Again, on 2nd July, after writing down reflections on suffering and death, he concludes:
How strong I seem to myself to be against all that can happen; how firm in the conviction that one must expect nothing here but death; yet a moment later I am thinking with pleasure of a saddle I have ordered, on which I shall ride dressed in a Cossack cloak, and of how I shall carry on with the Cossack girls; and I fall into despair because my left moustache is higher than my right, and for two hours I straighten it out before the looking-glass.
By August he was back again at Starogládovsk, and, full of energy, risked his life as a volunteer in expeditions against the Circassians. Having met Ilyá Tolstoy, an officer and a relation, he was introduced by him to the Commander-in-Chief, General Baryatínsky. The latter had noticed Leo Tolstoy during one of the expeditions, and on making his acquaintance complimented him on his bravery and advised him to enter the army. Ilyá Tolstoy urged the same advice, and Leo accepted it. Towards the end of October he went a tiresome but beautiful seven-days' journey to Tiflis, where he had to pass the examination qualifying him to become a Junker (Cadet). From there he wrote to his Aunt Tatiána a letter containing the first intimation of the vocation that was ultimately to make him far more famous than Baryatínsky himself:
[6]Vous rappelez-vous, bonne tante, un conseil que vous m'avez donné jadis—celui de faire des romans? Eh bien! je suis votre conseil et les occupations dont je vous parle consistent à faire de la littérature. Je ne sais si ce que j'écris paraîtra jamais dans le monde, mais c'est un travail qui m'amuse et dans lequel je persévère depuis trop longtemps pour l'abandonner.
For two months he lived in the 'German' suburb of Tiflis, paying Rs. 5 a month (at that time equal to about 16s.) for his two-roomed lodging; disturbed by no one, writing Childhood, and trying to enter the army—the main obstacle to which was that, as usual, he found himself without his birth-certificate and other documents. He seldom enjoyed good health for many consecutive months, and during his stay in Tiflis he was confined to the house for some weeks by illness. At last, on 23rd December 1851, he was able to write to his brother, Sergius, announcing that in a few days he expected to receive his appointment as Junker in the 4th battery of artillery, and that on the day he received it he would set out for Starogládovsk, and from there go on campaign, and to the best of his ability 'assist, with the aid of a cannon, in destroying the predatory and turbulent Asiatics.' He goes on to tell of hunting. He had been out nine times, and had killed two foxes and about sixty grey hares. He had also hunted wild boar and deer, but had not killed any.
In the same letter Tolstoy mentions Hádji Mourát, the hero of a tale he wrote more than fifty years later, and that has been put aside for posthumous publication. He says: 'If you wish to show off with news from the Caucasus, you may recount that a certain Hádji Mourát (the second in importance to Shámyl himself) surrendered a few days ago to the Russian Government. He was the leading dare-devil and "brave" in all Circassia, but was led to commit a mean action.'
A little later, on 6th January 1852, we find him again in Tiflis, writing to Aunt Tatiána.
[7]Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 24 Novembre et je vous y réponds le moment même (comme j'en ai pris l'habitude). Dernièrement je vous écrivais que votre lettre m'a fait pleurer et j'accusai ma maladie de cette faiblesse. J'ai eu tort. Toutes vos lettres me font depuis quelque temps le même effet. J'ai toujours été Lyóva-ryóva [Leo, Cry-baby]. Avant cette faiblesse me faisait honte, mais les larmes que je verse en pensant à vous et à votre amour pour nous, sont tellement douces que je les laisse couler, sans aucune fausse-honte. Votre lettre est trop pleine de tristesse pour qu'elle ne produise pas sur moi le même effet. C'est vous qui toujours m'avez donné des conseils et quoique malheureusement je ne les aie pas suivis quelquefois, je voudrais toute ma vie n'agir que d'après vos avis. Permettez-moi pour le moment de vous dire l'effet qu'a produit sur moi votre lettre et les idées qui me sont venues en la lisant. Si je vous parle trop franchement je sais que vous me le pardonnerez en faveur de l'amour que j'ai pour vous. En disant que c'est votre tour de nous quitter pour aller rejoindre ceux qui ne sont plus et que vous avez tant aimés, en disant que vous demandez à Dieu de mettre un terme à votre existence qui vous semble si insupportable et isolée,—pardon, chère tante, mais il me paraît qu'en disant cela vous offensez Dieu et moi et nous tous qui vous aimons tant. Vous demandez à Dieu la mort, c. à dire le plus grand malheur qui puisse m'arriver (ce n'est pas une phrase, mais Dieu m'est témoin que les deux plus grands malheurs qui puissent m'arriver ce serait votre mort ou celle de Nicolas—les deux personnes que j'aime plus que moi-même). Que resterait-il pour moi si Dieu exauçait votre prière? Pour faire plaisir à qui, voudrais-je devenir meilleur, avoir de bonnes qualités, avoir une bonne réputation dans le monde? Quand je fais des plans de bonheur pour moi, l'idée que vous partagerez et jouirez de mon bonheur m'est toujours présente. Quand je fais quelque chose de bon, je suis content de moi-même, parce que je sais que vous serez contente de moi. Quand j'agis mal, ce que je crains le plus—c'est de vous faire du chagrin. Votre amour est tout pour moi, et vous demandez à Dieu qu'il nous sépare! Je ne puis vous dire le sentiment que j'ai pour vous, la parole ne suffit pas pour vous l'exprimer et je crains que vous ne pensiez que j'exagère et cependant je pleure à chaudes larmes en vous écrivant.
In the same letter he tells of one of those remarkable 'answers to prayer,' instances of thought-transference, or (if the reader pleases) simply coincidences, which have played so great a part in the history of all religious bodies.
[8]Aujourd'hui il m'est arrivé une de ces choses qui m'auraient fait croire en Dieu, si je n'y croyais déjà fermement depuis quelque temps.
L'été à Stáry Urt tous les officiers qui y étaient ne faisaient que jouer et assez gros jeu. Comme en vivant au camp il est impossible de ne pas se voir souvent, j'ai très souvent assisté au jeu et malgré les instances qu'on me faisait j'ai tenu bon pendant un mois; mais un beau jour en plaisantant, j'ai mis un petit enjeu, j'ai perdu, j'ai recommencé, j'ai encore perdu, la chance en était mauvaise, la passion du jeu s'est reveillée et en deux jours j'ai perdu tout ce que j'avais d'argent et celui que Nicolas m'a donné (à peu près 250 r. argent) et par dessus cela encore 500 r. argent pour lequel j'ai donné une lettre de change payable au mois de Janvier 1852.
