# Leo Tolstoy: His Life and Work/Chapter 16

Notwithstanding the apparent success of his educational work, Tolstoy could not be entirely satisfied with it; however grand the building which he had so cleverly planned, he was not sure of the firmness of its foundation. For him, this foundation was non- existent. His analytical brain prevented him from resting on unstable foundations, and a really firm one he had not found.
This dissatisfaction was expressed in his "Confession" in the following words in reference to this period:
   [Tolstoy writes] I believed that I had found a solution abroad, and armed with that conviction, I returned to Russia the same year in which the peasants were freed from serfdom, and accepting the office of a country magistrate or arbitrator, I began to teach the uneducated people in the schools, and the educated classes by means of the journals which I published. Things seemed to be going on well, but I felt that my mind was not in a normal state, and that a change was near. I might then perhaps have come to that state of absolute despair to which I brought fifteen years later, if it had not been for a new experience in life which promised me safety -- the home life of a family man. For a year I occupied myself with my duties as a arbitrator, with the schools, and with my newspaper, and my work became so involved that I was harassed to death; my arbitration was one continual struggle; what to do in the schools became less and less clear, and my newspaper shuffling more and more repugnant to me. It was always the same thing, trying to teach without knowing how or what. So that I fell ill, more with mental than physical sickness, gave up everything, and started for the steppes to breathe a fresher air, to drink mare's milk and live a mere animal life.
   Soon after my return, I married.
The following incident in the life of Tolstoy took place about the same time:
Still a passionate gambler, he often fell victim to his own excesses. thus in the beginning of 1862, tolstoy lost 1,000 rubles in a game of billiards to Katkov, the well-known publicist and editor of "Moscow News."
He was unable to meet this debt and in lieu of payment gave his unfinished novel "The Cossacks" to be printed in the magazine, the "Russian Messenger", published by Katkov himself. It appeared in January 1863 in its unfinished shape, and in consequence of disagreeable recollections connected with it, Tolstoy gave it up and never finished the story.
Being informed of this incident by Botkin, Turgenev wrote about it to Fet:
At that time Tolstoy used very often to visit the house of Dr. Bers, with whom he was to be more closely connected by family ties.
About this time, Tolstoy again became friendly with Fet, the estrangement from whom had been the result of the quarrel with Turgenev. Of this renewal of their friendly relations, Fet speak thus:
Of the attitude of Tolstoy to the bers family and his gradual preparation for the marriage we learn from a private letter of Tolstoy's sister-in-law:
This is how Countess Tolstaya herself tells about her wedding, in a conversation with Loewenfeld. We amplify and correct the narrative which we heard from the Countess:
The sentence exchanged by Tolstoy and the lady who became his wife, which had been written only in primary letters, were the following:
The Countess guessed the sentence and nodded affirmatively. Then he wrote:
Nothing more was said between them, but they understood and were sure of one another.
They went to Moscow, whither Tolstoy followed them. He lived in town, and the family of bers were generally in Pokrovskoye- Glebovo, twelve versts from Moscow, where they had lived every summer for twenty years. Tolstoy was their daily visitor. All in the house were perfectly sure that he was going to propose to the elder daughter. But on September 17th [1862], the Saint's Day of Sofya Andreyevna, Tolstoy handed her a letter in which he made her a proposal of marriage. Of course this was joyfully accepted by her; but her father was displeased; he did not like to give the younger daughter in marriage before the elder one, as it was against old customs, and he at first refused his consent. But the persistence of Tolstoy and the firmness of Sofya Andreyevna induced him to yield.
In Tolstoy's diary we find the following vivid reflections of these events. After one of the visits to the family Bers, he wrote down on August 23rd [1862]:
At the same time he felt the loneliness of his public life.
At last, on August 26th [1862] he wrote:
Unfortunately this story was never given to the world; it was destroyed by the author.
On August 28th [1862], his birthday, when he was thirty-four years old, we once more see in his diary marks of hesitation, self- accusation, and a struggle.
But want of family happiness got the upper hand, and the desire of love turned at last into real passionate love, which knew no bars whatever. And yet notwithstanding the power of this passion, Tolstoy here too displayed his honesty and love of truth. After having already made his proposal and been accepted, he handed to his betrothed all the diaries of his bachelor days, with all his expressions of self-reproach and his perfectly sincere description of his youthful escapades, and the excesses and moral conflicts which he had gone through.
The reading of the diary was blow which caused deep suffering to the young girl, who had seen in her hero the ideal of all virtues. The suffering was so great and the struggle she went through so hard that at times she hesitated and wondered whether she should not sever the link. But love swept away all hesitation, and after nights of weeping she returned him his diary with a look in which he read forgiveness and a stronger and still more courageous love than before.
The wedding was fixed for a very early date, the end of the week following the formal proposal -- September 23rd [1862].
The marriage took place at the Kremlin in the Court church, and immediately after it the newly married couple drove away in a dormeuse to Yasnaya Polyana, where they were met by Tolstoy's brother and his aunt tatyana Aleksandrovna.
The brother of Countess Tolstaya, S. A. bers, in his reminiscences thus describes his sister.
Soon after his marriage, Tolstoy wrote to Fet:
With his marriage, Tolstoy entered upon a new phase of life, the family phase, "yet unknown to him, but promising salvation," as he says in his "Confession". We shall see in our further narrative how far these expectations of Tolstoy were justified. The spirit of analysis did not spare even this harbor of salvation and destroyed this allusion also. But all-powerful reason lifted him a step higher. In the next volume we hope to peep into this mysterious process so far as is possible.
During this period Tolstoy wrote, besides those already mentioned, the following books: The Snowstorm; The Recollections of a billiard-Marker; Two Hussars; Family Happiness; and Polikushka; and he also began a new story entitled The Cloth- Measurer.
"The Snowstorm" presents a winter landscape. While reading it, you not only see before you the storm, the snowbound road and the wandering drivers with their vehicles, but you hear all the sounds of the storm, and feel in the elements a kind of soft, evanescent life.
In the "Recollections of a Billiard-Marker" is presented a pure, sweet, human soul gradually lost in the midst of town debauchery.
In "Two Hussars" are pictured two generations: the old, which indulged in all kinds of excesses but which at the same time was unsophisticated and sincere, and therefore lived in harmony with nature; and beside it the young generation -- viciously cautious, calculating, and hypocritical. The harmony of nature is broken, and the harmony of consciousness not yet found, and the soul, depraved by vice, sounds with horrible discord.
"Family Happiness" is a quiet, touching story of family affection and the author's experience.
"Polikushka" -- a tragedy of serfdom, the trifling of the sentimental gentry with the peasant's soul, which possesses hidden under its coarse appearance the finest moral traits that break at the mere touch of the perverted and decadent nobility.
The critics of the 1860s paid very little attention to these remarkable works.
They looked for a certain public standard and had not enough sensibility to perceive the higher moral beauty with which these works were imbued.
The silence of the critics induced one of them to write an article entitled "The Phenomena of Contemporary Literature Passed Over By Our Critics. Count Tolstoy and His Works."
We consider it out of place to enter into detailed criticism of these works, and we mention them only as facts, proving the unceasing inner creative work of Tolstoy.

## Footnotes

* ↑ A. Fet, My Reminiscences", Vol. I
* ↑ S. A. Bers, "Reminiscences of Count L. N. Tolstoy", p13