Part 15 (1/2)
The Reforallant struggle, and Greece some fifty years before revolted frodom The traditions of the past had helped these, since volunteers remembered times when art and beauty had dwelt upon the shores of the tideless Mediterranean Song and romance haloed the naary from the harsh tyranny of Austria General sympathy with the revolutionary spirit was abroad in 1848, when the tyrant Metternich resigned and acknowledged that the day of absolutis Poles, elt too far from the nations of the West to rouse their passionate sympathies France promised to help their cause, but failed thele to assert her independence in 1830, when Nicholas the Autocrat was reigning over Russia The Poles entered Lithuania, which they would have reunited with their ancient kingdo Warsaw, their capital, and their Church and language, as well as their own administration
Under Nicholas I, a ruler devoted to the military power of his Empire, there was little chance of freedom He had hiht bring hihtened and discontented subjects He crushed into abject submission all opposed to his authority The blunt soldier would cling obstinately to the ancient Muscovy of Peter He shut his eyes to the passing of absolutisned, the protector of the Orthodox Church of Russia, the sworn foe of revolutionaries
Alexander II succeeded his father while the Cri the East by new probleht for the Infidel, and France and England declared thee of Sebastopol, a young Russian officer was fighting for promotion He wrote vivid descriptions of the battle-fields and armies He wrote satirical verses on the part played by his own country Count Leo Tolstoy was only a sub-lieutenant who had lived gaily at the University of Kazan and shared most of the views of his own class when he petitioned to be sent to the Cri steadfastly, without thought of reward or fear of death, i, aan to love the peasantry he had seen as dim, remote shadows about his father's estate in the country There he had learnt not to treat them brutally, after the fashi+on of most landowners, but it was not till he was exposed to the rough life of the bastion with Alexis, a serf presented to him when he went to the University, that Tolstoy acquired that peculiar affection for the People which was not then characteristic of the Russian
After the war the young writer found that, if he had not attained any great rank in the areniev, the veteran {218} novelist, was ready to welcoifted officer was flattered and feted to his heart's content before a passionate love of truth withdrew him from society
After the death of Nicholas reaction set in, as was inevitable, and Alexander II was eager to adopt the progress of the West The Geran to describe the lives of humble people, and their books were read in other lands Russia folloith descriptions of life under natural conditions, the silence of the steppes and the solitude of the forest where hunter and trapper followed their pursuits far from society
Tolstoy set out for Gerht learn how to raise the hapless serfs of Russia, bound, patient and inarticulate, at the feet of landowners, longing for independence, perhaps, when they suffered any terrible act of injustice, but patient in the better times when there was food and war temper
Tolstoy had already written _Polikoushka_, a peasant story which attracted soress, and spoke theinal had been strong within him when he followed the usual pursuits of Russians of fashi+on He delighted in this wandering in unknown tracks where none had preceded him He was sincere, but he had not yet taken up his life-work
At Lucerne he was filled with bitterness against the rich visitors at a hotel who refused to give al musician He took the man to his table and offered wine for his refreshuests made him dwell still lect their poorer neighbours Yet the quixotic noble was still sumptuous in his dress and spent much time on the sports which had been the pasti to shoot a she-bear in the forest The beast drew his face into her ot her teeth in the flesh near the left eye The intrepid sports afterwards
In 1861 a new era began in Russia, and a new period in Tolstoy's life, which was henceforward bound up with the history of the country folk
Alexander II issued a decree of emancipation for the serf, and Tolstoy was one of the arbitrators appointed to supervise the distribution of the land, to arrange the taxes and decide conditions of purchase For each peasant received an allotment of land, subject for sixty years to a special land-tax In their ignorance, the serfs were likely to sell themselves into new slavery where the proprietors felt disposed to drive hard bargains Many landlords tried to allot land with no pasture, so that the rearer of cattle had to hire at an exorbitant rate There had been tays of holding serfs before--thethem to work so many days a week for the master before they could provide for their oants, and theonly _obrok_, or yearly tribute
Tolstoy had already allowed his serf to ”go on _obrok_,” but, according to hienerous when the new act was passed providing for emancipation
He defended the freed men as far as possible, however, froan to dislike hihly He had won the poor from their distrust by an experiment in education which he tried at his native place of Yasnaya Polyana