Il faut vous dire que près du camp il y a un Aoul qu'habitent les Tchitchéniens. Un jeune garçon (Tchitchénien) Sado venait au camp et jouait, mais comme il ne savait pas compter et inscrire il y avait des chenapans qui le trichaient. Je n'ai jamais voulu jouer pour cette raison contre Sado, et même je lui ai dit qu'il ne fallait pas qu'il jouât, parce qu'on le trompait et je me suis proposé de jouer pour lui par procuration. Il m'a été très reconnaissant pour ceci et m'a fait cadeau d'une bourse. Comme c'est l'usage de cette nation de se faire des cadeaux mutuels, je lui ai donné un misérable fusil que j'avais acheté pour 8 rb. Il faut vous dire que pour devenir Kounák, ce qui veut dire ami, il est d'usage de se faire des cadeaux, et puis de manger dans la maison du Kounák. Après cela, d'après l'ancien usage de ces peuples (qui n'existe presque plus que par tradition) on devient ami à la vie et à la mort, c.à d. que si je lui demande tout son argent, ou sa femme, ou ses armes, ou tout ce qu'il a de plus précieux, il doit me les donner, et moi aussi je ne dois rien lui refuser. Sado m'a engagé de venir chez lui et d'être Kounák. J'y suis allé. Après m'avoir régalé à leur manière, il m'a proposé de choisir dans sa maison tout ce que je voudrais—ses armes, son cheval ... tout. J'ai voulu choisir ce qu'il y avait de moins cher et j'ai pris une bride de cheval montée en argent, mais il m'a dit que je l'offensais et m'a obligé de prendre une sword qui vaut au moins 100 r. arg.
Son père est un homme assez riche, mais qui a son argent enterré et ne donne pas le sou à son fils. Le fils pour avoir de l'argent va voler chez l'ennemi des chevaux, des vaches; quelquefois il expose 20 fois sa vie pour voler une chose qui ne vaut pas 10 r., mais ce n'est pas par cupidité qu'il le fait, mais par genre. Le plus grand voleur est très estimé et on l'appelle 'Dzhigit,' un Brave. Tantôt Sado a 1000 r. arg., tantôt pas le sou. Après une visite chez lui, je lui ai fait cadeau de la montre d'argent de Nicolas et nous sommes devenus les plus grands amis du monde. Plusieurs fois il m'a prouvé son dévouement en s'exposant à des dangers pour moi, mais ceci pour lui n'est rien—c'est devenu une habitude et un plaisir.
Quand je suis parti de Stáry Urt et que Nicolas y est resté, Sado venait chez lui tous les jours et disait qu'il ne savait que devenir sans moi et qu'il s'ennuyait terriblement. Par une lettre je faisais connaître à Nicolas, que mon cheval étant malade, je le priais de m'en trouver un à Stáry Urt; Sado ayant appris cela n'eut rien de plus pressé que de venir chez moi et de me donner son cheval, malgré tout ce que j'ai pu faire pour refuser.
Après la bêtise que j'ai fait de jouer à Stáry Urt, je n'ai plus repris les cartes en mains, et je faisais continuellement la morale à Sado qui a la passion du jeu et quoiqu'il ne connaisse pas le jeu, a toujours un bonheur étonnant. Hier soir je me suis occupé à penser à mes affaires pécuniaires, à mes dettes; je pensais comment je ferais pour les payer. Ayant longtemps pensé à ces choses, j'ai vu que si je ne dépense pas trop d'argent, toutes mes dettes ne m'embarrasseront pas et pourront petit à petit être payées dans 2 ou 3 ans; mais les 500 rbs., que je devais payer ce mois, me mettaient au désespoir. Il m'était impossible de les payer et pour le moment ils m'embarrassaient beaucoup plus que ne l'avaient fait autrefois les 4000 d'Ogaryéff. Cette bêtise d'avoir fait les dettes que j'avais en Russie et de venir en faire de nouvelles ici me mettait au désespoir. Le soir en faisant ma prière, j'ai prié Dieu qu'il me tire de cette désagréable position et avec beaucoup de ferveur. 'Mais comment est-ce que je puis me tirer de cette affaire?' pensai-je en me couchant. 'Il ne peut rien arriver qui me donne la possibilité d'acquitter cette dette.' Je me représentais déjà tous les désagréments que j'avais à essuyer à cause de cela: how when he presents the note for collection, the authorities will demand an explanation as to why I did not pay, etc. 'Lord, help me!' said I, and fell asleep.
Le lendemain je reçois une lettre de Nicolas à laquelle était jointe la votre et plusieurs autres—il m'écrit:
The other day Sádo came to see me. He has won your notes-of-hand from Knorring, and has brought them to me. He was so pleased to have won them, and asked me so often, 'What do you think? Will your brother be glad that I have done this?' that I have grown very fond of him. That man is really attached to you.
N'est-ce pas étonnant que de voir ses vœux aussi exaucés le lendemain même? C. à d., qu'il n'y a rien d'aussi étonnant que la bonté divine pour un être qui la mérite si peu que moi. Et n'est-ce pas que le trait de dévouement de Sado est admirable? Il sait que j'ai un frère Serge, qui aime les chevaux et comme je lui ai promis de le prendre en Russie quand j'y irai, il m'a dit, que dût-il lui en coûter 100 fois la vie, il volera le meilleur cheval qu'il y ait dans les montagnes, et qu'il le lui amènera.
Faites, je vous prie, acheter à Toúla un 6-barrelled pistol et un musical-box, si cela ne coûte pas trop cher. Ce sont des choses qui lui feront beaucoup de plaisir.
In explanation of this letter one has to mention that Sádo was a 'peaceful' Circassian, that is, one friendly to Russia (though his tribe in general were hostile), and further, that the passages printed in English in the midst of the French text, are in the original written in Russian.
A few days later we find Tolstoy on his way back to Starogládovsk, stopping (probably for post-horses) at the post-station Mozdók, and again writing his aunt a long letter in which he says:
[9]La religion et l'expérience que j'ai de la vie (quelque petite qu'elle soit) m'ont appris que la vie est une épreuve. Dans moi elle est plus qu'une épreuve, c'est encore l'expiation de mes fautes.
J'ai dans l'idée que l'idée si frivole que j'ai eu d'aller faire un voyage au Caucase—est une idée qui m'a été inspirée d'en haut. C'est la main de Dieu qui m'a guidé—je ne cesse de l'en remercier. Je sens que je suis devenu meilleur ici (et ce n'est pas beaucoup dire puisque j'ai été très mauvais) et je suis fermement persuadé que tout ce qui peut m'arriver ici ne sera que pour mon bien, puisque c'est Dieu lui-même qui l'a voulu ainsi. Peut-être c'est une idée bien hardie, néanmoins j'ai cette conviction. C'est pour cela que je supporte les fatigues et les privations physiques dont je parle (ce ne sont pas des privations physiques—il n'y en a pas pour un garçon de 23 ans qui se porte bien) sans les ressentir, même avec une espèce de plaisir en pensant au bonheur qui m'attend.
