A few years later Tolstoy associated much with the representatives of various sects and faiths, being then profoundly interested in their beliefs; but at this time, his interest in such matters was only beginning to make itself felt.
A letter of Tourgénef's written at this period, indicates how little he allowed his quarrel with Tolstoy the man, to warp his appreciation of Tolstoy the artist. Writing to Fet on 2nd July 1871, he says:
Your letter again grieves me—I refer to what you write about L. Tolstoy. I have great fears on his account, for two of his brothers died of consumption, and I am very glad he is taking a koumýs cure, in the reality and efficacy of which I have faith. L. Tolstoy is the only hope of our orphaned literature; he cannot and must not vanish from the face of the earth as prematurely as his predecessors: Poúshkin, Lérmontof and Gógol.
Again in November, writing from Paris, he says:
I am very glad that Tolstoy's health is now satisfactory and that he is at work. Whatever he does will be good, if only he does not himself mutilate his own handiwork. Philosophy, which he hates, has revenged herself on him in a strange way: she has infected him, and the enemy of rationalising has plunged head over ears into rationalisation! But perhaps all that has fallen away from him by now, and left only the pure and powerful artist.
On returning home from Samára improved in health, Tolstoy turned his thoughts once more to matters educational: especially to the crying want of good primers for those beginning to read. We have seen how strongly, in 1862, he had felt the need of well-written books simple enough for beginners and peasant readers, and how he resented the monopolisation of knowledge by the cultured classes entrenched behind barriers of pedantry. We have seen, too, how under the influence of Homer he swore he would no more write 'wordy rubbish'; and the time had now come for this feeling to bear fruit. The task to which he devoted his powers at their zenith, was the production of an ABC Book for beginners, which was to be as simple, sincere and perfect in form and in subject-matter as possible.
We know from the writings of the American Consul, Mr. Eugene Schuyler, who visited Tolstoy in 1868, and at his request obtained for him a collection of American school primers, that Tolstoy was even then meditating a work of the kind to which he now devoted himself ardently for a whole year. By September he was hard at work, the Countess as usual acting as his amanuensis.
Of her we hear that in an impulsive, kind-hearted way, she often rendered assistance to the poor, not merely among the Yásnaya Polyána peasants, but to others from a distance as well; and that the neighbouring peasants thought well of her.
The increase in the Tolstoy family was met this year by a considerable enlargement of their domicile. By way of a house-warming to celebrate the completion of the building, a masquerade was arranged at Christmas, at which Tolstoy evoked great enthusiasm by appearing as a goat.
About this time, at the age of sixteen, Behrs and a school friend of his became sorely troubled as to the state of their souls, and thought of entering a monastery. This is what he tells us of Tolstoy's relation to the matter:
His attitude towards my inclination was a most cautious one. I often went to him with my doubts and questions, but he always managed to avoid expressing his opinion, knowing how very great an influence it would have with me. He left it to me to work out my own convictions. Once, however, he spoke out with sufficient plainness. We were riding past the village church where his parents lie buried. Two horses were grazing in the churchyard. We had been talking over the only subject that then interested me.
'How can a man live in peace,' I asked, 'so long as he has not solved the question of a future life?'
'You see those two horses grazing there,' he answered; 'are they not laying up for a future life?'
'But I am speaking of our spiritual, not our earthly life.'
'Indeed? Well, about that, I neither know nor can know anything.'
Immediately after New Year he re-started his school; and the children (who often numbered thirty to thirty-five) met, not as formerly in another building, but in the hall of the Tolstoys' enlarged house. In the mornings the Countess taught her own children, and in the afternoon she, her husband, and even seven-year-old Tánya and eight-year-old Sergius, taught the peasant children, who came only then, but yet made satisfactory progress, being stimulated by the personal interest the Tolstoys took in them, by the pedagogic genius of the Count, and by a perception that education is a rare and valuable luxury, which seldom comes within the reach of Russian peasants.
In the ABC Book Tolstoy gives several autobiographical stories of how he learned to ride, and of his dogs Milton and Boúlka. Easy as these are, they are admirably written, and combine brevity and simplicity with sincerity; though their sincerity lies not in telling the facts just as they occurred, but in the truth of the feeling conveyed to the reader. Besides these and other stories, popular historical sketches, and a number of translations and adaptations from Esop's Fables and from Indian, Hebrew and Arabic sources, the work contains some popular ballads or folk-stories in verse. To get these poems as perfect as possible, he studied and collated all the versions of them he could collect.
The section on Arithmetic gave him an immense amount of work, for he would not content himself with the usual explanations of the various operations, but devised explanations of his own.
The book contains some elementary natural science, and for the preparation of this, Tolstoy, besides examining all sorts of text-books, consulted specialists on the various subjects, and himself carefully performed most of the experiments he described.
To select the readings in the Church-Slavonic language, he perused the monkish chronicles and the Lives of the Saints.
Intending to include some readings on astronomy, he took up that study himself, and became so interested in it that he sometimes sat up all night examining the stars.
When the news spread that Tolstoy was writing stories for his ABC Book, the magazine editors besieged him with demands, and the first bits of the book to see the light were A Prisoner in the Caucasus, which appeared in one of the monthlies in February, and God Sees the Truth, which came out in another monthly in March.
Owing to some mismanagement, Tolstoy received nothing for the periodical rights of either of these stories, which in What is Art? he names as the best of all his works. They (as well as The Bear Hunt, also from the ABC Book) are given in English in Twenty-three Tales, previously referred to. In rendering them, I did my best to retain the brief simplicity of the originals; but where Russian customs were alluded to, some of that simplicity was inevitably lost.
With what pleasure Tolstoy looks back to this part of his life's work, was indicated by a remark he made to me in 1902. Speaking of the popularity of A Prisoner in the Caucasus for public readings to the peasants, he added with evident satisfaction, that when A Prisoner in the Caucasus is now mentioned, it is always taken for granted that it is his little story, and not Poúshkin's famous poem of the same name, that is referred to.
Since their first appearance, these two stories have sold by hundreds of thousands in separate editions at three to ten copecks (about a penny or twopence) each, besides appearing in the Readers and among Tolstoy's collected works.
In the following letter to Fet we get a vivid glimpse of the thoughts on life's deepest problems, which were before long to fill Tolstoy's mind completely.
30 Jan. 1872.
It is some days since I received your kind but sad letter, and not till to-day do I settle down to answer it.
