Autobiography of Countess Tolstoy Part 7

{70}. This letter is quoted in _My Reminiscences_, by Ilya Tolstoy, pages 261-3.

{71}. This of course refers to Chertkov's letter on the occasion of Tolstoy's going away, published in _Russkaya Vedomostii_, 1910, Number 252. An extract is quoted in Chertkov's pamphlet, _On the Last Days of L. N. Tolstoy_, Moscow, 1911, page {15}.

{72}. This was also the opinion of all the members of the family who were at Astapovo. See Ilya Tolstoy's, _My Reminiscences_, pages 253-5.

{73}. The sale of Yasnaya Polyana has its history. S. A. T. and her sons originally approached the Government and asked whether it would acquire Yasnaya Polyana for the State. The Council of Ministers discussed the question at the two sittings of 26 May and 14 October, 1911. At the first sitting it was decided to acquire Yasnaya Polyana at the price of 500,000 roubles suggested by the heirs; but at the second sitting the Council adopted the view of the Attorney to the Synod, V. K. Sabler, and the Minister of Education, L. A. Ka.s.so, who held it inadmissible that the Government should honour its enemies and enrich their children at the State's expense; and the question of purchasing Yasnaya Polyana went no further. Later a Bill for its purchase was introduced in the Duma, but nothing came of it.... On 26 February, 1913, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstoy bought Yasnaya Polyana for 400,000 roubles, which she had received from Sitin, the publisher, for the right of publishing a complete edition of Tolstoy's works. On 26 March, 1913, Tolstoy's long-cherished desire was fulfilled and the land of Yasnaya Polyana was transferred to the peasants. See _Tolstovskii EzheG.o.dnik_, 1911, Number II, page 31, Numbers III, IV, and V, pages 190-4 and 198; 1913, Part V, pages 10-12.

{74}. On 15 November, 1912, the Moscow munic.i.p.ality acquired Tolstoy's house in Moscow with all its furniture for 125,000 roubles and decided to use it for a Tolstoy Museum and Library, and to build in the court-yard a new building for a Tolstoy School of sixteen cla.s.ses. See _Tolstovskii EzheG.o.dnik_, 1911, Number II, pages 31-2, and Numbers III, IV, and V, pages 194-6.

{75}. The newspapers announced that S. A. T. died in October, 1919. We have not succeeded in verifying the date and, therefore, cannot vouch for its accuracy.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX I

s.e.m.e.n AFANASEVICH VENGEROV

S. A. Vengerov was born 5 April, 1855 and died 14 September, 1920. On leaving his public school in 1872, he entered the Academy of Medicine and Surgery in Petersburg and took the general course in natural science. He then changed to the Faculty of Law in the Petersburg University and graduated in 1879. A year later he graduated in the Historical and Philological Faculty in the Derpl University, after which he remained at the Petersburg University in order to prepare for the professorship of Russian Literature. In 1897 he began a course of lectures on the history of Russian literature at the Petersburg University, but was soon dismissed by the Minister of Education because of his liberal views. It was only in 1906 that Vengerov was again allowed to lecture in the University, and in 1910 he was made professor of the University for Women and of the Inst.i.tute of Psychoneurology. At last in 1919 he was appointed Professor of Russian Literature in the Petrograd University. In addition to his lectures, after 1908 he conducted in the University a special Pushkin school, and the work of this school was published in three volumes, _The Pushkinist_, 1914, 1916, and 1918. After the revolution, when The Library was established, Vengerov was appointed Director and managed the inst.i.tution, under very unfavourable conditions, until his death.

"I can only remember three days in my whole life when I felt at leisure," Vengerov used to say. The intense industriousness of his life may be seen from the following incomplete list of his works: "Russian Literature in her Contemporary Representatives: I. S. Turgenev, 1875; I.

I. Lazhechnikov, 1883; A. F. Pisemskii, 1884.

"Critico-Biographical Dictionary of Russian Authors and Men of Letters,"

Six volumes, 1889-1904. These six volumes only complete the first letter of the alphabet, most of the articles being written by Vengerov.

Russian Poetry. Seven volumes, 1893-1901.

Thirty volumes of Russian authors edited with notes about the writers.

"The Sources of the Dictionary of Russian Authors," four volumes, 1900-1917.

"Library of Great Writers," edited by Vengerov and containing the complete works of Shakespeare, Byron, Moliere, and Pushkin.

"Outlines of the History of Russian Literature," 1907.

"Russian Literature of the Twentieth Century," 1890-1910.

"The Heroic Character of Russian Literature." It will be seen from the above list that Vengerov devoted the whole of his life to Russian literature. As a writer and man of letters, he achieved considerable popularity.

APPENDIX II

NIKOLAI NIKOLAEVICH STRAKHOV.

N. N. Strakhov was born 16 October, 1828, and died 24 January, 1896. He studied at the ecclesiastical seminary of Kostroma and completed his course in 1845. He then pa.s.sed to the Faculty of Mathematics in the Petersburg University and took his degree in 1848. He then entered the Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics in the Teachers' Training Inst.i.tute and completed his course in 1851, after which he became a teacher of physics and mathematics. In 1857 he received the degree of Master of Zoology. In 1861 he gave up teaching and became the princ.i.p.al collaborator with the brothers Dostoevskii on the monthly magazine, _Vremya_. His chief writings were polemical. Under the nom-de-plume of "N. Kossize," he wrote a series or articles which had a great success and were chiefly directed against the "westerners," radicals, and socialists, e. g. Chernishersikii, Pisarev. _Vremya_, which had a large circulation, was suppressed by the authorities because of an article by Strakhov, called "The Fatal Problem," which dealt with Russian-Polish relations in a spirit of opposition to the Government. Being without work, Strakhov began translating books into Russian, chiefly on Philosophical, scientific, and literary subjects.

