577

p It did not occur to Count Tolstoy Lo ask himself whether the power of the tormentor over the tormented and the executioner over the executed was not conditioned by certain social relations for the abolition of which one could and should use violence. He did not recognise the dependence of man’s external world on external conditions. This again proceeded from the fact that he was "absolutely consistent" in his metaphysical idealism. Arid only because of his extreme consistency as a metaphysician could ho think there was only one "effective moans" of getting Russia out of its present serious condition: by putting its present oppressors on the path of truth.

It is said that already in Tolstoy’s early works one very often finds the rudiments of the ideas which taken together later constituted his moral and religious Leaching. This is true. And to this it must bo added that already in Count Tolstoy’s early works one finds scenes that characterise most vividly the mode of " struggle" against, evil which he practised in the lasL thirty years of his life. Here is one of them, the most noteworthy, perhaps. In Youth (the chapter “Dmitri”) there is a description of the “violence” aroused by the question of whore Irlenyev, who is to spend the night at Nekhlyudov’s dacha, will sleep.

37—0766 578

p “My bed was not yet ready; and a little boy, Dmitri’s servant, came to ask him where I was to sleep.

_p ’"Oh, go to the devil!’ shouted Dmitri, stamping his foot. ’Vaska, Vaska, Vaska!’ he cried as soon as the boy was gone, shouting louder each time—’Vaska, lay me out a bed on the floor.’

p ’"No; let me sleep on the floor,’ I said.

_p “’Well, it’s no matter. Make it up somewhere,’ Dmitri went on in the same angry tone. ’Here, why don’t you do it?’

p “But Vaska evidently did not understand what was wanted of him, and stood motionless.

_p ’"Well, what’s the matter with you? D’you hear, go ahead, do as I tell you!’ shouted Dmitri, suddenly flying into a kind of fury.

p “But Vaska, still not understanding, and frightened, stood motionless.

p “’So you are determined to mur—to drive me mad?’ and, springing from his chair, Dmitri flew at Vaska and struck him several blows with his fist upon the head, as he rushed out of the room. Halting at the door, Dmitri glanced at me; and the expression of rage and cruelty which his face had borne for a moment changed into such a gentle, shamefaced, and affectionately childish expression, that I was sorry for him, and much as I wanted to turn away, I could not bring myself to do so.” After that Dmitri began to pray, long and fervently, and then the following conversation took place between the friends.

p ’"Why don’t you tell me,’ said he, (Dmitri.—G.P.) ’that I have acted abominably? Of course, you thought it at once.’

p “’Yes,’ I answered—although I had been thinking of something else, but it seemed to me that I had really thought it—’yes, it was not nice at all; I did not expect it of you.... Well, how are your teeth?’ I added.

p “’Much better. Ah, Nikolenka, my friend,’ Dmitri broke out so affectionately that tears seemed to stand in his sparkling eyes, ’I know, I feel that I am wicked; and God sees how I try to be better, and how I entreat Him to make me better. But what am I to do if I have such a wretched, horrible temper? What am I to do? I try to restrain myself, to reform myself; but all at once it becomes impossible, at all events impossible to me all alone. I need the help and support of someone.’"

p Apropos of this remarkable scene Pisarev made some very witty comments in the article "Errors of Immature Thinking”. He wrote:

p “Irtenyev is obviously so little taken aback by the beating of Vaska that at the actual moment of this event his attention is concentrated exclusively on the play of Nekhlyudov’s facial muscles. Noticing in these muscles a quick movement in consequence of which the bestial expression of fury turns into a gri- 579 mace of tearful repentance, Irtenyev completely forgets about the fate of Vaska whose facial muscles are, in all probability, also working strongly at this time and whose skull is now coming up in bruises and bloody bumps. Irtenyev begins to feel sorry not for the one who was beaten, but for the one who did the beating."

p The article "The Effective Means”, Count Tolstoy’s political teslament, as it were, made me remember both Irlenyev’s touching conversation with Nekhlyudov and the witty remarks on it by one of the most outstanding representatives of the sixties. Whatever one may say about his individualism, one thing is indisputable: Pisarev was totally on the side of the person who was beaten and not of the one who did the beating. The same cannot be said of Tolstoy, who stood quite apart from the movement of the sixties. It would, of course, be unjust to say that he did not feel sympathy for those who were beaten. We have no grounds for disbelieving him when he says that he was equally sorry for the child whom the mother tormented and the mother who was convulsed by fits of rage. But if one man is strangling another in front of you and you sympathise “equally” with both of them, you are showing that in fact without being aware of it you sympathise more with the strangler than with the strangled. And if, moreover, you turn to those around and say that it would be immoral to defend the strangled man by violence and that the only permissible and "effective means" is the moral improvement of the strangler, you are even more on the side of the latter.

p Note, furthermore, how Tolstoy portrays the condition of the characters in the example of the mother beating her child: the latter is "in pain" (physically), while the mother is enraged, i.e., suffering "moral injury". But man’s physical suffering and deprivation were always of little concern to Tolstoy, who was interested solely in man’s morality. It was therefore quite natural for him to reduce the whole question to the evil we would do the mother by taking the child away from her. He does not ask himself how the physical pain experienced by the child would affect its moral condition. In exactly the same way Irtenyev, who concentrated his attention on the moral state of the noble Nekhlyudov, forgot about the moral state of the battered Vaska.

Tolstoy’s last article against capital punishment is a word in defence of hangmen. If the enemies of the existing political order decided to follow the good advice which he gives in this article, they would have to confine their activity to assuring the government that hanging ’is very bad" and that they had "not expected this" of it. The best that could come of this is that P. A. Stolypin’s government would reply: "I know, I feel that I am wicked; and God sees how I try to be better, and how I entreat Him to

37*

580 make me better. But what am F to do if 1 have such a wretched, horrihle temper?... 1 try to restrain myself, to reform mysolf; but all at once it becomes impossible, at all events impossible to mo all alone. I need the help and support of someone."

It is easy to see that the position of Russia, oppressed and devastated by Mr. Stolypin’s government, would improve as little for the belter from Ibis as the slate of Vaska’s beaten head improved from the facl that Irtenyev talked the mailer over sentimentally with Nekhlyudov.