TOLSTOY
Henri Troy at
The task of writing a biography on a subjcct as monumentally eomplex as Leo Tolstoy demands of an author a combination of talents almost Tol- stoyan in breadth and scope. Henri Troyat is such an author, and this biography of Tolstoy, says Genet in The New Yorker, "is at last the final, complete portrait of the man as he surely was."
Under M. Troyat's guidance, one is led to understand why Tolstoy is considered one of the most bizarre personalities of modern times; why he was regarded by his contemporaries not only as a literary giant but also as a gargantuan enigma. Tolstoy fascinated the people of his own time. In these pages, that fascination is reborn in the story of a man who was the personification of Man at all times, who was in reality two men, "one saint, the other a libertine —clothed in the same skin and constantly at war." Troyat views Tolstoy with affection, respect, and often with amusement. For as a writer, lover, husband, father, and cult leader, this extraordinary human being was a mass of contradictions. He was a man
(Continued on back flap)
Book Club 054 Edition
Tolstoy
Also by I lenri Troyat
(Published in English)
Fiction
ONE MINUS TWO JUDITH MADRIER MOUNTAIN
WHILE THE EARTH ENDURES MY FATHER'S HOUSE THE RED AND THE WHITE STRANGERS ON THE EARTH THE SEED AND THE FRUIT AMELIE IN LOVE AMELIE AND PIERRF. ELIZABETH
TENDER AND VIOLENT ELIZABETH THE ENCOUNTER THE LIGHT OF THE JUST
BROTHERHOOD OF THE RED POPPY THE BARONESS EXTREME FRIENDSHIP
Non-Fiction
FIREBRAND: THE LIFE OF DOSTOYEVSKY PUSHKIN: A BIOGRAPHY
DAILY LIFE IN RUSSIA UNDER THE LAST TSAR
Leo Tolstoy at the time he was writing War and Peace (i868)
by H enri Troyat
Translated from the French by Nancy Amphoux
Doubleday <5> Company, Inc. Garden City, New York
Tolstoi was published in France by Librairic Arthcmc Fayard in 1965
Copyright © 1967 by Doubleday & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America
Contents
PART I. THE TERMS OF THE PROBLEM
Before Leo Tolstoy 3
Childhood 14
The World Outside 25
Kazan 41
Wild Oats 55
PART II. A TIME OF VIOLENCE
The Caucasus 77
Sevastopol 109
Introduction to Civilian Life 132
PART III. TRAVEL, ROMANCE AND PEDAGOGY
Discovery of Europe 169
A Few False Starts 187
Second Trip Abroad 205
"Arbiter of the Peace" and Schoolmaster 219
PART IV. SONYA
Betrothal 243
A Terrifying Happiness 266
The Great Labor 286
War and Peace 314
The Night at Arzamas 332
PART V. CONFLICT
Interim 341
Anna Karenina 376
Art and Faith 391
The Horrors of the City; the Appeal of the "Dark Ones" 435
PART VI. Tnis LOATnSOME FLESH . . .
The Temptation of Sainthood 461
The Kreutzer Sonata 488
Famine and Strife 510
Sonya's Folly; What Is Art? 536
PART VII. THE APOSTLE OF NON-VIOLENCE
Resurrection; the Dukhobors 561
Excommunication; the Crimea 584
The Russo-Japanese War 613
PART VIII. THE SOLUTION
Days Pass, and a Birthday 629
Re-enter Chertkov 646
Last Will and Testament 668
Flight 699 Post Mortem 730
APPENDICES
Biographical Notes 735
Notes to the Text 745
Bibliography 768
Index 774
ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece. Leo Tolstoy at the time he was working on War and Peace (1868). Novosti Press Agency
Nicholas Tolstoy, father of Leo Tolstoy. Bibliothdque
Nationale, Paris
Tolstoy as a student. Bibliothdque Nationale, Paris
Tolstoy and his three brothers. Pushkin House, Lenin
grad
Leo Tolstoy, 1856. Bibliothdque Nationale, Paris
Sofya Behrs. Schnapp, Institut d'Etudes Slaves, Paris
Tolstoy and his wife, Sofya, 1881. Roger Jean Segalat
Tolstoy and his family, 1887
The house at Yasnaya Polyana
Ivan S. Turgenev. Novosti Press Agency
A galley proof of Resurrection, corrected by the author
Tolstoy and his daughter Alexandra. Bibliothdque Na
tionale, Paris
Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. Bibliothdque Nationale,
Paris
Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky. Bibliothdque Nationale,
Paris
Tolstoy and his daughter Tatyana. Bureau of Soviet
Information, Paris
Tolstoy at his worktablc
Tolstoy telling a story to two of his grandchildren.