Voilà comment je le représente:
Après un nombre indéterminé d'années, ni jeune, ni vieux, je suis à Yásnaya; mes affaires sont en ordre, je n'ai pas d'inquiétudes, ni de tracasseries. Vous habitez Yásnaya aussi. Vous avez un peu vieillie, mais êtes encore fraîche et bien portante. Nous menons la vie que nous avons menée,—je travaille le matin, mais nous nous voyons presque toute la journée. Nous dînons. Le soir je fais une lecture qui ne vous ennuie pas, puis nous causons—moi je vous raconte ma vie au Caucase, vous me parlez de vos souvenirs—de mon père, de ma mère, vous me contez des 'terrible tales' que jadis nous écoutions les yeux effrayés et la bouche béante. Nous nous rappelons les personnes qui nous ont été chères et qui ne sont plus; vous pleurerez, j'en ferai de même, mais ces larmes seront douces; nous causerons des frères qui viendront nous voir de temps en temps, de la chère Marie qui passera aussi quelques mois de l'année a Yásnaya qu'elle aime tant, avec tous ses enfants. Nous n'aurons point de connaissances—personne ne viendra nous ennuyer et faire des commérages. C'est un beau rêve, mais ce n'est pas encore tout ce que je me permets de rêver.—Je suis marié—ma femme est une personne douce, bonne, aimante; elle a pour vous le même amour que moi; nous avons des enfants qui vous appellent grandmaman; vous habitez la grande maison en haut, la même chambre que jadis habitait grandmaman. Toute la maison est dans le même ordre qu'elle a été du temps de papa et nous recommençons la même vie, seulement en changéant de rôle; vous prenez le rôle de grandmaman, mais vous êtes encore meilleure; moi le rôle de papa, mais je désespère de jamais le mériter; ma femme celui de maman, les enfants le nôtre; Marie le rôle des deux tantes, leurs malheurs exceptés.... Mais il manquera un personnage pour prendre le rôle que vous avez joué dans notre famille; jamais il ne se trouvera une âme aussi belle, aussi aimante que la vôtre. Vous n'avez pas de successeur. Il y aura trois nouveaux personnages, qui paraîtront de temps en temps sur la scène—les frères, surtout l'un qui sera souvent avec nous: Nicolas—vieux garçon, chauve, retiré du service, toujours aussi bon, aussi noble.
I imagine how he will, as of old, tell the children fairy tales of his own invention, and how they will kiss his greasy hands (but which are worthy of it), how he will play with them, how my wife will bustle about to get him his favourite dishes, how he and I will recall our common memories of days long past, how you will sit in your accustomed place and listen to us with pleasure; how, as of yore, you will call us, old men, 'Lyóvotchka' and 'Nikólenka,' and will scold me for eating with my fingers, and him for not having clean hands.
Si on me faisait empereur de Russie, si on me donnait le Pérou, en un mot si une fée venait avec sa baguette me demander ce que je désire—la main sur la conscience, je répondrais que je désire seulement que ce rêve puisse devenir une réalité.
He returned to Starogládovsk a Junker, and in February took part in an expedition as a non-commissioned artillery officer, and nearly received a St. George's Cross for bravery, but lost it because, once again, he had not his documents in order.
Writing to his Aunt Tatiána some months later (June 1852), he says:
[10]Pendant cette expédition, j'ai eu l'occasion d'être deux fois présenté à la croix de St. Georges et je n'ai pas pu la recevoir à cause du retard de quelques jours de ce maudit papier. J'ai été présenté pour la journée du 18 Février (ma fête), mais on a été obligé de refuser à cause du manque de ce papier. La liste des présentations partit le 19, le 20 le papier était arrivé. Je vous avoue franchement que de tous les honneurs militaires c'est cette seule petite croix que j'ai eu la vanité d'ambitionner.
On a second occasion he had the refusal of the coveted cross, but his Colonel pointed out to him that besides being sometimes given to Junkers favoured by their officers, these crosses were also, and more usually, granted to old and deserving privates, whom they entitled to a life pension; and that if Tolstoy would forego the one intended for him, it would be given to a veteran who deserved it, and to whom it would secure a subsistence for his old age. Tolstoy, to his honour be it said, renounced the coveted decoration. He had a third chance of securing it later on, but this time, absorbed in playing chess till late at night, he omitted to go on duty, and the Commander of the Division noticing his absence, placed him under arrest and cancelled the award which had been already made in his favour. Chess, I may here mention, has always been a favourite game of Tolstoy's. He has never studied the game from books, but has played much and plays ingeniously and well.
The kind of warfare in which he was now engaged, is well described in The Raid and The Wood-Felling. A detachment would set out to seize a Tartar village, make a clearing in a forest, or capture cattle. It would exchange cannon- and rifle-shots with Tartar skirmishers, and would lose perhaps half a dozen men killed or wounded before accomplishing its object; but the more serious part of the work came when the expedition returned to the fortified camp from which it had started. As soon as the retreat commenced, Tartar sharpshooters would swarm out, trying to cut off stragglers and inflicting as much damage as possible. Even after the Russians were beyond rifle-shot, a chance ball from a Tartar cannon might reach them within sight of their own quarters.
To see a single man one has known well, struck down by a deadly bullet, may impress an observer as vividly as the myriad corpses of a great battlefield; and in Tolstoy's earliest war-sketches one feels the note of horror at war quite as strongly as when, later on, he described far bloodier struggles at Sevastopol.
When not on campaign, Tolstoy was generally stationed at the Cossack village of Starogládovsk, where he lived more or less the life vividly described in The Cossacks. The Grebénsky Cossacks located there were descended from Russian Dissenters (Old-Believers) who had fled from the persecution of former Tsars and had settled among the Mohammedan Circassians near the river Térek. They had retained the purity of their Russian speech, and remained nominally Christians, but had intermarried with the natives and adopted many of their manners and customs. Love of freedom, idleness, robbery, hunting, and war were their most prominent characteristics. They considered themselves altogether superior both to the semi-savage Mohammedan natives and to the tame, disciplined Russians. Drunkenness was not so much a weakness of these men as 'a tribal rite, to abandon which would have been considered as an act of apostasy.' The work was done by the women, or by hired Nogai-Tartar labourers. The women were physically better developed than the men, and were celebrated for their beauty, combining the purest type of Circassian features with the powerful build of Northern women. In their relations with men, especially before marriage, they enjoyed absolute freedom.
There was much that attracted Tolstoy in the simple life of these people: their frankness, their skill in hunting, their contempt for all that is artificial or weak, and their freedom from the moral struggles that tormented him. With one beautiful girl—Mariána—he fell deeply in love, but she remained indifferent to the attentions of a man who was inferior in the arts of war and hunting to some of the young men of her own tribe. His courtship failed (as he says of his hero in The Cossacks) because he could not, like a dashing young Cossack, 'steal herds, get drunk on Tchikir wine, troll songs, kill people, and when tipsy climb in at her window for a night, without thinking who he was or why he existed.'
Though one has always to be carefully on one's guard against taking Tolstoy's stories as though they were autobiographical, there are passages in The Cossacks which certainly apply to himself, and give a vivid idea of some of his moods at this time, as well as of his way of life while living as a Junker at Starogládovsk.
On one occasion the hero is out hunting in the woods and asks himself:
'How must I live so as to be happy, and why was I formerly not happy?' And he remembered his previous life, and felt disgusted with himself.... And suddenly a new light seemed revealed to him. 'Happiness,' said he to himself, 'consists in living for others. That is clear. The demand for happiness is innate in man; therefore it is legitimate. If we seek to satisfy it selfishly: by seeking wealth, fame, comforts, or love, circumstances may render the satisfaction of these desires impossible. It follows that they are illegitimate, but not that the demand for happiness itself is illegitimate. But what desire is there that can always be satisfied in spite of external conditions? What desire? Love, self-sacrifice!' He was so glad and excited at discovering this, as it seemed to him, new truth, that he jumped up and began impatiently seeking for some one for whom he might quickly sacrifice himself: to whom he might do good, and whom he could love. 'Yes; I need nothing for myself!' he kept mentally repeating: 'Then why not live for others?'
