Russian Rambles

in the same sense, at every church service. After the petitions for the Emperor and the imperial family, the liturgy proceeds, 'And we pray for the army, that Thou wilt assist Them [that is, the Imperial family and its army], and subdue all foes and enemies under Their feet.' Perhaps these familiar words came home to him with special force on that particular day, as familiar words sometimes do. Possibly it was a special prayer. In any case, the prayer was strictly logical. If you have an army, pray for it; and the only prayer that can be offered is, obviously, not for its defeat. That would be tantamount to praying for the enemy; which might be Scriptural, in one way, but would be neither natural, popular, nor further removed from objections of murder than the other.

But Count Tolstoy was logical, also, in another way. Once started on this train of thought, most worldly institutions of the present day, beginning with the army, appeared to him opposed to the teaching of Christ, on which point no rational man will differ from him. As to the possibility of living the life of Christ, or even the advisability of trying it, at this period of the world, that is quite another matter.

It is not necessary for me to recapitulate here that which all the world knows already,-the minute details of his belief in personal property, labor, the renunciation of art and science, and so forth. We discussed them. But I neglected my opportunities to worry him with demands for his catechism, which his visitors delight in grinding out of him as though from a machine, when the reading public must be sufficiently informed on that score already. I have endeavored to set down only the special illustrations of his doctrines, out of the rich mass of his conversation.

Those who have perused attentively his earlier works will have perceived that there is really very little that is absolutely new in these doctrines. They are so strictly the development of ideas which are an integral part of him, through heredity, environment, and personal bias, that the only surprise would be that he should not have ended in this way. Community of goods, mutual help, and kindred doctrines are the national birthright of every Russian, often bartered, it is true. But long residence in the country among the peasants who do not preach these doctrines, but simply practice them, naturally affected the thoughtful student of humanity though he was of a different rank. He began to announce his theories to the world, and found followers, as teachers of these views generally do,-a proof that they satisfy an instinct in the human breast. Solitary country life anywhere is productive of such views.

Disciples, or 'adepts,' began to make pilgrimages to the prophet. There is a characteristic, a highly characteristic history of one such who came and established himself in the village at the count's park gate.

'This F. was a Jew, who did not finish his studies, got led astray by socialists, and joined a community where, like the other members, he lived out of marriage with a young girl student. At last he came across a treatise of Lyeff Nikolaevitch, and decided that he was wrong and Lyeff Nikolaevitch right. He removed to Yasnaya Polyana, married his former mistress, and began to live and work among the peasants.' (He first joined the Russian church, and one of the count's daughters stood godmother for him.) 'His wife worked also; but, with delicate health and two small children to care for, she could do little, through weakness and lack of skill. The peasants laughed at him and at Lyeff Nikola'itch.'

Mrs. F. came to the countess with her griefs, and the latter helped her with food, clothing, and in other ways. 'One day nothing remained in the house to eat but a single crust. F. was ill. His wife, who was also ill and feeble, went off to work. On her return she found no bread. Some one had come along begging 'Khristi radi' [for Christ's sake], and F. had given him the crust,-with absolute consistency, it must be confessed. This was the end. There was a scene. The wife went back to her friends. F. also gave up, went off to Ekaterinoslaff, learned the tailor's trade, and married again!' How he managed this second marriage without committing bigamy, in view of the laws of Russia on that point, I am at a loss to understand.

'All my husband's disciples,' said the countess, 'are small, blond, sickly, and homely; all as like one to another as a pair of old boots. You have seen them. X. Z.-you know him-had a very pretty talent for verses; but he has ruined it and his mind, and made himself quite an idiot, by following my husband's teachings.'

The count provided a complement to these remarks in a conversation on Russian writers. He said of a certain author; 'That man has never been duly appreciated, has never received the recognition which his genius deserves. Yet you know how superbly he writes,-or rather, did write. He has spoiled himself now by imitating me. It is a pity.'