It is a sad letter, for you write that Tútchef is dying, and that there is a rumour that Tourgénef is dead; and about yourself you say the machine is wearing out and you want quietly to think of Nirvana. Please let me know quickly whether this is a false alarm. I hope it is, and that, in the absence of Márya Petróvna, you have taken slight symptoms for a return of your terrible illness.
In Nirvana there is nothing to laugh at; still less is there cause for anger. We all (I, at least) feel that it is much more interesting than life; but I agree that however much I may think about it, I can think of nothing else than that Nirvana is nothingness. I only stand up for one thing: religious reverence—awe of that Nirvana.
There is, at any rate, nothing more important than it.
What do I mean by religious reverence? I mean this: I lately went to see my brother, and a child of his had died and was being buried. The priests were there, and a small pink coffin, and everything as it should be. My brother and I involuntarily confessed to one another that we felt something like repulsion towards ceremonial rites. But afterwards I thought, 'Well, but what should my brother do to remove the putrefying body of the child from the house? How is one to finish the matter decently?' There is no better way (at least, I could devise none) than to do it with a requiem and incense. How is it to be when we grow weak and die? Is nature to take her course, are we to ... and nothing else? That would not be well. One wishes fully to express the gravity and importance, the solemnity and religious awe of that occurrence, the most important in every man's life. And I also can devise nothing more seemly for people of all ages and all degrees of development, than a religious observance. For me at least those Slavonic words evoke quite the same metaphysical ecstasy as one experiences when one thinks of Nirvana. Religion is wonderful, in that she has for so many ages rendered to so many millions of people these same services—the greatest anything human can render in this matter. With such a task, how can she be logical? Yes—there is something in her. Only to you do I allow myself to write such letters; but I wished to write, and I feel sad, especially after your letter. Please write soon about your health.—Your
Leo Tolstoy.
I am terribly dispirited. The work I have begun is fearfully hard, there is no end to the preparatory study necessary. The plan of the work is ever increasing, and my strength, I feel, grows less and less. One day I am well, and three days I am ill.
The work here referred to as 'fearfully hard' was a study of the reign of Peter the Great, in preparation for a novel treating of that period.
On 20th February he again wrote to Fet:
I may not correspond with my friends for years at a time, but when my friend is in trouble, it is terribly shameful and painful not to know of it.... Now, being in Moscow, I wished to call on the Bótkins to hear about you, but I fell ill myself, took to my bed, and it was all I could do to get home. Now I am better. At home all is well; but you will not recognise our house: we have been using the new extension all winter. Another novelty is that I have again started a school. My wife and children and I all teach and are all contented. I have finished my ABC Book and am printing it....
The next letter shows that his hope that he had finished the ABC Book was premature:
16 March 1872.
How I wish to see you; but I cannot come, I am still ill.... My ABC Book gives me no peace for any other occupation. The printing advances on the feet of a tortoise, and the deuce knows when it will be finished, and I am still adding and omitting and altering. What will come of it I know not; but I have put my whole soul into it.
In May 1872 the Countess gave birth to another boy, who was christened Peter.
The Moscow firm who were printing the book for Tolstoy were not able to give him satisfaction. Not only was the printing a matter of difficulty owing to the variety of type required for a school-book of this kind, but Tolstoy, in accord with his invariable practice, revised the work time after time while it was going through the press. At last, in May, he wrote to his trusty friend and admirer, N. Stráhof, saying that after four months' labour the printing was 'not only not finished, but had not even begun,' and begging Stráhof to have the book printed in Petersburg, and to take on himself for ample payment the whole task of revising the proofs. After some correspondence matters were arranged, though Stráhof declined to accept any payment for the help he rendered.
Tolstoy explained to his friend that he wanted to make a profit on the book if possible. As a rule, all Tolstoy's later teaching seems to grow out of his experience of life; but it would be hard for any one to work more conscientiously than Tolstoy laboured over this book, and yet in later life he speaks as though any admixture of mercenary motives is sure to be fatal to good literary work. We here seem, therefore, to come upon an exception to that rule.
Stráhof's assistance enabled Tolstoy (though he continued to give most careful instructions with regard to the treatment of the various sections of the book) to get a much needed change; and after having as usual worked during the winter and spring up to the very limit of his strength, he went for a short visit to his Samára estate, where he arranged about building, and about breaking up the virgin soil. A peasant from Yásnaya village was appointed steward of the new estate, and was instructed to see to the building of the house there. Being far away from home Tolstoy was anxious about his ABC Book; so he cut short his stay, and returned to Yásnaya before the end of July. There he learned that a fine young bull of his had gored its keeper to death. The unpleasantness of such an occurrence and of the legal investigation consequent on the man's death, was greatly increased by the fact that the Investigating Magistrate, an incompetent and arrogant young official, wrongly held Tolstoy responsible for 'careless holding of cattle,' and, besides commencing criminal proceedings against him, obliged him to give a written undertaking not to leave Yásnaya. Prince D. D. Obolénsky tells how Tolstoy arrived one day at a meet at the Prince's estate of Schahovskóy (some thirty miles from Yásnaya) late and much upset, and told of an examination he had that morning undergone at the hands of the Investigating Magistrate, whose duties included those of Coroner. 'Being an excit able man,' says Obolénsky, 'Tolstoy was extremely indignant at the Magistrate's conduct, and told how the latter had kept a Yásno-Polyána peasant in prison for a year-and-a-half on suspicion of having stolen a cow, which then turned out to have been stolen by some one else. "He will confine me for a year," added Tolstoy. "It is absurd, and shows how utterly arbitrary these gentlemen are. I shall sell all I have in Russia and go to England, where every man's person is respected. Here every police-officer, if one does not grovel at his feet, can play one the dirtiest tricks!"'
P. F. Samárin, who had also come to the hunt, opposed Tolstoy with animation, arguing that the death or even the mutilation of a man, was so serious a matter that it could not be left without judicial investigation. After long argument Samárin more or less convinced Tolstoy, and the latter before retiring to rest remarked to Obolénsky, 'What a wonderful power of calming people Samárin has!'
The judicial proceedings dragged on for more than a month, and it was not till late in September that Tolstoy was again free to take a journey to Moscow. The proceedings, first against him and then against his steward, were abandoned; but not before the newspapers had taken the matter up and made a fuss about it.