In the same story Tolstoy tells us that his hero lived monotonously and regularly.
He had little to do with his Commander or fellow-officers. In the Caucasus the position of a Junker with means of his own was in this respect particularly favourable. He was not sent to drill nor kept at work. As a reward for going on an expedition he was recommended for a commission, and meanwhile he was left alone. The officers considered him an aristocrat, and therefore in their intercourse with him bore themselves with dignity. Card-playing and the officers' carousals with singers, of which he had had experience when on service with the detachment, seemed to him unattractive, and he avoided the officers' society.
Again he tells us that his hero
often thought seriously of abandoning all else, enrolling himself as a Cossack, buying a cottage, and marrying a Cossack girl ... and living with Uncle Eróshka, going with him to hunt and to fish, and with the Cossacks on expeditions. 'Why don't I do this? What am I waiting for?' he asked himself.... But a voice told him to wait, and not to decide. He was restrained by a dim consciousness that he could not fully live the life of Eróshka and Loukáshka, because he had another happiness,—he was restrained by the thought that happiness lies in self-sacrifice.... He continually sought an opportunity to sacrifice himself for others, but it did not present itself.
In the same story the Cossack Loukáshka kills a Tartar 'brave' at night, and rises greatly in the popular esteem and in his own; and the hero thinks to himself:
'What nonsense and confusion! A man kills another and is as happy and satisfied as though he had done an excellent deed. Does nothing tell him there is here no cause for great rejoicing? That happiness consists not in killing others, but in sacrificing oneself?'
We have a yet safer record of Tolstoy's feelings in his Diary, in which about this time he noted down the following reflections concerning the chief faults he was conscious of in himself:
1. The passion of gaming is a covetous passion, gradually developing into a craving for strong excitement. Against this passion one can struggle.
2. Sensuality is a physical need, a demand of the body, excited by imagination. It increases with abstinence, and therefore the struggle against it is very difficult. The best way is by labour and occupation.
3. Vanity is the passion least harmful to others and most harmful to oneself.
In another passage, indicating quite a different phase of consciousness, he writes:
For some time past repentance for the loss of the best years of life has begun to torment me, and this since I commenced to feel that I could do something good.... There is something in me which compels me to believe that I was not born to be like everybody else.
In May we find him going on furlough to Pyatigórsk to drink the mineral water and to be treated for rheumatism. This is his description of Pyatigórsk, written nearly twenty years later in his Reading Book for Children:
Pyatigórsk (Five Hills) is so called because it stands on Mount Besh-tau. Besh means in Tartar 'five,' Tau means 'hill.' From this mountain flows a hot sulphur stream. The water is boiling, and over the places where it springs from the mountain there is always steam, as from a samovár.
The whole place where the town stands is very gay. From the mountain flow hot springs, and at the foot of the mountain flows the river Podkoúmok. The mountain slopes are wooded, all around are fields, and afar off one sees the great Caucasian mountains. On these the snow never melts, and they are always as white as sugar. When the weather is clear, wherever one goes one sees the great mountain, Elbrus, like a sugar cone. People come to the hot springs for their health; and over the springs, arbours and awnings have been erected, and gardens and paths have been laid out all around. In the morning a band plays, and people drink the waters, or bathe, or stroll about.
Here he was joined by his sister Mary and her husband. She also came to Pyatigórsk to be cured of rheumatism. She tells how her brother Leo was at this time attracted by Spiritualism, and would sometimes even borrow a table from a café and have a séance on the boulevard. He remained in Pyatigórsk till 5th August, and then returned to Starogládovsk. From thence he wrote to his aunt, repeating what he had said before of the officers with whom he had to associate.
[11]Il y a une trop grande différence dans l'éducation, les sentiments et la manière de voir de ceux que je rencontre ici pour que je trouve quelque plaisir avec eux. Il n'y a que Nicolas qui a le talent, malgré l'énorme différence qu'il y a entre lui et tous ces messieurs, à s'amuser avec eux et à être aimé de tous. Je lui envie ce talent, mais je sens que je ne puis en faire autant.
He mentions that for some time past he has acquired a taste for reading history, and says that he perseveres in his literary occupations. He had already three times rewritten a work he had in hand, and intended to rewrite it again. He felt much more content with himself at this time, and adds:
[12]Il y a eu un temps où j'étais vain de mon esprit et de ma position dans le monde, de mon nom; mais à présent je sais et je sens que s'il y a en moi quelque chose de bon et que si j'ai à en rendre grâce à la Providence, c'est pour un cœur bon, sensible et capable d'amour, qu'il lui a plu de me donner et de me conserver.
On 29th June he again notes in his Diary:
He whose aim is his own happiness, is bad; he whose aim is the good opinion of others, is weak; he whose aim is the happiness of others, is virtuous; he whose aim is God, is great.
On 2nd July he completed Childhood, and a few days later despatched the manuscript, signed only with the initials L. N. T., to the best Petersburg monthly, The Contemporary. On 28th August he received a reply from the editor, the poet Nekrásof, saying he would publish the story and that he thought its author had talent. Another letter followed, dated 5th September 1852, in which Nekrásof said that having re-read the story in proof, he found it 'much better than I had realised at first. I can say definitely that its author has talent.' He added that it would appear in the next number of his magazine.
Tolstoy notes in his Diary: 'Received letter from Nekrásof; praises, but no money.'
Nekrásof's next letter is dated 30th October, and explains that it is not customary to pay authors for their first work, but that he hopes Tolstoy will send him more stories, and that in future he will pay him as much as to the very best known writers, namely Rs. 50 (nearly £7 at that time) per sheet of sixteen pages. He mentioned also that Childhood had been very well received by the public.
Tolstoy kept his authorship a secret, revealing it to no one except Nicholas and Aunt Tatiána. His sister Mary was by this time back at her husband's estate, situated near Tourgénef's village of Spássky. There Tourgénef came one day to visit her, bringing with him the last number of the Contemporary. Full of praise of a new story by an unknown author, he began reading it aloud, and to her great astonishment Mary recognised, one after another, various incidents from her own childhood. Her first guess was that Nicholas must have written it.
Among the writers who at once acclaimed Tolstoy's genius was Panáef, co-editor of the Contemporary, who, Tourgénef pretended, had to be carefully shunned by his friends on the Névsky (the chief street in Petersburg) lest he should insist on reading them extracts from the new story. Before long the work reached Dostoyévsky in Siberia, and he was so struck by it that he wrote to a friend asking him to find out who the talented L. N. T. was.
Meanwhile Tolstoy continued his military career in the Caucasus. On his return to Starogládovsk in August, he had noted in his Diary: 'Simplicity—that is the quality which above all others I desire to attain.'
