The case is precisely the reverse with Count Tolstoy. He is so full of the missionary spirit, so persuaded of the truth and value of his beliefs, that he rushes into print with them instantly. There they are, all ready for those who do not sympathize with him to use as missiles when he gets a new inspiration. Change of opinion is generally progress. Continuity, an absolute lack of change, means stagnation and death in the mental as well as in the physical world. As the count is impressible and reads much, his reading and meditation are fruitful of novelties, which he bravely submits to the judgment of the world without pausing to consider whether they coincide with his other utterances or not. That he does not always express his abstract ideas clearly is the inevitable result of the lack of philosophical training.
But enthusiastic souls who grieve over the imperfections in the present organization of society are always waiting for some one of warmer zeal to lead them. Such persons perceive the ideal side of every argument, interpret doctrines with their hearts, not with their heads, and are fired by the newest conception of social relations. As one of the most marked characteristics of Count Tolstoy lies in infusing his own personality into every word he writes, it is only natural that these people should adopt him as their guide. It is not the fault of any one in particular that he has abandoned a doctrine by the time others have mastered it. The only refuge is in the cry of Hamlet:-
"The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!
That ever I was born to set it right."
Thus much I think I may say of the home life of the famous Russian writer without sinning against the duties imposed by the frank and cordial hospitality for which we are indebted to the family. It has seemed time to enter a protest against various misrepresentations and misconceptions in regard to them which are current. In conclusion, I beg leave to explain that my spelling of the name is that used by themselves when writing in English, and in print upon their French cards.
IX. A RUSSIAN HOLY CITY
It was close on midnight when we left Yasnaya Polyana. A large and merry party of Count Tolstoy's children and relatives escorted us: some in the baggage cart, perched on our luggage; some in the jaunting-car-like lineika with us, on our moonlight drive to the little station where we were to join the train and continue our journey southward.
We should have preferred to travel by daylight, as we were possessed of the genuine tourist greed for seeing "everything;" but in this case, as in many others in Russia, the trains were not arranged so that we could manage it.
There is very little variety along the road through central Russia, but the monotony is of a different character from that of the harsh soil and the birch and pine forests of the north. The vast plains of this tchernozyom-the celebrated "black earth zone"-swell in long, low billows of herbage and grain, diversified only at distant intervals by tracts of woodland. But the wood is too scarce to meet the demands for fuel, and the manure of the cattle, well dried, serves to eke it out, a traveling native in our compartment told us, instead of being used, as it should be, to enrich the land, which is growing poor. Now and then, substantial brick cottages shone out amidst the gray and yellow of the thatched log huts in the hamlets. We heard of one landed proprietor who encouraged his peasant neighbors to avoid the scourge of frequent conflagrations by building with brick, and he offered a prize to every individual who should comply with the conditions. The prize consisted of a horse from the proprietor's stables, and of the proprietor's presence, in full uniform and all his orders, at the house-warming. The advantages of brick soon became so apparent to the peasants that they continued to employ it, even after their patron had been forced to abolish the reward, lest his horses and his time should be utterly exhausted.
Minor incidents were not lacking to enliven our long journey. In the course of one of the usual long halts at a county town, a beggar came to the window of our carriage. He was a tall, slender young fellow, about seven-and-twenty years of age. Though he used the customary forms,-"Give me something, sudarynya [12]if only a few kopeks, Khristi radi!" [13] there was something about him, despite his rags, there was an elegance of accent in his language, to which I was not accustomed in the "poor brethren" generally.
I pretended ignorance of Russian and the sign language, but watched him as I continued my conversation in English. Thereupon my man repeated his demands in excellent French, with a good accent. I turned on him.
"This is unusual," I said in Russian, by way of hinting that I belonged to the category of the willfully deaf. "Accept my compliments on your knowledge of French and of Russian. But be so good as to explain to me this mystery before I contribute."
"Madam," he retorted, "I'd have you know that I am a gentleman,-a gentleman of education."
"Then pray solve the other mystery,-why you, strong, young, healthy, handsome, are a professional beggar."
He stalked off in a huff. Evidently he was one of that class of "decayed nobles" of whom I had heard many curious tales in Moscow; only he had decayed at a rather earlier age than the average.
As we proceeded southward, pretty Little Russian girls took the place of the plainer-featured Great Russian maidens. Familiar plants caught our eyes. Mulleins-"imperial sceptre" is the pretty Russian name-began to do sentinel duty along the roadside; sumach appeared in the thickets of the forests, where the graceful cut-leaved birch of the north was rare. The Lombardy poplar, the favorite of the Little Russian poets, reared its dark columns in solitary state. At last, Kieff, the Holy City, loomed before us in the distance.
I know no town in Russia which makes so picturesque and characteristic an impression on the traveler as Kieff. From the boundless plain over which we were speeding, we gazed up at wooded heights crowned and dotted with churches. At the foot of the slope, where golden domes and crosses, snowy white monasteries and battlemented walls, gleamed among masses of foliage punctuated with poplars, swept the broad Dnyepr. It did not seem difficult then to enter into the feelings of Prince Oleg when he reached the infant town, on his expedition from unfertile Novgorod the Great, of the north, against Byzantium, and, coveting its rich beauty, slew its rulers and entered into possession, saying, "This shall be the Mother of all Russian Cities." We could understand the sentiments of the pilgrims who flock to the Holy City by the million.
The agreeable sensation of approach being over, our expectations, which had been waxing as the train threaded its way through a ravine to the station, received a shock. It was the shock to which we were continually being subjected whenever we made pious pilgrimages to places of historic renown. On each occasion of this sort we were moved to reflect deeply on the proverbial blessings of ignorance. It makes a vast difference in one's mental comfort, I find, whether he accepts the present unquestioningly, with enthusiasm, and reconstructs the historic past as an agreeable duty, or whether he already bears the past, in its various aspects, in his mind, in involuntary but irrational expectation of meeting it, and is forced to accept the present as a painful task! Which of these courses to pursue in the future was the subject of my disappointed meditations, as we drove through the too Europeanized streets, and landed at a hotel of the same pattern. It is easy to forgive St. Petersburg, in its giddy youth of one hundred and seventy-five winters, for its Western features and comforts; but that Kieff, in its venerable maturity of a thousand summers, should be so spick and span with newness and reformation seemed at first utterly unpardonable. The inhabitants think otherwise, no doubt, and deplore the mediaeval hygienic conditions which render the town the most unhealthy in Europe, in the matter of the death-rate from infectious diseases.