The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-27
Special Foreign Service.

Special Foreign Service.
LONDON, Sept. 26. = Philosophers,
authors, teachers, those who go to
learn, those who go to worship at the
shrine of Count Tolstoi those who
take the long trip out to Yasnaya
Polyana for mere curiositys sake, all
OF them catch only fleeing. glimpses
OF the wonderful woman, Countess
Tolsto1. Those who go to the Tolstoi
home on business-as l have lately
done-to see more of her and appre
ciate to the full the fact that but for
her Tolstoi would today be beggar,
decrepit invalid, with his physical
powers wasted and gone years ago,
practically unknown to the world,
without publishers to scatter his teach
1ngs broadcast as soon as he was ready
TO give them forth.
Perhaps this sounds rather strong,
but the writer, who has spent some
days in the Tolstoi family, has had ex-
cellent opportunities of Judging of the
great noVelist'S wife and has since had
q rather definite idea that she has de-
served larger share of her husbands
fame than the public has generally
accorded to her. So many of us have
written so much about Count Tolstoi
that it may be of interest to devote
short article to his wife, giving there
IN some first-hand impressions.
Nine. Tolstoi, handsome, highely edu-
Gated, practical, has been the power
behind the throne, engineer of the
elaborate Tolstoi machinery, which so
speedily would have gone to smash
without her. She persists in keeping
herself in the background and is quite
content to remain unknown. But If
she survives her husband, as is more
than likely, as she is twenty years his
Junior, she probably will yet have the
recognition which her intellectual pow
ers and accomplishments should bring
her.
When Count Tolstoi met her she
was a mere girl, the daughter of a
physician of Moscow. He was already
a jaded man of the world, with strange
religious ideas just beginning to crop
out. He knew the women of the Rus
sian aristocracy well, and had decided
in his own mind that there were no
good women in the world and that he
would never marry.
So, in his customary erratic way, he
sold the lovely old mansion on his
country estate, which had come to him
through his grandfather one of Cath
crime the Greats famous generals.
Then he met the Countess and she
changed the whole world for him. They
were married in 1862 and she began
her life of constant self-sacrifice by
going out to little hut on the Polyana
eState-all that was left of the big
house.
Capable Enough for Two.
There she lived for seventeen years
IN a lonely deserted place, miles away
from any town. Tolstoi was then go
ing up and down the Russian empire
studying social conditions, and absent
from home for months at time. The
countess attended to her housework-
they were too poor to have many ser
vants-she nursed each one of her
thirteen children, she dispensed with
governesses and taught them herself
German, French and English, gave
them music lessons made their clothes
and her own. Then, as soon as her
husband began a book, she began re-
vising it, translating it from Russian
into French or German, copying it in
her clear handwriting so that the
printer could read it-she is about the
only person who can make head, or
tail Of the counts writing-and at
tending to the publication of the book
when 1t was finished.
And every night, during these long,
lonely seventeen years, at Polyana, she
dressed herself for dinner with all the
dignity that a Countess Tolstoy, wife
of the head of one of the noblest fami-
lies in Russia, should observe. She
never had a beautiful or costly gown
for many years, but she always man
aged to appear like the great lady she
is, and she had a few wonderful old
Jewels which were family heirlooms.
Count Tolstoy pays no attention at
all to the royalties on his books, and
he even went SO far years ago as to
declare to his wife that they had no
right to receive money for his work.
But as the family property had to be
sold piece by piece to get the money to
buy bread for the children, Countess
Tolstoy rebelled and threatend to leave
him unless he let her collect the money
which was due him. She thought they
had as much right to it as the publish
ers who were getting rich from the
counts books. So now all the business
is transacted through.
The Little House in Moscow.
She has paid off all the debts on the
estate and a few years ago she bought