He had to pass an unpleasant month in consequence of the autumn manœuvres, about which he wrote: 'It was not very pleasant to have to march about and fire off cannons; especially as it disturbed the regularity of my life'; and he rejoiced when it was over and he was again able to devote himself to 'hunting, writing, reading, and conversation with Nicholas.' He had become fond of shooting game, at which—as at all physical exercises—he was expert; and he spent two or three hours a day at it. He writes to his Aunt Tatiána:
At 100 paces from my lodging I find wild fowl, and in half an hour I kill 2, 3, or 4. Besides the pleasure, the exercise is excellent for my health, which in spite of the waters is not very good. I am not ill, but I often catch cold and suffer from sore throat or from toothache or from rheumatism, so that I have to keep to my room at least two days in the week.
One of the forms of sport he enjoyed during his stay in the Caucasus was strepet shooting: the strepet being a steppe grouse. Before they migrate in mid-August, these birds assemble in enormous flocks, and are extremely wild and difficult of approach. It is hardly possible to get within two hundred or two hundred and fifty yards of such a flock. Tolstoy had a horse that was specially trained for this particular sport. On it he used to ride at a foot-pace two or three times round a flock, carefully narrowing the circle till he got as near as possible without alarming the birds. Then he would dash forward at full gallop with his gun ready. The moment the birds rose he dropped his reins on the horse's neck, and the well-trained animal would instantly stop, allowing its master to take aim.
Tolstoy's military career was not giving him satisfaction. Having left home without any definite plans, he had neglected to bring any documents with him, and the result of this was that instead of becoming an officer within eighteen months, as he expected to do when he entered the army, he now, after serving for ten months, received notice that he would have to serve another three years before he could obtain his commission.
In this difficulty he applied to his aunt P. I. Úshkof, who by application to an influential friend eventually succeeded in hastening his promotion. Meanwhile however Tolstoy—who had made up his mind to retire from the army as soon as he received his commission—almost lost patience.
On 24th December he completed the sketch entitled The Raid: A Volunteer's Story, and two days later posted it to the Contemporary, in which magazine it appeared in March 1853. The following passage occurs in this his first story of war, and foreshadows the attitude he ultimately made definitely his own. He is describing a march through Caucasian scenery to a night attack on a Tartar Aoul, and he says:
Nature, beautiful and strong, breathed conciliation.
Can it be that people have not room to live in this beautiful world, under this measureless, starry heaven? Can feelings of enmity, vengeance, or lust to destroy one's fellow beings, retain their hold on man's soul amid this enchanting Nature? All that is evil in man's heart should, one would think, vanish in contact with Nature—this immediate expression of beauty and goodness.
From the very start we find Tolstoy hampered in his work by that incubus of all Russian writers, the Censor. In a letter to his brother Sergius in May he writes: 'Childhood was spoilt, and The Raid simply ruined by the Censor. All that was good in it has been struck out or mutilated.' In comparing Tolstoy's literary achievement with that of Western writers, one should make a large allowance for the continual annoyance, delay, mutilation, and suppression inflicted on him by that terrible satellite of despotism.
In January, the battery in which Leo Tolstoy served went on active service against Shámyl. The expedition assembled at Fort Grózny, where scenes of debauchery occurred.
On 18th February Tolstoy's life was in great danger. A shell fired by the enemy smashed the carriage of a cannon he was pointing. Strange to say he was not even wounded. On 1st April he returned with his detachment to Starogládovsk; and in May we find him writing to his brother Sergius that he had applied for his discharge, and hoped in six weeks' time to return home a free man. Difficult as his admission to the army had been, he found, however, that to retire was a yet harder matter, destined to take not weeks but years.
On 13th June his life was again in danger owing to an adventure which supplied him with the subject he utilised later on in A Prisoner in the Caucasus.
It being dangerous to travel between the Russian forts without an escort, non-combatants, as well as stores and baggage, were periodically convoyed from one post to another. On these expeditions it was forbidden for any one to detach himself from the main body; but the intolerable slowness of the infantry march on a hot day, frequently tempted those who were mounted, to ride on, and to run the risk of being attacked by the 'Tartars' (who were generally Circassians). On one such occasion five horsemen, including Tolstoy and his friend Sádo, disobeyed the regulations and rode ahead. The two friends ascended the hillside to see whether any foes were visible, while their three companions proceeded along the valley below. Hardly had the two reached the crest of the ridge when they saw thirty mounted Tartars galloping towards them. Calculating that there was not time to rejoin their companions in the valley, Tolstoy shouted them a warning, and raced off along the ridge towards Fort Grózny, which was their destination. The three did not, at first, take his warning seriously, but wasting some precious moments before turning to rejoin the column, were overtaken by the Tartars, and two of them were very severely wounded before a rescue party from the convoy put the enemy to flight. Meanwhile Tolstoy and Sádo, pursued by seven horsemen along the hill ridge, had to ride nearly three miles to reach the fort. It so happened that Tolstoy was trying a young horse of Sádo's, while Sádo was riding Tolstoy's ambler, which could not gallop. Though Tolstoy could easily have escaped on Sádo's fiery horse, he would not desert his comrade. Sádo had a gun, unluckily not loaded, and so he could only make a pretence with it of aiming at his pursuers. It seemed almost certain that both fugitives would be killed; but apparently the Tartars decided to capture them alive, perhaps wishing to revenge themselves on Sádo for being a pro-Russian, and therefore they did not shoot them down. At last a sentinel at Grózny having espied their plight, gave the alarm and some Cossacks galloped to their rescue. At sight of these, the Tartars made off and the fugitives escaped uninjured.
Tolstoy continued his habit of forming resolutions; and about this time he wrote: 'Be straightforward, not rough, but frank with all men; yet not childishly frank without any need.... Refrain from wine and women ... the pleasure is so small and uncertain, and the remorse so great.... Devote yourself completely to whatever you do. On experiencing any strong sensation, wait; but having once considered the matter, though wrongly, act decisively.'
From the middle of July to October, Tolstoy again stayed at Pyatigórsk.
A companion he had brought with him to the Caucasus was his black bulldog, Boúlka. He intended to leave it at home, but after he had started, the dog had broken a pane of glass and escaped from the room in which it was confined, and when Tolstoy, after stopping at the first post-station, was just resuming his journey, he saw something black racing along the road after him. It was Boúlka, who rushed to his master, licked his hand, and lay down panting in the shade of a cart. The dog had galloped nearly fourteen miles in the heat of the day, and was rewarded by being taken to the Caucasus, where it was destined to meet with many adventures.
On one occasion this dog boldly attacked a wild boar, and had its stomach ripped open by the latter's tusk. While its wound was being sewn up, the dog licked its master's hand.
On another occasion, when Tolstoy was sitting at night with a friend in the village street, intending to start for Pyatigórsk at daybreak, they suddenly heard a sucking-pig squeal, and guessed that a wolf was killing it. Tolstoy ran into the house, seized a loaded gun, and returned in time to see a wolf running straight towards him from the other side of a wattle-fence. The wolf jumped on to the top of the fence and descended close to Tolstoy who, almost touching him with the muzzle of his gun, drew the trigger. The gun missed fire, and the wolf raced off, chased by Boúlka and by Tolstoy's setter, Milton. The wolf escaped, but not till it had snapped at Boúlka and inflicted a slight wound on his head. Strange to say, the wolf ventured to return a little later into the middle of the street, and again escaped unhurt.
