Tolstoy

t Tolstoy based his essay Desire Is the Worst Sla\'ery of All on this episode.

piece out of mc. Spent a lot of money." Two weeks later he went out hunting again; this time they killed four fine specimens, including the bear that had attacked him. lie received her carcass as a trophy and had it made into a rug for his study.

He returned to Moscow and Family Happiness, which had been a struggle to write from the start; after all, it was tempting fate to describe the crcation and subsequent disintegration of a couple at a time when social problems were all the readers cared about. He was elected to Moscow University's Society of Friends of Russian Literature at the same time as Turgenev, and decidcd to defend the theory of "art for art's sake" in his address to his colleagues. He was admitted to the society on February 4, 1859 and, rising to speak with a spark of defiance in his eyes, denounced the increasing tendency of the public to regard literature solely as a means of "arousing civic spirit in contemporary society." Some people went so far as to pretend that Pushkin would soon be forgotten and "pure art" was an impossibility. Before an audience stony with disapproval, he forcefully concluded: "However important a political literature may be, a literature that reflects the passing problems of socicty, and however necessary to national progress, there is still another type of literature that reflects the eternal necessities of all mankind, the dearest and deepest imaginings of a whole race, a literature that is accessible to all and to every age, one without which no people has been able to grow powerful and fertile."

Khomyakov, the president, replied that it was a man's duty to condemn the vices of society and that because of his exceptional sensitivity the writer unconsciously became a public prosecutor of his time, even if he hoped to be only a pure artist. "Yes," he said, turning to Tolstoy, "you, too, will be a prosecutor, whether you like it or not. Follow, by the grace of God, the wonderful path you have chosen . . . but do not forget that in literature the transient, the momentary, arc heightened by becoming part of the artistic and eternal, and that in the end all the individual human voiccs blend to form one harmonious whole."

Tolstoy certainly did not dream then that one day he would be repeating the words of this Slavophil theorist almost verbatim, becoming the opponent of pure art after being its most ardent champion.

As soon as he had finished Family Happiness, he became more strongly convinced than ever of its worthlessness. However, at Botkin's insistence he sold it to Katkov's Russian Herald. On May 3, 1859 he was at Yasnava Polyana when the proofs arrived: "What shameful offal! What a blotch!" he wrote to Botkin. "You have made a fool, an utter fool of mc by advising me to publish it. . . . Now I'm done for as a writer and as a man. ... If you have any compassion for my suffering and if you want to be my friend, do persuade Katkov not to print the second part and let me return the money to him. ... I have kept my part of the bargain and corrected the proofs, with a revulsion which I find it hard to describe. Not one living word in the lot. And the hidcousness of the language—stemming from the hideousness of the thought—is unimaginable. ... I was so right to want to publish it under a pseudonym. . . . The last chapters have not been and must not be sent to me. It is agony to see the book, read it, remember it "

Botkin, who had found a "chill glitter" about Family Happiness when he first read the novel, and had said it moved "neither mind nor heart," went over the proofs with a critical eye and replied, on May 15, 1859:

"To my amazement, the result was entirely different from what I had expected. Not only did I like the second part, but I find it beautiful in all respects. In the first place, it has dramatic appeal; in the second, it is an excellent psychological study; the descriptions of nature are most life-like; and in short, the whole thing is admirable, profoundly talented and meaningful." By and large, the critics were of the same opinion. Northern Flowers hailed it as a "poetic idyl," the St. Petersburg News set the book 011 a level with Childhood, Native Son declared that the characters' psychology was portrayed with "prodigious accuracy" and that the author was established as an exceptional "connoisseur of the human heart."

Tolstoy had in fact put a good deal of both himself and Valerya Arscnycv into the book. Sergey Mikhailovich, the hero, was also older than his fiancee, his estate was a mirror-image of Yasnaya Polyana, his looks and his views on life were those of the author: "He had a simple, open, honest expression, coarse features, alert, intelligent, gentle eyes, a childlike smile," we read in Family Happiness. And also: "Everything he felt was reflected immediately and intensely in his face. . . ." "He spoke with fervor, warmth and simplicity. . . ." "He had occasional bursts of wild enthusiasm. . . ." "Ilis handshake was vigorous and frank, almost painful." Ever)' notation accentuates the likeness of the portrait. It was the painter himself, standing in front of a mirror drawing his own picture, line for line. The description of Masha, the heroine, was equally true-to-lifc: like Valerya Arsenyev, she was attracted to the glitter of high society, whereas Sergey Mikhailovich abhorred "the dirt and idleness of this imbecilic class." Disillusioned with marriage after years of being misunderstood, the young wife finally transfers her former affection for her husband to her children. Tolstoy was not able either to dominate or to say anything really new about the relatively trite theme of the transmutation of conjugal love into maternal love, and the story, a novella rather than a novel, was uneven, clumsily constructed and lacking in originality. But it was permeated by a remarkable feeling for nature: the reapers staggering under the sun, the monotonous movement of the telegas through the yellow dust, the smell of gardens at the approach of autumn, the red ashbcrrics among leaves blackened by the first frost, the little church through which the priest's voice resounded "as though there were no one else alive in the whole world," the winter sky, glowing with "the ringed moon of the season of the frosts"—all these descriptions illuminate the inferior pages and save them from mediocrity.

Despite the book's success, Tolstoy continued to l)e dissatisfied with it and returned to his Cossacks, begun six years before. Would he have enough determination to see them through to the end? He no longer believed he could. He was suddenly filled with a mighty loathing for himself and the world. A series of disenchanted notes filled the pages of his diary. At one point, he considered Octave Feuillet a better writer than himself: "Read Feuillet. Terrific talent. I am depressed when I think of myself. This year nothing can awaken any response in me. Not even sorrow. My one impulse is to work and forget, but forget what? There's nothing to forget." (May 9, 1859.) "I am not pleased with myself. I am simply drifting." (May 28, 1859.) His nerves were on edge, he often lost his temper. There were quarrels with his sister and the neighbors, outbursts against the muzhiks. "I am being ground in the mill of domestic problems again, with all their stinking weight." (October 14-16.) How ridiculous to waste his time inventing stories, when life was surging about him on all sides, dragging him into the currcnt. Writing stories was a game for children, not a fit occupation for a man. Man had been created to work with his hands, help his neighbor, and teach the young. Down with pure art, and social art, too! He wrote to Fet in a moment of anger, solemnly forswearing literature: "I shall write no more fiction. It is shameful, when you come to think of it. People are weeping, dying, marrying, and I should sit down and write books telling 'how she loved him'? It's shameful!"³⁰