At last, in November, the ABC Book was published. It sold slowly, and was attacked by some of the papers. Tolstoy however was not discouraged, but held to his belief that (as he expressed it to Stráhof) he had 'erected a monument'—a conviction amply justified by the ultimate success of the work. He had indeed produced a reading-book far superior to anything that had previously existed in Russia, and that is probably unmatched in any language. With certain modifications to be mentioned later on, it continues to circulate throughout Russia to the present day.
In connection with his other efforts to popularise his system of instruction, Tolstoy, in October 1872, invited a dozen teachers from neighbouring schools to visit him for a week at Yásnaya. They were accommodated in his second house (called, as is customary in Russian when speaking of a subsidiary residence, 'the wing'); and a number of illiterate boys were collected from villages within reach, to be taught on Tolstoy's lines. He also formed a project of establishing a 'University in bark shoes' [the country peasants wear bark shoes] or in other words, a training college in which peasants could become teachers without ceasing to be peasants. This plan occupied his attention, off and on, for some years; but (owing to causes which will be related later) never came to fruition.
In December Tourgénef writes from Paris, to Fet:
I got a copy of L. Tolstoy's ABC, but except the beautiful story, A Prisoner in the Caucasus, I did not find anything interesting in it. And the price is absurdly dear for a work of that kind.
The price of the first edition of 3000 copies of the ABC was Rs. 2 (about 5s. 6d.). Tourgénef probably had no idea of the immense labour, or of the typographical difficulties, involved in its production. The subsequent editions were much cheaper.
About this time Fet sent Tolstoy a letter in rhyme, to which the latter replied as follows:
12 November 1872.
Joking apart, write quickly and let me know when to send horses to the station to meet you. I want to see you terribly.
Having at last got his ABC off his hands, Tolstoy resumed his preliminary labours for a large novel, which was to deal with the period of Peter the Great. On 19th November 1872 the Countess wrote to her brother:
Our life just now is very, very serious. All day we are occupied. Leo sits surrounded by a pile of portraits, pictures and books, engrossed in reading, marking passages and taking notes. In the evening, when the children have gone to bed, he tells me his plans, and what he means to write. At times he is quite discouraged, falls into despair, and thinks nothing will ever come of it. At other times he is on the point of setting ardently to work; but as yet I cannot say he has actually written anything, he is still preparing.
A month later she wrote:
As usual we are all of us very busy. The winter is the working time for us proprietors, just as much as summer is for the peasants. Leo is still reading historical books of the time of Peter the Great, and is much interested in them. He notes down the characters of various people, their traits, as well as the way of life of the boyars and the peasants, and Peter's activity. He does not yet know what will come of it all, but it seems to me we shall have another prose poem like War and Peace; but of the time of Peter the Great.
A few months later he definitely abandoned the project. His opinion of Peter the Great ran directly counter to the popular one, and he felt out of sympathy with the whole epoch. He declared there was nothing great about the personality or activity of Peter, whose qualities were all bad. His so-called reforms, far from aiming at the welfare of the people, aimed simply at his own personal advantage. He founded Petersburg because the boyars, who were influential and consequently dangerous to him, disapproved of the changes he made, and because he wished to be free to follow an immoral mode of life. The changes and reforms he introduced were borrowed from Saxony, where the laws were most cruel, and the morals most dissolute—all of which particularly pleased him. This, Tolstoy holds, explains Peter's friendship with the Elector of Saxony, who was among the most immoral of rulers. He also considers that Peter's intimacy with the pieman Ménshikof and with the Swiss deserter Lefort, is explained by the contempt in which Peter was held by all the boyars, among whom he could not find men willing to share his dissolute life. Most of all, Tolstoy was revolted by the murder of Peter's son Alexis, in which crime Tolstoy's own ancestor had played a very prominent part.
Almost simultaneously with the abandonment of the project to which he had devoted so much time and attention, Tolstoy, without any special preparation, began to write his second great novel, Anna Karénina.
The year before, a lady named Anna who lived with Bíbikof, a neighbouring squire mentioned on a previous page, had committed suicide by throwing herself under a train, out of jealousy of Bíbikof's attentions to their governess. Tolstoy knew all the details of the affair, and had been present at the post-mortem. This supplied him with a theme; but it was not till March 1873, and then as it were by accident, that he actually began to write the book. One day a volume of Poúshkin happened to be lying open at the commencement of A Fragment, which begins with the words, 'The guests had arrived at the country house.' Tolstoy, noticing this, remarked to those present that these words, plunging at once into the midst of things, are a model of how a story should begin. Some one then laughingly suggested that he should begin a novel in that way; and Tolstoy at once started on Anna Karénina, the second sentence, and first narrative sentence, of which is, 'All was in confusion in the Oblónskys' house.'
In May Tolstoy and his whole family went for a three months' visit to Samára, where he had recently purchased some more land.
This summer he hired a Bashkír named Mouhamed Shah, who owned and brought with him a herd of milking mares. This Mouhamed Shah, or Románovitch as he was called in Russian, was polite, punctual, and dignified. He had a workman to drive the herd, and a wife (who retired behind a curtain in his kotchévka when visitors came to see him) to wait upon him. In subsequent years this worthy man repeatedly resumed his engagement with the Tolstoys.
This was the first year the whole estate had been ploughed up and sown. It was fortunate for the district that some one who had the ear of the public, happened to be there; for the crops in the whole neighbourhood failed utterly, and a famine ensued. So out-of-the-world were the people and so cut off from civilisation, that they might have suffered and died without the rest of Russia hearing anything about it, had not Tolstoy been at hand to make their plight known in good time by an appeal for help, which the Countess prompted him to draw up, and which appeared on 17th August, in Katkóf's paper, the Moscow Gazette.
In this article on the Samára Famine, Tolstoy describes how the complete failure of the harvest, following as it did on two previous poor harvests, had brought nearly nine-tenths of the population to destitution and hunger.
To ascertain the real state of things Tolstoy took an inventory at every tenth house in the village of Gavrílovka—the one nearest his estate; and of the twenty-three families so examined, all but one were found to be in debt, and none of them knew how they were to get through the winter. Most of the men had left home to look for work, but the harvest being bad everywhere, and so many people being in search of work, the price of labour had fallen to one-eighth of what it had previously been.
Tolstoy visited several villages and found a similar state of things everywhere. Together with his article, he sent Rs. 100 (then equal to about £14) as a first subscription to a Famine Fund. This was only a small part of what he spent in relief of the impoverished peasants, for when Prougávin (well known for his valuable descriptions of Russian sects) visited the district in 1881, many of the inhabitants spoke to him of Tolstoy's personal kindness to the afflicted, and of his gifts of corn and money during the famine.