Not long after, in Pyatigórsk, shortly before Tolstoy left the Caucasus, while drinking coffee in the garden of his lodging, he heard a tremendous noise of men and dogs, and, on inquiry, learnt that convicts had been let out of gaol to kill the dogs, of whom there were too many in the town, but that orders had been given to spare dogs wearing collars. As ill-luck would have it, Tolstoy had removed Boúlka's collar; and Boúlka, apparently recognising the convicts as his natural enemies, rushed out into the street and flew at one of them. A man had just freed the long hook he carried, from the corpse of a dog he had caught and held down while his companions beat it to death with bludgeons. He now adroitly hooked Boúlka and drew the unfortunate dog towards him, calling to his mate to kill it, which the latter prepared to do. Boúlka however bounded aside with such force that the skin of his thigh burst where the hook held it, and with tail between his legs and a red wound on his thigh, he flew back into the house and hid under Tolstoy's bed. His escape was not of much use. The wolf that had snapped at him six weeks before must have been mad, for Boúlka after showing premonitory symptoms of rabies, disappeared, and was never heard of more.
Tolstoy's state of mind during the latter part of this year is indicated by his letters. To his brother Sergius he wrote on 20th July:
I think I already wrote you that I have sent in my resignation. God knows, however, on account of the war with Turkey, whether it will be accepted, or when. This disturbs me very much, for I have now grown so accustomed to happy thoughts of soon settling down in the country, that to return to Starogládovsk and again wait unendingly—as I have to wait for everything connected with my service—will be very unpleasant.
Again, in December, he writes from Starogládovsk:
Please write about my papers quickly. This is necessary. 'When shall I come home?' God only knows. For nearly a year I have been thinking only of how to sheath my sword, but still cannot manage it. And as I must fight somewhere, I think it will be pleasanter to do so in Turkey than here, and I have therefore applied to Prince Serge Dmítrievitch [Gortchakóf] about it, and he writes me that he has written to his brother, but what the result will be, I do not know.
It will be remembered that Tolstoy's paternal grandmother was a Gortchakóf. Through her he was nearly related to Prince S. D. Gortchakóf and to his brother, Prince Michael Dmítrievitch Gortchakóf, who had been a friend of his father's in the war of 1812, and was now in command of the Russian army on the Danube.
The letter continues:
At any rate by New Year I expect to change my way of life, which I confess wearies me intolerably. Stupid officers, stupid conversations, and nothing else. If there were but a single man to whom one could open one's soul! Tourgénef is right: 'What irony there is in solitude,'—one becomes palpably stupid oneself. Although Nikólenka has gone off with the hounds—Heaven knows why (Epíshka[13] and I often call him 'a pig' for so doing)—I go out hunting alone for whole days at a time from morning to evening, with a setter. That is my only pleasure—and not a pleasure but a narcotic. One tires oneself out, gets famished, sleeps like the dead, and a day has passed. When you have an opportunity, or are yourself in Moscow, buy me Dickens' David Copperfield in English, and send me Sadler's English Dictionary which is among my books.
Of the entries in his Diary at this time, we may note the following:
All the prayers I have invented I replace by the one prayer, 'Our Father.' All the requests I can make to God are far more loftily expressed and more worthily of Him, in the words 'Thy Kingdom come, as in heaven so on earth.'
About this time he completed his Memoirs of a Billiard Marker, and sent it to the Contemporary with a letter expressing his own dissatisfaction with the hasty workmanship of the story; it did not appear till more than a year later. He was also now at work on Boyhood.
Seventeen years after Tolstoy had left the Caucasus, an officer stationed at Starogládovsk found his memory still fresh among the Cossacks, and saw Mariána (comparatively aged by that time), as well as several elderly Cossack hunters who had shot wild fowl and wild boars with Tolstoy. In his regiment he left the reputation of being an excellent narrator, who enthralled every one by his conversation.
Not till January 1854 did the long-expected order arrive allowing him to pass the examination (a pure formality at that time) entitling him to become an officer. On the 19th he left for home, and on 2nd February reached Yásnaya, where he enjoyed a three weeks' stay with his Aunt Tatiána, his brother, and a friend. On this journey he encountered a severe storm, to which we owe The Snow Storm, published a couple of years later, and probably also much of the storm description in Master and Man, written in later life.
The Russo-Turkish war had now begun in earnest, and, as a result of his application, he received orders to join the army of the Danube, which he set out accordingly to do.
Of the Caucasian period of his life, as of his University days, Tolstoy has at different times expressed himself differently. To Birukóf, in 1905, he spoke of it as one of the best times of his life, notwithstanding all his deflections from his dimly recognised ideals. Yet two years earlier, writing of the four periods of his life, he had spoken of 'the terrible twenty years of coarse dissipation, the service of ambition, vanity, and above all, of lust,' which followed after the age of fourteen.
But what it comes to is, that Tolstoy is a man of moods, and judges himself and others, sometimes by ordinary and sometimes by extraordinary standards.
Birukof.
Behrs.
U. Bitovt, Graf L. Tolstoy v literatoure i iskousstve: Petersburg, 1903. (Hereafter called 'Bitovt.') Though ill-arranged, this book is valuable to any one engaged on the difficult task of compiling a Bibliography of Tolstoy's works.
Nekrasof's letters to Tolstoy published in the Literary Supplement to the Niva, February 1898.
Much light is also thrown on this period of Tolstoy's life by the following works, which must not be considered autobiographical:
The Raid.
The Wood-Felling.
Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance.
The Cossacks, and
The Snow Storm,
as well as by stories included in Tolstoy's Readers:
Boulka.
Boulka and the Wild Boar.
Milton and Boulka.
Boulka and the Wolf.
What Happened to Boulka in Pyatigorsk.
Boulka's and Milton's End.
A Prisoner in the Caucasus.
Joins army of the Danube. Siege of Silistria. Sevastopol. Projected Newspaper. Sevastopol in December. Battle of the Tchérnaya. Capture of the Maláhof. Courier to Petersburg. Song. Relations with superiors and fellow-officers. Self-depreciation. The Wood-Felling. Sevastopol in May. The Censor. On War.
At twenty-five years of age it fell to Tolstoy's lot to take part in a great European war and thereby to extend the range of his experience in a way that considerably affected his subsequent life and writings.
Tolstoy tells us that he got his first understanding of war from Stendhal, the author of Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme. In conversation with Paul Boyer, Tolstoy once spoke of those novels as inimitable works of art, adding, 'I am greatly indebted to Stendhal. He taught me to understand war. Re-read the description of the battle of Waterloo in La Chartreuse de Parme. Who ever before so described war? Described it, that is, as it is in reality? Do you remember Fabrice riding over the field of battle and understanding "nothing"?'
Tolstoy's brother Nicholas, though fond of war, also disbelieved in the popular romantic view of it, and used to say: 'All that is embellishment, and in real war there is no embellishment.'—'A little later, in the Crimea,' added Tolstoy in his talk with Boyer, 'I had a grand chance to see with my own eyes that this is so.'