Giraudon
Tolstoy, Chertkov and a group of Tolstoyans. Institut
d'Etudes Slaves, Paris
Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana, 1908. V. G. Chertkov
Tolstoy playing chess. Novosti Press Agency
Tolstoy on his birthday, 1908. K. Boulla, Novosti Press
Agency
Tolstoy and Dr. Makovitsky. Bureau of Soviet Informa
tion, Paris
Tolstoy as a pilgrim. Nahinias, Institut (TEtudes Slaves,
Paris
The room in which Tolstoy died
Tolstoy's grave at Yasnaya Polyana. V. Malychev, Bureau
of Soviet Information, Paris
PART I
Terms of the Problem
1. Before Leo Tolstoy
Napoleon and Alexander I might exchange sociable letters or recall their ambassadors, promise their peoples peace or plunge them into war, sacrifice thousands of soldiers at Eylau or embrace at Tilsit; but old Prince Nicholas Sergeyevich Volkonsky, who had been living in retirement on his family estate of Yasnaya Polyana since 1800, turned a deaf ear to the clamor of a world in which he 110 longer had a place. No one knew quite why he had suddenly withdrawn from public life. Some of the people who knew him best intimated that he had too much character to remain in the shadow of the throne: years before, he had refused to marry young Varenka Engelhardt, niece—and mistress—of Potemkin, the dreaded favorite of Catherine II, with the comment, "Whatever possessed him to imagine that I would marry his whore?" Yet, despite this arrogant retort, or perhaps because of it, the empress had favored him. Appointed captain in the Guards, he accompanied her to Mogilev to meet Joseph II of Austria. Then, rising swiftly through the ranks, he became ambassador extraordinary to the king of Prussia, commander of the Azov Musketeers, and finally general and military governor of Arkhangelsk, on the shores of the White Sea. This little-to-be-envicd post in a glacial climate had been conferred upon him by Tsar Paul I, who succeeded Catherine the Great, but whether as a mark of special favor or disgrace it was impossible to tell. In any event, Prince Volkonsky wasted no time in coming to blows with his new sovereign, whose splenetic and capricious temperament had already terrified all Russia. When, after some trivial professional incident, he received a letter from the emperor omitting the traditional "I remain your benevolent sovereign" at the bottom of the page, he surmised that his career was at an end and, taking the initiative, quickly asked to be relieved of active duty.
Oncc settled at Yasnaya Polyana,- this cultivated, dynamic and fiercely proud man resolved never to set foot outside it again. lie liked to say that he needed nobody and nothing and that anyone who wanted to sec him could make the trip, as his estate was only one hundred and thirty miles from Moscow.t Often, as though to convince himself of his own importance, he shut himself up in his sitting room to pore over his family tree. Hie trunk, from which serpentine limbs curlcd out laden with illustrious names, was held by St. Michael, prince of Chernigov. According to this document, the Volkonskys descended from the famous Prince Rurik, one of whose offspring had been given a holding, in the fourteenth century', in the government of Tula on the banks of the Volkona River. One Prince Volkonsky (Fyodor Ivano- vich) died a hero at the battle of Kulikovo, in the war of independence with the Tatars of the Golden Horde; another (Sergey Fyodorovich) was a general in the Seven Years' War, and would have been killed but for a little icon he wore around his neck, which stopped the enemy shell.1