The subscription proved a success. Tolstoy's aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy (who had charge of the education of Marie Alexándrovna, subsequently Duchess of Edinburgh), mentioned the matter to the Empress, who was one of the first to contribute. Her example was largely followed, and altogether, in money and in kind, something like Rs. 2,000,000, or about £270,000, was contributed during 1873-4. Within a year or two, good harvests again completely changed the whole appearance of the district.
This was the first, but neither the last nor the worst, of the famines in which Tolstoy rendered help.
Before the end of August 1873 he was back at Yásnaya, and wrote to Fet:
On the 22nd we arrived safely from Samára.... In spite of the drought, the losses and the inconvenience, we all, even my wife, are satisfied with our visit, and yet more satisfied to be back in the old frame of our life; and we are now taking up our respective labours....
A month later he writes again, referring to Kramskóy's portrait of himself, a photogravure of which forms the frontispiece of this volume, and shows the blouse which even in those days, before his Conversion, he wore when at home, instead of a tailor-made coat:
25 September 1873.
I am beginning to write.... The children are learning; my wife is busy and teaches. Every day for a week Kramskóy has been painting my portrait for Tretyakóf's Gallery, and I sit and chat with him, and try to convert him from the Petersburg faith to the faith of the baptized. I agreed to this, because Kramskóy came personally, and offered to paint a second portrait for us very cheaply, and because my wife persuaded me.
Up to this time Tolstoy, sensitive about his personal appearance, and instinctively disliking any personal advertisement, had always had an objection to having his portrait painted; and if he ever allowed himself to be photographed, was careful to have the negative destroyed that copies might not be multiplied. This prejudice he abandoned in later life; and after Kramskóy had broken the ice, portraits and photographs of Tolstoy became more and more common.
Kramskóy's acquaintance with the Tolstoys came about in this way. He was commissioned to paint a portrait of the great novelist, for the collection of famous Russians in Tretyakóf's picture gallery in Moscow; but sought in vain in that town for his photograph, and was too modest to ask Tolstoy (who, he knew, was living a secluded life at Yásnaya) to give him sittings. He therefore hired a dátcha, some three miles from Yásnaya, with the intention of painting Tolstoy, who often rode past on horseback. His intention, however, became known, and the Tolstoys at once sent him a friendly invitation to visit them. Of the two very similar portraits of Tolstoy which Kramskóy painted, one has remained at Yásnaya.
Before Tolstoy's next letter to Fet, the angel of death had crossed the threshold of his house for the first time in his married life. On 11th November he wrote:
We are in trouble: Peter, our youngest, fell ill with croup and died in two days. It is the first death in our family in eleven years, and my wife feels it very deeply. One may console oneself by saying that if one had to choose one of our eight, this loss is lighter than any other would have been; but the heart, especially the mother's heart—that wonderful and highest manifestation of Divinity on earth—does not reason, and my wife grieves.
During the whole of 1874 Tolstoy made strenuous efforts to get his system of education more generally adopted. On 15th January, overcoming his dislike of speaking in public, he addressed the Moscow Society of Literacy on the subject of the best way to teach children to read. The details of his argument need not here detain us, as it will fall to the lot of few of my readers to teach Russian children to read Russian; but briefly, the German Lautiermethode had been adopted by Russian pedagogues in a way that Tolstoy considered arbitrary and pedantic, and his appeal, which in the main has not carried conviction to the educationalists, was against that method.
The large hall in which the meeting took place was crowded. The President of the Society, Mr. Shatílof, invited Tolstoy to open the debate, but Tolstoy preferred to reply to what questions and remarks the other speakers might put. In the course of the animated proceedings, in which several men well known in the Russian educational world took part, the discussion widened out till it covered the question of the whole direction of elementary education; and Tolstoy, from the standpoint of his belief that it is harmful to force upon the people a culture they do not demand and are not prepared for—and much of which, though considered by us to be science, may yet turn out to be no better than the alchemy and astrology of the Middle Ages—denounced the education forced upon the children in elementary schools, and declared that this should be confined in the first place to teaching the Russian language and arithmetic, leaving natural science and history alone. To prove the advantage of his way of teaching reading, Tolstoy offered to give a practical demonstration in one of the schools attached to some of the Moscow mills. Accordingly it was arranged that this should take place the next day and the day after, at the mills owned by Mr. Ganéshin, on the Devítche Pólye just outside Moscow. On the morrow Tolstoy was unwell, and did not appear; but he gave his demonstration on the evening of the following day, with the result that, on the suggestion of Mr. Shatílof, the Society of Literacy decided to start two temporary schools for the express purpose of testing the rival methods during a period of seven weeks. The one school was taught by Mr. M. E. Protopópof, an expert in the Lautiermethode, while in the other school Tolstoy's method was taught by Mr. P. V. Morózof. After seven weeks the children were examined by a Committee, which had to report to the Society at a meeting held on 13th April. The members of the Committee however could not agree, and handed in separate and contradictory reports. At the meeting of the Society there was again a great divergence of opinion; and Tolstoy, who considered that the test had not been made under proper conditions (most of the pupils being too young, and the continual presence of visitors preventing the teacher from holding the children's attention), but that nevertheless his method had shown its superiority, decided to appeal to a wider public, and did so in the form of a letter addressed to Mr. Shatílof.
A full account of what happened from the time the dispute passed into the press, has been given by that powerful and popular critic and essayest, N. K. Mihaylóvsky, who was at this time a colleague of Nekrásof. In 1866 the Contemporary had been prohibited, as a punishment for its too Liberal tendencies. In 1868 Nekrásof and Saltykóf (Stchedrín) had taken over the management of the Fatherland Journal. Tolstoy, who had long dropped out of touch with Nekrásof, now addressed to him a request that the Fatherland Journal should take a hand in his fight with the pedagogic specialists, and should interest a wider public in his educational reforms. As an inducement, he held out a prospect (never fulfilled) that he would contribute some of his works of fiction to their magazine. The outcome of his correspondence with Nekrásof was, that though the whole question of elementary education was somewhat foreign to a literary magazine such as the Fatherland Journal, a long article by Tolstoy (his letter to Shatílof) appeared in the September number, under the title of On the Education of the People.