Of the causes that led to the war it need only be said that the rule of the Turks over Christian populations had long kept a dangerous sore open in Europe, and the consequent diplomatic difficulties were complicated by the indefiniteness of two lines in the Treaty of Kainardji, which Catherine the Great had imposed upon Turkey in 1774. There was also friction between the Eastern and Western Churches, with reference to the custody of the Places in Palestine rendered holy by their traditional connection with the Prince of Peace. Nicholas I, who had wellnigh drilled all intelligence out of those near him in his Government and in his army, was not accustomed to be thwarted. Dimly conscious of the first faint symptoms of that growth of Liberalism which a few years later, in the early 'sixties, led to sweeping reforms in Russia, he felt inclined to demonstrate the beneficence of his rule not by allowing changes to be made at home, but by arbitrarily inflicting reforms on Turkey. Failing to get his way by diplomatic pressure, he rashly proceeded to occupy the Danubian Principalities as a 'material guarantee' of Turkey's compliance with his demands.
He was opposed by Austria and Prussia as strongly as by England and France, and the pressure exerted by the four powers sufficed to compel him to withdraw his army from Turkish soil. Thereupon the war, which had as yet been waged only between Russia and Turkey, might well have ended, had not England and France undertaken a quite needless invasion of the Crimea: an enterprise in which Austria and Prussia refused to join. The end did not justify the proceedings, for in spite of success in this war, Napoleon the Third's dynasty crumbled to dust within twenty years, while within a like period after Palmerston's death Lord Salisbury frankly admitted that we had 'put our money on the wrong horse.' As to Nicholas I, his pride was destined to be bitterly mortified by the results of an enterprise which not only failed of its immediate object, but by its failure actually hastened the coming of those reforms in Russia against which he had set his face. Even Turkey did not really benefit by being allowed to oppress her subject races for a couple of generations longer.
It was the influence of Napoleon III, as Kinglake has pointed out, that led England to take part in the war. Having by treachery and murder made himself Emperor of the French, that monarch found himself for a time dangerously isolated from the support of people of good repute. In consultation with Palmerston, he decided to subordinate the traditional Eastern policy of his country to that of England if thereby he could succeed in being publicly paraded as the friend and ally of Queen Victoria. As soon as he had secured an alliance with England, with Palmerston's aid, and helped by the extraordinary war fever which seized the English nation, he quickly forced the peacefully disposed Lord Aberdeen along an inclined plane which ultimately plunged both nations into a war for which no sufficient motive justification or excuse existed.
Hostilities between Russia and Turkey had begun in October 1853, but France and England did not break off negotiations with the former power till the end of March 1854, the very month in which Tolstoy reached Bucharest on his way through Wallachia to join the army.
From there he wrote to his aunt, telling of his journey. The roads after he had passed Khersón, and especially after he had crossed the frontier, were abominable; his journey lasted nine days; and he 'arrived almost ill with fatigue.'
A few days later, on 17th March, he wrote of his first interview with Gortchakóf:
[14]Le prince Gortchakóf n'était pas ici. Hier il vient d'arriver et je viens de chez lui. Il m'a reçu mieux que je ne croyais—en vrai parent. Il m'a embrassé, il m'a engagé de venir dîner tous les jours chez lui et il veut me garder auprès de lui, mais ce n'est pas encore décidé.
Pardon, chère tante, que je vous écris peu—je n'ai pas encore la tête à moi,—cette grande et belle ville, toutes ces présentations, l'opéra italien, le théâtre français, les deux jeunes Gortchakóf qui sont de très braves garçons ... de sorte que je ne suis pas resté deux heures chez moi, et je n'ai pas pensé à mes occupations.
On 22nd March he adds: 'I learnt yesterday that I am not to remain with the Prince, but am to go to Oltenitza to join my battery.'
In May he wrote:
[15]Tandis que vous me croyez exposé à tous les dangers de la guerre je n'ai pas encore senti la poudre turque, et je suis très tranquillement à Boukarest à me promener, à faire de la musique et à manger des glaces. En effet tout ce temps, excepté deux semaines que j'ai passées à Oltenitza où j'ai été attaché à une batterie, et une semaine que j'ai passée en courses par la Moldavie, Valachie et Bessarabie par ordre du gén. Serjpoutóvsky auprès duquel je suis à présent by special appointment, je suis resté à Boukarest et à vous avouer franchement, ce genre de vie un peu dissipé, tout à fait oisif et très coûteux que je mène ici me déplaît infiniment. Auparavant c'était le service qui m'y retenait, mais à présent j'y suis resté pendant près de trois semaines à cause d'une fièvre que j'ai attrapée pendant mon voyage, mais dont, Dieu merci, je suis pour le moment assez rétabli pour rejoindre dans deux ou trois jours mon général qui est au camp près de Silistrie. A propos de mon général, il a l'air d'être un très brave homme et paraît, quoique nous nous connaissons fort peu, être bien disposé à mon égard. Ce qui est encore fort agréable est que son état-major est composé pour la plupart de gens comme il faut.
We shall find Tolstoy modifying this opinion, a little later on; but it is worth noting that at this time he was fully alive to the superiority of 'gens comme il faut,' and that his depreciation of them in later years may have been partly a reaction from a previous over-valuation.
By June 1854 the military and political situation was as follows. The Russians had advanced through Moldavia and Wallachia to the Danube, had crossed that river, and were besieging Silistria. Austria, supporting the other great powers, had massed a powerful army on the Turkish frontier, and a glance at the map of Europe will show that the Russian army, far removed from its base, was in imminent danger of being cut off by the Austrians, who peremptorily summoned Russia to evacuate the Principalities, and on 14th June concluded a formal alliance with the Porte. These circumstances explain the sudden abandonment of the siege of Silistria mentioned in the following letter, addressed by Leo Tolstoy to his Aunt Tatiána and to his brother Nicholas conjointly; though when he wrote it, the causes which produced the result he described were a mystery to him.
[16]Je vais vous parler donc de mes souvenirs de Silistrie. J'y ai vu tant de choses intéressantes, poétiques et touchantes que le temps que j'y ai passé ne s'effacera jamais de ma mémoire. Notre camp était disposé de l'autre côté du Danube c.à d. sur la rive droite sur un terrain très élevé au milieu de superbes jardins, appartenant à Mustafa Pasha—le gouverneur de Silistrie. La vue de cet endroit est non seulement magnifique, mais pour nous tous du plus grand intérêt. Sans parler du Danube, de ces îles et de ces rivages, les uns occupés par nous, les autres par les Turcs, on voyait la ville, la forteresse, les petits forts de Silistrie comme sur la main. On entendait les coups de canons, de fusils qui ne cessaient ni jour ni nuit, et avec une lunette d'approche on pouvait distinguer les soldats turcs. Il est vrai que c'est un drôle de plaisir que de voir de gens s'entretuer et cependant tous les soirs et matins je me mettais sur ma cart et je restais des heures entières à regarder et ce n'était pas moi le seul qui le faisait. Le spectacle était vraiment beau, surtout la nuit. Les nuits ordinairement mes soldats se mettent aux travaux des tranchées, et les Turcs se jettent sur eux pour les en empêcher, alors il fallait voir et entendre cette fusillade. La première nuit que j'ai passée au camp ce bruit terrible m'a reveillé et effrayé, je croyais qu'on est allé a l'assaut et j'ai bien vite fait seller mon cheval, mais ceux qui avait déjà passé quelque temps au camp me dirent que je n'avais qu'à me tenir tranquille, que cette canonnade et fusillade était une chose ordinaire et qu'on appela en plaisantant, 'Allah'; alors je me suis recouché, mais ne pouvant m'endormir je me suis amusé, une montre à la main, à compter les coups de canon que j'entendais et j'ai compté 110 explosions dans l'espace d'une minute. Et cependant tout ceci n'a eu de près l'air aussi effrayant que cela le paraît. La nuit, quand on n'y voyait rien, c'était à qui brûlerait le plus de poudre et avec ces milliers de coups de canons on tuait tout au plus une trentaine d'hommes de part et d'autre.
