themselves in the courtyard merely fanned the flames of his wrath. That evening the man who had once sung hymns to the braver)' of the Crimean troops—whatever their nationality—wrote of these cockcd-hattcd and medallioned derelicts, "They arc nothing but soldiers, animals trained to bite. They should be left to starve to death. As for their torn-off legs—serves them right!"8 A few days before he had written, in tones of equal surliness, "Read a speech by Napoleon with unspeakable loathing." And, enlarging upon this statement: "No one has understood better than the French that people will worship insolence—a good punch in the face. The trick is to act with conviction; then everyone will step aside and even feel he is in the wrong. That is what I realized, reading Napoleon's speech."9 In his address, delivered on Febniary 16, 1857 for the opening of the legislative session, Napoleon III had said that his greatest desire was to serve mankind, justice and civilization everywhere. Impossible for Tolstoy to give credence to such assertions, coming from the nephew of Napoleon I.
But with what delight, on the other hand, he listened to the lectures of the great masters of the day at the Sorbonne and College de France: Saint-Marc Girardin, Lef&vre de Laboulayc, Baudrillart! To fill in the gaps in his education, he took English and Italian lessons with a tutor. He already spoke fluent French and might have become acquainted with some French families, but he made no effort to do so. Neither the publication of Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in Baudelaire's translation nor the stir over the trial of Madame Bovary, both of which occurred early in 1857, had the least effect on him; lie had never even heard of tliese authors. The only representatives of French literature with whom he had any contact at all were the traveler Xavier Mannicr, Louis Ulbaeh the novelist, and a singer, Pierre Dupont. Turgenev could have introduced him to authors of higher rank—MЈrimЈc, Dumas . . . "Why bother?" said Tolstoy to himself. He had too little esteem for his Russian colleagues to seek out the company of their French counteqjarts. What he wanted to know about France he could learn just as well from the Russians living in Paris. They had returned en masse after the signing of the peace treat}'. Their salons were open to all comers; Tolstoy went to call on the Lvovs, the Orlovs, the Trubetskoys, the Bludovs, the Sherbatovs, the Klyustins, etc. With one or another of them he went to the theater, the circus, the caf6 chantant, dined at Durand's or at the Maison DorЈe, had supper at Musard's or went out "slumming." As he made his way home at night along the deserted streets, he was haunted by "bad thoughts." When a female silhouette sidled furtively up to him he shuddered with desire and then hurried on, fleeing, red-faced with shame, and, once back in his room, wrote by candlelight: "A lively lady. Was paralyzed with confusion . . ." "Accosted. Spoiled my evening. Had a struggle with my conscience and tortured myself . . ." "Nothing, hush! . . ." "A woman disturbed me. I followed her home, but then remained firm. Depravity is a dreadful thing. . . "10
Tawdry streetwalkers were not enough to quench his thirst for love; he required tender feelings as well. He paid court to Prince Lvov's niece. "The princess is so charming that for the last twenty-four hours I have been under a spell, and it has made my life very pleasant," he wrote 011 February 21 (March 5). A month later: "I like her very much, I think I'm a fool not to try to many her. If she marries some excellent man and they are happy together, it could drive me to despair." An empty threat, like so many others. He was stirred by the grace, sweetness and intelligence of this young lady of society, but he was equally stirred by the charms of Louise Fitz-James, a danccr at the OpЈra who lived in the same pension as he. He recorded in his diary the impression that "Mrs. Fitz-James's calvcs" had made on him, noted that on one occasion Mrs. Fitz-James, "perspiring freely," had played "la coquette" with him, and expressed amazement at her boldness when she said in public, "One is never as wicked as one would like to be!" At the time, he burst out laughing with the others, but her remark left him pensive: no doubt about it, the Parisians were all in league with the devil!