Tolstoy's educational articles in 1862, when he issued them in his own magazine, had fallen quite flat and attracted no attention, but this article, by the author of War and Peace, in a leading Petersburg magazine, though expressing very similar views, received very much attention, and was criticised, favourably or adversely, in a large number of other publications. Though his views were only adopted to a small extent, yet the severe shock which he administered to the professional pedagogues who looked on school-children as 'a flock existing for the sake of its shepherds,' had a most healthy influence, and that it did not pass without some immediate practical effect is indicated by the rejection from the Moscow Teachers' Seminary of one of the text-books Tolstoy attacked most fiercely.
Following on the storm raised in the press by Tolstoy's article, Mihaylóvsky, in the Fatherland Journal for January 1875, published a long article entitled An Outsider's Notes, in which he took Tolstoy's part against the pedagogues, and said: 'Though I am one of the profane in philosophy and pedagogics, and am writing simply a feuilleton, I nevertheless advise my readers to peruse this feuilleton with great attention, not for my sake, but for Tolstoy's, and for the sake of those fine shades of thought on which I do but comment.'
Before this, however, Tolstoy had made another attempt to improve the state of elementary education, by promoting the establishment of that 'University in bark shoes' to which I have already alluded.
He had found some of the boys in the Yásno-Polyána school anxious to continue their studies after finishing the school course; and an experiment in teaching these lads algebra had been highly successful.
In his last article on Education, Tolstoy had pointed out that a great obstacle to the spread of efficient elementary instruction lay in the fact that the peasants could not afford the salaries (extremely modest as these sound to Western ears) demanded by Russian teachers of the non-peasant classes. It was therefore quite natural that he should now devise a scheme for preparing teachers from among the peasants themselves; and he drew up a project for a training college to be established at Yásnaya, under his own direction and control.
In the summer of this year Tolstoy paid a brief visit to his Samára estate to look after its management; and he took his son Sergius with him.
On 20th November 1874 the Countess wrote to her brother:
Our usual serious winter work is now in full swing. Leo is quite taken up with popular education, schools, and colleges for teachers, where teachers for the peasants' schools are to be trained. All this keeps him busy from morning till night. I have my doubts about all this. I am sorry his strength should be spent on these things instead of on writing a novel; and I don't know in how far it will be of use, since all this activity will extend only to one small corner of Russia.
P. F. Samárin, the Marshal of the Nobility of Toúla Government, backed Tolstoy cordially, and pointed out that the Zémstvo (County Council) had a sum of Rs. 30,000 available for educational purposes, and that this might be devoted to starting a teachers' Training College. To attain this end Tolstoy, who heretofore had always refused to stand for election, consented to enter the Zémstvo, and after being returned to that body, was unanimously chosen to serve on its Education Committee.
He presented a report in the sense indicated above, which was at first favourably discussed; but unfortunately one of the oldest members rose, and alluding to the fact that a collection was being made all over Russia for a monument to Catherine the Great, and that it was the centenary of the decree by which she had created the Government of Toúla, proposed that the money should be devoted to the monument of their Benefactress. This loyal sentiment met with approval, and though Tolstoy did not at once abandon his plan, the means to carry it out were never forthcoming, and we do not hear much more of it.
If one did not know how stupidly reactionary the governing classes of Russia were at this period, it would seem extraordinary that the central and the local authorities alike should have so constantly balked and hindered Tolstoy's disinterested projects: forbidding the publication of his newspaper for soldiers, mutilating his stories, sending gendarmes to search his schools, looking askance at his school magazine, and defeating his project for a Training College. Can it be wondered at, that he came more and more to identify Government with all that is most opposed to enlightenment? We know that similar causes were, at that very time, driving men and women of a younger generation to undertake dangerous propaganda work, in more or less definite opposition to the existing order of society, among factory workmen and country peasants.
His devotion to educational matters did not entirely supersede, though no doubt it delayed, his activity as a novelist. In the spring of 1874 he had taken the commencement of Anna Karénina to Moscow, but for some reason none of it appeared that year.
Tourgénef, in collaboration with Madame Viardot, was at this time translating some of Tolstoy's best stories into French. Writing to Fet in March 1874, he says:
The season is now almost over, but all the same I will try to place his [Tolstoy's] Three Deaths in the Revue des Deux Mondes or in the Temps, and in autumn I will without fail get out The Cossacks. The more often I read that story, the more convinced I am that it is the chef d'œuvre of Tolstoy and of all Russian narrative literature.
Meanwhile life and death pursued their course. In April a son was born and christened Nicholas; and before long, death, having a few months previously taken the youngest, returned to claim the oldest members of the household. The first of them to go was his dearly-loved Aunty Tatiána Alexándrovna, to whose good influence through life he owed so much. She died on 20th June, and next year his other aunt followed her.
Tolstoy never refers to his aunt Tatiána without letting us see how he cherishes her memory. Here for instance are one or two of his notes relating to her:
When already beginning to grow feeble, having waited her opportunity, one day when I was in her room she said to us, turning away (I saw that she was ready to cry), 'Look here, mes chers amis, my room is a good one and you will want it. If I die in it,' and her voice trembled, 'the recollection will be unpleasant to you; so move me somewhere else, that I may not die here.' Such she always was, from my earliest childhood, before I was able to understand her goodness.
Again referring to her death, and to the love for his father which had played so large a part in her life, he adds:
She died peacefully, gradually falling asleep; and died as she desired, not in the room that had been hers, lest it should be spoilt for us.
She died recognising hardly any one. But me she always recognised, smiling and brightening up as an electric lamp does when one touches the knob, and sometimes she moved her lips trying to pronounce the name Nicholas: thus in death completely and inseparably uniting me with him she had loved all her life.
The opinion the peasants had of her, was shown by the fact that when her coffin was carried through the village, there was not one hut out of the sixty in Yásnaya Polyána, from which the people did not come out asking to have the procession stopped and a requiem sung for her soul. 'She was a kind lady and did nobody any harm,' said they. Tolstoy adds:
On that account they loved her, and loved her very much. Lao-Tsze says things are valuable for what is not in them. So it is with a life. It is most valuable if there is nothing bad in it; and in the life of Tatiána Alexándrovna there was nothing bad.
Except in the case of his brother Nicholas, Tolstoy has usually not been greatly upset even by the deaths of those near and dear to him. The following letter to Fet shows how he took Tatiána's death:
24 June 1874.
Two days ago we buried Aunt Tatiána Alexándrovna. She died slowly and gradually, and I had grown accustomed to the process; yet her death was, as the death of a near and dear one always is, a quite new, isolated and unexpectedly-stirring event. The others are well, and our house is full. The delightful heat, the bathing and the fruit have brought me to the state of mental laziness I love, with only enough mental life remaining to enable me to remember my friends and think of them.