Ceci donc est un spectacle ordinaire que nous avions tous les jours et dans lequel, quand on m'envoyait avec des ordres dans les tranchées, je prenais aussi ma part; mais nous avions aussi des spectacles extraordinaires, comme celui de la veille de l'assaut quand on a fait sauter une mine de 240 pouds de poudre sous un des bastions de l'ennemi. Le matin de cette journée le prince avait été aux tranchées avec tout son état-major (comme le général auprès duquel j'étais en fait partie, j'y ai aussi été) pour faire les dispositions définies—vu pour l'assaut du lendemain. Le plan, trop long pour que je puisse l'expliquer ici, était si bien fait, tout était si bien prévu que personne ne doutait de la réussite. A propos de cela il faut que je vous dise encore que je commence à avoir de l'admiration pour le prince (au reste il faut en entendre parler parmi les officiers et les soldats, non seulement je n'ai jamais entendu dire du mal de lui, mais il est généralement adoré).
Je l'ai vu au feu pour la première fois pendant cette matinée. Il faut voir cette figure un peu ridicule avec sa grande taille, ses mains derrière le dos, sa casquette en arrière, ses lunettes et sa manière de parler comme un dindon. On voit qu'il était tellement occupé de la marche générale des affaires que les balles et les boulets n'existaient pas pour lui; il s'expose au danger avec tant de simplicité, qu'on dirait qu'il n'en a pas l'idée et qu'involontairement qu'on n'a plus peur de lui que pour soi-même; et puis donnant ses ordres avec tant de clarté et de précision et avec cela toujours affable avec chacun. C'est un grand, c.à d. un homme qui s'est voué toute sa vie au service de sa patrie et pas par l'ambition, mais par le devoir. Je vais vous raconter un trait de lui qui se lie à l'histoire de cet assaut que j'ai commencé à raconter. L'après-dîner du même jour on a fait sauter la mine, et près de 600 pièces d'artillerie ont fait feu sur le fort qu'on voulait prendre, et on continuait ce feu pendant toute la nuit, c'était un de ces coups d'œil et une de ces émotions qu'on n'oublie jamais. Le soir de nouveau le prince, avec tout le tremblement, est allé coucher aux tranchées pour diriger lui-même l'assaut qui devait commencer à 3 heures de la nuit même.
Nous étions tous là et comme toujours à la veille d'une bataille nous faisions tous semblant de ne pas plus penser de la journée de demain qu'à une journée ordinaire et tous, j'en suis sûr, au fond du cœur ressentaient un petit serrement de cœur et pas même un petit mais un grand, à l'idée de l'assaut. Comme tu sais que le temps qui précède une affaire est le temps le plus désagréable—c'est le seul où on a le temps d'avoir peur, et la peur est un sentiment des plus désagréables. Vers le matin, plus le moment approchait, plus le sentiment diminuait et vers 3 heures quand nous attendions tous à voir partir le bouquet de fusées qui était le signal de l'attaque—j'étais si bien disposé que si l'on était venu me dire que l'assaut n'aurait pas lieu, cela m'aurait fait beaucoup de peine. Et voilà que juste une heure avant le moment de l'assaut arrive un aide de camp du maréchal avec l'ordre d'ôter le siège de Silistrie. Je puis dire sans craindre de me tromper que cette nouvelle a été reçue par tous—soldats, officiers et généraux—comme un vrai malheur, d'autant plus qu'on savait par les espions, qui nous venaient très souvent de Silistrie, et avec lesquels j'avais très souvent l'occasion de causer moi-même, on savait que ce fort pris,—chose dont personne ne doutait—Silistrie ne pouvait tenir plus de 2 ou 3 jours. N'est-ce pas que si cette nouvelle devait faire de la peine à quelqu'un ce devait être au prince, qui pendant toute cette campagne ayant fait toute chose pour le mieux, au beau milieu de l'action vit venir le maréchal sur son dos pour gâter les affaires et puis ayant la seule chance de réparer nos revers par cet assaut, il reçoit le contre ordre du maréchal au moment de le commencer. Eh bien, le prince n'a pas eu un moment de mauvaise humeur, lui, qui est si impressionable, au contraire il a été content de pouvoir éviter cette boucherie, dont il devait porter la responsabilité et tout le temps de la retraite qu'il a dirigé lui-même, ne voulant passer qu'avec le dernier des soldats, qui s'est faite avec un ordre et une exactitude remarquables, il a été plus gai qu'il n'a jamais été. Ce qui contribuait beaucoup à sa bonne humeur, c'était l'émigration de près de 7000 familles bulgares, que nous prenons avec pour le souvenir de la férocité des Turcs—férocité a laquelle malgré mon incredulité j'ai été obligé de croire. Dès que nous avons quitté des différents villages bulgares que nous occupions, les Turcs y sont revenus et excepté les femmes assez jeunes pour un harem, ils ont fait main basse sur tout ce qu'il y avait. Il y a un village dans lequel je suis allé du camp pour y prendre du lait et des fruits qui a été exterminé de la sorte. Alors dès que le prince avait fait savoir aux Bulgares que ceux qui voulaient pouvaient avec l'armée passer le Danube et devenir sujets russes, tout le pays se soulève et tous avec leurs femmes, enfants, chevaux, bétails arrivent au pont,—mais comme il était impossible de les prendre tous, le prince a été obligé de refuser à ceux qui sont venus les derniers et il fallait voir comme cela le chagrinait. Il recevait toutes les députations qui venaient de ces pauvres gens, il causait avec chacun d'eux, tâchait de leur expliquer l'impossibilité de la chose, leur proposait de passer sans leurs chariots et leur bétail et en se chargeant de leurs moyens de subsistence jusqu'à ce qu'ils arrivassent en Russie, payant de sa propre bourse des vaisseaux particuliers pour les transporter, en un mot faisant tout son possible pour faire du bien à ces gens.
Oui, chère tante, je voudrais bien que votre prophétie se réalise. La chose que j'ambitionne le plus, est d'être l'aide de camp d'un homme comme lui que j'aime et que j'estime du plus profond de mon cœur. Adieu, chère et bonne tante; je baise vos mains.
The army retired to Bucharest, and here, at an officers' ball, Tolstoy seized an opportunity to beg Gortchakóf to have him transferred to where service would be most active.
The retreat from Silistria took place at the end of June, and on 2nd August we find Tolstoy starting for Russia. On the journey he fell ill and had to lie up in hospital. On 13th November in Kishinéf he renewed his application for an appointment in the Crimea, and was ordered to Sevastopol, which he reached on the 20th of that month.[17]