As though to add to his agitation, he received a letter from Valerya, who had swallowed her pride and was returning to the attack, wanting to know the reasons for the "change" that had driven him away from her. "There was nothing one could properly call a change," he replied. "I always told you I was not certain of my feelings for you, and it always seemed to me that something was wrong. ... In St. Petersburg, the simple fact of not seeing you any more proved to me that I had not been and never would be in love with you."11 He had previously written the same thing to Aunt Toinette: "Although I admit it was wrong of me to behave in such a flighty way, and I might have acted very differently, I still believe I was perfectly honest. I have never ceased to say that I am not sure what it is I feel for the girl, but I know it is not love."12
The truth appeared to be that women existed solely in order to incite men to bestiality and then to frustrate them. A perfect example of the evil a woman could do to a man was unwittingly furnished by Ivan Turgenev: abandoned by Pauline Viardot, he had become a shadow of his former self. A kidney ailment, which he patiently- nursed, aggravated his feeling of physical inferiority to the dazzling and faithless soprano, and he was continually worrying over the education of his daughter Paulinctte, a difficult and quarrelsome child. "Tur genev is flailing and floundering about in his misfortunes,"13 noted Tolstoy. And he wrote to Aunt Toinette: "His unhappy love affair with Mme. Viardot, and his daughter, keep him in a state that is very bad for him, and he is pitiful to behold. I would never have believed he could love so deeply."14
But if he pitied Turgenev one day, he could not abide him the next. The curious inconstancy he had shown toward Valerya Arsenyev reappeared in his relations with the contemporary Russian writer he- most admired. They saw each other every day, and utterly contradictory judgments rained down on the pages of his diary: "Dinner with Turgenev ... He is quite simply vain and petty." (February 17 [March 1].) "Spent three pleasant hours at Turgenev's." (February 20 [March 4].) "Spent another pleasant evening with Turgenev and a bottle of wine by the fireside." (February 21 [March 5].) 'Turgenev doesn't believe anything, that's what's the matter with him. He does not love, he is in love with love." (February 25 [March 9].) "At dinner I told him something he had never suspected; namely, that I con- sidcr him superior to me." (February 26 [March 10].) "Turgenev is really tiresome! Alas! lie has never loved anyone." (March 1 [13].) "Dropped in on Turgenev. lie is a cold and useless man, but intelligent, and his art is inoffensive." (March 4 [16].) "Stopped by at Turgenev's. No; I really must keep away from him. I have paid enough tribute to his merits, tried every possible way of making friends with him; but it's 110 use." (March 5 [17].) "Turgenev came to sec me around five. lie looked guilty. What to do? I respect him, I value him, I can even say I love him, but I feel absolutely no warmth for him; and the same is true for him." (March 7 [19].) "Turgenev is old." (March 9 [21].) "Stopped by Turgenev's; he no longer talks, he babbles. He has lost all faith in reason and in men—believes in nothing." (March 25 [April 6].)
Turgenev, meanwhile, was confessing that he could not, despite all his admiration for Tolstoy, remain 011 good terms with him: "Tolstoy has changed considerably for the better, but the creaking and groaning of his internal upheavals have a very bad effect on a man like me, whose nerves are already overstrained." (Letter to Annenkov, February 16 [28], 1857.) "I cannot establish any lasting friendship with Tolstoy, our views are too different." (Letter to Kolbasin, March 8 [20], 1857.) "No; after all my attempts to get along with Tolstoy, I have to give up. We are put together too differently. Whatever 1 like he doesn't and vice versa. I cannot relax with him, and he is probably no more at ease with me. He lacks serenity, and yet he also lacks the turmoil of youth. As a result, I don't know how to take him. But he will develop into a remarkable man, and I shall be the first to applaud and admire him, from afar!" (Letter to Annenkov, March 9 [21], 1857.) "Tolstoy is showing signs of tolcrancc and calm. When this new wine has done fermenting, it will be a beverage fit for the gods!" (Letter to Botkin, March 23 [April 4], 1857.)
In fact, Tolstoy was still a long way from "calm" and "tolerance," when Turgenev made this indulgent assessment of his character. I lis brother Sergey had just come to Paris with Prince Obolensky. They rode horseback in the Bois de Boulogne, went to sec a few friends and soon discovered that they were bored in each other's company. Who could be more total strangers than two brothers, united only by childhood memories? Sergey left Paris at the end of a week, and I.eo wondered whether he, too, should not be thinking of moving 011. He was tempted by Switzerland, Italy, England. . . .
He was still trying to decide what to do next when he heard that on March 26 (April 6), 1857 a certain Francois Richeux, sentenced to death for robbery and homicide, would be publicly executed in Paris.
Fascination won out over revulsion, 'lliere are experiences one cannot pass up, if one's profession is to wield the pen! Feeling somehow guilty-, as though he were going to the theater, he got up long before day, dressed in his chilly room, found a cab and drove to the Place de la Roquette. A dense crowd stood silently beneath the still-dark sky: many women, a few children.! All the bars around the square were open. Here and there a lantern lighted up an islet of faces, a bottle, a hand waving a hat. Above this milling conglomeration, the sharp vertical contour of the instrument of death. A low murmur greeted the arrival of the condemned man. People shoved and pushed to get a better view. Tolstoy must have found a good vantage point, for he did not miss a single detail of the ritual. When the cleaver dropped, he felt the blow in his own flesh.
Back in his room, his mind reeling with horror, he set down his first impressions in laconic terms: "Got up feeling ill, before seven, went to see the execution. Chest and neck firm, white, healthy. Kissed the New Testament. Then, death. Senseless! Strong impression, and not useless . . . The guillotine kept me awake a long time, made me keep looking back over my shoulder." Haunted by the vision of the decapitated body, he wrote to Botkin the same day: "I witnessed many atrocities in the war and in the Caucasus, but I should have been less sickened to see a man torn to pieces ljeforc my eyes than I was by this perfected, elegant machine by means of which a strong, clean, healthy man was killed in an instant. In the first case there is no reasoning will, but a paroxysm of human passion; in the second, coolness to the point of refinement, homicide-with-comfort, nothing big. A cynical, insolent determination to do justice, obey the law of God—justice as proclaimed by lawyers, who make utterly contradictory allegations in the name of honor, religion and truth . . . And the awful crowd! A father was explaining to his daughter how this very painless and ingenious mechanism worked, etc. Human law—what a farce! The truth is that the State is a plot, designed not only to exploit but also to corrupt its citizens. For me, the laws laid down by politics are sordid lies. . . . I shall never enter the service of any government anywhere."