The next letter, dated the 22nd October, tells its own tale:
Dear Afanásy Afanásyevitch,—I have planned to buy, and must buy, some land at Nikólsky, and for that purpose must borrow Rs. 10,000 for one year on mortgage. It may be that you have money you want to place. If so, write to Iván Ivánovitch Orlóf, Nikólsky village, and he will arrange the affair with you independently of our relations to one another.... How gladly would I come to see you, were I not so overwhelmed with the school, family and estate business, that I have not even time to go out shooting.... I hope to be free when winter comes.
A small second edition of Tolstoy's ABC Book, in twelve paper-bound parts, was printed this year; but he did not yet feel quite satisfied with that work, and towards the close of the year he revised it, abbreviating, omitting the arithmetic, and introducing graduated reading exercises. As soon as the pupil has mastered a few of the most necessary letters and can put these together, Tolstoy contrives out of the very simplest syllables to construct sentences that have a meaning and an interest. The New ABC Book, apart from the more advanced Readers, and consisting of ninety-two pages of elementary matter, was issued in 1875, at the low price of 14 copecks (about 4d.). Since Tolstoy's efforts have seldom been favoured by the Government, it is worth noting that this edition was 'Approved and recommended by the Scholarly Committee of the Ministry of Popular Education.' Between one and two million copies of it have since been sold. The reading matter from his first ABC Book was subsequently graded into four cheap Readers costing 3d. to 4d. each, and though not honoured by the Ministry of Education, they have from that time to this circulated in increasing quantities, being printed of late years in edition after edition of 50,000 at a time.
The Countess has in general enjoyed good health and worn her years and the cares of her large family very lightly; but during the winter of 1874-5 her condition gave her husband much concern. In January he was able to write to Fet: 'I have ceased to fear for my wife's health'; but in fact for some time longer she continued to be ailing.
The commencement of Anna Karénina, appeared in the first four monthly numbers of the Russian Messenger for 1875.
By far the best English version of that novel (as also of War and Peace) is Mrs. Constance Garnett's, though I do not like her alteration of the title of the book to Anna Karénin, nor am I quite satisfied with her treatment of some of the conversations in it; but unquestionably we have much to thank her for.
In February the baby, Nicholas, died of inflammation of the brain, and on 4th March 1875[53] Tolstoy wrote to Fet:
We have one grief after another; you and Márya Petróvna will certainly be sorry for us, especially for Sónya. Our youngest son, ten months old, fell ill three weeks ago with the dreadful illness called 'water on the brain,' and after three weeks' terrible torture died three days ago, and we have buried him to-day. I feel it hard through my wife; but for her, who was nursing him herself, it is very hard.
In the same letter he mentions Anna Karénina, and immediately afterwards he makes an allusion to the first idea of his Confession, which was not actually written till 1879:
It pleases me very much that you praise Karénina and I hear that she gets praised; but assuredly never was writer so indifferent to his success as I am!
On the one hand what preoccupies me are the school affairs, and on the other, strange to say, the subject of a new work, which took possession of me just at the worst time of the boy's illness,—and that illness itself and death....
From Tourgénef I have received the translation, printed in the Temps, of my Two Hussars, and a letter written in the third person asking to be informed that I have received it, and saying that other stories are being translated by Madame Viardot and Tourgénef,—both of which were unnecessary. [Tolstoy means that they need neither have sent him the translation, nor informed him of what they were doing.]
The commencement of Anna Karénina did not find favour with Tourgénef, who on 14th March wrote from Paris to A. S. Souvórin, the novelist and proprietor of the Nóvoye Vrémya (New Times):
His [Tolstoy's] talent is quite extraordinary, but in Anna Karénina he, as one says here, a fait fausse route; one feels the influence of Moscow, Slavophil nobility, Orthodox old maids, his own isolation, and the absence of real artistic freedom. Part II is simply dull and shallow—that's what's the matter.
And writing in similar strains to Polónsky the poet, Tourgénef said:
Anna Karénina does not please me, though there are some truly splendid pages (the steeplechase, the mowing, and the hunt). But it is all sour: smells of Moscow, holy oil, old maidishness, Slavophilism, and the aristocracy, etc.
The cordiality of Tourgénef's appreciation of Tolstoy's writings in general, is sufficient guarantee that it was no personal prejudice that led him to speak in this way of a book which is one of Tolstoy's three most important novels, and which many people hold to be the best of them all. What really caused his harsh judgment, is a matter I will deal with later on.
This summer the whole Tolstoy family went to the Samára estates, which had already been considerably increased by the last purchase, and which ultimately exceeded 16,000 acres. Mouhamed Shah with his herd of mares and his kotchévka—which Tolstoy called 'our saloon'—again appeared on the scene. A second kotchévka was set up for the use of the Tolstoys themselves, and was so much in favour that all the members of the family were eager to occupy it.
The novelty and the peculiarities of steppe farming interested Tolstoy, and he, as well as other members of his household, took an active part in harvesting and winnowing. How primitive were the Samára methods of agriculture may be shown by mentioning their manner of threshing. A ring of horses was formed, tied head to tail. In the centre of the ring stood a driver with a long lash, and the horses were set trotting round a corresponding circle of sheaves, out of which they trod the grain.
The virgin soil was ploughed up by five or even six pair of oxen, wearing round their necks deep-toned bells, sounding in a minor key. These things, together with the pipes of the boys who watched the herds, the sultry days, and the marvellously clear moonlit nights, had a wonderful charm for the whole party, and this charm was increased by Tolstoy's capacity to notice and direct attention to whatever was interesting or beautiful.
The whole family became interested, Behrs tells us, in their new farming, and some of them went with Tolstoy as far afield as Orenbourg to purchase cattle and horses.
He bought about a hundred Bashkír mares and crossed them with an English trotter and with horses of other breeds, hoping to obtain a good new type.
One evening his whole herd, and Mouhamed Shah's as well, were very nearly driven off by some Kirghiz nomads who were passing. The invaders were, however, pursued and driven off by two mounted Bashkír labourers.
Tolstoy declared farming in Samára to be a game of chance. It cost nearly three times as much to plough up the land, sow it, and gather in a harvest, as it did to purchase the freehold of the estate; and if during May and June there was not at least one good fall of rain, everything perished; whereas if it rained several times, the harvest yielded thirty to forty-fold.