This ingenuous comment is rescued from any tinge of conceit or egotism by its absolute simplicity and truth. The imitation referred to is of the moral 'Tales' for popular reading of the lower classes, which my cabman had studied. The pity of it is, when so many of the contemporary writers of Russia owe their inspiration, their very existence, to Turgeneff and Tolstoy having preceded them, that a man who possesses personal talent and a delightful individual style should sacrifice them. In his case it is unnecessary. Count Tolstoy's recognition of this fact is characteristic.

The countess's description of the 'adepts' was as clever as the rest of her remarks, and absolutely accurate. One of them was at the house for a day or two. (I had seen them elsewhere as well.) He had evidently got himself a new blouse for the visit. It was of coarse blue and white cloth, checked, and so stiff with newness that, having a long slit and only one button, at the neck, I could see the whole of his hairy breast every time I looked at him from the left side. I sympathized with Prince K., who being next him at table turned his back on him and ignored him conversationally; which embarrassed the young man extremely. Apropos of his shirt, I never saw any one but the count himself wear a shirt that a real peasant would have worn; and I do not believe that even he had one of the characteristic red cotton garments which are the peasant's pride.

I found this adept interesting when he sat opposite me, and he incited the count to vivacity. He contributed a very good anecdote illustrative of the count's followers.

A man in one of the southern governments-which one is immaterial here-sent a quantity of lithographed copies of five or ten forbidden books (Tolstoy's and others) to a disciple of Tolstoy in one of the northern governments. In the village of this disciple, some young women students in the higher or university courses for women, and followers of Tolstoy, were living for the summer in peasant fashion, and working in the fields, 'to the scornful pity of the peasants' (I italicize this phrase as remarkable on the lips of an adept.) These young women, having heard of the dispatch by post of the books, and being in the town, thought to do the count's disciple a favor by asking if they had arrived. Had they refrained, nothing would have happened and the books would have been delivered without a question. As it was, attention was attracted to the parcel by the inquiry of these girls of eccentric behavior. The fifty or sixty copies were confiscated; the girls' passports were taken from them. The disciple appealed to a relative in high official position in their behalf. The girls were informed, in consequence, that they might hire themselves out to work for this disciple of gentle birth as much as they liked; but they were forbidden to work for or among the peasants. The adventure was not ended when this story was told. Whether the students were satisfied with the permission to work I do not know. Probably not; their fellow-disciple would not have scorned them as the peasants did, and contradiction, that spice of life to enthusiastic worshipers of impracticable ideas, would have been lacking. In my opinion, the authorities committed an error in judgment. They should have shown more faith in the peasants, the toil, and the girls' unhardened frames. All three elements combined could have been trusted to effect a permanent cure of those disciples by the end of the harvest, had they been gently encouraged not only to work with the peasants but to prove that they were capable of toiling and enduring in precisely the same manner and measure.

Still the authorities very naturally looked upon the action of the girls as a case of idti v narod (going to the people), in the sense understood by the revolutionary propagandists. Their prohibition was based on this ground.

In some way we got upon the subject of English things and ways. The count's eyes flashed.

'The English are the most brutal nation on earth!' he exclaimed. 'Along with the Zulus, that is to say. Both go naked: the Zulus all day long, the Englishwomen as soon as dinner is served. The English worship their muscle; they think of it, talk of it. If I had time, I should like to write a book on their ways. And then their executions, which they go to see as a pleasure!'

I asked which nation was a model, in his opinion.

'The French,' he answered, which seemed to me inconsistent, when he told of the execution which he had witnessed in Paris, where a father had lifted up his little child that it might have a good view of the horrors of the guillotine.

'Defective as is Russian civilization in many respects,' he said, 'you will never find the Russian peasant like that. He abhors deliberate murder, like an execution.'

'Yet he will himself commit murder,' I objected. 'There has been a perfect flood of murders reported in the newspapers this very spring. Those perpetrated in town were all by men of the peasant class; and most of them were by lads under twenty years of age.'