Tolstoy's friendship with Strakhov began in 1871. When someone asked him about the friendship, Strakhov sent him the following autobiographical note: "The origin of my acquaintance with L. N. Tolstoy in 1871 was as follows. After my articles on _War and Peace_, I decided to write him a letter asking him to let the _Sarya_ have some of his work. He replied that he had nothing at present, but added a pressing invitation to come and see him at Yasnaya Polyana whenever an opportunity should present itself. In 1871 I received four hundred roubles from the _Sarya_, and in June I went to stay with my people in Poltava. On my way back to Petersburg I stopped at Tula for the night, and in the morning took a cab and drove out to Yasnaya Polyana. After that we used to see each other every year, that is, I used to stay a month or six weeks with him every summer. At times we quarrelled and grew cool to each other, but good feeling always won the day; his family got to like me, and now they see in me an old, faithful friend, which indeed I am."

With Strakhov Tolstoy was on very friendly terms, which allowed complete frankness between them. Tolstoy himself wrote of his correspondence with Strakhov (in a letter of 6 February, 1906, to P. A. Sergeenko): "In addition to Alexandra Andreevna Tolstoy, I had two persons to whom I have written many letters which, as far as I can remember, might interest people interested in my personality. They are Strakhov and Prince Serge S. Urusov." (_Letters_, Vol. II, page 227.)

The friendship of Tolstoy and Strakhov lasted for twenty-five years, and on Strakhov's part there was thirty years adoration of Tolstoy's genius and of his great spiritual and intellectual qualities. V. V. Rosanov wrote the following after Strakhov's death: "Strakhov's attachment to Tolstoy was most deep and mystical: he loved him as the incarnation of the best and most profound aspirations of the human soul, as a special nerve in the huge body of mankind in which we others form parts less understanding and significant; he loved him for what was indefinite and incomplete in him. He loved in him the dark abyss, the bottom of which no one could see, from the depths of which still rise numbers of treasures; and there is no doubt that Tolstoy never lost a better friend."

Strakhov's works included: _From the History of Russian Nihilism_, 1890; _Essays on Pushkin and Other Poets_, 1888; _Biography of Dostoevskii; The Struggle of the West with our Literature_, three volumes, 1882-1886; and some scientific works.

APPENDIX III

TOLSTOY'S FIRST WILL

Tolstoy's first will was contained in the form of a letter in his diary of 27 March, 1895 and repeated in his diary of 1907, see Notes 62 and 63 above. The following is the text of the entry in the diary:--

My will is approximately as follows.

(Until I have written another this holds good.)

(1). To bury me where I die, in the cheapest cemetery, if I die in a town, and in the cheapest coffin, as paupers are buried. Flowers and wreaths are not to be sent, speeches are not to be made. If possible, bury me without priests or burial service. But if those who bury me dislike this, let them bury me in the ordinary way with a funeral service, but as cheaply and simply as possible.

(2.) My death is not to be announced in the newspapers, nor are obituary notices to be written.

(3.) All my papers are to be given to my wife, V. G. Chertkov, Strakhov, and to my daughters Tanya and Masha,[P] for them, or for such of them as survive, to sort and examine. (I have myself struck out my daughter's names. They ought not to be bothered with this.)

I exclude my sons from this bequest not because I did not love them (I have come of late to love them better and better, thank G.o.d) and I know that they love me; but they do not altogether understand my ideas; they did not follow their development; and they may have views of their own which may lead them to keep what ought not to be kept and to reject what ought to be kept. I have taken out of the diaries of my bachelor life what is worth keeping. I wish them to be destroyed. Also in the diaries of my married life I wish to be destroyed everything which might hurt anyone if published. Chertkov has promised me to do this even during my lifetime, and knowing the great and undeserved love that he has for me and his moral sensibility I am sure that he will do it splendidly. I wish the diaries of my bachelor life to be destroyed not because I wish to conceal the wickedness of my life--my life was the usual unclean life of an unprincipled young man--but because the diaries in which I recorded only the torments which arise from the consciousness of sin produce a false and one-sided impression and represent.... Well, let my diaries remain as they are. In them at least is seen how in spite of all the frivolity and immorality of my youth I yet was not deserted by G.o.d and though it was only in old age, I began, though only a little, to understand and love Him.

I write this not that I attribute great or even any importance to my papers, but because I know beforehand that after my death my books will be published, and will be talked about, and will be thought to be important. If that is so, it is better that my writings should not harm people.

As for the remainder of my papers I ask those who will have the arrangement of them not to publish everything, but only that which may be of use to people.

(4). With regard to the publishing rights of my former works--the ten volumes and the _A. B. C._--I ask my heirs to give these to the public, _i. e._ to renounce the copyrights. But I only ask this, in no sense order it. It would be a good thing to do it. It would be good for you also. But if you do not wish to do it, that is your business. It means that you are not ready to do it. That my books for the last ten years have been sold was to me the most painful thing in my life.

(5). There is one more request, and it is the most important. I ask all, relations and strangers alike, not to praise me (I know that this must happen, because it has happened during my life time and in the worst way possible). Also if people are going to occupy themselves with my writings, let them dwell upon those pa.s.sages in which I knew that the Divine power spoke through me; and let them make use of them in their lives. There were times when I felt that I had become the agent of the Divine will. Often I was so impure, so filled with personal pa.s.sions, that the light of this truth was obscured by my darkness; but at times the truth pa.s.sed through me, and these were the happiest moments of my life. G.o.d grant that their pa.s.sage through me did not profane those truths, and that people, notwithstanding the petty and impure character which they received from me, may feed on them. The value of my writings lies in this alone. And therefore I am to be blamed for them, but not praised.

That is all.

L. N. T.