One day, at harvest time, a poor wandering Tartar, drawing two little children in a tiny cart, came up to the balcony on which the Tolstoys were sitting, and asked to be hired as a labourer. He was allowed to set up his wigwam in a field close by, and the Tolstoy children used to go there every day to feed the little Tartars.
In the neighbouring village lived several well-to-do Russian peasants with whom Tolstoy was on very good terms. Either because they were economically independent and lived in a province where serfdom had not prevailed, or as a result of Tolstoy's tact and ability to set people at their ease, these peasants always behaved with dignity and self-respect. They shook hands when they said 'How do you do?' and seemed quite at home with the Count.
He used to notice with pleasure the good relations and complete religious toleration that existed in those parts between the Orthodox peasants and their Mohammedan neighbours; and he was also delighted that the priest at Pátrovka was on friendly terms with the Molokáns he was trying to convert.
One rainy night, after staying late at this priest's house, Tolstoy and his brother-in-law completely lost their way. It was so dark that they could not see their horses' heads. Behrs was riding an old working horse, which kept pulling to the left. Tolstoy, on hearing this, told him to let the horse follow its bent. Behrs therefore tied his reins so that they hung loose, and wrapping himself in his cloak from the drenching rain, allowed the horse to go where it liked. Carefully avoiding the ploughed land, it soon brought them out on to the road, and, curiously enough, to just the one part of it which was distinguishable from the extraordinary sameness of the rest, so that the riders knew just where they were.
The most striking event of this year's stay in Samára was a horse race, arranged by Tolstoy. Mouhamed Shah was authorised to announce to the peasants and neighbours that races would be held on the Count's estate; and invitations were sent to all likely to take part. Bashkírs and Kirghiz assembled, bringing with them tents, portable copper boilers, plenty of koumýs, and even sheep. Oural Cossacks and Russian peasants also came from the whole surrounding neighbourhood. In preparation for the race, says Behrs:
We ourselves chose a level place, measured out a huge circle three miles in circumference, marked it by running a plough round, and set up posts. Sheep and even one horse were prepared with which to regale visitors. By the appointed day some thousands of people had collected. On the wild steppe, covered with feather grass, a row of tents appeared, and soon a motley crowd enlivened it. On the conical hillocks (locally called 'cones') felt and other carpets were spread, on which the Bashkírs sat in circles, their legs tucked under them. In the centre of the circle, out of a large toursouk [a leather bottle made of an animal's leg] a young Bashkír poured koumýs, handing the cup to each of the company in turn. Their songs, and the tunes played on their pipes and reeds, sounded somewhat dreary to a European ear. Wrestling, at which the Bashkírs are particularly skilful, could be seen here and there. Thirty trained horses were entered for the chief race. The riders were boys of about ten years, who rode without saddles.
This race was for thirty-three miles, and it took exactly an hour and forty minutes; consequently it was run at the rate of three minutes a mile. Of the thirty horses, ten ran the whole distance, the others giving up. The principal prizes were a horse, an ox, a gun, a clock, and a dressing-gown. The festival lasted two days, and passed off in perfect order and very gaily. To Tolstoy's delight no police were present. The guests all politely thanked their host and departed highly satisfied. 'Even in the crowd,' says Behrs, 'it seemed to me that Leo Nikoláyevitch knew how to evoke entrain combined with respect for good order.'
Tolstoy visited the Petróvsky Fair, as was his yearly custom, and stayed at the Bouzouloúk Monastery, where a hermit resided who was 'saving his soul' by a solitary and ascetic life. This man lived in an underground catacomb. When he came out he walked about the garden and showed his visitors an apple-tree he had planted forty years before, under which it was his custom to sit when receiving pilgrims. He spoke to Tolstoy about the Scriptures, and showed him his catacomb-home, the coffin in which he slept, and the large crucifix before which he prayed.
Tolstoy considered that the respect paid to this man by pilgrims and other visitors, was the outcome of genuine religious feeling, and proved that the hermit, by giving the example of a pure, unworldly life, supplied a real want.
Readers of Tolstoy's short stories will be aware of the use to which he subsequently put his knowledge of the Bashkírs and of the hermit.
On 26th August, after reaching Yásnaya, he wrote to Fet:
Two days ago we arrived home safely....
We have had an average harvest, but the price of labour has been enormous, so that finally ends only just meet. For two months I have not soiled my hands with ink nor my heart with thoughts. Now I am settling down again to dull, common-place Anna Karénina with the sole desire to clear a space quickly, and obtain leisure for other occupations—only not for the educational work I love but wish to abandon. It takes too much time.
His Samára experiences confirmed in him the feeling that not the civilisation and progress and political struggles of the Western world and of the small Westernised section of Russians, were really important, but the great primitive struggle of plain people to obtain a subsistence in healthy natural conditions; and he adds in the same letter:
Why fate took me there [to Samára] I do not know; but I know that I have listened to speeches in the English Parliament, which is considered very important, and it seemed to me dull and insignificant; but there, are flies, dirt, and Bashkír peasants, and I, watching them with intense respect and anxiety, became absorbed in listening to them and watching them, and felt it all to be very important.
One must live as we lived, in a healthy out-of-the-way part of Samára, and see the struggle going on before one's eyes of the nomadic life (of millions of people on an immense territory) with the primitive agricultural life, in order to realise all the importance of that struggle.
After their return from the Government of Samára, all the children got hooping-cough. The Countess caught it from them, and, being in the sixth month of pregnancy, was very ill. This resulted in the premature birth of a girl, Varvára, who lived less than two hours.
Tolstoy's eldest son, Sergius, had now reached the age of twelve. Besides their English governess and a Swiss lady, the children had at different times a Swiss, a Frenchman, and a German as tutors for modern languages. Tutors and students who acted as tutors, also lodged at Yásnaya and taught other subjects. A music master came over from Toúla. The eldest boy had considerable musical talent, and the family as a whole were musical. As soon as they had mastered their finger exercises, the Count insisted on their at once being allowed to learn serious pieces.
Every effort was made to awaken and foster the talent for drawing and painting which some of the children, and especially the eldest daughter, Tatiána, possessed; but lessons in these subjects were only given to those who showed real capacity for them.