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The school opened by Count Tolstoy was a ”free”; school in every sense of the word, which was then becoed to attend regularly They ran in and out as they pleased and had no fear of punishments It was a fir was quite useless He taught in the way that the pupils wished to learn, hu their views on the er peasant boys in their rough sheepskins and woollen scarves They would cry ”Go on, go on,” when the lesson should have ended Any who shoeariness were bidden to ”go to the little ones” At first, the peasants were afraid of the school, hearing wonderful stories of what happened there They gained confidence at length, and then the governiven up his ith a feeling of dissatisfaction and retired to a wild life with the Bashkirs in the steppes, where he hoped to recover bodily health, when news came that the schools had been searched and the teachers arrested The effect on the ignorant was to overnment, where such a search could be conducted with impunity, was not ret for what had happened The pond on Tolstoy's estate had been dragged, and cupboards and boxes in his own house opened, while the floor of the stables was broken up with crowbars Even the diary and letters of an intimate character which had been kept secret froendar up his house and leaving Russia ”where one cannot know from moment to moment what awaits one”
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In 1862 Tolstoy hter of a Russian physician He began to write again, feeling less zeal for social work and the need to earn money for his family The _Cossacks_ described the wild pleasures of existence away from civilization, where all joys arise fro a sojourn in the Caucasus It attracted hi follower of Rousseau in the glorification of a return to Nature
On the estate of Yasnaya there ork to be done, for agricultural labour e family was sheltered beneath the roof where simplicity ruled, and yet arhted in the idea that he was often taken for a peasant though he had once been sorely troubled by his blunt features and lack of physical beauty Faave to the world in constant succession His name was spoken everywhere, and many visitors disturbed his seclusion _War and Peace_, a description of Napoleonic times in Russia, found scant favour with Liberals or Conservatives in the East, but it ranked as a great work of fiction _Anna Karenina_ gave descriptions of society in town and country that were unequalled even by Turgeniev, the writer whose friendshi+p with Tolstoy was often broken by fierce quarrels The refor artificial He sneered at foreniev's young daughter sat dressed in silks to arments of poverty, as part of her education, he coiven, and strife separated men who had, nevertheless, a {222} curious attraction for each other Fet, the Russian poet was, indeed, the only friend in the literary world fortunate enough always to win the great novelist's approbation
As the sons grew up, the faht attend the University It was necessary to live with the hospitality of Russians of the higher class, and division crept into the household where father andaffection Tolstoy wore the sheepskin of the labourer and the felt cap and boots, and he ate his sie at a table where others dined with less frugality He had given up the habits of his class when he was fifty and adopted those of the peasantry In the country he rose early, going out to the fields to work for theand orphan who ht need his service He hoped to find theon these duties, but hisGod, as he dee men of his station
He had learnt to make boots and shoes and was proud of his skill as a cobbler He gave up field sports because they were cruel, and renounced tobacco, the one luxury of Mazzini, because he held it unhealthy and self-indulgent Money was so evil a thing in his sight that he would not use it and did not carry it with hi but feants,” he said wisely There were difficulties in the way of getting rid of all his property, for the children of the family could not be entirely despoiled of their inheritance There were thirteen of thereat reformer's ideas
In 1888, Tolstoy eased his mind by an act of fore of the estates in trust for her children The Count was still to live in the same house, but resolved to bind himself more closely to the people He had volunteered to assist when the census was taken in 1880 and had seen the hoe He had been the cha soldier who had been unjustly sentenced There was always a knot of suppliants under the ”poor people's tree,” ready to waylay him when he came out of the porch
They asked the impossible sometimes, but he was always kindly
Love for the serf had been hereditary Tolstoy's father was a kindly-natured ht up the dreas with both men and animals There was a story which he loved of an orderly, once a serf on the family estate, who had been taken prisoner with his father after the siege of Erfurt
The faithful servant had such love for his master that he had concealed all his money in a boot which he did not reh a sore was formed Such stories tallied with the refor at Sebastopol