Much as Tolstoy disliked the curriculum of the Grammar Schools ('Gymnasiums,' as they are called in Russia), he did, not wish to make it impossible for his sons to enter the University, and they followed the usual classical course. Sergius passed his examinations each year in Toúla Gymnasium, being carefully coached at home.
In his Recollections Behrs tells us of Tolstoy's enlivening influence in the family:
I cannot sufficiently describe the joyous and happy frame of mind that usually reigned at Yásnaya Polyána. Its source was always Leo Nikoláyevitch. In conversation about abstract questions, about the education of children, about outside matters—his opinion was always most interesting. When playing croquet, or during our walks, he enlivened us all by his humour and his participation, taking a real part in the game or the walk.
With me, he liked to mow, or use the rake; to do gymnastics, to race, and occasionally to play leap-frog or gorodkí [a game in which a stick is thrown at some other shorter sticks placed in a pattern], etc. Though far inferior to him in strength, for he could lift 180 lbs. with one hand, I could easily match him in a race, but seldom passed him, for I was always laughing. That mood accompanied all our exercises. Whenever we happened to pass where mowers were at work, he would go up to them and borrow a scythe from the one who seemed most tired. I of course imitated his example. He would then ask me, Why we, with well-developed muscles, cannot mow six days on end, though a peasant does it on rye-bread, and sleeping on damp earth? 'You just try to do it under such conditions,' he would add in conclusion. When leaving the meadow, he would take a handful of hay from the haycock and sniff it, keenly enjoying its smell.
Children and grown-ups alike played croquet at Yásnaya. The game generally began after dinner in the evening, and only finished by candlelight. Behrs says that, having played it with Tolstoy, he considers croquet to be a game of chance. Tolstoy's commendation of a good shot always pleased the player and aroused the emulation of his opponents. The kindly irony of his comments on a miss, also acted as a spur. A simple word from him, uttered just at the right moment and in the right tone, produced that entrain which makes any occupation interesting and infects all who come under its influence.
The sincerity of Tolstoy's nature showed itself in the frank expression of his passing mood. If, when driving to the station, he saw that they had missed the train, he would exclaim, 'Ach! we've missed it!' with such intensity that every one within earshot would first feel as though a calamity had occurred, and would then join in the hearty laughter which his own vehement exclamation evoked in Tolstoy. It was the same when he made a bad miss at croquet; and also if, when sitting at home, he suddenly remembered some engagement he had forgotten to keep. If, as sometimes happened, his exclamation alarmed his wife, he would half-jokingly add, like a scolded child, 'I'll never do it again!'
His laughter, which began on a high note, had something wonderfully infectious about it. His head would hang over on one side, and his whole body would shake.
His good-natured irony constantly acted as a stimulant to those about him. If, for instance, some one was in the dumps about the weather, Tolstoy would say: 'Is your weather behaving badly?' Or when Behrs was sitting comfortably listening to a conversation, he would say to him: 'As you are on the move, you might please bring me so-and-so.'
When he felt it wise to reject an extra cigar or a second helping of some favourite dish, he would remark to those present: 'Wait till I am grown up, and then I will have two helpings,' or 'two cigars,' as the case might be.
If, says Behrs, 'he noticed any of the children making a wry or affected face, he generally called out, "Now then, no grimacing; you'll only spoil your phiz."'
Behrs also tells us that.
What he called 'the Numidian cavalry' evoked our noisiest applause. He would unexpectedly spring up from his place and, raising one arm in the air with its hand hanging quite loose from the wrist, he would run lightly through the rooms. All the children, and sometimes the grown-ups also, would follow his example with the same suddenness.
Tolstoy read aloud very well, and would often read to the family or to visitors.
His contempt for doctors and medicine is plainly indicated both in War and Peace and Anna Karénina. Like Rousseau he considered that the practice of medicine should be general and not confined to one profession; and this opinion inclined him to approve of the folk-remedies used by the peasants. But he did not go the length of refusing to call in a doctor when one of the family was seriously ill.
Before the year closed, Tolstoy's aunt, Pelagéya Ilýnishna Úshkof, with whom he had lived in his young days in Kazán, also passed away. She had been separated from her husband before his death in 1869, and had long not even seen him, though they remained quite friendly towards one another. She was very religious in an Orthodox Church way, and after her husband's death retired to the Óptin nunnery. Subsequently she moved to the Toúla nunnery, but arranged to spend much of her time at Yásnaya; where in her eightieth year she fell ill and died. She was in general a good-tempered though not clever woman, and all her life long strictly observed the ceremonies of the Church and thought that she firmly believed its teaching about redemption and resurrection; yet she was so afraid of death that on her death-bed she was reluctant to receive the eucharist, because it brought home to her mind the fact that she was dying; and as a consequence of the sufferings caused by the fear of death, she became irritable with all about her.
A servant who lived in the house at the time, tells that while at Yásnaya she used, on the first of each month, to send for a priest. As soon as he arrived, and began the usual ceremony of blessing with holy water, Tolstoy would escape and hide himself. Not till the gardener, Semyón—whom he used to send into the conservatory to reconnoitre—brought him word that the priest had gone, would Tolstoy reappear in the house.
About that time, however, his attitude towards Church ceremonies altered. His man-servant Sergéy Arboúzof (who saw only the external signs of the complex inner struggle going on in Tolstoy) tells us:
Suddenly a wonderful change came over him, of which I was a witness. In 1875 a priest, Vasíly Ivánovitch, from the Toúla Seminary, used to come to teach theology to Tolstoy's children. At first, Leo Nikoláyevitch hardly ever talked to him, but it once happened that a snow-storm obliged Vasíly Ivánovitch to stop the night at our house. The Count began a conversation with him, and they did not go to bed till daylight. They talked the whole night.
From that day Leo Nikoláyevitch became very thoughtful, and always talked with Vasíly Ivánovitch. When Lent came round, the Count got up one morning and said, 'I am going to do my devotions, and prepare to receive communion. You can go back to bed, but first tell the coachman not to get up. I will saddle Kalmýk (his favourite horse at that time) myself. Forgive me, Sergéy, if I have ever offended you!' and he went off to church.
From that day for a couple of years he always went to church, seldom missing a Sunday. The whole village was surprised, and asked, 'What has the priest told the Count, that has suddenly made him so fond of church-going?'
It used to happen that the Count would come into my hut when I was teaching my little boy religion.
'What are you teaching him?' he would ask.
And I used to say, 'To pray.'
'Ah!' said he, 'that is right. A man who does not pray to God is not a real man.'